Strange Ohio Amphibians

 

 Ohio has a history of strange amphibian sightings.

 The Crosswick Monster

James Jennings established the small community of Crosswick Ohio in1881.Many large, unknown tracks started to be found all over the dirt road. Nobody  knew what could make such tracks.It was decided  it was best left alone then it would leave them alone.

 The Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper reported on May 29, 1882 a story about two boys being attacked by a snake like creature. The two boys , Ed and Joe Lynch, were fishing in a small creek in Crosswick, Ohio on the outskirts of Waynesville in Warren County. They heard a stirring in the reeds of the bank. They went to investigate and  found   a 30-foot-long black and white “snake with legs” with yellow spots.

The two boys screamed and ran but  then the monster grabbed Ed Lynch "in its slimy embrace, simultaneously producing two more legs, about four feet long, from some mysterious hiding-place in its body." The monster dragged the boy  to a large sycamore tree with an opening on one side.

Three men nearby, the Rev. Jacob Horn, George Peterson and Allen Jordan, heard the screams and ran to the scene. The monster on seeing the men ,dropped the boy and ran up the tree. Dr. L.C. Lukens of Waynesville was summoned to treat Ed’s injuries .A posse was formed and later that afternoon, 60 men, armed with clubs and axes gathered around the tree and cut it down. The monster fled. They followed it to what they assumed was its lair, a large pile of rocks, where it disappeared in a hole, never to be seen again. . Dr. Lukens told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the boy was in severe shock and had some spasms and convulsions, plus bruise and cuts. The Monster was described by several witnesses as being roughly 12 feet long ( 4 metres) and covered with scales. It was black and white with dull yellow spots, had feet roughly 12in long (0.34 metre), a wide head, and a long forked tongue.

"It will be watched for and killed if possible," The Cincinnati Enquirer reported at the time. 

Having been seen by so many eminent citizens it was not disputed .Then  20 miles away in the 1950s another creature was reported.

  The Loveland frog

The Loveland frog (Rana digiandomenicus) (also known as the Loveland frogman or Loveland lizard) is a legendary humanoid frog described as standing roughly 4 feet (1.2 m) tall. The creature was first sighted in 1955, with some versions of the story specifying the month of May.The three stories start the same way, with a businessman or a travelling salesman driving along an unnamed road late at night One story, the driver was heading out of  Branch Hill when he spotted three figures stood erect on their hind legs along the side of the road, each 3 to 4 feet (0.91 to 1.22 m) in height, with leathery skin and frog faces. In other versions of the story, the creatures were spotted under or over a poorly lit bridge over the Little Miami river. All the version say the businessman watched the figures converse for a while until one of the creatures held a wand over its head that  fired a spray of sparks, causing the man to flee in fright.

Urban myth you may think but in March 1972 at 1:00 am, Loveland police officer Ray Shockey was driving on Riverside Drive near the Totes boot factory and the Little Miami River when an unidentified animal scurried across the road in front of his vehicle. The animal was illuminated in his vehicle's headlights, and he described it as 3 to 4 feet (0.91 to 1.22 m) long and about 50 to 75 pounds (23 to 34 kg), with leathery skin. He reported spotting the animal "crouched like a frog" before it momentarily stood on its hand legs  to climb over the guardrail and back down towards the river.

Two weeks after the incident, a second Loveland police officer, Mark Matthews, reported seeing an unidentified animal crouched along the road in the same vicinity as Shockey's sighting. Matthews shot the animal but the body fell into the river. According to Matthews, it was "a large iguana about 3 or 3.5 feet long", and he didn't immediately recognize it because it was missing its tail. Mathews speculated the iguana had been someone's pet that "either got loose or was released when it grew too large”

However this did not account for several of them being seen together in the past.

In 2016 two youngsters allegedly took a photo of a frog like creature but this was dismissed as a hoax.

What I find interesting is that two or more amphibian type creatures had been reported within 20 miles of each other. Could there have once been a colony of salamanders or large amphibians  living in the area? Maybe the Crosswick monster moved its lair after being chased.More reports may surface ,lets hope so.