DogMan @ Youngstown Steel Mill

Content WarningThis episode contains detailed accounts of a cryptid encounter, graphic animal violence, psychological trauma, suicide, substance abuse, and the socioeconomic collapse of the Rust Belt. Listener discretion is strongly advised.Episode SummaryIn the summer of 1987, four teenage boys snuck into the abandoned Youngstown Sheet & Tube Campbell Works in Youngstown, Ohio, just ten years after “Black Monday” killed the city’s steel industry. What started as another night hanging out by a pallet fire in their secret “den” turned into a life-altering encounter with something that should not exist: an 8–9 ft bipedal canine creature with glowing amber eyes, unnatural strength, and reality-bending properties.Over 38 years later, primary witness Matthew “Matt” McH (Planet 412) still carries the trauma, two of the four boys are dead long before their time, and the city that once threatened to “ruin” them if they talked has mostly demolished the site… but the massive coke piles where the creature first appeared are still there, just buried under grass.We walk through the minute-by-minute timeline, the police cover-up, the priest who called it a “real manifestation,” the dead dogs, the “glitching” paw, the train horn that saved their lives, and every major theory: classic Dogman cryptid, demonic entity, interdimensional intruder, or hoax. Spoiler: hoax doesn’t survive contact with the evidence.Resources & SupportIf this episode was heavy for you, please reach out:USA: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988)Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741Trevor Project (LGBTQ+): 1-866-488-7386Find a therapist: PsychologyToday.comPrimary Sources & ReferencesMatthew McH – 2022 full interview on “What Lurks Beneath” (Planet 412 Network)Planet412.com – Matt’s written accounts (2005–2025)Youngstown PD FOIA logs (1985–1987) – redacted reports of “large animal” sightings at Campbell WorksThe Vindicator, June 20, 1987 – “Animal Control Investigates Mill Dog Pack Deaths”Dogman Encounters Radio archives – comparative Ohio casesFortean Times #64 (1992) – North American bipedal canine surveyOhio Bureau of Vital Statistics (1995, 1998) – redacted mortality records of two witnessesUSGS topographic maps (1987) – Campbell Works layout & coke pile locationsOhio EPA (2005) – Campbell Works demolition reportStatement relayed from Father Thomas (Youngstown Catholic Diocese, 1987)Scott, R. (2024) “The Ruins of Steel” – social history of post-Black Monday YoungstownConnect With UsEmail your own encounters or theories → [email protected]/Twitter → @EchosPoddCastInstagram → @echoesofthepastpod#dogman #Cryptids #truestory© B.Moreno 2025 Echos of the Past. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use prohibited.