Viral Video of Mysterious Black Beast Chasing Dog Raises Questions

Images and a video of a large dark-brown or black creature chasing a dog who is yelping in fear has gathered more than 3.5 million views on Twitter, where it was posted on Sunday.

"It's not a Wolf or a Bear, Scientists and Animalologists are Baffled by this one...," the caption on the tweet says.

The post links to a WordPress article, dated April 8, titled "A Bone Chilling Video Captures A Mystery 7ft Beast Chasing A Dog In The Woods."

The article describes the supposed encounter between the dog and "giant black beast" roaming the forest and includes a number of stills from the video (which the article links to) and also purportedly a photo of the beast's dead body.

Twitter users responded with a stream of speculative theories, jokes and memes, including mentions of "dire wolves" (an extinct creature that came to prominence on the back of the Game of Thrones fantasy series), wild boars, werewolves and even South Park's "Manbearpig."

Newsweek Misinformation Watch looked into the story to see if the footage was real, and if so, what was the context?

We found that the article (archived here) in the link appears to conflate two stories from different locations of North America, one that took place in the spring of 2018, and one in the summer of 2015.

First, the short clip of the creature chasing the dog (which this account has published before) dates to 2015, and was widely covered in media reports at the time and in the ensuing years.

The video, which among other places was posted on the Deep Bush Survival Facebook page and YouTube channel, was captured by a fishing guide, reportedly named Chris Street, in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.

The mystery beast was a large black wolf, according to Street, who also noted that his dog, Trigger, survived the encounter.

"I work as a fishing guide in northern Saskatchewan and I shot this video on one of our trails around the lodge," the video's author commented, as cited in multiple outlets. "We get a lot of bears that come around the lodge but this year we had a black wolf that started to come around for a few days.

"We spotted the wolf through the window of the kitchen in the lodge and I made my way outside with the camera. The lodge manager Dan went for the shotgun. When I started to take pictures the wolf left, then returned a few minutes later and that's when Trigger took after the wolf."

According to the fisherman's comment, the wolf waited for Trigger to turn away from him and that's when it grabbed the dog in the back end and threw her up in the air. Dan then shot the shotgun into the air and that broke up the fight.

"The wolf turned and left, we followed the wolf into the bush and shot again to scare him off. The wolf came back two more times that day looking for the dog we think. Trigger had a few good wounds and cuts but she is fine now."

The tweet by Street describing the encounter has since been deleted, as has Street's account on Twitter. Newsweek could not immediately find contact details for Street to ask him for additional comment.

Further, the River City Post report also features a different "mystery" creature—a carcass of what looks like a cross between a bear and a wolf. However, there is no evidence to suggest it was the same animal that chased Trigger, and its genealogy has since been traced and verified by scientists.

The photo of the "wolf like" creature first went viral in May 2018 after a rancher near Denton, Montana, shot it when it came close to his livestock. Initial reports suggested its appearance "baffled scientists," who could not pinpoint its species.

However, the mystery was eventually solved with a DNA test, which confirmed that the creature was a common gray wolf, a female between 2 and 3 years old, whose physical abnormalities and dark brown color "were not unusual."

The misleading use and conflation of visual content taken from different contexts is a common misinformation trope, often fueling confusion and perpetuating myths when going viral.

Newsweek previously reported about similar cases, including "mystery cave creatures" that turned out to be a hoax.

And earlier this year, Newsweek Fact Check found no basis behind the reports of "dinosaur-like creatures" roaming in China.