The Beast of Bray Road: A Farmer’s 13-Year Hunt, a UFO Claim and What the Records Show

CASE FILE: RW-DAILY-2026-1108-PM

Subject: Beast of Bray Road, Elkhorn, Walworth County, Wisconsin

Dates: Legend dated to 1936 (alleged); modern reports from the late 1980s; documentary upload 28 Oct 2026; newspaper feature 8 Nov 2026

Location: Bray Road, Elkhorn, Wisconsin

Status: UNVERIFIED (no specimen, no physical evidence analysed by an independent lab)

The claim

On 28 October 2026, NewsNation uploaded a 41-minute episode of its Unreported series to YouTube, titled “It’s not normal | Mysterious creature with alleged UFO ties plagues Wisconsin farm town.” It follows Lee Hampel, a retired math and computer-science teacher who owns a 35-acre hay farm beside Bray Road in Elkhorn. Hampel says he has spent 13 years collecting evidence of the Beast of Bray Road, a hairy, wolf-like animal said to walk on two legs. He now also suggests the creature may be connected to UFOs. (NewsNation write-up)

Ten days later, on 8 November 2026, a long Chicago Tribune feature by Christopher Borrelli (syndicated by Tribune News Service, here via the Jefferson City News Tribune) said the legend “just turned 90,” counting from an alleged 1936 sighting. That date rests on a late, second-hand account (see below); the documented modern story dates to Godfrey’s December 1991 article. It is the freshest major account of one of the Midwest’s best-known creature stories.

The video evidence first

• Video: “It’s not normal” | Mysterious creature with alleged UFO ties plagues Wisconsin farm town
• Uploader: NewsNation (official YouTube channel)
• Upload date: 28 Oct 2026
• Length: about 41 minutes (2,486 seconds per the YouTube page metadata)

The description below comes only from NewsNation’s own episode summary and from IBTimes UK, the NewsNation episode page and the Brazilian site Notícias Ufológicas. Published summaries do not give key timestamps, so none are listed here.

According to those summaries, host Meagan Medick visits Hampel’s farm and is shown plaster casts he describes as five-toed, seven-pad tracks; an iPhone photo of a dark shape near a cornfield; roadkill that Hampel says vanished or turned up mutilated; and trail-camera frames with what he calls “black mist” and flashing orbs. Journalist Linda Godfrey also appears and reviews images Hampel presents as mist over a carcass. NewsNation quotes Hampel: “I have eyewitnesses, but I also have evidence. I have facts. I have data.”

Timeline

• 1936: Alleged first incident: a night watchman at St. Coletta school in Jefferson County reportedly sees a dog-like creature at an Indian mound. The story surfaced only years later, per Godfrey’s own history. (Godfrey; Tribune)
• 1991-12-29: Linda Godfrey’s article in The Week (Walworth County) brings the “werewolf” file of the county animal officer to public attention. (Walworth County Community News archive)
• 1992-04: A national tabloid runs the story; a Wisconsin reporter investigates. (PBS Wisconsin)
• 2006-12-24: Local paper marks 15 years and reprints the original article. (Walworth County Community News)
• 2010-11-11: PBS Wisconsin airs a 6 min 51 s segment revisiting the case. (PBS)
• 2013: Hampel says he begins his investigation after neighbours describe the animal. (IBTimes UK)
• 2022-11-27: Godfrey dies at 71. (WNA News)
• 2024: Hampel says this is the last year he saw the animal. (Tribune)
• 2026-10-24: Elkhorn holds its fourth Beast Fest at Sunset Park. (IBTimes UK)
• 2026-10-28: NewsNation episode published. (YouTube)
• 2026-11-02: IBTimes UK summary published. (IBTimes UK)
• 2026-11-08: Chicago Tribune feature syndicated. (Tribune via News Tribune)

What believers claim

Hampel’s position, as reported, has several layers. He says he has seen the animal three times (one account, via Notícias Ufológicas, places a sighting on 5 May 2017 as two orange-red eyes near the road). He says casts show tracks bigger than a coyote’s. He says a Chicago cameraman used a phone app to estimate the figure in one photo at about 7 feet tall with 3.5-foot shoulders. He says dead deer and raccoons he left out were moved or opened, with a motion camera recording black mist but not the removal. He also reports lights in the sky that appear and vanish, and ties these to the animal.

Hampel told the Tribune he has not seen the animal since 2024, and added: “Maybe in 75 years, we’ll know for sure.” He shares Godfrey’s idea that the animal is an unclassified species. Godfrey herself, per the Tribune, considered an undiscovered species or an “interdimensional being.”

What the research found

Here are the hook findings from the records, in order of how much weight they carry.