'It wasn’t human': Valley residents share encounters with San Benito 'Dogman'

SAN BENITO, Texas (ValleyCentral) — A San Benito man says he saw something he cannot explain while fishing more than a decade ago that still haunts him to this day.

Ruben Bejaran, a behavioral technician at Palms Behavioral Health, said it happened in the summer of 2012 while he and his brother were fishing for alligator gar near a resaca outside San Benito.

“My dad had said that he had seen them moving around, rolling and stuff like that,” Bejaran said. “So we wanted to make sure they were rolling so we can go do some night fishing.”

But what they encountered that day was not just fish. Bejaran says he captured video of a creature standing upright before sprinting away on all fours and disappearing into the brush. He refers to it as the “Dogman.”

“It wasn't a human,” Bejaran said. “It was something else because as soon as it took off, it took off running like a dog but it stood up like a person.”

He says the moment still baffles him.

“As soon as it stood up, I don't know if it heard us talking or what actually made it stand,” Bejaran said. “But as soon as it stood up, it looked over for a bit and it just disappeared like that. It just bolted off. It took off running on all fours.”

Years later, on New Year’s Eve 2018, La Feria resident Joseph Martinez says his family had their own strange encounter on the opposite side in rural San Benito. This happened as the family was having a party and his aunt came in crying after seeing what she describe as having the face of "The Devil".

“She came into the house bawling, and the whole vibe of the party changed,” Martinez said, recalling his aunt’s reaction. “So we were asking her, like, 'What did you see? What happened?' And she said she saw a man walking on the side of the road. But when she got up close to him, it wasn't a man.”

Martinez said his aunt described the figure as man-like, but with animal features. He and others jumped into two vehicles to search for it, eventually spotting it near a canal about 30 minutes later.

“Its arms were very skinny, but very wide shoulders, gray, grayish brown skin, parts of it was like going into brown on its lower body,” Martinez said. “I'm not sure if that was because it was fur. The top of its back had very little, like very little bit of fur. It wasn't very like a thick coat and it's completely bald head.”

Martinez also describes the creature as bald and trying to hide form the view of the headlights of the vehicle.

He said they called police, but before officers arrived, one of the vehicles slipped into a ditch. By the time they regrouped, the creature was gone.

To this day, both Bejaran and Martinez say they have no explanation for what they saw.

“We try to think of it logically,” Martinez said. “Like, is this maybe a man that is wearing something weird and just hanging out around here? But it just can't be because the legs were a lot smaller than what its arms were, so it's kind of like an ape because an ape has the small legs and then long arms.”