Latest / Cryptid Files / The Loveland Frogmen: Ohio’s Upright Frog Creatures

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The Loveland Frogmen: Ohio’s Upright Frog Creatures · Cryptid Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: At about 4 o'clock in the morning, Robert Honeycutt arrived
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: at the home of Loveland police chief John K. Fritz
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: with a report that would eventually become part of the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Loveland frogman legend. Honeycutt said he had seen three short
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: gray frog-faced figures beside Madeira Loveland Pike near Branch Hill,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: close to the Little Miami River Corridor in Ohio. Fritz
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: later said he took a camera and a gun, drove
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to the location, and found nothing unusual. That first failed
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: search leaves the central question intact. Did Honeycutt see an
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: unknown animal? Or did a startling roadside encounter begin a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: story that later changed shape? The modern image of the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Loveland Frogman is usually simple. A creature about three or
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: four feet tall. A frog-like or lizard-like face. A body
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: that appears able to stand upright. It is usually placed
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: near Loveland, Ohio, and the Little Miami River. but no
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: authenticated specimen, tissue sample, track cast, or diagnostic photograph has
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: established such an animal. The record begins instead with people
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: who said they saw something unusual, and with the efforts
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of other people to check those claims. Honeycutt's own account
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: was not preserved in a police report located in the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: surviving material. It appears in notes later published by investigator
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Ted Blocher, who interviewed Honeycutt in September of 1956. By then,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: About sixteen months had passed since the reported encounter. Hunnicutt
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: said he had been driving near Branch Hill in the
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: early morning when his headlights picked out three forms by
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the roadside. At first he thought they were people kneeling.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: He stopped to look more closely. In his later account,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the forms seemed short and gray. He described faces that
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: he considered frog-like. One figure appeared to hold an indistinct
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: object or implement. Hunnicutt said he saw intermittent sparks near
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: its raised hands. Those details belong specifically to Hunnicutt's story.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: The sparks were not reported by the Loveland patrolmen in 1972.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: They were not part of the separate bridge account that
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: would also become attached to the frogman name. And Hunnicutt
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: did not say he saw a UFO. A newspaper item
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: concerning reported aerial objects from the same general period was
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: later used to help reconstruct a possible date for his encounter.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: but it does not connect the aerial report to the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: roadside figures. According to Honeycutt, he left the roadside and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: went directly to Chief Fritz's home. Fritz later confirmed that
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Honeycutt came to him with an unusual story and indicated
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: where the sighting had occurred. Fritz said he took a
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: camera and a gun and made several passes through the area.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: The chief found no figures, no object, and no unusual
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: trace that he described to Blucher. No encounter photograph from
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that search has been located. That does not establish that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Honeycutt invented the report. A sincere witness can observe something
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: real and still misunderstand what it was, especially at night,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: from a vehicle, and in a brief encounter. But Fritz's
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: search is important because it was the nearest documented attempt
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to verify the claim. The immediate result was not proof
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: of a creature. It was an empty stretch of roadside.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: The proposed date for Honeycutt's sighting also needs care. Blocher
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: linked the account to the night of May 24 into
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: May 25, 1955, using a June Loveland Herald item about
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: reports from the local Ground Observer Corps. The newspaper item
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: supported the existence of an aerial object report on May 24.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: It did not independently document Honeycutt's roadside figures. Fritz and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Honeycutt initially remembered the event as occurring in March or April.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Blucher's May 25 date is a reasoned reconstruction, not a
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: date verified by a police dispatch, patrol log, or contemporary
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: honeycutt report. The distinction may seem small, but it matters
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: because the Loveland story has often been told as if
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: every strange claim from one night involved the same witnesses
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and the same creatures. The surviving interviews point in another direction.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: There was a second 1955 report. It concerned four figures,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: not three. It took place near a bridge over the
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Little Miami River, not on the Branch Hill roadside described
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: by Honeycutt. And the witness was not Honeycutt. A September
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: 1955 newsletter published by UFO researcher Leonard Stringfield described a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: report of four small men beneath a bridge near Loveland.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: The newsletter identified the witness as a prominent businessman. That
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: version traveled widely enough to become part of the Frogman
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: origin story. But when Blucher and Stringfield returned to the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: matter in 1956, they found that the businessman description was wrong.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: On August 26, 1956, Blucher and Stringfield spoke with Frank Whitecotton,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: a regional civil defense coordinator connected to the Loveland Ground
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Observer Corps. Whitecotton said the bridge witness was a young
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: civil defense auxiliary patrolman, 19 years old in 1955. In
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Blucher's later account, The young man is identified only as C.F.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Whitecotton had not personally seen the figures. He relayed information
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: about the report and directed the investigators toward Chief Fritz.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Whitecotton also described a possible police response around the bridge,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: including an alleged cordon. Fritz later said he knew nothing
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: about such an operation. Neither account can resolve the contradiction
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: on its own, and no official record establishing a cordon
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: has been located. Fritz introduced Blocher to C.F. on August 31, 1956.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: The meeting did not produce a full dramatic account. It
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: produced a limited statement from a reluctant witness. C.F. said
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: he had seen four small, roughly human-looking figures beneath a bridge.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: The observation, as he described it, had been brief, perhaps
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: around ten seconds. He said he had reported it to
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: police headquarters, but he declined to provide the kind of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: detailed interview that later retellings often imply existed. The investigators
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: showed him drawings connected to another case. CF said the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: figures he had seen did not resemble those images. That
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: response is significant. It shows that the bridge witness did
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: not endorse an already prepared image of a known creature type.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: His account remained narrow. Four small figures, seen briefly. under
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a bridge. C.F. also told Blucher that he had experienced
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: ridicule after his report and that it affected his role
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: in civil defense. Fritz offered a different account of why
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the young man left that work. The surviving record preserves
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: both statements, but it does not settle the private circumstances
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: behind them. The bridge case was thinly documented from the start.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: There is no located creature photograph, no physical trace, no
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: known preserved police report, no identified animal. The September newsletter
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: proves that the claim circulated in 1955. CF's later statement
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: supports that he continued to say he had seen something.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Neither source establishes the identity of the figures. The investigators
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: then turned back to the separate Branch Hill account. On
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: September 1, 1956, Blocher and Stringfield interviewed Robert Honeycutt in Cincinnati.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: The interview lasted more than an hour. A drawing was
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: made under Honeycutt's guidance, preserving the appearance he said he
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: remembered from the roadside. This is where many of the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: familiar frogman details enter the record. Three figures rather than four,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: a roadside rather than a bridge, gray bodies, unusual faces,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and the reported sparks near one figure's hands. The drawing
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: is evidence of Honeycutt's description. It is not a photograph
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of the figures. It cannot establish whether the features he
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: recalled belonged to an animal, people, a visual misperception, or
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: something else. Yet it does establish an important historical fact.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: The frog-like face associated with the 1955 legend came from
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Honeycutt's distinct three-figure report, not from CF's limited bridge account.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: By the time Blocher published his work in 1978, the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: two stories had already begun to merge in public memory.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: A businessman under a bridge became a familiar version, even
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: though the published investigation separated the young bridge witness from Honeycutt,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: who was a restaurant worker and later a Cincinnati maitre d'.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: The legend now had two early foundations, but neither produced
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: a body, a track, a clear photograph, or a reliable
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: chain of physical evidence. Seventeen years later, Loveland received a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: different kind of report. This time, the claimed witnesses were
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: police officers. The patrolman's sightings are often dated to March 3, 1972,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: but an April 19 article in the Western Star placed
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Ray Shockey's first sighting on February 3 at about 1.15
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: in the morning. Mark Matthews, speaking decades later, placed Shockey's
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: call in March. The inspected records do not resolve the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: date conflict. The careful conclusion is that Shockey's sighting occurred
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in early 1972, while the exact day remains disputed. According
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to contemporary newspaper reporting, Shockey was on Riverside Drive near
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the Little Miami River when he reported seeing a large,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: frog-like animal near the road. The newspapers gave the public
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a creature that sounded more animal-like than the figures of 1955.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: but still strange enough to fit the developing legend. The
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: reports described an animal roughly three feet tall, with a
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: frog-like appearance. Later retellings added many vivid details— exact posture, webbed extremities, guardrails,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and dramatic movements. Some may have appeared in individual newspaper descriptions,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: others accumulated over time. Without a located incident report or
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a preserved direct interview with Shockey, the full sequence cannot
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: be reconstructed safely beyond the broad claim that he reported
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: an unfamiliar animal near the river corridor. The story drew
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: in another patrolman, Mark Matthews. The April 1972 Western Star
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: article said Matthews encountered an animal in the same general
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: area during the week of February 10. The paper reported
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that the animal came toward him. Matthews fired four shots.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: According to the newspaper, the animal entered the river. That
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: report gave the Loveland creature a major new element. A
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: police officer had allegedly fired at it, yet no body
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: had been recovered or documented. The newspaper printed a photograph
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: of the roadside location. It also printed an artist's conception
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: of the creature based on the officer's accounts. The illustration
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: became one of the most widely repeated images associated with
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: the frogman. But the distinction is essential. The roadside photograph
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: showed a location. The illustration showed an artist's interpretation of
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: a description. Neither image showed the animal. The article also
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: referred to local monster rumors. Those rumors were not evidence
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: that a creature had been confirmed. They show how quickly
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the officers' reports moved into local folklore. A claimed sighting
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: can become a public event even when the animal itself
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: remains unidentified. At the center of the 1972 story stood
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a missing animal. If the Western Star's account is correct,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Matthews fired at an animal and watched it enter the river.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: If the animal survived, it may simply have escaped. If
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: it died or was injured, No remains from the incident
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: have been located. The article does not provide a specimen record,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: a photograph of a body, or a laboratory identification. That
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: absence does not prove that the animal was unknown. It
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: also does not prove that evidence was removed or concealed.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: The surviving record offers no support for such a claim.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: It leaves a simpler problem. Whatever Matthews saw, the physical
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: object needed to resolve the account is no longer available.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: For decades, the patrolman's reports strengthened the public image of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the Loveland Frogman. Police officers were attached to the story.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: A newspaper had named them. A drawing gave the creature
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a face. The Little Miami River supplied a recognizable setting.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Separate reports from 1955 were increasingly folded into the same narrative. Then,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: in August 2016, a new claimed sighting carried the old
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: legend back into local newsrooms. Sam Jacobs said he was
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: near Lake Isabella with his girlfriend while they were playing
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Pokemon Go. He reported seeing a large frog-like figure. According
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: to local coverage, he said it stood and moved on
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: its hind legs. He supplied photographs and video to local broadcasters.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: The images were dark. They showed a shape that Jacobs
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: considered unusual, but the broadcaster copies did not establish a
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: reliable scale, an authenticated original file, or an uninterrupted sequence
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: proving the subject's gait. The available material does not identify
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the subject as an animal, a person, a costume, or
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: an unknown species. That limitation does not establish that Jacobs
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: fabricated the submission. It means the imagery cannot carry the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: full weight placed on it by later claims. A dark
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: image can document that an image was taken. It cannot
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: necessarily determine what was in front of the camera. Jacob's
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: report did something else. It prompted Mark Matthews to contact WCPO,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a Cincinnati-area broadcaster, with a very different account of 1972.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: In an August 5, 2016 interview, Matthews said the animal
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: he encountered had crossed Kemper Road. He said he shot it,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: recovered its body, and identified it as a tailless iguana.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: He said he showed it to Ray Shockey, who, in
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Matthews's recollection, agreed with the identification. Matthews described the frogman
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: story as a tale that had grown beyond the event
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: he believed he had experienced. He speculated that the iguana
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: might have been an escaped or released pet. He also
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: suggested it could have sheltered near warm factory water discharge pipes.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Those were his hypotheses about how an exotic reptile might
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: have appeared in the area. They were not confirmed findings.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: His direct experience, if recalled accurately, would matter greatly. He
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: was the only identified participant in the surviving materials who
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: later claimed to have physically handled the animal from his
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: own encounter. A tailless iguana could look unfamiliar in poor conditions,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: especially if an observer first saw it at a distance
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: or in motion. The loss of a tail could alter
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: its silhouette. An officer responding to an unusual shape beside
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: a dark road might initially describe it in broad, uncertain terms.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: That is the strongest conventional explanation for Matthew's incident. But
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Matthew's 2016 account directly conflicts with the Contemporary Western Star report.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: The newspaper said the animal entered the river. Matthew said
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: he retrieved it. Both accounts cannot describe the same final
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: disposition unless some missing event connects them. There are several
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: possible explanations for the contradictions. The 1972 newspaper could have
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: misunderstood or compressed the officer's account. Matthews's memory could have
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: changed over more than four decades. The newspaper, and later interview,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: could refer to details that were never fully explained in
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the material now available. Or the story could have grown
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: through repeated retelling until different versions replaced one another. No
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: located specimen, contemporaneous recovery report, carcass photograph, or direct statement
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: from Shockey, resolves the conflict. Matthews's iguana identification is plausible
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and important. It is not independently proven. It also does
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: not explain every Loveland report. It does not identify what
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Ray Shockey saw. His direct testimony has not been located
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: in the source record used here. It does not identify
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Honeycutt's three figures at Branch Hill in 1955. It does
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: not identify the four figures reported by CF beneath a bridge,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and it does not determine the subject in Jacobs' 2016 images.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: The strongest unknown animal interpretation remains limited. It holds that
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: one or more witnesses may have encountered something they could
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: not identify, and that the initial report by a patrolman
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: cannot automatically be reduced to Matthews' later iguana account. The
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: contemporary reports came from named people in real places. The
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: accounts were serious enough that a police chief searched a road,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: investigators interviewed witnesses, and newspapers documented patrolmen's claims. But that
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: interpretation also requires several assumptions. It requires that witnesses accurately
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: perceive the creature's height and form. It requires that reports
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: separated by years, involving different locations and descriptions, concerned comparable animals.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: It requires apparent upright posture to have been real. rather
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: than a momentary impression created by angle, movement, light, or expectation.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Ecology creates another question. A large, unknown upright amphibian or
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: reptile living repeatedly around Loveland would be expected to leave
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: more than reports over many decades. A breeding population would
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: need suitable habitat, food, genetic diversity, and enough animals to persist.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: It might also be expected to leave remains, road kills,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: biological traces, clearer photographs, or independently verified encounters. None has
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: been located in the record examined here. That does not
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: make an unconfirmed animal impossible. It defines the evidence still
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: needed before a species claim could be evaluated scientifically. A
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: clear photograph with reliable scale could help. Better still would
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: be authenticated original video with location and time information, independent witnesses,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and an uninterrupted record of the subject's movement. A tissue
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: sample with documented chain of custody could be tested. A
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: carcass could be examined by qualified zoologists. A patrol log,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: dispatch entry, original incident report, or direct statement from Shockey
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: could clarify the 1972 record. The historic record may still
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: contain material not located in the present research, but it
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: should not be assumed that such material exists or that
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: its absence proves institutional interference. The only FBI-related document in
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the case is a reproduced 1975 reply from the Cincinnati
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: field office stating that it did not have the requested information.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: It offers no evidence of an FBI investigation and none
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of a cover-up. The most reliable discovery in this case
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: is not a creature. It is the way separate stories
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: were assembled. The 1955 bridge report involved four small figures,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a young civil defense volunteer, and a brief observation under
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: a bridge. Honeycutt's account involved three figures, a different setting
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: near Branch Hill, an unusual sparking object, and a visit
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to Chief Fritz. They are connected by geography and later legend,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: but they are not one continuous incident. The 1972 police
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: reports revived the idea of an unusual animal near the
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Little Miami River. Yet even within that smaller chapter, the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: surviving accounts disagree on dates and on the fate of
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the animal Matthews shot. The 2016 images revived the legend
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: for a new generation. They document a claim and a
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: media submission. not a verified upright creature. By October 2024,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Loveland's frogman had become part of the town's public identity.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Local reporting covered a frogman celebration, and businesses embraced the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: figure as a community symbol. That civic afterlife is real,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: regardless of whether any reported creature was an undiscovered animal.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: There is a human cost in the older record as well.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Hunnicutt reportedly asked that his name not be publicized. C.F.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: said ridicule followed his own report. Matthews said people continued
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: to approach him about the story long after he left
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Loveland Policing. These were not fictional characters created for a legend.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: They were people attached to claims that outlived their control
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: over the details. The case returns, finally, to Chief Fritz
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and his camera. After Honeycutt came to his home in
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the early morning of 1955, Fritz went out to the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: indicated roadside with a camera because a photograph could have
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: changed the case. He found nothing unusual. No image resulted.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Since then, the Loveland story has accumulated a witness-guided drawing,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: an artist's conception, a roadside photograph, dark digital images, competing recollections,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and decades of retelling. Yet none of those items identifies
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: an upright frog creature as a biological species. What is
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: established is narrower. Honeycutt reported three strange figures. A separate
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: young volunteer reported four. Chief Fritz said he searched one
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: reported location and found nothing. Newspapers in 1972 reported claims
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: by patrolmen Ray Shockey and Mark Matthews. Matthews later offered
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: a plausible tailless iguana explanation for his own encounter. But
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: that account conflicts with the contemporary newspaper's report that the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: animal entered the river. Jacobs supplied photographs and video in 2016,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: but the available media do not identify their subject. The
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: claim of recurring upright frog creatures around Loveland remains unsupported
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: by diagnostic physical evidence. Individual witnesses may still have seen
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: things they could not identify. The record does not allow
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: a final answer about every figure, animal, or dark shape.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: It does show how uncertainty, memory, imagery, and local reporting
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: turned several distinct incidents into Ohio's enduring frogman legend. This
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: has been Cryptid Files. Follow the show so you never
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: miss an episode.