Doug Highcheck Shares Two Chilling Cryptid Encounters from the 90s

So I was scrolling through YouTube the other night and stumbled across something that genuinely gave me the chills. The Relic Films Media channel dropped an episode of "Beyond the Ordinary" featuring a sit-down with Doug Hajicek, and let me tell you, the man has stories that will stay with you. Doug is no stranger to the world of cryptid research, and his personal encounters are the kind that make you double-check your locks at night. Back in the mid-90s, he was living near Forest Lake, Minnesota, driving down a winding, heavily wooded road around 1 or 2 in the morning when something straight out of a nightmare happened. He spotted two glowing eyes on the side of the road. Before he could even process what he was seeing, this thing launched itself at his van with what he describes as supernatural force. The impact rocked the entire vehicle. When he turned to look, there was a face pressed against his side window, filling almost the entire glass. He describes it as dog-like, similar to a giant Boxer, but with huge bulging forward-facing eyes that looked unsettlingly human. The creature gave him a growly stare that he interpreted as pure murderous intent, then leaped off and vanished into the dark. Here's where it gets even stranger. When Doug got home and inspected his van, he found feces smeared all over the side. The impact had apparently caused the creature to involuntarily relieve itself. Doug is adamant this wasn't a collision, the thing deliberately leaped from a safe position on the roadside and dove at his van with outstretched arms like something out of a cartoon. About a year later, Doug was driving with his son Blaine to grab milk from a gas station. In a light rain on a dark, cloudy night, another creature appeared, this one completely different. It emerged from the left side of the road, walking upright on two legs but with this bizarre bouncing, shuffling gait, almost like its whole body was moving up and down with each step. Doug compared it to those old plastic toys you used to get from the dentist that walked across a desk on a string. The thing had long, Cousin It-style hair covering its face, was white or very light-colored, and stood around four and a half feet tall. It leaped gracefully over a guardrail and bounded down the embankment. Blaine, who was just a kid at the time, simply asked, "What was that, Dad?" That moment sparked a lifetime fascination with cryptids for Blaine, who has gone on to become a researcher himself. The area Doug describes is no stranger to sightings. It's vast, heavily forested, and butts up against the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area, which is home to gray wolves and all sorts of wildlife. Doug mentions there's plenty of local lore about Sasquatch activity in the region, and he's even taken a few reports of Dogman sightings there himself. Whether either of his encounters involved a Dogman, he can't say, but the first creature's forward-facing eyes and human-like quality stuck with him. One of the hosts, Melissa Adair, brought up an interesting comparison. Down in Alabama, there's a well-known cryptid called the Alabama White Thang, and many reports describe it with a similar Velociraptor-kangaroo hopping gait. There are also reports of creatures called Devil Monkeys that exhibit this same kind of bouncy, upright movement. Melissa shared that she's heard similar Cousin It-like creature stories from an Arctic explorer and even from a pair of scientists she met on a Zoom call, all describing something small, covered in long hair, and moving in that same unsettling way. What makes Doug's account stand out is the consistency across multiple witnesses and locations. Whether it's something we don't have a name for yet, a regional variant of a known cryptid, or something entirely outside our current understanding, stories like these keep stacking up. You really need to watch this one for yourself. The way Doug tells it, with that midwestern calm that only comes from someone who's genuinely processed something terrifying, is something you have to experience. Fair warning though, you might find yourself keeping your head on a swivel the next time you take the trash out at night. Just like Doug does.