Hiker Vanishes on Michigan Ridge, Camcorder Shows Bipedal Figure
Posted Monday, July 13, 2026
By Squatchable.com staff
A chilling piece of footage has surfaced that every researcher needs to see. Found on a YouTube channel called Weekly Terror, the video tells the story of a young man who ventured into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan back in 2005 and never came home. What his camera captured in those final hours is the kind of evidence that keeps people like us up at night.
The story centers on Kyle Brener, a 26-year-old hiker who set out alone on a ridge trail above the Sturgeon River Gorge in Baraga County on September 18, 2005. He told no one exactly where he was going. Nine days later, a search team located his camcorder wedged under a root at the base of the ridge. The battery was dead, but the tape inside was intact. What was recorded on that tape became the basis for an incident report with the Forest Service, listing his cause of injury as "undetermined."
The video is narrated by Emry Doan, a man from the local community who was shown the tape by an elder when he was younger. Doan explains that the ridge Kyle walked up is more than just a trail. It's a boundary line, one that has been known and respected by the people in his community for generations. There's a stand of old-growth cedar up there, and a change in the ground. The rule, taught before children can even read, is simple: you do not go past the cedar after the light starts to fade. You do not camp there. You do not hunt there. You take the lower trail and go home.
Kyle didn't know any of this. He passed the cedar without understanding what it meant.
What the camera captured is what makes this footage so significant. At first, Kyle notices a shape at the edge of the tree line, about 80 yards below him. He thinks it's a bear and moves closer for a better shot. Then the shape stands up. The description matches what countless witnesses across North America have reported for decades: a tall, dark figure with a low head, ears set high, and proportions that simply read wrong against the trees. It moves sideways into the brush faster than the camera can follow.
The timestamp on the tape jumps. When the picture returns, the light is nearly gone and Kyle is no longer narrating. What follows is the audio of a man who knows something is walking with him in the dark. Every few seconds, the camera swings toward the trees because something is keeping pace. You never see it clearly on the tape, and that might be the most unsettling part. You see a darker patch in the dark that moves when he moves and stops when he stops. When he swings the camera fast, you catch the lower legs, and they bend the wrong way, carrying something upright and massive and silent.
Doan shares other stories from his community that put the tape in context. There's the trapper from 1937 who went past the cedar for the marten and came back down three days later with his hair gone white at one temple, having walked out with his traps still set. There are the four hunters from 1971 who laughed off the warnings and went up with rifles and confidence to spare. Only one came back, and he couldn't tell a straight story about what happened to the other three. And there's the lumber crew from 1958 who decided to be clever about it, going up at noon on a clear June day, thinking whatever the elders feared only came out at night. They laughed and ate their lunch on the wrong side of the line. Within months, every one of them had something standing at the edge of their homes at night, watching. They all moved away, and none of them ever said why out loud.
The pattern Doan describes is consistent with what researchers have documented in encounter reports across the continent. The warning, the pacing, and then a door that is still open if you turn around and leave. Those who understand the first sight as a question and answer it by walking away tend to live. Those who don't, don't.
This is the kind of footage that deserves attention. The full video runs longer and includes more detail about the historical accounts from the community. Anyone serious about understanding what's out there should take the time to watch it in its entirety. Stories like this one, passed down through generations and now backed by recorded evidence, are exactly why this subject refuses to go away.