Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:941 Something Out Of A Nightmare

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Come hang out with us. Merkel Media is heading to Washington state in a couple weeks to shoot our next fill investigating bigfoot encounter locations! While we are out there we are going to do an advanced screening of our next film "The Shape of Shadows" at Battle Ground Cinema on April 6th at 6:30pm PST! After the advanced screening, we will be doing a town hall where bigfoot experiencers can share with everyone in attendance. Lastly, after the town hall, we will wrap up the night with a Q&A section hosted by Wes Germer and Tony Merkel. If you are interested in this event then get your tickets now because they are going to sell out fast! GET TICKETS HERE: theshapeofshadows.com DATE: April 6th, 2023 TIME: 6:30PM to 9:30PM PST LOCATION: Battle Ground Cinema 1700 SW 9th Avenue Battle Ground, WA 98604   Tonight we will be speaking to Matt. Matt writes "Hello Wes, so I had a horrifying experience when I was 14 years old. I live in Youngstown, Ohio. I grew up on the Northside of town in the city. If you look up pics of the old steel mills in town you will get an understanding of what I am talking about. So my buddy literally lived across the street from the mills. We would regularly go down there and just investigate the MASSIVE AREA. All but shut down and dilapidated. Well we had certain old buildings that we frequented and one we made into our home base. We spent weeks making walls and strengthening spots so no one could get in and especially the wild dogs that also frequented the area and were especially vicious. They travelled in packs of 6 or more. The building we went to all the time had no stairs so we had to jump up to get in. Made it safer for us. I was right by an active railroad. The other working steel mill near used it to get supplies in and out. Fast forward to the summer and we were there one night. We always had guns as this was Youngstown, Ohio in the early 90's. Murdertown, USA @ that time. Plenty of Bloods and Crypts. We had chosen an old factory building that was huge and we would have massive fires right on the floor of the 1st floor. We erected a wall of these metal U shaped things to give us privacy and safety. If anyone saw us from the railroad they would call the police and security and we would be in trouble. Well, we were hanging out and we heard a pack of dogs coming and we thought it sounded like they were chasing something. We went out to see and they ran near us over a huge mound of coke that steel mills use in the steel making process. They ran over and we hear a fight ensuing. Vicious attack going on, all dogs involved. After 6-7 seconds we hear a louder dog above all the others and the beginning screams of the wild dogs started. Then to our shock @ different times wild dogs we're literally being thrown over the mound in different directions. Finally all the wild dogs run away in the direction they came but as fast as they could possibly run, some limping, some with obvious injuries. We were shocked. Then one of my friends screams "WHAT IS THAT?!…LOOK!!" At that moment, I kid you not, A GIANT Wolf like animal the size of which seemed quite honestly fake crawls on all fours to the top of the mound and is looking directly into the area the wild dogs ran, it lifts its leg and subsequently and substantially releases a urine flow that honestly seemed like it was released out of a garden hose. That right there, may sound amusing. It scared the hell out of us because it have the idea of just how large this thing was. My one buddy stumbled backwards into our makeshift wall and it then turns its attention to US. I cannot relay to you the amount of fear we all immediately felt. I feel it even NOW writing this to you. The hairs on my arm are standing up. It had yellowish amber colored eyes that literally glowed like they had a power source behind them. Looking back on it we agreed it was from the light of the huge bonfire that we had made in our home base. It growls next and it was so deep we all felt it. I said out loud that I just felt that in my chest. My 2 buddies said they were all of a sudden light headed and getting sick. I did not feel that as of that moment. But we all were horrified. It then did something so shocking, so alien to the status quo that we immediately felt in danger and ran inside the building and up 2 sets of broken, missing and falling apart concrete stairs up to a third level. We are all very lucky that no one fell to at least a broken bones type fall, maybe worse. It stood up on 2 legs, it's back legs. They looked like a huge set of dogs legs but the large leg muscles were reminiscent of a body builder. But thicker. And just the look of its massive body was unbelievably impressive & intimidating. My one friend was crying he was so terrified. When we got to the third floor we had to smack and shake him to shut him up as well as cover his mouth until he almost passed out from lack of air. We hoped it left. It did not. After what seemed like an hour but only one or two minutes we hear it climb up on the outside and start to enter the building. We first saw the shadow of it which was 10 times as large as the beast. We all froze, no one dared make a sound, we should have dropped down out of sight but we're so terrified we just stood there staring. It came into the light and we saw everything on the animal. It was at the very least the size of a grizzly bear. Again, the size was so large it was hard to believe that we were not dreaming, that this was real, it was and it was happening 20 feet in front of us. It was growling, sniffing the air and it just automatically looked straight up at us. It knew where we were. The whole time. It's eyes glowing, the thing that stood out to us was it started drooling, but not a little. It was pouring out of its mouth, was it pouring from the idea it was about to eat? To kill us? It could have EASILY! It looked away from us and saw the stairs. We froze again and got a newfound feeling of horror. It was heading to the stairs to come up where we were. We started freaking out and looking around and had only 1 escape, an outside fire staircase going up to the roof. The part to go down had rusted and fell off however long ago. It hopped easily over the 3 steps missing and was instantly up on the 2nd floor. It was walking to the next set of stairs and at that moment we heard the most beautiful sound EVER! A train coming right by the building, slowly too, they had to see the fire because when they were passing the building they let loose the treason horn. And it freaked out the wolf creature. It looked towards the opening of the building and in 2 seconds was out of the building and gone! We all started screaming help which no one heard but also we just were screaming from stress and because we felt we were going to maybe be ok. When the train could no longer be heard, the fear set back in and we thought every single sound was the thing coming back in. It did not Thank GOD! We then started to remember we had 3 pistols with us. We all took them out, took the safeties off and started to make our way back down to the second floor, waited 20 minutes and then to the first floor and waited probably an hour before we ventured back outside pointing the guns and flashlights in front of us the whole time. Remember, we didn't have LED lights in the early 90's. These were cheap plastic ones that only lit so much. But 4 of them helped light the way. We thought for sure every second we were making our way back to my friends house that it was coming after us. We heard the wild dogs from a distance and started running. We ran until we got to my buddies house. Those of us that are still alive, talk about that night everyone time we see or talk on the phone. We will remember that until the day we die. I still am in awe that these things exist. Every time I see or hear a story about someone's experience with one or more I freeze. I am instantly brought back to that night and I feel true fear again."

It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind and it either heard me or smelt me and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up and that shocked me. They don't make people that that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything moves like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language and they were chuntering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forward.

I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. 911, what are you reporting? See him. Hello. Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That's son of a bitch is about six foot nine. I don't know.

Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right in it. Uh-uh. This is Watsy from Orange County, California. When I'm not being paced out of the Cleveland National Forest, I'm listening to West Gürmer in Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight.

Got a great show plan for you. we're going to be chatting with Matt. And Matt comes to us from Ohio. And back in 1989, 1990, he had run into this, he was out with his friends playing in an area where they really shouldn't have been. And him and his friends ran into this canine-like creature. Most people have heard of Dog Man. And these kids ran into it when they were out there. And so Matt's going to be coming on the show and sharing that experience.

before I bring Matt on, I want to welcome to the show, Tony Merkel from the Confessionals podcast. Tony, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here, man. Yeah, I'm unbanished, I guess. Don't start that, man. I'll end up getting hate mail. Anytime I joke around about you on the air, people are like, you're such a scumbag. And I'm like, you get Tony and I are friends, right? Like, I've known Tony forever. But, again, thanks for being here, man.

I know that you have your Merkel Media and you've been pumping out films. And I know you're going to be out here in Washington State. Tell us about this project that you're working on and a meet up with the fans of the podcast when you come out. Yeah, so it kind of all started with a film that I shot in Kentucky, Expedition Dogman. And long story short, we went hunting a dog man in the forest. Daniel Boone National Forest and it turned into a great film and we decided to start doing more of it. So we went out to Utah last year and spent a week on the property that butts up against Skinwalker Ranch. And we filmed a whole film out there.

We shot a whole film out there. And we're going to be releasing that soon. And our third film we're doing is we're going out to Washington to do a bigfoot hunt. and we're going to be visiting with several people while we're out there. We're going to a place called Monster Mountain. And we're also, I mean, if I'm going to Washington, I got to meet up with you. And I got to go to where you had your Bigfoot encounter location. And so we're going to go actually film the scene of the incident.

And we're going to spend a night out there. And we're going to see what happens. But we're going to be spending a night on Monster Mountain. We're going to spend a night at the scene of your Bigfoot encounter. And then we're going to be going to Jonathan Brown's property. And that's going to be a two-night extravaganza. And that's going to be, I think, an incredible experience because you and I have been friends for a while.

I'd say, what, seven, eight years now. And when I was driving tractor trailer, you and I would talk on the phone a lot during the day. And I can't tell people how often when we're talking about things, you would bring up the Brown's property. I think you brought to the Browns property more than you brought up the area that you had your own Bigfoot encounter. So I was very familiar with the stories. And when the opportunity came up where Jonathan said, yeah, you guys can come out.

Two nights. I was like, let's go. Because Jonathan told me, he said, it seems like when they bring new people on the property, things kind of kick up a lot. And so I have that going in my favor, two nights of that. and he said that it typically happens between 11 and 2 a.m. is where most of the activity happens. And so I have a time frame as well. So I'm very excited about going to Jonathan Brown's property and checking it out and stuff. But yeah, we're going to be shooting a new film out there and it all about Bigfoot in Washington and these wild experiences people are having with these creatures.

And what is Bigfoot? You know, that's your famous question, right? So it's one of those things we're going to be kind of tackling because there's a lot of people that have stories. and their stories range from something that just seems very normal and natural and just a creature we haven't been able to keep up with to things that are more extravagant and wild and bizarre, but there's also evidences to back up their bizarre claims. So we're going to kind of explore a lot of different avenues and see what's what. Yeah, I'm excited that you're coming out, man. You know, it'll be a good chance for you to see what a real mountain looks like

as opposed to those baby hills that you have. that you guys have out east. But I'm excited to have you out. And I know that you're flying in on April 2nd this Sunday. And you have a plan meet up with the fans to show your new film, the shape of shadows. Where are you going to be showing that film? It's going to be at the Battleground Simina Cinema Theater.

Got to get that out right. And it's going to be an advanced screening. So this is a sneak piece. at the final product. It's not the final product. We are still in the middle of just little pieces here and there as far as audio goes or, you know, coloring the film. But we wanted to actually take the opportunity while we're out there to host an advanced screening to get people's opinions. So we're going to be actually, when people come out, they're going to have the opportunity to write down, hopefully on a card that we are able to provide their thoughts on the

whether they liked it, they hated it, they think it needed some work or whatever, just to hear their opinions on it and stuff because it isn't the final product. We're kind of in the beta testing stage of the film. But once we do the advanced screening of the Shape of Shadows in Washington, I'd say it'd be about a month or so before we actually do an official film premiere of this film. And this film is the one that we went to Utah about and we stayed on Space Wolf Reeser. search. And we had some wild things happened that week. And we did capture several things on film. A lot of lights in the sky. We came across a ritual circle with skulls and bones. We came across trackways that seemed to transform from human to horse. And we actually had two different Native American people out there with us. And on two separate occasions, we brought them individually to show them

the trackway to get their opinion without the other person's being around. And we just let them look at it and tell us what they believe it was. And both of them said, this is a skin walker transforming. And apparently it's a pretty common thing. And Johnny had seen this several times. So he knew exactly what he was looking at. And so it was very fascinating journey, even down to the fact that we weren't welcome in the area and people knew we were there. And one night, we went back to base camp and there was a car following us. And long story short, people have to check it out. But there was actually a chase.

And we went crazy in Utah. You know, a bunch of guys just doing crazy stuff that our wives wouldn't approve of. That's probably accurate. What day are we doing the meet and greet? And I know it's going to be at the Battleground Theater, the cinema out there, you said? Yeah, Battleground Cinema Theater. and it's going to be on April 6th at 630 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. I fail to mention that after the advanced screening, we're going to do a town hall where we give people from the area an opportunity to share what their experience has been in the area with Bigfoot.

And depending on how many people show up, it depends on how long people will have the opportunity to share. But we're going to try to keep it moving so people can have their opportunity to share. And then at the end of that, we're just going to do a simple Q&A with myself, the film team and yourself, West, and just let people, you know, ask maybe some questions that they've wanted to ask for years or questions about the film since they just watched it, things like that. And it's going to be a good time. I mean, so basically there's basically three stages to the night, the shape of shadow has advanced screening, a town hall, and a Q&A.

And I think it'd be fun because, you know, whenever I get a chance to, you know, get out there and meet up with people afterwards, I always. feel like that was refreshing to actually put faces to names and you know you and I both know on this end of things every week we put out shows and you know we see numbers on a screen of the amount of people listening but we don't have the names and the faces and sometimes it's nice to be able to connect with people on a human level so I'm always excited to do that yeah sounds like fun and I know you know the shape of shadows you and I talked about that I remember several hours on the phone while you were filming that you were telling me about things that had happened to you guys

and I'm excited to see it. For the audience, how would they buy a ticket for this? Yeah, thanks for saying next. I forgot. The Shape of Shadows.com. You can just go to the shape of shadows.com. And there's a button on that page that says, get tickets here.

And I'll redirect you to an event bright page where you can purchase your ticket. And that will reserve your seat. There is limited seating in the theater. So if you show up with no ticket, there will be no entry. So if you don't have a printer and you can't print out the ticket, I highly suggest you just have the email that you get

saying you purchase a ticket open at the door so that we can verify that you have a reserved seat because if this does sell out, we need to make sure that everybody that comes in, it has a seat reserved for themselves that paid for it. Sounds like fun, and I can't wait to see you, Tony. And for the audience, if you want to come and hang out with Tony and I and the crew in Battleground, if you're in the surrounding area, the Portland, Vancouver area, come hang out. out for the night. You can go to the shape of shadows.com and get your tickets. Tony, I guess I'll see you on Sunday, man. Thanks so much for coming on. Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me.

There he goes. Tony Merkel from the Confessionals podcast. Check out the Confessionalspodcast.com. I hope to see everyone out there in Battleground. Hope to meet you guys. And it'll be on Thursday night. and a link will be underneath this episode if you want to come and hang out. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Matt to the show. Matt, thanks for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to chat with you. And I know this happened to you over 30 years ago. We're going back to 1989, 1990 out there in Ohio. If you would, just kind of start from the very beginning. What were you guys doing? And what happened? What did you guys end up seeing?

Well, you know, it was right after school had let out. I was getting ready to, you know, enjoy the summer. You know how it is when you get let out of school, especially being a boy. You guys have all that pent up energy. And you get with your friends, the weather's nice. And, you know, I was getting, it was the summer before I entered high school. So, you know, we were all wound up. And, you know, if you would, I always say this to anybody I've told the story.

And I haven't told many. I've told a very small amount through the years. And if you don't know anything about Youngson, Ohio, you know, you can Google it. And if you Google it, Google the old steel mills. And you'll get a picture of, you know, where this happened and where we would hang out sometimes. And we had a friend of ours that lived literally across the street from the old steel mills. Youngson used to be a big steel mill town. And, you know, when the U.S. steel mill industry was affected, you know, that shut down, down there.

And what happened is you had a lot of buildings that they made the steel in become dilapidated over time and get rusted and falling apart. and not used. There is another steel mill there now kind of a little distance away from it. But for the most part, it's just a huge, massive area that is no longer used. That's just, you know, time forgot. And nature is starting to, you know, take back. And what we would do is we would go down there and we would just, you know, do what young boys would do. and we would, being where we grew up in Youngstown, Ohio during this time, you know, it was during the time when the gang stuff was going really big, a lot of blood and crypt things going on.

It was really dangerous. You know, it's nothing to be proud of, but during this time, Youngstown was called Murder Town USA during that time. There was a lot of shootings and gang violence. So we would always make sure that, you know, we were armed ourselves when we go down there. You never know who you're going to run into. You know, there could be some homeless people down there. The things that we were worried about most of the time were wild dogs. There'd be a pack of wild dogs like six or seven would run in packs.

And, you know, these weren't nice, you know, pet you kind of dogs. These were, you know, they would attack people. They killed people over the years. So you would stay away from these things if you'd come into contact with them. And if you shot in the air or something, they would run. So we would always make sure that we would take some firearms down there. And my dad wasn't real big in the firearms. But living where we did in Youngstown during that time, he had one.

And he kind of thought no one knew where it was. He had a 38 and an old cowboy boot in his closet. I'd go in there and I'd take it when we'd go down there. And we feel somewhat safer. So we go down, we'd investigate buildings and just, you know, do some crazy things. And we had one building down there that we kind of made our kind of quote unquote home base. It was a big, pretty much for the most part, empty building. I don't know what they used to do there, but it was like three or, so I think it was three floors.

you could see all the way up to the third floor from the first floor. So what we would do is we would at night build real big fires in the middle of the first floor. And the flames wouldn't cause any problems, wouldn't catch anything. It was a concrete building. Nothing would catch on fire. They had these, I don't know, these U-shaped kind of metal things. I don't know what they were made for, but the people, building was full of them. So since

at, you know, each part of the building north, south, east, and west, they were open walls. So what we did is we took these things and we built walls with them. And we would stack them up in rows on top as high as we could reach.

And it would block out, you know, the light of the fires when we'd have them in there because they had like security down there from the railroad. Because the one working steel mill would bring in supplies or send out steel that they'd make, and it would go right in front of this building.

So if the people on the train would see people down there, they'd call security or the police. And you get caught down there, you could get in a lot of trouble. So we didn't want to get caught. So we tried to avoid that. We built these walls up, and they pretty much, for the most part, kept the light of the fires out so people couldn't see.

So the one night that we were down there, we were inside. We had a really big fire going, and we hear these wild dogs. You know, they're running right by the building, and they sounded like they were on a mission. And the building we were in didn't have stairs. So you kind of had to hop up onto the opening of it and roll yourself up and get in. which we liked because then these dogs couldn't get in if they came by. So we all walked outside to see what these dogs were doing, and they just ran right by the building. And right in front of the building, they had huge piles of coke, which in the steel mill industry,

they used this material to make steel. They were mountainous, big piles of these materials. And these dogs ran over the one just in front of our building. And almost immediately, after running over the top of it, started to attack something. And we could hear it. You could hear them biting and fighting. And you could tell that something was going on. We thought maybe they were just fighting with each other.

And maybe after six, seven seconds, we heard. another dog like something, but louder, start to fight with these dogs. And not long after we kind of picked up that there was something else over this mound, we start hearing some of these pack of dogs, you know, start to yelp out in pain and scream. And after a couple seconds, you know, to our amazement. we'd see one or two come flying over the mound, like something or someone through these things over the mound. And they hit the ground and roll and immediately get up and take off.

And not long after that, the rest of them came running by. Some of them limping, some of them with obvious injuries, bleeding. And they took off. And we're just kind of like an amazement looking at, you know, these dogs. running by wondering what just happened. And as we're watching them run by, there were four of us. And one of my friends basically screams out, you know, oh my God, what is that? Look. And we all just turn our heads simultaneously. And what comes over this mound, I mean, basically was like the biggest wolfed. dog-looking thing that

we have ever seen in our lives. I mean, even thinking about it right now, looking back, it seemed almost fake seeing this thing come over the hill. And what it did was it was watching the dogs run away. And what it did next,

I mean, you know, it might sound funny or amusing. It wasn't to us. The dog lifted its leg and urinated. And it freaked us out. It scared me. And the reason it scared me was because it was so big. And when it did it, its business, it was like a hose, like releasing water that someone just turned on.

And there was so much, like, force from it doing its business. It, like, kind of gave you the sense of how big this thing was and, you know, what kind of damage this animal could do to somebody. So it wasn't funny at all. It was scary. And my one friend, it freaked him out so much that he stumbled back and fell into this makeshift wall that we had. and it made kind of like a metal scraping across concrete kind of noise and immediately this thing turned and looked at us and we all froze and its eyes I always say this it seemed like it had a power source behind its eyes they were like yellowish kind of amber color and you know looking back on it after we talked about it numerous times, we all agreed that the reason its eyes glowed so bright was because of the fire that we had in the building and the light of the fire because the mound

was so high, this light was shining on its eyes and it was causing them to glow so bright. I mean, that's what we think. And it just makes sense. But this thing was looking right at us. Its eyes were so big. You could see the circles in its eyes so it was looking like you saw the eyes moving, looking right at us. And what it did next was, I mean, it was so alien. It was so just beyond measure messed up.

It stood up on two legs, not like a bear, not like a dog, you know, trying to stand up and get a treat and then it falls over kind of, you know, lazily. It stood up like a person. And it had dog legs. Like they were shaped like a dog would stand up. But it had like huge muscles in its legs, especially I remember the quads on it were real big. And you could see the muscles like rippling when it stood up and it was holding itself up. And it was so massive.

you know, you could tell it it had to weigh a ton. And when we all saw that, you know, my one friend started to freak out verbally. It growled at us, and I'll always remember this to the day I die. I felt it like go through me, like in my chest, in my legs, my feet like, felt weak like my ankles. Two of my buddies said that they felt like they were going to pass out, like that they were getting sick. I didn't feel that way. It didn't make me feel that way, but my legs just felt weak when I heard this and felt it. And we all started, you know, running inside. And the stairs that were inside of this building to go up to the other floors,

were dilapidated too. So to get up from the first floor to the second floor, there was a section that were missing of these concrete with rebar. And so there was just kind of pieces of rebar hanging out, three missing stairs, a big space that we had to jump and get over, which we all did. If we would have missed it, somebody would have got hurt.

Broken bones maybe. You fell on your head, maybe worse. thankfully none of us did. We ran up to the third floor, getting up through the second flight of stairs. There was a couple missing stairs, too, not as big as the first. We got up to the third, and we were overlooking the first floor looking down. And there was like a half wall, a concrete wall that, you know, we were standing behind. So we had this half wall in front of us, and we're looking down and, you know, know, my one friend's crying, literally crying and screaming. So we all start telling him to shut up and be quiet. I actually grabbed him around his mouth so hard that I lifted him up off his feet at one point.

He was dangling. We kind of put him down and we're all like trying to keep him quiet. He almost passed out because we were trying to keep him muffled. We were so terrified it was going to hear us and come in there. I'd say maybe one, two minutes had passed about like an hour. We hear nails on concrete, and I knew immediately this thing's coming in. And what happened was the first thing we saw was the shadow of this thing from the light of the fire hit the far wall. So it looked ten times bigger in the shadow than it was already. And it was already. And it was already massive. I mean, we've talked about it over the years. Two of my friends are no longer with us, unfortunately, but all the times that we've talked, and my other friends are still here,

to this day when we see each other, when we talk on the phone, there's never a moment that we don't mention this happening. And we've all talked about it. I mean, this thing, when it was on all fours, It entered the building. It was on all fours again. I mean, it looked like a grizzly bear when it came in. The light hit it, and we can see it perfectly. Black hair, not extremely long, maybe an inch long, maybe a little longer, not matted. It almost looked like it got groomed once in a while.

It wasn't dirty looking or anything. It actually looked clean. Looked maybe down its back. I'm not sure if it was from the light. Maybe if it had a white or gray kind of light straight down the back. I'm not sure if it did because it was night. Like I said, it could have been from the fire, just light, you know, glowing off of it. muscles everywhere you could see it as it walked the shoulders lifting up like when you see like a big cat how the the shoulder blades lift every step it takes but instead of just seeing the shoulder blades the bones lifting up there were muscles around it so this thing was just it looked like it was you know if if god made this thing which i assume god did um he he

created this thing for damage because there's no other explanation for what this thing was made for other than being a predator. And don't remember seeing its hands or feet. You can hear it had long claws. I didn't really notice them. You can hear that on the concrete, though, every step it took, you heard long claws hitting the concrete, which was very unnerving. the thing that stood out the most when it came into the light was it was extremely disturbing was it was drooling it was salivating immensely from its mouth not just little strings like it was pouring from its mouth and whenever the the strings would would break you'd hear it hit the ground like it was was raining or something. And what really freaks us out and freaked us out, and we talked about it, and what I was thinking was, you know, if it's salivating this much, drooling this much coming in, so is it thinking it's about to eat? And what that would mean is it's thinking it's about to kill us,

and, you know, that's a horrifying thought. And here you have four 14-year-old boys who are basically babies who are armed and not one of us realize we have a gun on us. We're horrified. We want to be gone. We want to wake up from this nightmare that all a sudden is reality. And there is something that resembles a real life werewolf hunting us, basically at the moment. And once it entered the building fully, we weren't really making any noise other than I'm sure our hearts were beating so hard. They were palpable to hear. It looked right up like it knew that we were up on that third floor. And it might have saw us from outside run up the stairs. It probably did. But it was, it was so scary to watch it walk in, to see these things

about it. And then all of a sudden, its head just snap right to looking up to the third floor, not looking around, not trying to see where we were. It knew exactly where we were. And we started to panic because not only was it looking at us, it looks away at that moment at the stairs. And we knew immediately what it was getting ready to do. And it headed right for the stairs. And it jumped up on the stairs. And it jumped over those three stairs that were missing like it was an inch long

and headed up to the second floor in a second. And we started to like run around like where are we going to go. And just to let you know, there was only one way out, and it was outside up an old fire escape on this outside of this building, but there was no way down because the stairs down had rusted away and fell off, however many years ago, I don't know, but they were no longer attached. They were at the bottom of the building, all crumpled up. There was other stairs that could take us up to the roof, which would put us on the roof of the building and nowhere else to go. So it started to head to the second floor, and a couple of my friends started to run to the outside staircase.

And right at that moment of just sheer terror, we were screaming, we start to hear one of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard. to date was a train coming. And we really do believe that it saw the fire of the people on the train that night because normally when a train would come by the building, it would just drive by, even if we had fires. But we built a big one that night. And they had to see it because as soon as they got in front of the building and they were going slower than usual, they laid on their their horn, the train horn. And they kept pulling on it the entire time they got to the front of the building and as they drove past. And we start screaming, help, you know, please somebody help.

Nobody heard us. It freaked this thing out because when it laid on the horn and you heard the axles hitting the railroad tracks, it looked towards the opening of the building where it had come in, and it immediately turned around and ran and left. And within two, three seconds, not even three seconds, two seconds, it was out and it was gone. And we kept screaming, some of us crying, hysterically screaming for help, begging someone to help us. and then the farther the train got, the more scared we started to get again. And then we couldn't hear the train anymore and the fear set back in. And then you have the sound of this big fire going.

So wood cracking and every noise we heard inside of that building we thought was this thing coming back to kill us. it did not come back, thank God. And we did not know that. We sat on the third floor for probably 20, 30 minutes until we went down to the second floor. And when we were starting our way back down, is when one of us remembered we had weapons on us. And that's when we took them out. We took the safeties off. We cocked them.

And we were ready to shoot if this thing came back in. and would the weapons we had do anything? Well, two of the weapons we had was a 22 and the other one was a 25 little automatic pistol. So absolutely not. It would have just pissed this thing off. The 38 that was my dad's that I took, he would have killed me if he would have never known that I'd taken it. I don't know if it would have even heard it. Probably not.

it was so big. I don't think it would hurt a grizzly bear. So if it wouldn't hurt a grizzly bear, it wouldn't hurt this thing. Probably just make it more angry and mull us to death. So I'm glad we did not realize we had them. I don't think anybody would have been in the frame of mind to even be able to aim a gun in the first place. We sat on the second floor for another 20, 30 minutes and then begrudgingly, we headed down to the first floor. And we were down there, I would say, an hour, hour and a half before we got up enough nerve. And we said to each other, we have to get out of here. We have to run. We have to go. And, you know, we kept saying, what if it's out there? What if it's waiting for us? you know, we just, we had to go. We got so scared again that we just decided we're going.

My one friend didn't want to go. He's screaming, don't leave me, don't leave me. And we said, you have to come or you're staying here by yourself. So finally he ran. He couldn't move it first. We got down. And every sound we heard, even our own footfalls on gravel, you know, when you're running on gravel, the noise your feet make, we thought it was something coming up from. behind us. We were horrified. It took us like, it took us like a half an hour, 45 minutes to even get back to my friend's house that lived across the street from the still mills. So we had a long way back to begin with, which consisted of going up a couple hills that you had to go up on your hands and feet, because it was like made of mostly dirt and gravel.

And so you couldn't just run up. It wasn't a road per se. It was just mounds of old materials. And you want to talk about being horrified, trying to get up these things scared and starting to lose your footing and sliding back down, thinking that this thing's going to be behind you as you're sliding down.

It was like a living. a nightmare and it really was. Knowing about PTSD in in 2023, we absolutely had it. I to date still once in a while have nightmares about the thing we saw. Sometimes nightmares that, you know, it's coming and it's right on top of me and you know, that's when you always wake up, thank God. But, Definitely getting back to our friend's house was a nightmare. We heard the pack of wild dogs again at one point in which we thought was signaling this thing, which didn't. And we didn't see the dogs either. We just heard them.

So every single sound just, you know, signaled pure terror in us. We finally got back to my friend's house. and we were shaking. My one friend didn't talk for two days. We told our parents, my parents didn't believe us. They thought we saw, my dad finally thought we saw like a bear, like there was a black bear, because, you know, we don't have it.

Your parents tell you, your 14-year-old, your son tells you, we were down in the steel mills, and we saw a werewolf. Your parents are going to say you're crazy. You guys saw a big dog or you guys saw a bear. Maybe it was a black bear because the Mahoning River is a waterway that goes through the steel mill and the woods in that downtown area. And it goes through a big park called Mill Creek Park in the Youngstown area. and, you know, I personally think this thing followed the river and maybe it came from the park and it followed along the river. You always hear things about Sasquatch or dogmen, you know, being around water sources.

And, I mean, it wouldn't make sense. You have that area with all this broken down buildings and dilapidated things everywhere. You know, it's going to need a water source. and there are fish in there, so food source. And, you know, it was just, it was a really horrifying experience that, like I said, you know, we talked about every time we saw each other. We never went back down there again. I'm not going to say what my one friend's dad did,

but he held a high position in the city of Youngstown. He was the only person that we told. And when we told our parents, we had our friends around to back us up. So there was never a time that it was just us alone. We always were together whenever we talked about it. And whenever we told each other's parents, we were all together. And the only person who ever gave us an idea of they believed us was my. one buddy's dad who held a position in the city. And all I can say is, is that when we told him,

he was extremely upset with us that we were down there in the first place. Second, he was extremely upset that we had an experience with this thing because the way he reacted, without him saying he believed us, just the way he reacted, he reacted in a way that he reacted that he knew about it already. And he gave us the impression that he knew about it, that he had heard about it, and he had heard about it before. And he told us just, you know, in his own colorful way,

don't ever let me hear that you're down there again because I will, you know, I'll kick your asses, basically. So his nonverbal communication, said more to us about the situation than him actually saying, yeah, I know what you're saying. So, you know, we knew what we saw. We have never, ever, you know, questioned what we saw. We've never wavered on our story. We had four guys that all saw the exact same thing, that experienced the same amount of terror and horror. We all thought we were going to die. And to this day, there's two of us gone.

God rest our souls. But every time we talk and we talk often, or if we see each other, there is never a time that we either see or talk talk. That we do not bring up that experience. And that has gone on since 89, 90. and we know what we saw. We're not crazy. It was, for all intents and purposes, a werewolf. What a terrifying night, ma'am.

Absolutely terrifying night. I don't know how well I would have dealt with it. And, you know, the situation is. You guys are just kids out there. And you'd made a comment I hear from a lot of eyewitnesses that have run into this half man, half canine type creature, entity, whatever you want to call it, when they see it, they'll say, this saying was built for one thing and that's killing.

And people are terrified. I've never heard of someone running into the saying that is not absolutely terrified. So you've seen these dogs kind of go over this berm and it finally steps up on the berm. How far away from you guys was this saying when you first saw it? 20 feet at the most. That's pretty close. Yeah, yeah, very close. Like I said, when the light from the fire was shining on its eyes as the top of this mound,

you could even see where its gaze was changing to. So you could almost see exactly which one of us it was looking at any certain time and its eyes would move. And you could see the inner circle of its eye as they moved. So that's how close we were to it. Yeah, and I know in the beginning when you had talked about it peeing, I would imagine at that moment it got very real for you. When it stood up, obviously besides the head, but when it stood up, did it remind you more of a man?

the upper body was more manlike very muscular like I said I don't remember what the hands looked like but it had a build of a muscular like bodybuilder like a big WWE guy you know huge traps around the neck you could see the shoulders the muscles It had arms. You could see the elbows.

I remember its elbows bending. It had its hands kind of up and its arms bent. The legs, though, were dog-like. I mean, they were bent like if a dog were to stand up. But where how like a dog kind of stands up, if it's trying to get a treat or something, it's kind of losing its balance and it's not able to keep itself upright

its hips and its thighs, you could tell it was it was meant to stand up. Like it does it all the time. It was very natural. It just looked like it was as comfortable on two legs as it was on four. Yeah, I really don't know what this thing is, Matt, but there is a lot of people that run into it. And whatever this creature slash entity is, it terrifies people. It's very physical.

And sometimes people will describe the legs, much like you did, Matt. They'll say they were like dog's legs. Other eyewitnesses that see this creature will say it had very much like human legs when it stood up. When you were looking at the face, did it just remind you of a wolf? You know, looking at like all of the different movies I've watched through the years, it was the movie with Hugh Jackman in it he turns into a werewolf in it

he was a vampire hunter I forget the name of it oh yeah Van Helsing great movie yeah so it reminded me of what he turned into and that's the closest way its face looked very wolf-like but almost maybe a combination of wolf than in German Shepherd because German Shepherds look very wolf like themselves.

It had tuffs of hair kind of on its cheeks when it came into the light that were kind of a tiny bit bushy so it kind of stuck out a little bit on its face if it looked right at you. You had kind of these these hairs that were kind of like in a bunch on each cheek that stuck out a little bit. But for the most part it was very streamlined. It was not overly shaggy. Like I said, its hair seemed at the longest an inch, maybe an inch and a half. I mean, you could see every muscle on this thing move when it was walking either upright or on its all force. And, I mean, it was horrifying.

It just gave you that sense of it could literally recognize. you apart. I mean, I think this thing was probably so strong it could have easily knocked these walls down that were hundreds of pounds at the very least, I think more, because we had rows and stacks of these metal things that weighed at least 100 pounds each. It could have knocked that thing down with no problem. It could have killed us easily, easily. We would have had no chance. And this might be a difficult question to answer, but When it stood up and you are looking up at this saying, how tall do you think it was? And it might be hard to answer because it's up on a mound.

But how tall do you think that thing was? I mean, it was when it came into the building, it was so long, like I said. I mean, we looking back seeing videos over the years, the only comparison we made of was like a Codiac grizzly bear, which is like one of the biggest. I would have to say minimum seven to nine feet. It could have been taller. It seemed when it was on all fours, it was so long. Like, you know, it was just, like I said, it was almost looking back.

Like it was fake. Like we were watching a movie in real time. But it wasn't fake. It was real. It was just so massive, even on all fours, that it, It just was, and it was indescribable. I've never seen anything. Even at grizzly bear, in my opinion, looking back, I mean, it burned into my brain,

this memory of this thing. And I can see it clear as day now. I mean, the hairs on my neck are standing up. It was just the largest animal I've ever seen. I've been to zoos. I've seen Bengal tigers. I mean, they were, they pale in comparison to the size of this thing. When it came into the building that you guys had all run into,

and you guys had seen the shadow of it walking in, was it on two legs or was it on all fours at that point? No, it was on all fours, but when it looked up at us, it stood up again on two legs. And then dropped back down on four to, to run up the stairs. So it just, it transitioned from four to two to four with no trouble. It looked so natural.

It didn't look like, you know, I've heard stories in the past, like people say that I watched a show about ghosts in the woods or whatever. This guy talked about seeing dog men type things and he said it looked unnatural. what it's when they stood up and he heard cracking and popping. And it didn't have any trouble. It looked fluid. It looked like a panther when it moved. It ran like it could run 100 miles per hour. This thing was created for speed and power and damage.

And it was, I mean, there's no other explanation for it. I don't see how anything else this thing. could be created for other than being like the alpha predator. I've seen pictures of saucequatch, and I know they're huge in an alpha themselves. I would bet on these things against the saucequatch even. I mean, this thing was, it looked like the ultimate predator. It just, it was something out of a nightmare. We thought we were dead.

We thought this was literally going to rip us the shreds that we were going to watch each of us die, whoever got it first, and so on and so forth. And it was there to eat us and kill us. And I truly believed that that was the day that I was going to meet my maker. I thought I was going to die. Yeah, I understand. lot of eyewitnesses say that when they run into this thing. And, you know, if I was there with you guys at night, I probably would have felt the exact same way. What's weird about this creature,

it seems like from most eyewitness reports, like it really enjoys terrifying people. It will get right to the point to where it's about to kill you and then it doesn't, which is suspect to me, but on the creature's part, I mean, and that seems to happen over and over and over again. And the other weird thing about this creature is I've talked to many eyewitnesses, even a state wildlife biologists that have shot these things. And they seem to be bulletproof. I mean, they seem to not really be affected when they're shot, you know. But what people are seeing is very physical. So it's very strange.

What do you think that these things are? I mean, if someone were to ask you beyond, you know, seeing a werewolf, what do you think that these things are? You know, the older I've gotten, I've wondered, you know, was it created in a lab somewhere genetically? You know, looking at it now, thinking about how incredibly amazing an alpha predator it is. Was it created in a lab? You know, and these things escaped, obviously, you know, being that type of a predator. You know, you're going to want to test them somewhere. and then you're not going to be able to control it, all of them.

And if they escape and if they're able to reproduce, they're going to start to populate and more of them are going to come around. Or it's as old as Sasquatch is supposed to be. And we all know the stories of how old the Harryman is supposed to be. Looking at it that day and seeing it in my mind's eye, I mean, it looked like it was, you know, born of this earth and that God created it just like it created everything else. So you're more of the opinion that this thing is natural. I do.

If I had to pick a yes or no, is it natural or made in a lab, I would say I think it's natural. Yeah, you know, I struggle with it being a natural animal because when you look at any other canine on the planet, they don't get up on two legs and start chasing you. They just don't, they're not, they physically aren't biologically. They aren't built to do that. What's weird is every eyewitness I've talked to who has run into this creature and I say slash entity. It does it. And it gets up and down on two legs to four legs. very much how you described it, Matt. Very flowing, no problem. They're just as natural on four

legs as they are on two, which makes me really wonder about what in the world this thing is, because I do believe people are running into it. People are way too consistent when they're describing it and its behavior. I know this question might be kind of hard to answer because, I mean, you were in fear for your life and you thought you were going to die. I'll ask it anyway. Did you get the impression that this creature, whatever it is, was evil? Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't get any sense of this thing was just doing, you know, doing its normal everyday thing. I got a sense of, you know, murder and just pure, just vicious. from it. I got no sense of, you know, like a bear kind of just, even if it kills somebody, it's doing what it does every day. This thing gave me the chills. It gave me the willies, you know, for months after that experience. You know, all I did was think about it and and shook about it and it did not feel that it was just something normal doing its normal life expectancy type things it seemed like it was it was evil and that it was out to do harm like you know like a murderer would as a human I definitely got a sense of of evil

and and and disdain from this thing it was it was it was powerful people. Yeah, I was curious on how you were going to answer that question, Matt, because almost everyone I've asked that, too, they'll say yes. There was a sense that this thing was evil. And, you know, when you think of like a bear or a cougar that could kill you in two seconds, would I say they're evil? Not really. They're just kind of doing their thing. But I wouldn't say evil. And I think a lot of times when I ask people, do you think it was a natural animal? I think they take that as was it physical? And every eyewitness I've talked to that has run into this entity or creature, whatever it is, it's always physical. And it seems to really love to

terrify people, seems to get off on causing fear. What it is, I don't know, but people are running into it. And it seems to be very terrifying to run into it. And, you know, I've had a lot of people run into this thing. I had a judge out of Ohio, the guys that run the, from the Shadows podcast, one of the founders of that podcast is that he's a legitimate judge. And he ran into this saying when he was very young out there. And again, what it is, I don't know. But I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share what happened to you. Well, thank you for having me. And, you know, like I said, I have not told many people through the years, obviously being on your show, which I love, by the way. It's incredible. You do an amazing job. You know, a lot of people are going to hear this story now.

But, you know what? I mean, it happened. They're out there, and they're real. It's not fake. I mean, they really exist. And I never would have believed it in a million years, except it happened. And I saw. saw it and it happened right in front of my face. Yeah, I believe you, Matt. And they are out there for sure. I've had way too many people run into them. But thank you again for taking the time. Thank you.

And that's it for tonight, everyone. If you get a chance and you want to come hang out with me and Merkle, go to the shape of shadows.com. If you're in the Portland, Vancouver area, come hang out with me and Tony on Thursday, the 6th. Hope to see you guys there. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com.

And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.