An Incident at the Old Steel Mills in Youngstown

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."