April 27 (UPI) — A bill introduced in the Ohio House would designate the Loveland Frogman as the state’s official cryptid.
A bill sponsored by Reps. Tristan Rader, D-13th district, and Jean Schmidt, R-62nd district, calls for the local legend to be named Ohio’s official state cryptid.
“This bill is about showcasing our communities,” said Rader in a news release. “The Loveland Frog is uniquely Ohio. It reflects the stories we tell, the places we’re proud of and the creativity that makes our state worth celebrating.”
House Bill 821 describes the Loveland Frogman as “a frog-like, bipedal creature standing approximately four feet tall.”
The legend dates back to 1972, when two police officers reported spotting a large frog-like creature on different nights.
The Frogman made headlines again in 2016, when a couple claimed to have seen the massive amphibian while playing Pokémon Go.
The sighting prompted Mark Mathews, who purports to be one of the police officers who spotted the Frogman in 1972, to come forward with the whole story.
Mathews said the first officer to spot the Frogman, Ray Shockey, told him he saw the creature near the Totes boot factory and the Little Miami River.
Mathews said he was skeptical of the story, but a few days later he was driving in the same area when he saw something run across the road.
He ended up shooting the creature and putting it in his trunk to show Shockey, who confirmed it was the same animal he had seen.
The animal was a 3- to 3 1/2-foot-long iguana that was missing its tail.
“It’s a big hoax,” Mathews told WCPO-TV. “There’s a logical explanation for everything.”
Regardless of whether the legendary Frogman was a hoax, its cultural footprint in Loveland has grown over the decades. The Frogman serves as the logo for popular coffee shop Mile 42, and inspired a found-footage horror film called Frogman in 2023.
