A podcast interview with Donald Jackson and Maya Harper and their experiences with dogmen or werewolves in Brooklyn, Illinois can be accessed below. Interview conducted by faculty and staff of Archives and Special Collections at Western Illinois University. Dr. Michael Lorenzen is the University Archivist and a professor. Bruce Ackers is a Senior Library Associate. Transcript with light editing below. The video is embedded above.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
This is Dr. Michael Lorenzen, Western Illinois University Archives. This is the 17th of October, 2021. With me today is…
[Bruce Ackers]
Bruce Akers, and I’m here from Archives II assisting Dr. Lorenzen.
[Donald Jackson]
And I’m Donald Jackson, and I’ve seen dog manger look like werewolves. Every night…
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
How old?
[Donald Jackson]
I’m 60 years old. And they’re always hanging out in the corners over here. Every time I come out to bring the dogs out, I guess the dogs scare them away or something.
But they’re here, and they’re real. And… I don’t know what else to say.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Well, can you kind of describe the interactions?
[Donald Jackson]
Well, they’re about six foot tall, and they got real black hair.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
So, when was the first time you noticed them?
[Donald Jackson]
When I was sitting outside by myself one night. I had the dogs out, and they was looking off over here. And there was barking up a storm.
So I got up and started investigating, and about that time they just took off running.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Now how many times has this happened? How many times have you encountered?
[Donald Jackson]
Practically every other night. For how long? For several days, weeks.
So weeks? Yeah. So this was recently the last couple weeks?
Yeah, yeah. And they ain’t no fun to look at, I’m telling you that. They’re kind of scary looking.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
What exactly do they do?
[Donald Jackson]
Just whistle, communicate back and forth with one another, and that’s about it.
[Bruce Ackers]
Okay. Can you imitate the whistle sound? No, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t.
[Donald Jackson]
It’s just a weird, it’s a weird whistle. Real weird, weird. Something I ain’t never heard before.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
What time of day is it at night?
[Donald Jackson]
It’s usually probably about one, two, three o’clock in the morning. That’s when they all come out. The weather’s clear?
The weather’s clear. Like a full moon. Like when werewolves usually come out on a full moon.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
But you said it was over several weeks, so it wasn’t a full moon, though.
[Donald Jackson]
No, uh-uh. It was a blood moon. One night, it was a blood moon.
[Bruce Ackers]
So is it usually a clear night? It’s usually a clear night, yeah. Because last night, even though it wasn’t a full moon, boy, you could just see.
[Donald Jackson]
Well, when you look over in that corner, you really can’t see nothing until you shine a flashlight. All you see is eyes just glowing.
[Bruce Ackers]
Any certain color from the eyes and the flashlight? No.
[Donald Jackson]
I can’t hardly do a tell with their eyes, because I can barely see myself.
[Bruce Ackers]
Okay.
[Donald Jackson]
But they’re there, and they’re real.
(Donald wanted to add a bit more.)
[Bruce Ackers]
Sometimes you don’t. You think you’ve seen them like over a dozen different times?
[Donald Jackson]
Yeah, a dozen different times. Other than that, they usually don’t show up.
[Michael Lorenzen]
Say again about how they look at you?
[Donald Jackson]
No, I really can’t tell how they look at you.
[Michael Lorenzen]
You said they were standing over?
[Donald Jackson]
Yeah, they stand up on a tree, their arms cocked up like they’re curious of what’s going on around here. For real. I don’t really know.
[Bruce Ackers]
Do you think there’s a reason they’re attracted to this particular location?
[Donald Jackson]
More than likely. More than likely. Some of us attract them here.
I just can’t figure that out. Do you think it’s anything that you guys do that… amazes them?
Bring them? Amazing. Cookouts?
They’re doing campfires?
[Bruce Ackers]
Yeah, we do campfires.
[Donald Jackson]
Maybe they’re amazed with the campfires. Maybe they wanted to come out and join.
[Bruce Ackers]
Maybe like the dogs, if you’re cooking out, they want to come hang out and get some free food.
[Donald Jackson]
Yeah, that could be. Could be. But it’s an experience I never want to experience again.
It’s scary, especially when you can’t come out at night. Yeah, he does all night. He’ll stand out here all night long.
[Michael Lorenzen]
And Don is talking about Russ, who’s standing next to him.
[Donald Jackson]
Sorry guys, I just kind of buttered in there. You’re good.
[Michael Lorenzen]
Okay, anything else? I can’t think of anything.
[Donald Jackson]
I can’t even know.
[Michael Lorenzen]
Okay, well thank you.
#Interview Two
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Hi, this is Dr. Michael Lorenzen from WIU archives and I’m with Bruce Akers.
[Bruce Ackers] And I work with Dr. Lorenzen in archives.
[Maya Harper]
And my name is Maya Harper and I’m 24 years old. All right, go ahead and tell us what you’ve been experiencing.Well, I was having to be sitting in my room one day. It’s like really dark, it’s late at night and I’m hearing rustling around the trailer at first, just like something moving around and then out of nowhere this side of the freaking trailer gets rocked and the back of the trailer gets pushed. So I’m like I’m back there on my bed.
So it’s just like it’s mom and them’s up front in the living room, come out of the room like really historic, asking mom to go check out the house because something that rocked the back of the trailer scared me a little bit because I’m like I’m not used to this and I only been down here for like about six or seven months now and I’m not used to that ever happening. Just it scared me. Weirdest thing out here and then there’s been a couple times where I’ve actually been out here and seen silhouettes of them along the trees here.
They’re freaking huge and unbelievable looking.
It was like this is the silhouette shadow of them and their eyes like glowing like yellow. Me and my mom was pulling in from the hospital. Her headlights hit the back there and all I seen was glowing yellow eyes.
Sometimes there’s days where you catch their eyes glowing red. They’re just they don’t ever mess with us.
[Maya Harper]
I mean and the dogs considering like when the dogs are out here and they know they’re out here the dogs won’t go to a certain extent around the yard or off the yard. They’re amazing but they’re creepy. That’s it.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Okay. I can’t think of any. Okay.
Thank you.
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