As this world we live in becomes more and more inhabited. We seem to hold on to the hope that not all of the mystery in the world is lost. (I will get my chance to wear the sorting hat! *Hufflepuff! *).
One of the last places on earth to hold many undiscovered secrets is also the most terrifying. You wouldn’t catch me anywhere near it, “The Ocean”. I have an immense fear of drowning, and a crippling fear of being devoured by a megalodon, or Colossal Squid. And there is the fact that every article I have ever read has led me to believe that the Angler Fish is the size of a football and kinda cute in a “face only a mother could love” kinda way.
The reality after doing my research on the Angler Fish is that this thing is the size of a small car and could swallow a toddler whole! Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but these things grow to be over 3 feet long, which is bigger than my Frenchie and that is just too big for me not to be terrified of the ocean.
Oceanic monstrosities, and crippling fear of deep water aside. The discussion for today takes place near the water, the little Miami River, near Loveland Ohio to be exact. (Fun Fact! Loveland is three and a half hours away from Cleveland Ohio, Birthplace of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony). I digress, and probably not for the last time so, bear with me.
In May 1955, a traveling salesman was driving on an isolated stretch of road near “Loveland Ohio”. Yes, this story and all its bits and pieces will, mostly, be generic, vague, and unoriginal as f*ck. (It gets better). As the unnamed salesman drove, he noticed what seemed to be three people huddled on the side of the road.
This is where accounts vary, as they do when telling stories of the past-o times. One account says three figures, and another says four. One account says they were on a bridge, and the next says they were under a bridge. If you’re anything like me, I didn’t pay attention to the year and thought the salesman was walking and not driving. Regardless, this is where I will write the story to my liking, so follow along. The man, a salesman of unknown wares, (some said bibles) was driving down the road, going slightly over the speed limit in a hurry to get to his destination. Up ahead of him, he took notice of a threesome of what appeared to be humans walking across the road and disappearing into the grass in the ditch. Wondering if maybe they needed help, or they had been stranded or lost, he stopped to investigate. He got out and walked toward the beings. When they finally came into view, he froze, watching in disbelief.
The creatures were about 3-4 feet tall, bipedal frogs. Leathery skin, wrinkly heads, big eyes and frog faces! The Frogmen stood huddled together and whispering to each other. The salesman couldn’t believe what he was seeing. As he stood there watching the trio, one of the Frogman noticed the salesman. In an instant, the Frogman produced what could only be described as a wand! With a clear and almost rehearsed tone, the Frogman said, “The boy who lived, come to die!”, the frogman then waved his wand, which produced sparks!
Okay, maybe part of that was from Harry Potter, but seriously, how can you not picture Harry Potter when you read about humanoid frog people waving wands around like a sparkler?
So, the Frogman noticed the salesman (I should have given him a name, oh well) and instantly started waving his wand which produced sparks. When the nameless salesman saw the spark-producing wand, he ran. He got back in his car and drove the f*ck on. The salesman told his story and even gave a very crappy drawing that looks like three guys with beer bellies and spiral wrinkles (I think) on their heads.
And that children is the first sighting of the Loveland Frogmen. Could it be a coincidence that they witnessed these frog people a year after the release of the 1954 movie Creature from the Black Lagoon? Although the Creature from the Black Lagoon didn’t have a wand and never quoted a movie that wasn’t released yet, so who knows?
The next time that the Loveland Frogmen would be seen would be in the summer of ’72, except it was 1 A.M. on March 3rd (winter). Officer Ray Shockey was driving near the Ohio River, near the Totes boot factory, on Riverside Road. When he caught sight of something on the road in his headlights. He described it similarly to what the traveling, possibly bible, salesman had seen. Amphibious, bipedal, three- to four-foot-tall frog-like-creature. For a moment, Shockey froze in shock, and the frog creature took this opportunity to run and bolt over the guardrail. Shockey claims the creature left marks on the guardrail where it had jumped over.
No one seemed to believe Shockey’s story about his encounter with the Frogman. (Probably because you know *Glug, glug*. Nah, I’m kidding, but he embezzled money from the police station, still kidding. Gawd, this encounter isn’t exactly as great as the first one, I mean come on the first one had WANDS!) So the Frogman got away and Shockey could not plant any drugs or weapons on him, and blame it on the intercity gangs. (Okay look, I warned you I would digress in this story.)
The Loveland Frogman is an awesome cryptid, (but its downfall is the crappy sighting stories.) Long, cool, exaggerated 70s action movie story short, Shockey saw the Loveland Frog creature on Riverside Road and it jumped the guardrail before he could do anything cool. I mean, at least the Flatwoods Monster has a fireball crashing outta the sky, and a robot! I apologize, my dear readers, but the wand will not make an appearance again.
Two weeks later, during the summer-winter of ’72 on March 14th at around 1 A.M. It’s like déjà vu. Officer Mark Matthews, while driving the same stretch of road as Officer Shockey, would have his own encounter with the Frogman. Officer Matthews would stop on the bridge to remove what he thought was road kill from the road. When he neared, the said road kill (I prefer to call it pavement patties but to each his own), Matthews would quickly find out that this was no road kill. What Officer Matthews saw was a bipedal, 4-foot-tall Frogman. When the Frogman jumped to its feet, Matthew drew his revolver and shot at the creature. The Frogman ran, never taking his eyes off the trigger-happy officer. Instead of jumping the guardrail, the creature slid under it.
But, not in a cool way that a 70s action hero would slide under a closing bay door, while his suit never comes untucked or gets ruined, despite all the blood, broken glass, and gunshot. Also, isn’t the ’70s when every bad guy was Russian or some sh*t? On that topic, is Die Hard a Christmas movie? And why were there two agents with the same last name that were unrelated to each other? Rant over, back to Frogman!
And once again, this is where the story gets wishy-washy. One account says Matthews killed the creature and put it in the trunk of his car, (did you know British people call the trunk, “the boot”, crumpets amirite?). The other one says that the creature got away. Either way, what are the chances that it would be seen and corroborated within the same month? (And if Matthews killed the creature, why were no photos taken of the Frogman? What happened to its body? Who really won the cola wars?) We may never know.
It would be 44 years before the next sighting of the Loveland Frogman. I wonder how long Frogman live? Either way, a mobile phone game would be the catalyst for this sighting. And what game would that be? I thought you would never ask!
Pokémon Go! The mobile game led to people finally going outside and exploring, which led to the discovery of countless dead bodies! (On some real sh*t, look it up, it happened). Pokémon Go would also be the reason that a nerd named Sam Jacobs and his “girlfriend” would have a sighting of the Loveland Frogman. In mid-August 2016, two months after the release of Pokémon Go and the rise in sales of portable phone batteries. Jacobs and his girlfriend would be out, ignoring each other, but also not. Trying to catch them all. They would come to the edge of the water, where a creature resembling a large frog would watch them. When Jacobs looked up for a moment, he would see it! The Frogman stared at him from out of the water. After attempting to use some berries and throwing a few Pokéball at it, Jacobs would realize quickly that it wasn’t a Pokémon! It was a cryptid!
Jacobs took a few pictures and videos of the creature. “I’m not sure whether it was a frogman or just a giant frog. Either way, I’ve never seen anything like it.” Jacobs said in an interview. Jacobs worried people wouldn’t believe his story, luckily he wouldn’t say anything stupid to discredit himself. Jacobs instead said. “I swear on my grandmother’s grave that this is the truth.”
Now, remember Mark? Mark Matthews? Yes, the cop that shot the Loveland Frog creature. Well, Mark Matthews, now retired, would come out a few days later claiming that what they saw in ’72 was nothing more than an iguana with its tail cut off and that they had never actually seen a Frogman. That what they (Matthews and Shockey) saw was nothing more than someone’s pet who had escaped or been abandoned because it got too big. Matthews reasoned that the cold-blooded reptile was probably spotted on Riverside Road because of the Totes Boot Factory and the heat that came out of its vents nearby. The iguana was probably using the heat to survive. Matthews would go on to say that he does not believe in the Loveland Frogman or even Bigfoot! That it is all a hoax.
There you have it, dear readers. The story of the Loveland Frogmen. Whether or not they exist, the one thing to remember is that when you live in the country and you go out at night in the summer, the sound of bullfrogs is terrifying, if you don’t know what you’re hearing. It sounds like murmurs with the occasional “hey” being interjected in there, loudly. It’s unsettling.
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