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Subject: Re: History CH "The real Wolfman" From: MJLehde posted Sun, Nov 1 2009, 9:04pm  Thanks KK, I'm glad that I wasn't the only one left shaking his head at that show. I agree that the modern forensics portion was the low point and total BS. Even if I'd under estimated the size of the likely gun in the peasant's hands (one inch,,,holy @#$% did they measure the powder by the cup?) it's nice to know that somebody else was thinking along similar lines. I also enjoyed the idea, put forth in The Real Wolfman that a wolf isn't trainable but that somehow a hyeana is. Funny but I don't recall a great number of domestcated hyeanas being kept as pets and guard animals. I enjoyed the movie "Brotherhood of the Wolf" but I didn't think it was a documentary as it seems the History Channel must have concluded. Subject: Re: History CH "The real Wolfman" From: KodiakKeith posted Sun, Nov 1 2009, 10:16pm  The whole idea of a trained animal doing the killing has no basis in anything other than people trying to create a conspiracy and sell books. I think dragging in a hyena trained or not, is almost as baseless. If I had to hazard a theory, I'd say it was just a wolf or wolves. It may have been several wolves, all spawned from some crippled female who taught them to kill children since it was easy prey. Doubtless too, every farmer who got drunk and whacked his wife or dragged the local milkmaid into the bushes during this period, probably got a little creative with a knife and claimed the beast did it. Subject: Re: History CH "The real Wolfman" From: MJLehde posted Sun, Nov 1 2009, 10:35pm  After this amount of time just about anything is possible although I seem to recall reading that one of the supposed pelts from the beast that was shot and brought an end to the killing was examined some years ago and thought to be from a hyeana. If such an animal did get away from some wealthy landowner's private zoo then he might not be in a hurry to admit that he was responsible. Also such an animal might be different enough in it's hunting practice, unwolf like I suppose, that it's possible the usual hunting tactics would have been less effective and since it was a pack hunter that was without it's pack perhaps it was more likely to tackle the smallest of human prey and shun the men. No way of knowing and your solution makes sense but the witnesses and survivors did seem to describe an animal that was something different than a wolf. Subject: Re: History CH "The real Wolfman" From: KodiakKeith posted Sun, Nov 1 2009, 11:04pm  The local policeman interviewed in the program made some points about the eyewitness accounts - basically, that there weren't any. Just stories handed down and embroidered upon through the years. Nobody was recording this stuff as it happened. One of the things that occurred to me while watching the program was that there were no accounts of strange animals being sighted during that time. A hyena isn't going to be any more secretive than a wolf or bear (for example), and if some local had seen an unknown animal he'd have reported it and we'd have further descriptions - which may have been altered through time, but the reports would still be there. Yet, if somebody saw a wolf - so what? They saw wolves all the time. If a wolf killed a hundred people, it was probably seen by hundreds of other people here and there in the region, who just saw another wolf and didn't know they were looking at "the beast". The only eyewitness account of "the beast" was the boy who survived the attack, and I doubt his account was very factual with the hysteria that must have surrounded him after the event. And even his story was probably passed through a dozen other mouths before somebody wrote it down. Subject: Re: History CH "The real Wolfman" From: AustraliaMegalania posted Sun, Nov 1 2009, 11:23pm  i find it interesting that whatever this animal was, it seemed as though it was only interested in attacking humans, as some reports claim the victim was in a field with sheep/cows, and yet only the person was harmed. this heavily supports the idea that somebody trained an animal to attack people. another interesting thing was that at the time nobody could identify the animal, only that it was large and had "lupine features" with immense tails. hardly what you'd expect to hear about hyenas. In some articles avaliable about this subject is that there were similar attacks four decades apart, Four decades after the Gévaudan attacks, more attacks occurred between 1809 and 1813 in Vivarais, when at least 21 children and adolescents were killed by another beast. From 1875 to 1879, more attacks occurred in L'Indre. All these killings, including the Gévaudan attacks, seem to have occurred mostly in four year periods. Attacks by wolf-like creatures continued to be reported in France up until 1954. Subject: Re: History CH "The real Wolfman" From: KodiakKeith posted Mon, Nov 2 2009, 1:41am  Wolves develop patterns. There is a pack of wolves in central Alaska that specializes in Dall Sheep of all things. If an injured or crippled wolf took down a woman or child and found it easy, it might very well continue doing that and form a pattern. If it was a female, it might train cubs to do the same. In fact, if you think about it, it's a very wolfy pattern to take the weaker members of whatever species it's hunting. It shouldn't surprise us that this animal specifically hunted women and children, the smallest of our species. Subject: Re: History CH "The real Wolfman" From: MJLehde posted Mon, Nov 2 2009, 8:01am  AM, now this is interesting and something that I confess that I had not heard before. These other outbreaks you write of, was any "beast" killed to end these sprees and if so what sort of animal was it thought to be? If this has gone on till 1954 in a 40 year cycle I wonder how we made it through the 1990s without any new reports. I don't mean to sound sarcastic when I say that but these stories, werewolf or the like, do seem to often have a cycle to them. The Michigan Dogman is said to be more visible in either the seventh year of the decade or every seven years depending on who tells the tale. People being people and always looking to turn a buck,,,or Franc,,, or Euro as the case may be, I am surprised that it didn't become a bizzare tourist draw in France during the 1990s. Subject: Re: History CH "The real Wolfman" From: Gerry Bacon posted Mon, Nov 2 2009, 7:54pm  Interesting. My first thought is, were there any wars, famines or diseases rampant at that time. If there were many human deaths, enough so that not all of them received proper and prompt burial, those corpses may have been scavenged by wolves leading some to actively choose to prey on humans. As for a four year killing span, what would be the life span of a wild wolf? If we assume a young male may have struck out on its own when a year or two old, would a four year career as a man eater for a lone wolf be too short a life span? I'm just speculating, since I don't know the answers.

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