For 27 Nights Straight, a DOGMAN Visited the Church, What Happened on the 28th Was Unbelievable!

They told me evil doesn’t knock before entering. They were wrong.

For 27 nights, it scratched at our church doors at exactly 3:17 a.m. On the 28th night, we opened them. And what I saw… what I faced… changed everything I thought I knew about this world.

My name is Thomas Whitmore, and in November 1997, I was 44 years old, serving as pastor of Shepherd’s Grace Community Church, a small, hundred-year-old building perched on five acres of dense forest outside Cordelene, Idaho. I’d spent 43 years counseling the dying, burying children, comforting grieving families, walking people through the unbearable. I’d seen tragedy, heartbreak, even human cruelty—but nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for what arrived that winter.

I lived alone in the rectory attached to the church. My wife, Margaret, had passed away three years prior, and my daughters were grown and living in Seattle and Portland. Solitude suited me. I’d wake at 5 a.m., make coffee, study scripture, pray, visit congregants, prepare sermons. My life was predictable, quiet, and safe.

Until November 18th, 1997.

The first heavy snow fell that night—nearly two feet in hours. I spent the day shoveling paths across the property, from rectory to church, from church to parking area, from parking area to the road. I went to bed around 10 p.m., tired but content. And then, at 3:17 a.m., it began.

The scratching.

Not the soft brushing of wind against windows, not the creak of old wood settling. Heavy, deliberate, purposeful scratching against the church doors. Long, slow rakes followed by three rapid scratches. Pause. Then repeat. My heart pounded, every hair on my body standing on end. I grabbed my flashlight, pulled on my robe, and crept through the hallway to the sanctuary.

The sound grew louder, stronger. It came from the massive oak doors at the front of the church, worn by a century of winters. I should have been terrified—but I was furious. Someone was vandalizing my church, desecrating this holy ground. I approached the doors, flashlight in hand, and shouted, “Whoever’s out there, leave now or I’ll call the sheriff!”

Silence. The wind whispered through the pines. Old wood settled. I returned to bed, shaking but resolute.

Morning light revealed four deep gouges on the oak doors—marks too high for a person without a ladder, too deep for any ordinary tool. I called Sheriff Morrison, a man who had served the county for over twenty years. He examined the doors, shook his head, and said, “Tom… I don’t know what made these. Could be a bear?”

I shook my head. No food. No tracks. No signs of animal life. This was deliberate. Methodical. Intelligent.

And then, night after night, it returned.

Night two. Night three. 3:17 a.m. Every night, the scratching came in the exact same pattern. Four deep marks each night, vertical, precise. My congregation noticed damage on the doors. Some suggested moving services to town. I refused. This was our church. Holy ground.

By night eight, 28 parallel gouges marred the doors. Sheriff Morrison was troubled. “Whatever this is, it’s systematic. Precise. Not animal behavior.” He stationed deputies. One young officer, Deputy Wilson, witnessed something he couldn’t explain. He screamed, fled his patrol car, abandoned it on the highway, and resigned the next day. His words? “It’s not possible. It can’t be real.”

And still, it continued.

Night 15, I stood in the sanctuary with my Bible. The scratching came, louder, more aggressive. I commanded it in the name of Jesus Christ to leave. For ten minutes, the doors shook as if the church itself was under siege. Fresh gouges marked the oak doors, deeper than ever. Whatever it was, it was aware. It was intelligent. It was testing me.

I researched, prayed, fasted, scoured theological texts. In a dusty account from the 1840s, a frontier preacher described a creature he called the “knocker”—a wolf-like, bipedal entity with glowing eyes and claws capable of tearing through wood and stone. It would appear for 27 nights at churches and homesteads in remote areas. On the 28th night, it would knock, waiting for permission to enter. Those who opened the door in fear would be claimed. Those who refused would survive.

I counted back. We were approaching the 28th night. I shared this with no one. How could I explain that an account from 180 years ago mirrored my own terrifying experience? I was being tested. My soul was at stake.

The nights became increasingly unbearable. Night 20, 76 marks. Night 25, 96. The doors were saturated with the evidence of its presence. By night 26, it was scratching not just the doors, but windows, walls, the roof. Thirty minutes of relentless clawing, circling the church, filling the building with a sound that made your bones shake. I sat in the sanctuary, praying with every ounce of my being.

Night 27, the final night of scratching. 3:17 a.m. The building shuddered. Pictures fell. The sound was overwhelming, all-consuming, like the forest itself was clawing at the sacred ground. Then, at exactly 3:22 a.m., silence. The kind of silence that is heavier than the noise.

November 28th, 1997. The 28th night. The test.

I prepared the entire day. Called my daughters, told them I loved them. Wrote letters with instructions to open them only if… if I didn’t return. I anointed the doors with oil, lit every candle, and prayed without ceasing. I would face this alone.

At exactly 3:17 a.m., I heard footsteps—heavy, deliberate, crunching in the snow. The sound circled the building, stopped at the front doors. Three knocks. Slow. Deliberate. My knees shook, my hands trembled.

I stepped forward. My voice, surprisingly steady, said: “You want to come in? Then come in. But you do so as a guest under God’s authority. You have no power here except what I allow.”

And then I saw it.

Eight feet tall, covered in dark, matted fur. Standing on two legs, yet jointed wrong. Arms too long, ending in claws identical to the marks on the doors. Its face—wolflike, yet stretched and impossible. Pale yellow-green eyes glowed in candlelight, intelligent beyond human comprehension. It did not speak. I heard its voice in my mind: Permission.

I refused. Faith, not fear, governed my choice. I gestured to the open doors. “You can enter, but only as I allow. Not here, not today, not ever.”

It stepped forward. The air thickened. The candles flared. It pulled back as if burned. It could not cross into consecrated ground. My faith, my refusal to surrender, held the threshold.

Moments stretched like hours. Then it stepped back, its gaze lingering. “You have passed. Others have not. Others will not.” And it vanished into the forest.

I remained in the doorway until dawn, breathing visible clouds in the frigid air. The oppressive weight lifted. The church, my church, had survived.

The scratching never returned. The doors, replaced six months later, still bore the story in my memory. I kept the originals, stored securely—a reminder that the world contains things beyond comprehension, things that test courage, faith, and conviction.

I served at Shepherd’s Grace Community Church for another twenty years, retiring in 2017. My successor never witnessed anything unusual. Life returned to normal. Yet, even now, sometimes, in the still of the night, I hear scratching—not at my doors, but in my memory—a reminder that some tests are eternal, some darkness waits, and some courage must be forged in the moments when nothing else can save you.

Faith isn’t the absence of fear. Faith is standing, open, against the impossible, and saying: No. Not here. Not today. Not ever.