144. The Loveland Frogmen

0:03 Imagine that this line represents the time present 1985 Future Past. Prior to this point in time somewhere in the past the timeline skewed into this tangent, creating an alternate 1985 alternate to you need an Einstein. Reality for? Everyone else. The lovely frog men are one of the darling children of American cryptozoology, and although they seem to be specifically located to one particular geographical area, we can't say for sure that's exactly true.

0:50 Of course, there are other things to look at here. And we're going to do just that. On our very first installment of The Infinite Rabbit Hole presents mini docs Loveland Frogman. In. July of 1955, Robert Honeycutt, A civilian defense volunteer, was driving on a dark and secluded Rd. At 4:00 o'clock in the morning in Loveland, OH, northeast of Cincinnati, when his headlights illuminated a group of three or four small humanoid creatures under the bridge. In his curiosity, Honeycutt pulled over and watched the small bipedal creatures who he claimed only stood 3 feet in height. The oddity stood on 2 legs, had large lipless mouths and very wrinkly skin.

1:37 He must have been watching too long for comfort because one of the creatures looked in his direction and held up a stick or wand of sorts that seemed to be giving off bright blue sparks. He left the scene after the creature seemed upset at his presence and went directly to the Loveland police station, where Police Chief John Fritz reportedly went out to the bridge to investigate. It is unclear as to what he may have seen there, but some of the stories I have found say that he posted an armed patrolman there and some added that the FBI even took an interest in the upcoming hours. 17 years later, on March 3rd 1972, Officer Ray Shockey was driving along the Little Miami River when he thought he had seen a dog on the side of the road. It was cold out and the pavement was icy in spots, so he continued towards the dog slowly. As he got close to it, whatever it was stood up and darted across the road immediately in front of his cruiser. Officer Shockey described the creature as short stature, running on two legs with a.

2:37 Frog like face and leathery skin. He slammed on the brakes and stared the frog as it seemed to be waiting on the Bank of the river for a few seconds before jumping in and disappearing. Shockey claimed to have had plenty of time to look at it as it made its way across the street and over the guardrail. He said it couldn't have weighed more than £75. Two weeks later, patrolman Mark Matthews drove directly up to some sort of creature as it sat directly in the middle of the road. As Matthews stepped out of his car to get a better look, the thing jumped towards and Matthews pulled out his sidearm and fired three shots. It's unclear as to how many shots actually hit the creature, but it was hit for sure. The creature convulsed and fell over into the river.

3:18 The description of the creature that Matthews gave matched that of Shockey's, except that Matthews was 100% certain the thing that he saw had a tail. Both officers were consistently ridiculed for years after the events. Matthews would eventually say in a 1999 interview that the news blew it away out of proportion and that all he saw was a pet lizard, but rumors are that he said this only to stop the harassment that he received for years. Shockey, on the other hand, became very upset, depressed due to the ridicule, and eventually shut down a few years after the incident and refused to talk about the creature ever again. A few months after Matthews's encounter, a high school kid would come forward and claim to also see the same creature.

4:02 The unnamed student claim that the creature was just shy of four feet tall and weighed approximately 150 pounds. Later in the same year, a local farmer claimed to have seen four more of the creatures and described them as also being short. He would elaborate in his report that the creatures had grayish screened skin with large eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth. He only witnessed them for a short period before they ran on two legs over toward the river and disappeared into the brush. In 1999, two more accounts came in, but this time from anonymous witnesses who admitted to heavily drinking. The first was in August and the witness, only known as Steve, was very intoxicated near the old Wendell place near the Little Miami. The man claimed that he was close to passing out in the grass when he witnessed a giant frog.

4:46 A month later. Two friends were surprised while walking along the river at night when they heard a lot of commotion in the water. The only thing that was given in the report was that it was a big green thing. Many reports of this incident also claimed that the two were very intoxicated at the time. On July 4th in 2002, Jew Tillery and a friend were rafting down the Little Miami in an area about 26 miles up river from Loveland when he too reported seeing a big frog looking dude on the Bank of the river. Quote UN quote. By the way, big frog looking dude, Jude was willing to admit that he had been drinking. He was convinced that what he saw was not a hallucination. The most recent event involving the Loveland Frogman took place on August 3rd, 2016, when Sam Jacobs and his unnamed girlfriend were playing Pokémon Go on their phones between Loveland Madeira Road and Lake Isabella, the ABC News affiliate in the area, WCPO reported Quote we saw a huge frog near the water. Soon after they noticed it, Sam stopped playing his game and began taking photos and a video of the creature. Then the giant frog stood up on time legs and walked away. The young man described the creature as standing roughly 4 feet tall and claimed to not know anything about the Frogman legend until the two went back to the girlfriend's house and her mother told them about the mysterious stories of the Loveland Frogman.

6:08 The photo that Sam Jacobs took is being used for the cover of this episode and the video is very dark and highlights 2 large reflective eyes staring back at the cameraman. There are many possibilities of what these frogmen could actually be. The first place to look is in native lore from the tribes of the area. The Shawnee who lived in the area has stories of a creature that they referred to as Shana Hook or. River Demon which was specifically tied to the Little Miami River. Stories tell of attempts to battle such creatures, but the Shawna Hook were completely unfazed by physical weapons. The stories were so well believed and followed that the Shawnee stayed away from the Little Miami River and thought of it as a place that was the home of either a demon or a guardian spirit of nature, but some of the more common thoughts for that this is either a hoax or a case of misidentification. Even if it was of another crypted side note, the movie Revenge of the Creature, which was a direct sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon, was released just two weeks prior to Robert Honeycutts encounter.

7:07 Crypto zoologist Chris Orrick believed that this could have been a misidentification of the Great Gray Owl. Orrick explains that this particular owl is known for having the largest and roundest face of all birds of prey in North America, and this feature alone could have checked a few boxes for what people were reporting with the Loveland Frogman. But in addition to the owl's face, it was also a grayish color and so roughly 3 feet tall. But many have come forward against the possibility as owls have beaks. Not lipless wide mouths and the Great Great Owls Natural habitat is hundreds of miles away from anywhere in Ohio. Now there is one possible urban legend that may be the blame for the Loveland Frogman, and that would be the Melon Heads.

7:51 The melon heads have local stories in various locations throughout the United States, one of which is based just 224 miles northeast of Loveland. OH. It was said that in the early 1900s, an orphanage located in Kirkland, Ohio, had a nasty habit of conducting experiments on unwilling children. Eventually the mutant children would rebel against Doctor Crow and killing, burn down the orphanage and escape into the Ohio countryside where they are said to eat babies and other strange acts. Now we will dive deeper into the melon heads in a later episode, so I don't want to spend too much time on that, but to give you a quick physical description, melon heads are said to look awfully human. As in most cases, they are believed to be human, but they are shorter in stature and have enormous roundheads which give them the moniker Billin.

8:37 It's but yet one more common belief is that the Loveland frogmen are either close relatives to the Japanese Kappa or Kappas themselves. For more information on the Kappa, check out our episode simply titled The Kappa Jake. Did a great job on that. By the way. So travelers, what do you think? What are your opinions on the Loveland frogmen? And do you think they could possibly be something that we discussed it in the latter half of this episode, or possibly even something that we discussed in our previous episode on lizardoids and cryptozoology? I for 1:00 AM always happy to look into and discover all that I can about these great pieces of American lore, and not much can hold a candle to the following love that the Loveland Frogmen have received since their time in the limelight.

9:20 For more on the lovely Frogman, I would highly recommend checking out the annual Frogman Festival, which was held this year in 2023 at the Great Wolf Lodge Conference Center in Mason. OH, go check out frogmanfestival.com For more information. And while you're there, check out the lineup of speakers from 2023. I bet that you've heard of at least one of those people if you've been listening to The Infinite Rabbit Hole for a while. Ashley Hill AKA Ashers joined us on a four part series on our coverage of the injured cold story and from what I hear she did a great job as a public speaker at this event. I would like to thank you all once again for stopping in and checking out the new series, the Infinite Rabbit Hole mini docs where we take some of the smaller stories speckled throughout the world and the unknown and give them the love that they deserve. Until next time travelers, I'll see you in the next bath in the infinite rabbit hole.

10:10 Bye bye. I would like to thank you once again for tuning into the Infinite Rabbit Hole Podcast. Please make sure to give us a follow and one of those beautiful five star ratings on your podcast player of choice. If you would like to join the conversation and stay up to date on all things Infinite Rabbit Hole, head on over to Facebook and search for the Infinite Rabbit Hole Facebook group. You all know it's us when you see the logo if you would like to help contribute to the cause. There are a few ways to do so. First, head on over to anchor dot FM forward slash infinite Rabbit hole and click on the Subscribe button, where for $5 a month you'll get access to all our old episodes that will never see the free spotlight ever again.

10:55 It's horrible stuff, but if you're into that kind of thing and go check that second, head on over to infiniterabbithole.com and click on the IRH Merch Shop tab. And grab yourself a sweet tshirt, sticker or whatever else you see that you wouldn't mind on until next time, travelers, I'm Jeremy and I'll see you at the next fork in the path of the infinite rabbit hole. As the timeline, you into this tangent, creating an alternate. You need Einstein for everyone else.