Ohio Bigfoot: 1930?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 15th, 2010
Sandusky Journal
Sandusky, Ohio
July 3, 1930
Toledo Woman Frightened
By Ape in Front of Home
Mysterious Animal Appears at Midnight; Man Also Sees
Invader As It Leaps Over Fence.
TOLEDO, July 3 – Northwestern Ohio’s hairy ape that has been terrorizing men and women for several weeks, appeared Tuesday [July 1] at midnight in front of the home of James McClintock, 269 Steel-st.
Grimacing and gesticulating, the animal darted toward Mrs. McClintock and then, apparently changing its mind, sprinted into the back yard where the housewife’s father, Chris Nedeff, was putting his car in the garage.
Nedeff said the ape gibbered angrily, stood upright, and leaped over a fence. The bright rays of the moon illuminated its flight.
Mrs. McClintock who was the first to see the fugitive mistook it for a brown hound until it stood up straight. She was about to walk to a neighbor’s house to call for her mother who was visiting there.
Lieut. Robert Ansell of the East Side station detailed Jack Weed, motorcycle policeman, to search the Steel-st. district.
Thanks to Jerome Clark.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
That its default position, as described, seems to be on all fours, I have to wonder about the Bigfoot hypothesis. It seems, given this behavior and that the paper terms it an ‘ape’, that the witnesses understood exactly what they were describing. Sadly, escaped monkeys and apes aren’t anything new. Moreover, nothing spectacular is ascribed to the animal (size, bipedalism, etc…) nor is there to be found any hyperbole or florid language in this report.
I know it was 80 years ago, but the Google map shows a heavily populated area. Funny how there should have been more sightings around in that area.
I agree with eireman; “stood upright” might imply it was generally on all-fours.