This vague encounter, retold in the book “Monsters of the Midwest: True Tales of Bigfoot, Werewolves & Other Legendary Creatures” by Natalie Fowler and Jessica Freeburg, is the first documented sighting of Southwestern Ohio cryptid legend known as the Loveland Frog, or the Loveland Frogman.
But for nearly two decades, the 1955 Loveland Frogman sighting remained the sole encounter with the creature. That is until 1972, when a cluster of encounters by law enforcement submitted the legend into local folklore. An officer involved in one of the sightings allegedly caught a crouching “leathery” creature in his headlights before it scurried off into the woods.
Decades later, after scattered and minor hysteria throughout Loveland, Jeff Craig, a cartographer and creator of paranormal maps, founded and organized the first official Frogman Festival in 2023. The festival, which attracts thousands each year, celebrates the legend of the Frogman, as well as other strange and unusual phenomena in the region: Mothman, Grassman, aliens and more.
The third annual Frogman Festival is March 1-2 at the Oasis Conference Center in Loveland.
All costumes — from the cryptid world to cosplay, renaissance to steampunk — are encouraged.
More than 50 vendors will be selling art, crafts and cryptid-themed merchandise in the large ballroom. Speakers will be presenting their research in a separate room, focusing on the paranormal, the metaphysical and the extraterrestrial. This year’s speakers include Bigfoot researcher Mike Miller, Fortean investigator Ashley Hilt, podcaster Erica Fett, author Weird Willis and founder of the Mothman Festival/Mothman Museum, Jeff Wamsley.
Around noon at the Frogman Festival, the Pied Piper of Loveland, a “mysterious bagpiper,” will lead a parade of participants around the event, frog costumes or no. Guests can wander the Oasis to find circus sideshows, food and drinks, as well as music, dancers, palm readers, tarot readers and the Wump Mucket Puppets.
Shortly after entering the lexicon of Ohio folklore, the Loveland Frog attracted its share of believers and skeptics. Some speculated that the dark green, scaly skinned humanoid was actually a misunderstood otter or a woodchuck. Others believed the sightings to be extraterrestrial.
According to the book “Unnatural Ohio,” authors M. Kristina Smith and Kevin Moore point out that the 1950s and 1960s has been dubbed by some ufologists as the “Golden Age of Flying Saucers.” There were frequent reported sightings of lights and metallic crafts in the sky at the time, with several people across the country reporting sightings of “little men” associated with the phenomena.
In fact, the reportage of the initial sightings—in the Cincinnati Post and Times and Dayton Journal Herald—made no mention of an amphibious creature at all; the supposed extraterrestrial visitations were later appropriated as the Loveland Frog legend, repurposed through amateur sketches and tales of lizards, frogs and sparking wands told along the way.
So what cryptozoologists refer to as the Loveland Frog may have been a result of UFO (or UAP) revisionism.
After a reported Frogman sighting in 2016, the officer involved in the 1972 incident said that the creature he saw was actually just a large iguana missing a tail. And it was also dead.
But however the Frogman is categorized—a cryptid, an ET, a little man or a deceased tailless iguana—the legend has been embraced by Loveland, Ohio, officially becoming the city’s mascot in 2023.
Along with an official festival dedicated to the amphibious, extraterrestrial, three or four foot tall humanoid, the Loveland Frogman is a frequent visitor at other regional cryptid celebrations, too. It is also the inspiration for the bluegrass musical, “Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog!”
Brandon Berry writes about the Dayton and Southwest Ohio music and art scene. Have a story idea for him? Email branberry100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
What: The Official Frogman Festival
When: 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., March 1-2
Where: Oasis Conference Center, 902 Loveland-Miamiville Road, Loveland
Tickets: https://frogmanfestival.org
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