Among the various aquatic anomalies reported over the years, including sea monsters, lake monsters, and mermaids, certainly in a class all its own are the various reports of strange amphibious humanoids, typically described as reptilian, frog-like, or fish-like, as if something straight out of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. These outlandish accounts tend to fly off into the extreme fringe of cryptozoology and defy any real efforts to understand or classify them, only adding to the mysteries that the world’s waterways hold within their depths. Here is a selection of some of the weirder of such encounters.

Perhaps the most well known of the tales of such beasts is that of what has come to be known as the Loveland Frog, of Loveland, Ohio, in the United States. One of the earliest accounts of this frog-like mystery monster comes from May of 1955, when a businessman was traveling down a remote rural road along the Miami River in Clermont County, near the town of Loveland. As the witness approached a bridge at around 3:30 AM, he says that he saw three bipedal frog-like creatures measuring around 3 to 4 feet in height gathered under a bridge. The strange beasts were described as being somewhat reptilian in appearance, with webbed hands and feet, thick leathery skin, and “frog-like heads,” and as having many wrinkles over their bodies, as well as having wide, lipless mouths. One of the mystery beasts then allegedly raised its arm to produce a bar or wand of some sort that was said to emanate sparks and a pungent odor of “alfalfa and almonds,” an odd detail that just sinks the whole thing deeper into the strange.

Thus would begin the odyssey of the Loveland Frogmen. In March of 1972 the bizarre frogman would make an appearance again when it was purportedly spotted near Loveland by a Ohio police officer identified as a Ray Shockey as he drove in his cruiser along East Kemper Road, which winds along with the Little Miami River near town. The creature was described as bipedal and around 4 feet tall, with rough, leathery skin, and a head and face like a frog or lizard. The officer explained that he saw it leap over a railway to apparently jump into the Little Miami River. A later examination of the scene turned up strange scratch marks on the handrail the thing had reportedly jumped over, but no other physical evidence of any kind.

Just two weeks after this sighting it was seen yet again, this time by another police officer named Mark Mathews. In this case the creature was spotted lying on a rural road on the outskirts of Loveland. The witness supposedly at first took it to be a dead animal on the road, but as he got out of his cruiser to investigate it allegedly stood up and crouched down on the road before walking over to the guardrail while intently watching the witness. It was described as a frog-like bipedal creature around 4 feet in height, this time with a tail clearly visible, and the startled police officer then took a shot at it with his sidearm but missed as the beast scurried off into the night. In later years Matthews would begin to doubt what he had seen, and started to claim that it must have been some exotic reptile pet that had escaped from its owner, although how this could be confused with an upright walking frog is anyone’s guess. It is unclear why he retracted his original report, but an investigation by Weird Ohio in 2001 interviewed a local named Ron Schaffner about the possible reason, and he said thus:

Why, after all these years is Matthew’s debunking the story? I’m not sure. Could be a number of reasons. But both officers told us that it resembled the sketch in 1976. Why would they shows us a composite drawing of this creature back in 1976 and tell us that it looked like the drawing? I lived in Loveland for about five years and the story is still circulating with many variations. Just maybe Matthews is tired of hearing the story and all the variations.

There have been other sporadic sightings over the years of the Loveland Frogman, and as recently as 2016 there was a report that someone had actually filmed the creature. According to WLWT5, witness Sam Jacobs was playing the popular video game “Pokemon Go” along with his girlfriend behind the Beth Adam synagogue on Loveland Madeira Road, in Ohio, when they saw a strange, frog-like creature in the water on the nearby river. Jacobs would describe what happened thus:

We Saw a huge frog near the water. Not in the game, this was an actual giant frog… then the thing stood up and walked on its hind legs. I realize this sounds crazy, but I swear on my grandmother’s grave this is the truth… Not sure if it was a frogman or just a giant frog. Either way, I’ve never seen anything like it.

The couple managed to take a video clip of the alleged creature on their phones, which shows what seems to show something standing in the water with glowing eyes, but it is so indistinct and grainy it is hard to make out just what we are seeing here. It could be the Frogman or it could be a person in a suit. It is very possible that it is a hoax, but the couple are adamant that they actually saw this thing. If the Loveland Frogman was ever real, then what could it possibly be? Is this a cryptid, and alien, or what? It is hard to say.

A still from the Loveland Frog video

Another very well-known case of some sort of amphibious beast in the Ohio River seems to describe some sort of fish-man in its waters. In August of 1955, a Mrs. Darwin Johnson claimed that as she had been swimming in the Ohio River near Evansville, Indiana when she was pulled underwater by a reptilian creature of some sort, which grabbed her knees and yanked her under the waves. She was able to kick herself free and get to shore with the help of another woman in the vicinity named Chris Lamble. According to the report there was a green palm print on the victim’s leg which would not fade away for nearly a week. Oddly, a mysterious figure claiming to be with the Army reportedly later approached the two woman and discouraged them from telling anyone of the encounter.

Also from the Ohio River are sightings of something strange in October of 1975 at the portion of the river that runs across the northern boundary of Milton, Kentucky. Described in cryptozoologist Loren Coleman’s book Mysterious America, one witness, a Clarence Gable, claimed that there was a massive frog-like creature lurking in the area of his junkyard. The creature was described as having bulging eyes, a forked tongue, and as being a dull white color with black and white stripes. Other witnesses at around the same time would see the same or similar creature around the Ohio River at Trimble County, Kentucky, and say it was some sort of bipedal and amphibious lizard-like beast.

Other “gill-man” sightings covered by Coleman have come in from other areas as well. In March of 1959, witnesses Michael Lane, Wayne Armstrong, and Dennis Patterson sighted a “green-eyed, seven-foot-tall, seemingly armless humanoid” at Charles Mill Lake in Mansfield, Ohio, that left behind tracks like the flippers of scuba divers. This particular entity was seen again in 1963, and a major detail was that it was “luminous and green-eyed.” In November of 1978 a bizarre creature was spotted by a Charles Wetzel in the wilderness along the Santa Ana River near Riverside, California, that was described as being 7 feet tall, covered with scales and having a “protuberant mouth” and eyes that had a fluorescent sheen to them. This creature would apparently open its beak-like mouth to emit a high-pitched scream or wail and lunge for the witness’s car, which sent the him driving off with great haste. In the summer of 1973, a beast described as a “giant, man-like alligator” was sighted by residents of New Jersey’s Newton-Lafayette area, and in 1977 a scaled humanoid creature was frequently spotted in the fern and moss- covered uplands of southern New York state.

A well-known account of some sort of amphibious reptilian humanoid or fish-man comes from Thetis Lake, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. On August 19, 1972, two teenagers named Robin Flewellyn and Gordon Pike were at the lake when they claimed to have noticed a strange surging of the water just offshore. Shortly after this, there emerged what they would describe as a 5-foot tall humanoid covered with silver scales and with gills, webbed, clawed hands, bulging eyes, a sort spines jutting from its back, and a wide, fish-like mouth. The boys claimed that the creature chased them up the beach all the way to their car, and that it had actually managed to lunge forward to cut one of them on the hand with its sharp spines before they were able to escape.

The two frightened boys later told authorities, and while the whole story seemed pretty outlandish the two witnesses seemed to be genuinely disturbed about what they had seen, which forced the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to actually investigate the claims. Nothing would be found, but oddly another similar report would come in not long after, when on August 23 teenaged witnesses Russell Van Nice and Mike Gold said that they had been out on the opposite side of the lake of the original sighting when they saw a silvery, scaled creature around 5-feet tall and with a spike on its head emerge from the water, look around, and then slip back under to disappear. Interestingly the Natives of the area have long spoken of legendary fish-like humanoids inhabiting the lake, so are these reports perhaps of something very real or is it just hoaxes? No one knows, and there have been no other sightings, leaving it all to pure speculation.

These cases are certainly hard to classify, and almost impossible to verify in any meaningful way, leaving us to ponder just what could lie at the heart of them. Is this just attention-seekers making up tall tales? Is it misidentifications of known animals or exotic escaped pets? Are there really undiscovered bipedal amphibious creatures of the likes described roaming the wilderness? If so then what could they possibly be? It is all very head-scratching indeed, and Loren Coleman has said of this conundrum thus:

Are these beasts future time travelers lost in some time/space warp? Or infrequent visitors? Or do you feel more comfortable with the idea there is a breeding population of scaly, manlike, upright creatures lingering along the edges of some of America’s swamps? Something is out there. That’s for sure.

Is there really something out there other than or rampant imaginations? The only thing that can truly be said for sure is that such reports rank as among some of the strangest sightings of mystery beasts, and show that the world of the weird goes deep. With all of the truly off-the-wall accounts out there, humanoid frog-men and gill-people? Why not?

As many readers of Mysterious Universe will know, I firmly conclude that there is a real UFO phenomenon of unknown origins, but probably not extraterrestrial. I am far from convinced that alien creatures crashed and died outside of Roswell, New Mexico in the early part of July 1947. I’ve written two books on my findings on Roswell – as they relate to a dark and disturbing answer to the riddle. They are Body Snatchers in the Desert (2005) and The Roswell UFO Conspiracy (2017). All of the data I have uncovered points in the direction of top secret, controversial experiments involving high-altitude balloons and human guinea-pigs. In this 2-part article, I’m going to share with you my views as to why I think the Roswell affair has nothing to do with alien visitations to our planet.

Despite what has been said about the “UFO crash” on the Foster Ranch, Lincoln County, New Mexico in the first week of July 1947, there is actually very little data available to suggest that an alien “craft” came down. Practically every eye-witness described seeing a huge field of debris: lightweight foil-like material strewn across one specific part of the ranch. And, for the most part, that’s all. As for what that strange foil may have been, the U.S. Air Force states:

“As early as May 1948, polythene balloons coated or laminated with aluminum [italics mine] were flown from Holloman AFB and the surrounding area. Beginning in August 1955, large numbers of these balloons were flown as targets in the development of radar guided air-to-air missiles. Various accounts of the ‘Roswell Incident’ often described thin, metal-like materials that when wadded into a ball, returned to their original shape. These accounts are consistent with the properties of polythene balloons laminated with aluminum. These balloons were typically launched from points west of the White Sands Proving Ground, floated over the range as targets, and descended in the areas northeast of White Sands Proving Ground where the ‘strange’ materials were allegedly found.”

There are indications that such balloons were used as far back as 1947, but in operations far more controversial and disturbing than those which took place from 1948 onward. Australian UFO researcher Keith Basterfield has looked into all of this. He says of data provided to him before my Body Snatchers in the Desert book was published that the military was “…experimenting with craft they dropped from ‘aircraft’ flying in the stratosphere. Also, gigantic balloons [italics mine] were being flown in the stratosphere to drop craft fitted with retrorockets and a drogue chute. The retrorocket was fitted with an altimeter to fire them close to the ground. Lots of UFO sightings were of these craft. The U.S. released bogus flying saucer sightings and later discredited them.”

Regardless of what the UFO research community thinks of all this, the fact is that many of the witness reports do describe what sounds like balloon-based materials. Take, for example, the words of Major Jesse Marcel, one of the first people in the military to see the field of debris: “I saw a lot of wreckage but no complete machine. It had disintegrated before it hit the ground. The wreckage was scattered over an area about three quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide. I was pretty well acquainted with most everything that was in the air at that time, both ours and foreign. I was also acquainted with virtually every type of weather-balloon or radar-tracking device being used by either the civilians or the military. What it was we didn’t know. We just picked up the fragments…it certainly wasn’t anything built by us.”

That all sounds impressive, but the fact is that just because Marcel was “acquainted with virtually every type of weather-balloon or radar-tracking device,” it doesn’t mean he had an awareness of all the many and varied secret balloon-based programs that were in place in New Mexico in the late-1940s. And if the balloons used in the experiment that led to the flying saucer legend were radically different – laminated or coated with aluminum – then we can see why Marcel was genuinely mystified.

Moving on, while many UFO researchers are very impressed by the tales of the mysterious foil-like materials, there is another issue that needs to be addressed. Some UFO researchers have suggested that the debris found on the ranch – the strange foil – amounted to the outer shell of the craft. If that’s the case, where were the interior remains? The seats in which the aliens sat as they struggled to steer their craft on its final, fatal flight? What about the remnants of the tripod-landing gear that are described in so many UFO cases? How about the power-plant? We hear very, very little about such matters. For the most part, it’s all about the weird foil. This is a problem, because there are numerous cases of people seeing UFOs landing, thanks to that aforementioned tripod-style gear. Alien abductees describe the interiors of UFOs as containing tables, lights, and strange equipment used in the examination of the abductees. So, why should the Roswell UFO seemingly be almost completely free of anything but an outer-shell? If it was a massive balloon – but one which was used in top secret, highly controversial experiments – then at least some of these problems go away.

I don’t pretend that this answers all of the questions concerning Roswell. It doesn’t. But the “secret balloon” angle does, at least, offer a reasonable theory as to why the vast majority of the wreckage found on the ranch was not made up of advanced technology and the remains of those aforementioned seats and power-plants (etc., etc.).

In part-2, I’ll address another reason why I think aliens didn’t crash in New Mexico 71 years ago.

Part-1 of this article began as follows: “As many readers of Mysterious Universe will know, I firmly conclude that there is a real UFO phenomenon of unknown origins, but probably not extraterrestrial. I am far from convinced that alien creatures crashed and died outside of Roswell, New Mexico in the early part of July 1947. I’ve written two books on my findings on Roswell – as they relate to a dark and disturbing answer to the riddle. They are Body Snatchers in the Desert (2005) and The Roswell UFO Conspiracy (2017). All of the data I have uncovered points in the direction of top secret, controversial experiments involving high-altitude balloons and human guinea-pigs. In this 2-part article, I’m going to share with you my views as to why I think the Roswell affair has nothing to do with alien visitations to our planet.”

Part-2 focuses on an angle that, possibly, very few people have ever given much thought to. The only reason we know that something came down on the Foster Ranch in Lincoln County, New Mexico in July 1947 is because rancher Mac Brazel found it, collected some of it, and contacted the police – who then put in a call to the military at Roswell. Doesn’t that strike you as being a bit odd? It sure as hell should. If there is one thing we can say about the real UFO phenomenon it’s that it very much acts in a state of distinct stealth. There has never been a landing on the White House lawns (nor will there ever be one). The entities do their very best to wipe out the memories of those they abduct – which is precisely why so many victims of abduction turn to hypnosis for help. Close encounters of the personal kind often take place in the likes of the deserts of California, Arizona and New Mexico – and far away from towns and cities.

So, taking into consideration the above, why on earth would aliens simply allow the remains of one of their high-tech craft to fall right into the hands of the U.S. military in early July 1947? Such an action totally goes against everything that we know about the phenomenon’s preference for that aforementioned stealth. To dismiss this by saying that aliens didn’t have the sufficient technology to gather up the material – or to completely eradicate is from existence –  is a total wanker cop-out. There are countless cases on record where the phenomenon has performed incredible acts.

The so-called “Kinross Case” focuses upon the strange – and still-unresolved – disappearance of a U.S. Air Force F-89C jet fighter that was scrambled late on the night of November 23, 1953. At the time, it was on an “active air defense mission” to intercept an “unknown aircraft” over Lake Superior. Kinross Air Force Base, which was closest to the scene where the “unknown” was initially tracked, quickly alerted the 433rd Fighter Interception Squadron at Truax Field, Madison, Wisconsin, and the F-89C gave immediate chase.

Northrop F-89C

Available USAF records demonstrate that the F-89 was vectored west-northwest, then west, climbing to 30,000 feet. While on its westerly course, the crew received permission to descend to 7,000 feet, turning east-northeast and coming steeply down on the target from above. Alarmingly, as the aircraft closed-in on the “unknown” it subsequently vanished into oblivion, along with its two crew-members. The last radar contact placed the interceptor at 8,000 feet, 70 miles from Keeweenaw Point, and about 150 miles northwest of Kinross AFB, which, today, is called Kincheloe AFB. UFO researchers have suggested that crew and airplane were “kidnapped” by the UFO.  A high-flying, fast-moving military plane could be snatched from the sky with ease, but a field of debris was too difficult to clear up?

What of the tales of aliens being able to pass through solid walls? Or, in this case, through a window? Such accounts suggest incredible powers on their part. Either the aliens are downright impoverished and couldn’t recover the remains of their dead comrades and a bunch of debris, or they possess amazing skills. There is no room for something in between. A study of Ufology suggests the latter scenario is the correct one. So, why not use those fantastic abilities to grab the Roswell materials and bodies before Mac Brazel came across them?

Allowing the Roswell materials (and bodies/body-parts) to sit there, on the ranch, and in distinct danger of falling into the hands of a pesky human or several, goes against everything we know about how the genuine UFO enigma operates. In my view, this can be explained by suggesting that the curious debris was not extraterrestrial. It was linked to a highly-classified, military, balloon-based program. And, in just about the worst case scenario possible, rancher Brazel came across the remains of the huge balloon/balloons before the military found the exact site.

As I see it, it’s all easily explainable without having to bring aliens into the controversy. But, of course, Ufology doesn’t want to hear any of that. Ufology wants exciting, extraterrestrial-themed tales. And that’s the problem. It has been a problem ever since Roswell became a hot-potato. And it’s why Roswell has endured as a UFO case for so long.

Over the last year, images and videos of rather dubious three-fingered “mummies” in Peru sparked a flurry of social speculation about ancient aliens, alien-human hybrids, or some unidentified human subspecies or unknown ancient abomination from right here on Earth. However authentic or inauthentic they might be, the strange appearance of the “mummies” with long, bulbous heads might have its roots in a kernel truth.

An elongated, stretched-out kernel.

It turns out that hundreds of skulls with elongated skulls have indeed been found in the mountains of Peru and catalogued by anthropologists throughout the years. DNA tests of the skulls have been surprising, but only in that they showed that these elongated skull people might have migrated from Europe where other elongated skulls have been found. Some anthropologists have even suggested that these skulls might represent an unknown human subspecies. While that much is still just speculation, new research published by Cornell University bioarchaeologist Matthew Velasco indicates that these elongated skulls might have been a type of status symbol to indicate the high social standing of their owners. Were these some type of elite human group? What was it about the shapes of these skulls that made them superior?

Similarly deformed skulls have been found throughout the world, and some cultures even still practice skull deformation today.

According to his article published in Current Anthropology, Velasco believes the practice of deliberately elongating skulls was widely practice among the elites of the Collagua people, the dominant ethnic group in Peru before the arrival of the Incas:

Greater standardization of head-shaping practices echoes broader patterns of identity formation across the south-central highlands and may have provided a symbolic basis for the cooperation of elite groups during an era of intensive conflict […] The symbolic boundaries enacted by head shaping intersected other forms of collective identity and likely contributed to growing social inequality prior to the period of Inca imperial expansion.

In other words, these ancient Peruvian cultures used intentional head shaping as a means of signalling higher social status, creating two distinct classes of people: lowly street urchin round heads, and golden toilet-owning stretchy heads. The evidence that they may have been higher status mainly comes from the observations that females with elongated heads suffered much less head trauma than females with round heads, and skeletons with elongated skulls showed evidence of a more varied diet. Furthermore, most of the elongated skulls have been found in Collagua burial structures close to cliff faces, while most of the round unmodified Collagua skulls have been found in caves or under outcroppings.

Nothing says “I’m rich and have nothing better to spend my money on” than a skull deformer. That Inca inventor must have laughed himself to sleep each night.

It’s pretty interesting to think about how the beauty standards and physical social signalling of today will be viewed by future civilizations. Orthodontic braces are pretty brutal if you think about it, as are tummy tucks or injecting one’s face with botulinum toxin to deaden facial muscles. These somewhat destructive appearance-altering procedures are typically only available to the wealthy. While we might look upon these elongated skulls as an antiquated and brutal practice, are we really any different?