Why History FAILS to Explain The Beast of Gévaudan and Other Unknown Creatures 

I once saw a large creature in the swamp behind my home. It was as tall as a deer, skinny, had long black hair and long canines. I told my friend and even drew a picture of it. It wasn't until about 15 years that I saw a similar animal in south Florida while doing archaeological fieldwork. Come to find out it was a bear. I had seen bears before, but they were all well-fed. Both of the ones I saw were extremely emaciated and did not look like what most of us would id as a bear.

There are two options that make sense to me: A:a huge dog/wolf hybrid: There were some giant dogs that were not breeded anymore as they were only used for warfare and were a terrible danger even for their owners. I heard of Swiss Wardogs. They stood taller than the average medieval soldier. They had to be held back by collars with spines on the inside. When the enemy line was reached, they let those monster dogs loose. B: a Hyena I do not believe in a wild cat. Lions, Tigers and Panthers were known to people in Europe: They were visible on many flags even if many people had never seen one real life. And we do not speak of the early Middle Age. Even simple people had a basic knowledge of those beasts.

The hippos "mane" was most likely the common behavior of hippos "wearing" (for lack of a better word) vegetation. Hippos don't have swear glands and commonly cover themselves with mud and vegetation to keep cool. You'll often see them sporting rings of brown and green plant material around their necks.

Just found your channel and literally watched all your videos in only a few hours. Keep up the great content.

The most common hypothesis I've heard is a hybrid wolf dog, which would explain the unusual colors. Also could explain its taste for humans.

Great video man, I would recommend looking into how the first deep sea divers saw the fish that live down there. It is incredibly interesting. I mean at least we have words and reference animals that can help describe what these animals look like. But deep sea life still looks alien to this day.

It was probably a striped hyena. The European version of those hyenas has since gone extinct but it was bigger than the ones in Africa and the Levant which fits the description they provided. It was presumed to have gone extinct before the events in this story, but it seems reasonable that a relic population could have existed and been responsible for these depredations. The population must have been dwindling and soon to be extinct which is why the people wouldn't have been familiar with its appearance, as most wild animals keep away from people, and if there are few of them to begin with, it is even easier to go unnoticed. But it was mentioned in the video that an actual wolf had killed about 4 people around the same times as the beast encounters happened, so it would make sense that this was a time when prey was scarce for whatever reason(maybe the end of a drought) leaving these animals to risk attacking humans, and in daylight, to save themselves from starvation.

You´re point about eye-witness unreliability is very important - this is why discard what survivors described and what is depicted in paintings. I believe the autopsy of the creature killed by Chastel is the best evidence we have to determine what it was. French RU-vidr "e-Quest of History" made a series of videos about the Beast of Gévaudan, which appears to have not been concluded yet, because he is still investigating the possibility of human involvment. He reaches the conclusion that the Beast killed by Chastel had to be a Canidae based on the autopsy of the skull - so, neither a lion or a hyena - and that it was either a large wolf suffering from atavism or was probably a very rare type of an hybrid between a large dog breed and a wolf. Nonetheless, none of this explains why it only attacked humans. And ofc, I am talking about the creatured killed by Chastel: there was a creature that was killed before by one of the king´s hunters, and many of the descriptions of the Beast are inconsistent with one another, which led many to conclude that all this attacks were the works of different "Beasts" - all of them concentrated on killing humans. And that is where the human involvment/serial killer using the Beast has a murder tool theory comes along...

Now this is a story I have heard before and found very interesting, and right up my ally because I'm a bit of a horror buff, excited to hear more about it in a video focusing on the history and mystery and not the cryptid-like myth around animal itself.

Just found your channel today. Great content keep up the good work my man.

My theory is a Hyena or a Lion escaped from some lords menagerie or maybe a captured Timber wolf from Canada as I've read the Wolves in America where much larger than the French kind due to their hunting in France.

this is my favorite video of yours. more of this stuff

Found your content recently and would love some additional, even if small, content.

Great content, keep going! Also the audio was of low volume. Need to boost that up!

This seems like they are describing a hyena. The mouth does appear extraordinarily broad and it does have color bands.

The hyena is a very real possibility, but so is the timber wolf. They look striped to some people. In the 1960s-70s a friend of my family bred a HUGE timber wolf to dogs, selling the mixed pumps & "grand-pups" for large amounts. The [sire] wolf was raised from a pup and weighed 240 pounds! He was aggressive & he REALLY made an impression. Also, I used to own a black labrador retriever that weighed 125 pounds. "Scooby" had an enormous head & thick chest, causing most people to be terrified of him. So, the B.O.G. could have been almost anything.

I find the Beast of Gevaudan to be a fascinating story and I've studied this one for a very long time. I have still not figured out what it was, and the best anyone can do is a guess. I believe that is what is so intriguing about the story. The best guess I can give would be (Maybe Spanish) War Dog. The Spanish mastiff had a weight of 270 pounds and stood 3 and a half to 4 feet tall, or at least the stories tell of this size. Ever seen the size of an English Mastiff? Celtic warriors used them, and they were larger than men. On Colombus 2nd trip he took to battle the natives with 20 Mastiff and a couple hundred conquistadors against thousands of natives. It is said that the sheer terror from just 20 dog's ripping men apart was what won them the battle. (I'm sure the black power rifles were a Boone also) Colombus said that ONE of the dogs was worth 15 of the soldiers and their bite was so powerful they could rip an arm from a man and crush a skull inside their massive jaw's. Those dogs were bread and trained for war, just imagine something so powerful, trained and smart in the countryside and the people have only been around average size dogs.

Maybe a large Mastiff bred with a Wolf creating a hybrid

Being a retired cop I found that eye witness testimony was the absolute worst evidence, bordering on totally worthless. I would never hinge a case eye witnesses.

Brotherhood of the Wolf is a movie based on this! its very unique and worth watching!!

The Caspian Tiger is a possibility too. Its extinct now but wasn't back then.

They made a film about this in France, and it was a lion in armour that someone owned that trained it. 2 we’re sent to the area to investigate by the King, 1 the King’s taxidermist and his servant.

There is a video of a huge black Wolf filmed somewhere in the US chasing someone's hunting dog you've maybe came across it. Back then when wolves we're more abundant and not hunted to near extinction or extension in majority of place's there could of been some large or hybrid dog Wolf's but personally I like the hyena idea. There was many shipped around France and all over along with many other creatures so one of those could easily of gained it's freedom and went on a rampage around France.

Great videos, need to work on sound quality.

There's a French horror movie that came out in the 2000s that is based in the incident called brotherhood of the wolf.

Game: What is a "Cobra Chicken"??

The two best candidates to claim the Beast's identity are two wolves that were killed respectively in 1765 and 1767(if I recall correctly): the first was a huge male wolf killed by François Antoine in the whereabouts of Chazes, the specimen weighed 65 kg days after his death(it was probably closer to 70 kg) and was very tall and about 6'3 long, tail included. The other, the one that was probably the Beast that most people saw, was smaller than the former yet deformed and had extraordinary big head and feet. I got this infos from an italian author.

I think that you have to give as much weighting to the mundane descriptions as the bizarre ones. Some people who were attacked by the best said that it was a wolf, and some even identifies a wolf that had been shot as the animal that attacked them. Would you expect them to do this if what had attacked them was anything other than a wolf?

The first description sounds more like a wildebeest. A mane like a horse is pretty hard to mistake on a hippo.

Gotta disagree about the bigfoot jab, people in the americas have king described known primate behavior before it was even scientifically known

The best bk is likely "The Gevaudan Tragedy: The Disastrous Campaign of a Deported 'Beast'," by Karl-Hans Taak. It's told as a mystery, w/graphs & charts showing when the beast attacked, males vs. females/kids, ages, time of year, etc. SPOILER! Mr. Taake surmises it was a young lion & able to bite thru neckbones (licking heads clean w/its abrasive tongue), which dogs/hyenas can't do. The beast also apparently attacked a man on a horse & couldn't be shaken off (aka a big cat), & acted as did the lions of Tsavo in its hunting behavior. Mr. Taak's ending is the scariest, however, saying that the beast had likely escaped from a traveling carnival as it migrated from a popular road frequented by such carnivals, & that the beast was just ONE example of such animals escaping & eating the townsfolk. He sited multiple incidents that never got the press this beast did. Mr. Taak sympathizes w/the beast, saying it was acting naturally & hunting as it would in its native land. He says it was never caught, & avoided all traps & poisons laid for it, & likely died on a highland many years later. It's a good read. Thanks for your video! :-)

To be fair, in Greek they tended to compound words in reverse order of what we do in English today. So, cameleopard would be better translated leopardcamel, and in that case the name makes plenty of sense and the animal is exceedingly easy to identify.

I once made a zombie mission for the game Arma 2 called Chernarus Apocalypse part 3, and I scripted a monster out of black particles (to keep it shadowy and undefinable) and two faintly shining white dots that acted as its eyes, designed to insta-kill players who strayed too far off a forest path on a pitch dark night. I made sure that it only appeared every once in a while among the trees a good distance from any player, making low ravenlike croaking sounds that almost melded with the ambiance, and I'd soon hear people recalling from memory that it had red eyes and sounded like a wild boar. :D

wolverine with damaged tail

Not sold on bigfoot? Please look into the wildman sightings from news articles from the 1700s to the early 1900s.

A subadult lion would have become an adult lion in three years. French colonials in the Caribbean used large dog breeds to hunt down slaves. A possibility would be a dog (like a wolf but not a wolf) brought from the West Indies and bred to hunt down humans. Descriptions of the Beast vary, which is strange, since so many people saw it at close quarters. But the colors, the long hair, even the cry (could be baying that sounds like neighing), and the size, would fit a large crossbred dog. Like the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Someone had a wolf belt!

I think it was a pack of highly intelligent wolves. I remember reading accounts of “it” being killed multiple times but coming back. So maybe they were killing each member off till it was finally gone.

I'm going to guess Hyena, though I can't think of a scenario that would put one in the rural communities of France in the 1700s.

It was brown and had fur. It was about 6 ft tall and had antlers with 14 points. It was beautiful but terrifying at the same time. I almost shit myself that time. It had four legs with hooves, and eyes that had no soul. It was only because the stick grabbed turned out to be a log the pulled up the grass under him that I was able to scare it away. He was about to kill me. He was also evil and hated me. When I managed to scare him off he disappeared with one single leap!

Honey badger!!! Wolverine?? Starving Martian? Tasmanian devil? Werewolf of London?

This animal has a long white tail with a tuft of back hair on the end, it walks on four hands and sometimes on its back hands like a person (on all four hands it stands at about 1 foot tall, on two hands 1 feet to even 3 feet tall) it has long sharp claws, teeth like that of a person, it hisses like a snake when confronted, and-most curiously-it can vanish into thin air.

I read the translated book of a French monk who went to that area and interviewed the people. From what he wrote, it sounds like an Mesonychid? A left over from/of the ice age that had not completely died out yet? Remember this part of France is very remote, and in a very high mountainous area. To big to be a dog of any kind, war dog also a no. Hyena with the laughing sound is very different from the sound it made, and they had very short rear legs etc. Tall as a donkey! That is to tall for any wolf. People from the hunting parties that were sent by the king to kill it knew what a lion/hyena and so on were. They were at the Paris zoo at that time, and had been brought into Europe since the roman times. The Mesonychid fit's very well as described. Just my 2 cents. Maybe even a left over Dire wolf (which was not an actual wolf)? But about the size of the beast?

Tasmanian tiger ? I can't spell it's real name.😁

Could it be a Tasmanian tiger? It looks like a wolf

Exotic pet owners existed in the past too.

People that think it was a dog/wolf/hyena etc are completely ignoring the devastation it caused… a big cat is the only known animal that could do that… they had guns back then, dragoons etc… a big dog isn’t gonna merk 100 people it’d get obliterated.

Brother of the wolf …..One hell of a film that’s my comment

I would have to guess that the beast was something that is now extinct (hopefully), have you ever seen the pictures of what whales were before they went into the ocean? Yeah when I saw the artist renderings I was like yeah that's the beast of Gevaudan for sure. There's also a cryptid called a water hound, and both seem like a match.

100% Chupacabbra

It was hungry?

I think it was a sloth bear. That's why it never dragged anyone off to eat it. And it was highly aggressive

Guess my animal: It's wingspan is large and adorned in a mixture of gray to tan to black feathers. It's face was shaped like the moon with saucer like golden eyes. It's ears seemed to point upwards like a canine and it's beak seemed to be nestled in the middle pf it's peculiar face. It was the most curious spectacle I had yet to find on my adventures in this land

I think it Was a sloth bear. The patch on the he chest, big, and killed but didn't eat. And they never found remains of it prey. Sloth bears arent predators

It was me all along.

Maybe it was a liger. It got bigger as it ate more.

Damn I was wrong

🤠👍🏿

It was a thylacine I wish I could post a picture but everyone look up a Tasmanian tiger

I totally think it was a tiger, the final account after it was killed and other descriptions line up really well, reddish brown colour, stripes running across, a big "monstrous" head, the size of a donkey, broad chest, wolf-like narrow hind quarters and a supple furry tail with rings/stripes. Tigers also have white underbellies so that fits into the "white heart" on chest as tiger stripes can often make unique patterns on their bodies. It was also killing and eating people by the dozens, something tigers are known for and something they do to this day. I totally think it was an escaped tiger.

The explanation of the Hyena seems the most plausible, the descriptions are similar to their looks, it attacked humans very often (that can be explained by the change of ecosystem) and a year before a Hyena had scaped from the Beaucaire fair. Nevertheless, things like the beast chased by Chastel having offspring and the posterior description of the beast jaws (that coincides with that of a canine) are contrary to this theory.

It was a brown hyena. Today they get up to 160 pounds. Spotted hyenas get up to 190 pounds and very close to 6 feet in length. Perhaps this one was bigger than 160 pounds, even though the description is blatantly a brown hyena and certainly not a spotted hyena; it's possible the largest brown hyenas were larger back then than what they are today, or that, if it had been a pet, it may have been especially well fed so it got larger than a wild brown hyena can get. I really don't have any doubt. The description is obvious like the giraffe one, rather than tricky like the hippo one. The "size of a donkey" description is the worst part, but estimating at distance is notorious for allowing for exaggerated size. Just look up picture of "brown hyena". You'll find it looks wolf-like, especially in the hind and tail, and it has all of the right colors. Maybe some people think answering the question ruins the fun of the mystery. I care more about truth than fun, so I'm not going to pretend we can't identify the beast. [EDIT: also, brown hyena don't look like other hyenas, which is why one description specified it was not a hyena. The iconic image of a hyena is a spotted one, and striped ones look similar in shape to them, but, due to their fur style, brown hyenas look like wolves and not like hyenas.] [EDIT 2: The History Guy presented a specific theory based on the details of the history, that it may have been a mastiff and wolf cross-breed. Given the specific facts of the matter (a red mastiff was involved, about the only dog that could possibly make a hybrid which fits the description), that nay well be tha case. The brown hyena is still an excellent candidate, but the circumstance regarding the mastiff is conspicuously suspicious, so I may tend toward that theory now. Hey! We can be sincere and keep our mystery now! How fun! (I do like fun, just not as much as truth) These do seem to be the only two possibilities. I only didn't consider a dog because it would have to be exactly the right dog; of course, if it had been a different dog, the description would have been different, so of course whatever dog it is it is just the right one, so I should have considered the option of a wolf-dog hybrid.]

I think it was a tasmanian tiger

I’ll give a poor discussion, see if you can get it “It has a large body similar to a rhinoceros but more wrinkly. It sort of have bat wings for ears and a very long nose like no other. This nose almost seems alien. It also has two horns sticking out the sides of the stem of the nose, just like a wild boar.”

Werewolf. Definitely.

It's a mainless lion...

It was probably a dogman. I've been studying them for around a decade. Have heard reports from all over the world, and have seen one here in Pennsylvania. If you really listen to the hundreds of sightings and do your own research its hard to deny they exist.

based on that last description and the quantity of human victims the only thing this could be is a bengal or siberian tiger.

It was Definitley a Lion, I don't buy the whole wolf/hyena thingy. Back in the day, Noblemen and Rich people in France used to get exotic creatures such as, well, Lions. Most of the Stuff described matches a lion, Dark brown fur, a Mane, It neighs like a horse. As some of you may know, a Lion's roar sounds closer to the neighing of a Horse than the traditional tiger roar. That's why i believe it was a Lion bought by a Wealthy Frenchmen who managed to escape and went on a Rampage. There's further proof to this as the witnesses claim it took long leaps to reach its victims, which was not ordinary for a wolf....But it definitley is Ordinary for a Lion to do so.

This isn't the beast, but a real-life animal try to guess it: It has a huge mouth, bigger than any other predator, full of teeth. It's reddish-brown with black stripes, looks like a wolf but isn't, has a peculiar walk and unique sound, pointy ears, and a long tail. It's not uncommon for it to move and stand on its hind legs. This species has attacked women and children in the past.

I think he never saw a hippo Be foreal

Some royals escaped Tasmanian Tiger. The French were in the New Guinea area. 🤷🏻‍♂️😂

tazmanian tigers for sure. how it got to france? i dont care; but here we are.

At that time, England and France were the years when exotic creatures were brought from the colonies and fought with bears and dogs in cages. According to the descriptions, this beast was obviously a now extinct Tasmanian tiger, which was common in Australia at that time. He was brought from Australia and managed to escape.

Lion.

To me it is obviously a wolf dog Cross breezing. You're an A Is bull mastiff of dog. Explains color and size And massive head.

Wolverine

Striped hyena

Ever seen a whale in the water? Tell me that is not a sea monster my man.

Don't electruct elephants

Theylasin

Bef5ts revealed my guess for the CAMELEOPARD is ... Hyena Short hind legs and "hump" and may sport spots

Hot story tonight,thank you, young man ! I believe it's was a case of serial killers with help of an animal ,dog or hyeana no problem. The forrester who killed the beast,his own She wolf ,was a known pedo and prosecuted rapist ...besides he was a protestant 😂.Some of the reports show pieces of metal under the bites maybe from a knife..and nearly all victims were women and children. Thx again for this fine piece of history, the movie is'nt that bad I confess..God's Blessings from Northern Germany Ludwig.

I am fortunate to have (at least for now), both good eyesight and good reaction time. As a result, I can see glitches in my vision. Your brain fills in gaps. For example, one time while hiking, I saw a twig that looked like an insect, and my brain filled in the gaps. For probably a split second, what I saw was an insect, and then as I focused on it, I actually saw it turn into a twig. It was always a twig, but for a split second, my brain interpreted the data as insect, and I was able to see the split second transformation as my brain corrected the initial interpretation. What you see is a translation of data being collected by your brain.

Excuse me but we absolutely do Not live on the idiotic cartoon ball displayed at the beginning of the video.

Haha. Giraffes are not lion food. From what I gather, giraffes can beat up lions.

It's an immature tigon or liger

elasmotherium

Maybe watch some Michigan dog man stories

Giraffe, is the 2nd