A podcast featuring an interview with Russ Egnew and his experiences with Dogmen in Brooklyn, Illinois and Bigfoot in Ohio can be accessed above. Transcript with light editing below.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

All right, this is an interview on 10th of May, 2021. This is Dr. Michael Lorenzen, and I am with…

[Bruce Ackers]

That’s Bruce Akers, and I’m here assisting Dr. Lorenzen and Russell Egnew.

[Russ Egnew]

All right, thanks, Russ. Go right ahead and tell us what you’ve seen. All right, well, it’s a nice summer evening, and a friend of mine was standing outside my camp here talking.

It was just, just, the sun was just starting to go down.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

Like last year?

[Russ Egnew]

Last year. Okay. And it was the middle of summer, and we were just sitting there talking, and something caught his eye, and he asked me what was leaning against the tree over there.

And I looked over, and all I saw was a black shadow at first, but then when it turned and looked at us, it was, it was actually standing bipedal against a tree. It was, it had like a dog face and full hair, and it was huge. It was like seven feet tall.

Okay. Once it saw us, there’s a little ravine back there, and well, once it noticed what, that we noticed it, it dropped down and went down that ravine on all four. And we didn’t, you know, we came in, and I drew a picture of it, and we were telling everybody, I’ve seen a few things in life, but nothing like this.

I mean, it didn’t seem like it wanted to hurt anybody or anything, it was just seeing what we were doing. And a couple nights later, Brandy, the next door neighbor, and I were out here, had a fire going, just sitting out here talking, and we kept hearing whistles, and every time the whistles would move, and we, I was thinking they’re like, like surrounding us or whatever, just seeing what we were doing, but we heard noises back here in December, and it was still a little light out, so we started snapping pictures.

And some of the pictures that we got, when you enlarge the pictures, you can, you can see the faces, there’s two juveniles and a female adult in one picture. And I think the two juveniles are twins, but you can see all the features in the pictures as far as the point of the ears, the short muzzle, the eyes, everything. They’ve come up to the camper, they’ve slammed the camper and ran, they go up to the neighbor’s trailer, and they’ll hear, hear things in the window, and then you’ll hear scratching going down the trailer.

And when you come out, you’ll, Richard’s got pictures of that too, see big scratches down the side of the trailer. Big scratches, like a foot wide, wouldn’t normally be there. Well, it’s, I’m saying probably six, eight inches from the top to bottom of the scratches, but it’s three or four.

[Bruce Ackers]

Yeah. Were they wider than a normal human hand? Yes, yes, yes.

Okay.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

Try to talk one at a time.

[Russ Egnew]

Yeah, sorry. But things like that, and then the dogs, we have, they have dogs over there, and the dogs in the middle of the night will just start going off at the windows and on the other side of the house, back by the bathroom. When you start down the hallway or come outside to see what’s out there, we have seen them, now that window’s eight foot, eight foot tall.

This thing was looking in the bathroom window, and when we saw it, it dropped down on all four, and his tree line behind us, which is probably 35, 40 yards, within a matter of seconds, it was gone. I don’t, I don’t think they’re here to hurt us or anything. I think they’re just curious, like we are, of what they are.

But, I don’t know if you could actually see it, it has dog future sprays. I mean, it has a short muzzle. It’s got pointed ears, and I don’t know, it’s intriguing.

We, we took plaster casts of footprints, Richard, Richard has hair and stuff from other, other things, but we found, I think it was three or four pieces of hair back here. I don’t know if he still has it or not, but, and it was right on the tree, but it was like six and a half, seven foot up. So, we don’t have cows or anything back here that get that high injury.

Hey, there’s a fence back there. But, it seems like the more noise that’s around the house, if we’re outside having bonfires or, or having music going, it seems like that’s when the activity with them starts. It draws, it like draws another curious, I don’t know.

But, Richard has come over and we have walked this area back here, and we saw quite a few tracks. We saw, I mean, perfect living arrangements down, and down there, there’s caves and stuff down there that have been non-explored for years. Nobody ever goes back there.

But, you hear things all the time around here. We have coyotes, but when these, when these things come around, you won’t even, you won’t even hear the coyotes for weeks. I mean, you usually hear them every day.

They’re on like nighttime routine. When these things come around, there’s no coyotes around. You don’t hear them.

So, big dogs run the little dogs off. But, I don’t know, after seeing it, some people call bull crap or say lies or whatever, but I know what I saw. And, the guy that was with me knows what he saw, because we saw the same thing.

And, the neighbors have seen, we’ve got pictures of things looking in windows. Um, I don’t know, it’s just, they don’t seem to be scared of us at all. I mean, I’ve walked out in the grass, the grass was six foot tall.

You can see them, like move, they’ll move around on all fours, and then they’ll stand up, like playing peek-a-boo, like to see where you’re at. And, they always do that for like a half hour, 45 minutes, all night. We’re out here, had a bonfire, and Brandy was sitting right here, and she kept saying, there’s no, and when I turn around, I could, you could see them going down, and then you could see the grass move.

Are you brave enough to go out there and see what it is? Well, no, and none of us are either. But, uh, it’s, yeah, it’s kind of neat, because they, they, they can walk on all four, or walk on two, but they can also run on all four, and they’re, they’re fast.

But, uh, they’re, they’re big. I mean, one male, I think it was a male, that was down here by the end of this trailer over here, he was crouching down, I took a picture of him crouching down, and then when he stood up, he’s, he’s every but seven and a half, eight foot tall, and, um, he’s pretty girthy, I’m saying 370 plus, as far as poundage, he’s big. So, but, like I said, they don’t seem aggressive.

I’ve been out, I’ve been out in this area all hours of the night, up in the dark, and you hear things walking with you. When you stop, they stop. You can feel things just right there with you.

You can hear grunting, like, you know, like, almost like a snort growl. But they’ve never, never attempted to do anything mean or anything. So, I don’t know.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

I think it’s interesting. So, you don’t feel any benevolence from them, or any?

[Russ Egnew]

I don’t. I mean, the girls are scared of them, because, you know, they’re afraid that you’re gonna get in, get the girls and, and the dogs with me. I, like I said, a simple tap or knock on the camper, and that’s about it for me.

I mean, they don’t really mess with me too much. They poke us more over there. But I have, I have seen within 20 feet of the camper, these things standing up in the grass back here, just checking things out.

And it’s always in, well, we, we heard a couple whistles, I think, night before last, but nothing conclusive. It’s usually when it’s really warm and there’s activity. They want to see what’s going on.

Come on down to the camper cookout, I’ll show you.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

Well, you know, I’m happy to come down here during the cookout if you want to invite me. So I, you just let me know. And Bruce know if he, and if he’s available, he might be able to come out and we can join you.

Sounds good.

[Russ Egnew]

My ribs on the grill and I’m looking for something cryptid. But yeah, I mean, until I saw it with my own eyes, like I said, I’ve seen other things in life, but you know, Bigfoot, okay, everybody made a big deal about Bigfoot. Okay, yes, it is a big deal.

When you’ve got dog men, that’s, dude, they look good. For real, they actually look mean as hell, but I don’t think they are. I don’t think they are.

I think you’d have to really agitate one to get it doing that. Like I said, I’ve been back here, Richard has walked within 10 feet of them when they’re laying down. And after he got by him, you hear him get up and run.

And he was like, wow, it’s just right there. It could hurt me, it could kill me, but nothing. They don’t seem too interested in it.

I think they’re just as curious as we are. But they really need to look at though.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

But I don’t know. You mentioned earlier about how you came back one day in the car.

[Russ Egnew]

Yeah, we came back. I think we were fishing, I’m pretty sure we were. And like I said, the bathroom window was like eight foot off the ground.

Well, when we pulled in, there’s a freezer over there. And when we pulled in, I saw something over by the freezer. But when I actually saw what was over there, it turned around and saw us.

And once again, dropped down on all fours and instantly, I mean, they’re fast. But he was standing there on two feet looking in the window. And I said, the bathroom window, eight foot in the air.

There’s nothing out there that stands on for him to be looking in there. It’s just ground. But and Tam’s window in the back, again, eight, eight and a half feet off the ground, nothing to stand on.

And she’s got pictures of something looking right in her window. And her bed’s right below that window. So when she saw the picture, she was, yeah, getting a little nervous.

One, we put a screen and everything else in there. But yeah, she got a little nervous about that. They’re coming up to the house and looking in the window.

But when you see the pictures, if you really look at it, I personally, I don’t think I’d really want to look out my window and see that looking right back at me. You know, I mean, they are big. But I don’t know.

I’m going to find out. I want to find out more. I go out and scout the area all the time, looking for different tracks for hair and stuff.

We have a little pine picket back here. It has a little pond around it. I go back there and look around the pond for tracks.

But I think they’re pretty soon to be coming back. Like I said, it’s usually when it’s warm and things are active. So Richard and I went on a little night hunt back here one night.

This was before he had his thermal and stuff. And we did a couple of knocks and stuff, just trying to get their attention. And as we were getting ready to walk out in the woods, they were whistling in the woods right behind us, almost like Thomas.

Mocking us or whatever. But Richard Turner and I said, yeah, go figure. Right as we’re getting ready to leave, they’re going to, yeah.

But I think they’re smart. But it’s like I said, it was something new to me. And it’s very interesting.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

Okay. Well, Flora, we forget you mentioned earlier, and if you wouldn’t mind, you said you saw the Grassman in Ohio?

[Russ Egnew]

Yes.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

If you’d like to recount that, that’d be good. This would be a good time. Tell us.

[Russ Egnew]

Okay. Well, my fiancee and I at the time had just had a child. And she hadn’t been out to bust loose or anything.

So we decided to go for a night cruise and just, well, we’re driving through the country and we get lost. And I pull into the cemetery, just turn around. And as I pull into the cemetery, something stands up behind a tombstone.

And when I’m looking at this thing, it’s only about four and a half foot tall, five foot tall. But it’s solid hair. I mean, long hair.

It’s like brown, black, and kind of a yellowish. But the eyes really stood out. It had big eyes and girthy legs.

I mean, fat legs for a small boy. But when it stood up, when I pulled in, it took off running from behind the tombstone over to a tree. And I looked at my girl and I said, did you see that?

She goes, yeah, actually I did. Get the hell out of here. She goes, because where there’s a baby, there’s a mama.

But we never went back. We probably couldn’t find that spot again anyway. Where was that at in Ohio?

It was over by Steubenville. There’s a little, like a subsidiary addition right down the road called Pottery Addition. And it’s right down by Pottery Addition on the back roads out there.

But, yeah, it’s back roads. When we pulled up there, I mean, he just, like we surprised him, he stood up and just stared right at us. We both got, we were probably 25 or 30 feet from him.

I was just like, you see this? She’s like, yes, I did get out of here. So we left.

We went home and told a friend. He’ll never believe what just happened to us. She’s like, what’s that?

I think we saw a baby before that. She’s like, what bar did you stop at? We were still sober.

We hadn’t drank nothing. I said, we’re nothing. I said, we both saw it.

And she may have found us for a little bit. Then other people around Pottery Addition had said that they had seen things too. So she started kind of moving a little bit or whatever.

But I know what I saw and the eyes were what really captured my attention. And just, they’re big. And this thing was, it kind of looked like a cousin.

It was shorter hair, but fast. And the color, the color, hair color was really cool though. Because it seemed like the outer shell of the body, the arms and legs was darker.

The chest, a little lighter. And around the face was more of a, like blondish yellow was around the eyes and ears and stuff. But once he saw us, he didn’t take any time.

Taking off. He’s gone.

[Bruce Ackers]

Good yet. You drew a picture of what you saw with the dog, man. Have you ever thought about drawing a picture of what you saw in Ohio?

[Russ Egnew]

I probably could.

[Bruce Ackers]

That’d be interesting. Just your personal. I probably could.

[Russ Egnew]

Like I said, the hair on the arms. I mean, for a little guy who’s there, he’s like, oh, that’s all I can say. I mean, armpit hair probably this long, you know, for being four foot tall is.

But I don’t know, it’s another unique experience. Things that you don’t forget that kind of stick with you, you know. And actually, I’m not going to lie.

When I saw that in Ohio, that’s what actually got me interested in Bigfoot stuff and Yeti and all that. You know, I dig into it a little bit, just try to get a little scoop on it. But when you pull into something and actually see one, it puts all that paperwork and everything that you’ve read.

It puts it to shame because it really ain’t real life. What people say and pictures you see, some of the pictures are close to what I saw, but I’ve never seen a picture identical to what I saw.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

It’s no longer a question of whether or not it’s true. You know, you know it now. Oh, yeah.

So just a question, if you don’t mind, what’s your age? I’m 51. OK.

A lot of times when you record an interview, like in the paper and stuff, it always says the age, so I thought I’d put that in there. 51. OK, before I turn her off the thing, is there anything else you’d like to tell us about this?

[Russ Egnew]

I said y’all just gotta come down for a cookout. All right. Experience it, man.

For real.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

OK, I’ll tell you what.

[Russ Egnew]

We’ll get Richard down here and we’ll all just, yeah. You got it. I’m telling you, you’d love it.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

OK, I’ll tell you what. Bruce and I will come out here if we can, and I’ll even bring one or both of my sons.

[Russ Egnew]

Yeah, really warm welcome.

[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]

All right, so I’m going to go ahead and conclude this, and thank you very much, Russ.

[Russ Egnew]

Yes, sir. Thank you.