Today, my friends, I am going to introduce you to my personal favorite cryptid and American legend: The Loveland Frog. The Loveland Frog, aka the Loveland Frogman or the Loveland Lizard, is a four-foot-tall humanoid frog that has been spotted multiple times near Loveland, Ohio. He is said to have leathery skin, webbed hands and feet, and stands on two legs.
There have been multiple eyewitness accounts of the Loveland Frog throughout the years. Read them under the cut at your own risk.
The first reported sighting was in 1955. Legend says that a man was driving down the road at night when he saw three amphibian figures standing on the side of the road. When they noticed the man, one held up a wand and sprayed sparks at the intruder, causing him to flee.
The Frog(s?) lay dormant after that until 1972, when there were several encounters in a row. A Loveland police officer was driving at night when an unidentified creature ran in front of his car. It looked directly into the headlights, revealing its frog face. It crouched in front of the car momentarily and then stood up, climbed over the guardrail, and disappeared into the night. Two weeks later, another police officer saw a creature crouched in the road in the same area. The officer shot at the frogman, but it escaped, watching him with a “funny smirk on its face.” In later years the officers said that what they saw was an iguana, but there’s no way to be sure.
The latest sighting was in 2016, when a couple playing Pokemon Go at night in Cincinnati saw a giant bipedal frog near a lake. However, their testimony is questionable because of their lack of proximity to Loveland.
The Loveland Frog is beloved symbol of Loveland and of Ohio. His visage has been used in various pieces of Ohio merch, and, I shit you not, in 2014, the legend of the Loveland Frog was made into the musical, “Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog!”
I promise, you will be the first to know if I ever get my hands on a recording of that (I assume) theatrical masterpiece.
