August 12, 2006

Loveland Frog

The Loveland Frog is one of those strange creatures that pops up occasionally, generally in a specific locale. The creature was supposedly sighted by a police officer in 1972. As you will read below, the police officer apparently stated that the incident had been blown out of proportion and it was not a bipedal frog-like creature, but in fact was a large lizard, less than 3 feet in length.

The Loveland Frog is a creature (frog-like, obviously) that’s been sighted in Loveland, Ohio on multiple occasions. It has the face of a frog and crouches like a frog, but has the ability to stand upright. The sightings are generally of the creature scared and running away, but on at least one occasion, the witness claimed to be have been physically attacked.

The Loveland Frog (AKA the Loveland Lizard) is a bipedal 50 lb. frog-like creature who’s been seen on several occasions in or around Loveland, Ohio. One sighting occurred on March 3rd, 1972, by a police officer. The officer was on duty cruising in his patrol car, when on the side of the road he saw what he first thought to be a dog lying there. Conditions were icy, and to avoid possibly hitting the animal, the officer slowed down and came to a stop.

As he did, the ‘dog’ got up on two legs and sprinted past the front of the patrol car. In the headlights the officer got a decent look. Rather than searching for such a strange creature alone, the policeman left the scene and returned with backup. This time they didn’t see the creature, but did find signs of it leading into a river. The sighting by the officer is described by him as follows:

"The creature was three to four feet tall, 50 to 75 pounds, leathery skin, possibly wet – matted hair on its body that made it look textured, possible tail, a head and face like a frog or lizard, and could leap over the roads’ guard rail."

In 1955, another Ohio man claimed a sighting. He said he was driving along the Miami river, and saw three of the creatures congregated together. He also claimed they had wrinkles on their heads instead of hair, and one was holding a wand-like spark-emitting device. This is the only sighting thus far implying the creatures to be technologically sophisticated.

Source: Heckler Spray: Awesome or Off-Putting

The sighting from 1955 may have been spurred on by the release the previous year of the Universal Studios classic, The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

Everyplace you will read about the Loveland Frog, the famous story is similar in that two credible (unnamed) police officers encountered a large, bipedal frog-like creature near Loveland, Ohio. While preparing the Loveland Frog entry for the X-Project Magazine, numerous "credible" sources were consulted. Despite the detailed and mass circulation of this story, it was brought to my attention as being completely inaccurate and exaggerated.

In an e-mail interview with retired officer Mark Mathews, the second police officer that saw the bizarre creature in March 1972, he states, "There is absolutely nothing to the incident that relates to ‘monsters’ or the ‘paranormal’. This entire thing has been habitually blown out of proportion…".

Mr. Mathews continues with his first-hand account of what he saw:

"It was and is no ‘monster’. It was not leathery or [had] wet matted fur. It was not 3-5 feet tall. It did not stand erect. The animal I saw was obviously some type of lizard that someone had as a pet that either got too large for its aquarium, escaped by accident or they simply got tired of it. It was less than 3 feet in length, ran across the road and was probably blinded by my headlights. It presented no aggressive action."

Mr. Mathews pointed out more discrepancies in this famous story. He shot at the creature, as no one had believed his partner’s sighting a few nights before. Despite being hit, the lizard still escaped and Mathews suspected it either died of the wound or eventually died from the cold weather. The dramatic, commonly described scene of the lizard standing erect and stepping over the guardrail while keeping its watchful eyes on Officer Mathews in fact, never happened.

Mr. Mathews may have explained away the mystery of his strange sighting 29 years ago, but what about the other numerous reports of a strange reptilian creature in the Loveland, Ohio area such as the 25 May 1955, sighting reported by an Ohio man who was driving along the Miami River in Loveland, Ohio? He claimed to have seen three strange bipedal creatures with frog-like features and wrinkles on their heads instead of hair. According to his report, one of the creatures held a device that gave off sparks.

Source: X-Project Paranormal Magazine

For additional information, see the Loveland Frog Project.

Filed under Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoology, Eyewitness Accounts, Lizard People, Out of Place, Pop Culture