68: The Loveland Frogman (w/ Nexpo) | Red Thread
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So

The man behind the wheel yawned. He glanced at the clock and it flashed back at his drowsy eyes. 11.35pm. He let out a sigh. His wife was going to kick his ass when he got home. The fog was building up around the car slowly as he trucked through Ohio. It was getting difficult to see ahead, even with his high beams projecting light forward.

For an unknown reason, he began to slowly press on the brake pedal. He was unable to understand why he had braked, but he knew it was driven by a strange impulse. He turned to look out the window. This feeling was brewing strongly, just like how he preferred his tea. Was... was something out there? I

A shadow moved in his peripheral vision, and now he hit the brake pedal with more impetus, and the car now slammed to a stop. The man let out a breath as he readjusted in his seat. He was just tired, he told himself. He just needed to get home. Another shadow moved now, just beyond the fog. No, he wasn't imagining this. Something was certainly out there, and it was after him. He began to look for his phone. Where the hell did he put it?

his brain screamed. Work documents were flying around the cabin as he cursed under his breath when a knock on the window halted his every move. The unusual smell of alfalfa filled the air. Slowly, the man turned his head, not ready to face his end. He chose a coward's demise, closing his eyes in acceptance. It was then he heard another menacing slow knock. He took a breath, steadied himself, and opened his eyes. On the other side of the window...

was Jeffrey Epstein. Not the frog man. I guess he's kind of like a frog man now that I think about it. Similar in appearance, potentially. I can see it. I'm used to Jeffrey Epstein being in every single intro and you just went on such a long tangent there for a second. I was like, oh no, what's on the other side of the window? It can't be Jeffrey Epstein this time, surely. Surely not.

That was so out of left field that when I first read that, I was like, there's no way. Did I miss something? Now that we started doing... Now that the red thread... Welcome to the red thread, by the way. This is still red thread. Not Jeffrey Epstein podcast number 514. But

No, yeah, it's still Red Thread. Now that we started doing guests on Red Thread, I'm concerned that the intros are going to start becoming weirder and weirder and more confusing to explain. It started as a joke in the early, like, I don't know, probably around episode 10 of Red Thread. And it's just continued on now every single episode or most episodes where the intro needs to have a twist revolving around Jeffrey Epstein. So that's why that was there.

just in case it didn't make sense. Okay. I love it. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, because, yeah, that was... Go ahead, sorry. For the audience out there as well, that particular intro was actually written for the first time by Kira, my fiancé, and the lead researcher for the show who writes these scripts. So she wanted to have a crack at it this week. So that one was written by her. So round of applause for her. She did a fantastic job fitting Jeffrey Epstein in there. Yeah, good on you, Kira.

What a shocking twist. Never saw it coming. I seriously did it. I can't believe it. I feel so dumb. Yeah, but this episode is on the Loveland, Ohio Frogman. One of the cutest cryptids that's ever existed, I think. One of the most endearing cryptids. And on this week's episode, you've already seen it, but Nexpo is joining us for this one. Super stoked to have you along for the ride, man. Welcome.

Thank you guys. Thank you so much for having me on. This is an honor. Thank you. No, it's an honor for us. Not at all. Well, I'm excited. I'm excited to talk Frogman because this is a... This is requested by you. In fact, I reached out to you and said, hey, would you like to come on an episode of Red Thread? And if you do, what would you like to talk about perhaps? And you hit me with Frogman, which was very... It was like your version of the Jeffrey Epstein twist. I didn't see that one coming. So I'm very, very excited.

Were you thrown off? Were you thrown off by my response? I bet you were expecting something dark and mysterious and then you hit me with the cutest cryptid that's ever existed.

Oh my god, yeah. I'm sorry. I've wanted to talk about this guy for, or like learn more about this guy for so long. And yeah, I'm just, I'm glad we get to do it here. No place more fitting in my opinion. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. This is right up our alleyway. And it's also on point and on tone for us, probably. Have you, like, what's your experience with covering cryptids in the first place? Like how actively do you get into the cryptid community?

I actually don't get too much into the cryptic community just because of like the nature of my content. Like the nature of my channel. I don't really have the wiggle room to really get in, like lean into like stuff. Totally like dissonant.

I think. Yeah. If I did, if I did, it would have to be for like an April fool's or like a Halloween special video or something like, yeah, just kind of like a one-off thing, but yeah. So this episode of red thread is kind of like you dipping, dipping your toes into the pond. If I will say getting a little bit in there. I like that. Getting froggy. Yeah. Nice. I guess that's a good start. A good question as well. How do you guys feel about frogs? Generally speaking?

What, have you got anything against it? No, I love frogs. That's what I was saying. I don't know. I don't understand how people can find them gross. Frogs are awesome. Frogs are awesome. Yeah. I imagine like meeting a frog, but it's a man. That is like the coolest thing ever. I love frogs. Big, big fan of frogs personally. Yeah, but here's the big question though. What about toads?

I knew this was coming. Oh, man. And I'm prepared. Do Americans have much experience with toads? Are toads big over there as well? What? I don't know. I'm used to us being the only ones that have toads, really, or think about toads. That's not something I've even thought about, ever. Really? You've never thought about a toad? That's never crossed my mind, actually. No, I don't know. You don't know? Yeah, see, we're raised to hate toads with all of our passion for them.

over here. Oh, are you serious? Yeah, no. It's a strong desire. I've told this story on the official podcast before, or maybe even Red Thread, but I distinctly remember when I was being raised in Australia, and yes, I do come from more of a rural area, like Queensland is relatively bogan or redneck in American terminology, but I distinctly remember being raised to hate them to the point of...

Like being recruited to kill them, basically, en masse. Like they had to be culled. Cane toads had to be culled. And it was like pushed on us by like the government itself, basically, because they are an enormous pest to our ecosystem, cane toads. So yeah, it's kind of like instilled in you from birth in Queensland, at least over in Australia, to go out into the streets with cricket bats or golf clubs and try to beat...

to death as many cane toads as possible. That's not something that I look back fondly at. Oh, you used to kick it back, did you? Well, no, I don't remember what we used at the time. But yeah, looking back, I don't like it now, Jordan. I'm a bit ashamed of our... You're not proud of those days. No, no. I hate that part of us. Surely there's a more humane way of killing cane toads.

Now that I look back at it. Well, then smacking them with a bat. Yeah, definitely. That's a pretty easy way to go. No, no. Oh man, no way. It's just like getting stomped by a giant foot. No, it's awful. I hate that part of our history. Those four cane toads. Because now looking back at it, they're not that different. It's kind of like incel logic almost. They're just the incels of the frog world. They're just kind of pathetic and sad. And then we killed them a lot.

Aren't they massive? Yeah, they're enormous. Don't they go to the size of a dinner plate? Yeah. And I don't think that they're harmless, Jackson. I think they spray poison in your eyes. Yeah, they are not harmless for sure. And they are, they're not only a danger to the ecosystem, but they actively are a danger to like pets, like dogs. If dogs get them, they can like cause massive damage to dogs internally, like the poison.

Yeah, yeah. Now that I'm looking at it, Frogman does look like a cane toad. He looks more like a cane toad as opposed to a frog in the portrayal. But yeah, cane toads get a bad rep. Maybe rightfully so. I'm not sure. So next part, you have no opinions on toads at all. I did not know any of this about toads. This is actually crazy. I didn't know that they were that big either. I'm looking at pictures. What in the hell?

Oh my God. That's crazy. I think cane toads are a different... I thought that would be a big thing in America. Sorry, go on, Jackson. No, remember the Simpsons episode where Bart brings back a cane toad? A bullfrog. Yeah, from Australia. Like, it's a big deal. I don't think they have the same level of aversion to toads that we do. Yeah, but I thought that they would have existed in the United States in some form. Not cane toads, but I think toads in general do. Toads in general, yeah. Yeah. Did you smack...

Did you smack the toads when you were younger, like that were like of this size? Yes, that's what we were. Whoa.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. We were forced to. We were pushed to. Wow. Wow. It's not good. It's not a good look for Australia, honestly. But yeah, we did. Oh my goodness. I don't really know what it would have accomplished. It didn't accomplish anything. It was like just... It had no purpose other than like sending children out to beat up cane toads for whatever reason in a desperate effort to stop their repopulation. Yeah.

Wow, and it's still an issue. Oh, yeah. To be fair, the cane toad

in Australia has always been bad. It's been enormously destructive to our local ecosystems. They were brought over here. If I recall correctly, they were brought over here to themselves eat some kind of bug that was destroying our crops in the... Yeah, the cane beetles. Yeah, the cane beetles. But then they themselves developed a taste for the cane and also other local...

like fauna and flora. And I think that they didn't even eat the cane bee. No, they decided that that wasn't for them. So it was completely useless. So in an effort to stop a different pest, we created an even larger pest. Way worse. Oh my God. Toadzilla. That's great. So this episode though about the Ohio Loveland frogmen is kind of my apology to the frog and cane toad world for all the damage that I have.

I've reeked against them. I feel bad. I love frogs, though. Frogs are adorable, like green tree frogs and things like that. They're the cutest things ever. Well, green tree frogs probably are, don't you think? What, the cutest things ever? Yeah. They'd be up there with otters and seals. They really would. That is quite an astonishing accomplishment for something that isn't a mammal.

Oh, I agree. You've got to give it to the green tree frog. Yeah. I don't think there's anything else that's on that list. Yeah. Because really, what's its competition at that point? Squeeds and centipedes. Yeah, there's nothing really cute. Oh, my gosh. That's what it is. What?

We have all the frogs that I see every day at night. Like I, so I take my dogs on walks at night and I see what I'm assuming are frogs. Dude, these are toads, Texas toads. That's crazy. Yeah. What is the difference between a toad everywhere? All right. So you do have an opinion on them. You just didn't know. They're cute. I don't know. I picked them up. I don't know. They just sit there with their fat little bodies, just chilling, like not hurting anything, at least to my knowledge. Oh,

Yeah. Like I picked them up and everything. I think, I think that it's just cane toads, Jordan, that are actually disgusting. I think most toads, like the family of toads are just frogs with shorter legs.

Are they? Yeah, because they were just bumpy, warty frogs. Yeah, I think they have like a different kind of skin. They always have like a really hard, grizzly surface. Yeah, but our cane toads are enormous and totally different to the frogs over here. Whereas over there, I think toads and frogs are kind of similar in appearance, maybe. So that's why there's that kind of misconception. But yeah, I'm pretty sure the difference between a toad and a frog is that just toads just have smaller legs and don't jump.

Like they're just made for walking as opposed to frogs. Oh, really? Those long legs that are made for jumping.

But they don't bounce at all. Yeah. Look, they do look very fat. Yeah, because I think you can get frogs with warts and stuff as well still. I don't know the difference. This isn't the episode for it. We'll circle back around and talk about the difference between frogs and toads when we're more educated. If Frogman isn't the episode, what is, Jason? You're just holding us out forever. Yeah. But unfortunately, in preparation for this episode, I didn't do a lot of research into the distinction between frogs and toads.

I just focus on the frog man. So, uh, yeah. Why, why did you want to tackle frog man specifically though? Next part for this episode? Uh, mainly because I, uh, recently went to Ohio for a ghost hunt and, um, frog man is someone that I've, uh,

I've covered by proxy before on my channel, on my Haunted PS1 video. We dove into a game called Loveland and kind of introduced me to the... at a surface level of the Ohio Frogman. And it was someone that, you know, I think is pretty interesting. It's not really a good fit for my channel, but...

Um, of course going to ohio this past month, uh with my good friend nick crowley, uh to film a ghost hunt we We're just talking about it. Like oh, what if we see the frog man, you know, we never know um Yeah, bought a ghillie suit and everything to to deck myself out Didn't end up finding him but he's someone that's just kind of you know I've wanted to talk about but or like learn more about but uh, you know, my channel's not like the best place to do it

Yeah, he's just he's just an interesting, funny cryptid. I think like the cryptid world is so broad. Yeah, they're all like really scary or like spooky. But this is one that was like kind of on the goofy side. But interestingly enough, you found him in what sounds like it was intended to be a scary video game.

Yes, yeah. Video game about a frog cult where people started worshipping the frog man. Basically, he came in and a whole little mini town became enamored by the frog man. Like a cult of the frog man? Sounds almost like Lovecraftian in tone. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah. It was an experience for sure. That's interesting where they kind of like the cutest and most harmless cryptid, your initial exposure to him was in a horror game though. It's interesting that anyone, well, it's interesting that there was even a frog man video game in the first place, honestly, because this is definitely one of the more niche cryptids. Um, yeah, I know. I had never heard of him before, before covering that game. It's called Loveland, but I've never heard of him. And, uh,

Yeah, so it's just an interesting niche little cryptid that it's out there. Apparently it's out there. It's certainly interesting to see what kind of cryptids are born from different locations. Like obviously each... And this is a big thing in America. I've noticed a lot of these...

A lot of these different towns, a lot of these different cities, or a lot of these different regions of America kind of have their own cryptid that they treat as almost a mascot of that location. And I find it an interesting kind of fictionalization, I guess, or yeah, a fictionalization of that area itself. Like it kind of embodies the different characteristics, personalities, and tone of the area at the time. And I guess that's why the Frogman...

is such a mascot for the area of Loveland in the first place? Because from what I've read, it's a very swampy kind of area. Would that be accurate? Because you've been through there recently, it sounds like, or in the area. Yeah, I'm sure Loveland is. I was around other parts of Ohio, unfortunately, that weren't super close to Loveland, but

um that's what it seems to be like like that style of or that type of uh environment yeah there yeah so yeah it's certainly interesting to see what kind of creations each area has come up with throughout you know time over here um in australia we've never heard of the frogman we don't have yeah we don't have any frogmen do we you've never heard of him jordan

I've heard of the frog man. You've heard of the frog man? Uh, yeah. Strangely. What the hell? Where are you from? Yeah. I don't know. That is so strange. I've definitely heard of it. I've definitely seen that image before in my life. Um,

That's crazy. That is actually crazy. I'm so weirded out by that. I don't know why. Jordan knows nothing about the internet and cryptids, and somehow he knows about Frogman. That's crazy. It might be because of, I don't know, you know those books you used to read as a kid that were called Unshelf Mysteries that you'd get from Scholastic and they'd come in a little pack? Yep.

Remember that stuff? Yep, I do. It was heaps and heaps and heaps of cryptid things in that. So I think that that was probably maybe where I got an introduction to it. I don't know. That's so fascinating that you have an idea of the Frogman already. That's great. So once we go through this, let us know if there's any details we've missed, Jordan, since you're now the preeminent expert on the Frogman, clearly. Oh yeah, I'm keeping a keen eye on you boys. But I'll let you take the wheel on this one, Jackson. Yeah.

And we'll peddle through with any missing details. Before we start, though, just a very quick word from the sponsor of this episode.

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for uh you know taking on this sponsorship slot as well really do appreciate them they've been a long time supporter highly recommend you go check them out thank you and now back to the episode thank you for sticking through the uh sponsorship slot that really does help out so thank you very much we're gonna start with chapter one now the original sightings of the loveland frogman because of course for a story to have uh any kind of you know

It has to have a beginning. And those beginnings started with some sightings of the frogman. So the most prominent and widely circulated story of the Loveland frogman goes like this. On an unknown date. By the way, yes, we're going into story mode here. I promise it's not going to end with Jeffrey Epstein. This is an actual genuine story of the Loveland frogman. No, it's just putting out a decoy. It's going to end with Jeffrey Epstein, of course.

On an unknown date, but most likely sometime in May 1955, a man was traveling through Ohio in the very early hours of the morning.

Why? Well, that's another mystery that for now remains unsolved. It was spring, but the air was cool as he drove near Loveland, a town that sits 26 minutes northeast from Cincinnati. Described as a pleasant and nice place to live, Loveland features the Little Miami River that runs through the town. There are no official reports of this man's mourning that exist, as so many details of this story have changed over the years.

First, the driver was a businessman, then a traveling salesman, or even a line cook. Each detail changed depending on who spun the yarn at any given time. However, while traveling through the area at 3.30 a.m., this man was said to have seen three strange figures standing by the road near Little Miami River. It was a barely lit area and he could not see specifics, but what he did notice sent chills down his spine.

The figures appeared to be creatures standing around three to four feet high, which is just over one meter high for me and Jordan. They stood on their two back feet and they were made out of leathery and wrinkly grayish green skin. Well, okay, wait. So first off, leathery skin. Would you describe frogs as leathery over here?

I guess they are, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. They're leathery. But they're not really wrinkly. What would you describe them as? Sinky smooth. Yeah. For some reason, I was thinking smooth. But now that I'm actually thinking about every time I've touched a frog, it does kind of feel like leather. But they're not wrinkly, are they? Frogs over here, generally.

Oh, man. Okay, now that I'm thinking about it, wrinkly. Not really. Look, all right, fair enough. I will give you that. Yeah. Quite a stretch. Yeah. Quite a stretch. It really is. They've usually got quite baby smooth skin. Yeah, it's like very smooth skin on frogs over here. What about over there, Nexpo? Frogs, leathery, wrinkly? Does that sound apt?

Well, apparently I've been lied to my whole life about what the hell I thought a frog was. Because apparently they're all toads over here that I've seen. Yeah, those are leathery. Okay. But I do. Okay. So hold on a second. So this guy, you know, he's traveling, you know, a little Miami River. 3.30 in the morning. He sees creatures, plural. Yes. So this isn't just one frog man. No. This is.

This is like a frog army. Yeah. I think there are three. Oh, my God. I think there are three in this initial site. Okay. Wow. That's a little group of frogmen. I guess the episode should be titled The Ohio Loveland Frogmen, perhaps. But I guess we're just kind of talking about the species itself, the cryptid itself. So their chests were lopsided and their arms appeared to be uneven length. He also saw that their hands were webbed.

The most shocking thing about their appearance, though, were their faces. They were human-shaped heads, but their faces, bizarrely, were unmistakably frog-like. I've heard it described as frog eyes, no eyebrows, and also no nose, I guess. But they still had a human mouth, almost. So, yeah, I can't really picture that in my head. Luckily, there's sketches here of what that would look like. Yeah.

I just can't look at these. I can't look at these and like... But realistically, nothing... I mean, I'd be weirded out if I saw this, but also I'd be like, that's a pretty cute looking creature. It's not like horrifying to me to think about a frog-human hybrid, honestly. I don't know.

I don't know why. No, it really isn't. It doesn't freak me out at all. No. Like when you think of like Wendigos or Goatmen or things like that, I become more immediately intimidated by the idea of them. But Frogmen, I don't know. That's just cute. Especially their height. They're only a meter tall. It's not that tall. Yeah. Yeah, but are you talking about the sketches of the really simple-faced men with the hump on the side? Yeah, they kind of look like cavemen down there.

sketch below. If you scroll down to page 5 of the document, we'll put this up on screen. This is an unconfirmed 1955 witness sketch by someone. I'd be scared of that.

Oh, that's a little more uncanny. Yeah, I'd definitely be freaked out by that. It is a little more uncanny. It is. Why have they got big tumors on their backs? Huge, massive growth. Mostly I just want them to see a doctor. I think the idea there is that they're kind of hunched over maybe because they're only a meter tall. They've also got the posture of a frog.

But okay. Okay. Still though. This wasn't in the description. I think they just added this. They've got such a gross hunchback. And some of them just have the hunchback on their chest. Yeah, I know. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Well, okay. Well, no, wait, wait, wait. I think that that is their back, but I think they're turning back to look at the camera. Maybe the face is like turning around to look over their shoulder.

Oh, yes. That makes a lot of sense. Still doesn't make sense, Jackson, that you look at that and you think, yeah, it's a koala. It's pretty cute. I'm not saying it's... That is not. I'm not saying it's like... Well, some portrayals of the frogman are cute, what I would describe as cute. But this particular portrayal is definitely not cute. But what I would say is it's not like as horrifying as like Goatman or the Wendigo, for example. I don't think it's that horrifying.

Right, okay, so essentially you've just been desensitized by seeing so many cryptids at this point. I don't know. I'm going to die on this hill. I don't think it's that bad. Even this portrayal here, I wouldn't be... Oh, come on! Are you kidding me? Come on! What do you think next, bro? Settle this debate for us. You're just trying to act so hard, Jackson. Settle this debate. Okay, so like...

I don't know. Like, so, you know, if I, if I was driving and I saw people that, so these, these sketches here look a little bit more like men than frogs. I think that's kind of where it's like kind of put me off a little bit. Like, okay, hold on a second. The lack of details here in the face, like,

uh it's scary i think it's scary it's just it falls more into the uncanny valley to me uh whereas the original uh that's page one artistic rendition is like oh that's that's pretty cool that's it's not that scary but he's got warts there as well though yeah whereas the other ones are like clean skin yes they've got a hunchback but they're still relatively clean skin i don't know where he got these tattered rag clothes

In the initial? Yeah, like the Jedi robes. Yeah, he's wearing a shirt. The second one? He's wearing a medieval shirt. It's like he's a bartender of yore. LAUGHTER

I think they're cute. Where are my frogmen at in the audience? Can I get some support for my opinion in the audience, please? It really seems to depend entirely on the artist's rendition. And may I just say they are a very diverse species because... Yeah, there's many different portrayals. Some are more frog-like. Others are more like caveman-esque, I would say. Yeah. Yeah.

I will say that portrayal there. Some of the pictures look like goblins. I think like Nextpost said, it's potentially like the lack of detail. I think artistry just wasn't there at the time. If they had added more detail and color, we're forgetting color. You got to remember that they were green as well. So yeah, I mean, potentially cuter than they've made him appear here in this picture.

Alright, so stunned, the man stopped his car to get a closer look at the creatures in front of him. He sat and silently watched them for around three minutes, which is a crazy thing to do if you're... That's always an aspect of these cryptid stories where it's like,

This person saw the goat man and then stood around for five minutes watching just in case. Like I would be out of there. I would be out of there immediately. Yeah, I'd be gone. Yeah. Bye. Yeah, I'm not sticking around for that. Nothing good could happen from this, in my opinion. Right. But so yeah, they were seemingly conversing with one another. One was holding some sort of device like a metal cylinder or stick that emitted sparks.

This is one of the strangest details that does not appear in any other similar sightings other than this first initial sighting. It was either some sort of technical device or perhaps as has been suggested, a supernatural possession like a wand. Okay, hold on. We got to dissect that a little bit. Poor phrasing actually, since frogs are dissected commonly. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What? So you guys don't believe that they have magic wands? Is that what I'm getting? So we have... Okay, so we got three to four foot tall frogmen holding magic wands. Yes. That emit sparks. Yeah. Okay, okay. Thinking back, this is 1955. Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be a magic wand. It could just be they have access to flare technology. Yeah, some kind of flare gun. Okay. Maybe for their fellow frogmen. Yeah, to find them. That's how they meet up at night, shooting flares up into the sky. Okay.

Yeah, they're not a particularly elusive cryptid then, are they? No, they're just hanging out in groups by the road with flare guns, with flare technology. Actively trying to be found. God, we are an uninsured species, I'll say that.

So it remains a mystery of what this device was used for, but it almost pushed this sighting into more of a mystical or science fiction sighting as opposed to a cryptid sighting. After these initial few minutes of observing the frog men, the man promptly fled the scene, forever changed by the sighting of these large frog people. And also he noted the smell of alfalfa, also known as lucerne. I believe that's how that's pronounced.

No one knows it like that. And almonds, or almonds, that he claimed that they emitted. So yeah, and this is a detail that's shown up in every single Frogman sighting, basically, is they are very smelly creatures that smell like alfalfa. Alfalfa is just a herb, isn't it? Yeah, that doesn't sound like it would be bad. Yeah, I can't really bring to notice. Next point, let me guess, you don't have any opinions on alfalfas either?

Alfalfa's I don't know what it is Yeah I don't either I didn't want to say it but I don't either What is alfalfa? Do you know what alfalfa is Jordan? Yeah I know it's a plant That's all I know about it What does it smell like? You are asked Oh no actually I do know I do know

As a prank at our school once, someone was secretly planting alfalfa seeds in our carpet in the maths department. And they grew out. And one day we just came in and then the entire thing was just covered in alfalfa. No way. Are you serious? Yeah, apparently it's like really, really. I think that's what it was.

It's a very easy, quick-growing plant. If it's not that, then I'm completely wrong. But what did it smell like? What did it smell like? I'll tell you what. Dude, it was the math department of a high school. It smelled like trash. That's what it smelled like. But they also smell like almonds.

Yeah, it says they smell like almonds, which I think smells nice. Yeah, almonds are fine, I think, right? No one's got to know. You can't have a problem with that, sure. I mean, people, they sell like bath soap that smells like almonds. So there's...

Nothing wrong with these possibly magic creatures. Yeah, there's no negatives that I'm seeing so far for the Ohio Mugglin frogman. You look at this salesman, this modern-day American travelling Charles Darwin that spotted these guys because that's awesome. He's got a really cool species.

This was the first and perhaps the most important sighting of the Loveland Frogmen, sometimes also called the Ohio Frogmen or the Loveland Lizard. Finer details. Well, there's a big difference between lizard and frogs. Come on. You can't say that. Yeah. Yeah. Lizardmen are very different. Yeah. Lizardmen. That's an entirely different thing that springs to my mind and more scary, honestly. Yeah.

Yeah, lizards seem like they can fuck you up, don't they? 100% claws. And they've got that predatory nature as well that frogs just don't seem to have. So I'd be more scared of lizard men. And also, it's not the Loveland Lizard Men. It's just the Loveland Lizard. True. So it's either a frog man or a lizard. Like a slightly larger lizard.

finer details have been lost through the many oral retellings since its conception. There are many different versions of this first story with little difference between them. Some say the frogmen were on a bridge or near one or by a river trail. Due to the layout of Loveland and the river that runs through, and of course it's multiple bridges, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly where this could have happened. In one particular retelling, one of the frogmen was said to lift his metal wand over his head where he then shot sparks out of it.

It's also unknown where this story was originally reported or who started it. So many details have been lost and changed with time. And this story definitely falls more so into the territory of a generalized urban legend, as opposed to anything concrete or really, really detailed, which that's just cryptids in general though, isn't it? Like, I feel like that's, yeah, definitely. Generalized urban legend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's very quickly just becomes an urban legend. Like some dude at a high school is like, yeah, dude,

I saw this giant frog guy on my bridge on my way to school today. And then your other stone reference like, no way, dude, I got to tell all my friends about that. And then it just spreads that way. But that happens with so many different stories. And eventually it just becomes so difficult to narrow down where the details actually started or what the original story even was. Because it's just become a game of whispers, basically. Wait.

I've actually seen the frog man too. And he was, uh, he was actually eight feet tall and he had glowing eyes and there we go. That's all the information we need to now spread that. I'll tell my audience. I mean, the audience has probably seen this too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can subtly like, and then there's someone in the audience who's like probably crazy enough to be like, Oh wait, yeah, I did say that. Like you've just used them in one sentence. Yeah.

And then they spread it. Yeah, of course. And then you've also got to account for, obviously, a large percent of the people who will just go along with it just for the fun of going along with it anyway, or starting the story just because it's fun to start stories and seem more interesting, or just as a prank, for example. So yeah, there's many different reasons why the story could have initially started.

But it was in the 50s, which is an interesting time period for it to begin in. During the research process for this episode, this was discovered to be what is predominantly believed to be the first sighting of the frogman chronologically. But there was also some interesting information found on Cryptids Across the Atlas, which is a podcast where they investigated the creature and found a sighting may have occurred in 1952 by a man named Robert Honeycutt.

There seems to be a bit of a crossover and muddling with the stories because I also saw his name appear in the 1955 sighting recountings. And other details in this story mirror the other. So there's kind of a theory going that the 1952 sighting with this Robert Honeycutt is actually what kind of inspired the 1955 story because they are very similar in details.

So Honeycutt apparently told UFO investigator Leonard Stringfield that he saw the creature in March 1952 at around 4am in the morning. Honeycutt, who was a short order chef. What's a short order chef? Is that just like makes the easy stuff at restaurants?

Short order chef. No idea. It might be an American terminology there. Do you know what that is, Nexpo? Just out of curiosity for my own. No, I don't. Short order chef. Let's see. Preparing. Yeah. Quick foods like pancakes, burgers, eggs, fries, sandwiches. Right. So just the stuff you got to get out of the kitchen quickly, I assume. Yeah.

Okay. So Honeycutt, a short order chef, was driving through Brand Hill when he saw multiple three feet tall figures that were all lopsided, gray and wrinkled, crouching down by the road. I love the idea of them just crouching by the road. Just these frogmen. Plotting. Yeah. Waiting for it to be safe to cross the road, I guess. I don't know why they're crouching down. It's

It's cute. It's cute to imagine. He parked the car and observed them, just like the 1955 story, suggesting that both of these sightings are actually the same sighting and the distinction has been lost with time. Honeycutt described them as frog-like and he claimed that they had no apparent noses and didn't have any eyebrows. He tried to get a closer look, but they made subtle movements as if they were warning him not to get close. Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!

What do you think that movement would have been? Like shuffling backwards maybe to get away from him? Yeah, maybe that little sporadic twitch that frog legs do. It could be that. What? Sometimes they do that as like a little mating shuffle. You know that thing where they go like... But you guys can't see me. I hope you're doing it in the camera so the audience can at least see it.

Whatever. Oh, my God. If they did a mating shuffle, if I saw a frogman doing a mating shuffle, I'd super be out. Like, yep, I'm out. Bye. No way. Wait, yeah. Well, different horses for courses, man. Don't be sticking around.

I mean, realistically, if they wanted you to leave them alone, they really should not be doing a mating dance. Yeah. That sends the wrong message, Frogmen. There are absolutely people out there that would take advantage of that as well, I'm sure. Oh my god, stop.

Yeah, so he left shortly after they began doing those subtle movements and immediately went to Loveland Police Chief John K. Fritz's house where he told the chief he's sorry. And this is also corroborated by John K. Fritz. So he was so concerned about these frogmen by the road that he immediately went to the police chief's house to tell him about his sighting.

Wow. That is actually kind of crazy to me. Man, that's ballsy. Yeah. If it was a prank, I wouldn't think someone would do that, honestly. No. Right. Agreed. Yeah. Especially a salesman. It's compelling. The most honest of jobs. This dude's seen something. He's seen something. It might not be frogmen, and it might be like a delusional aspect or a delusional sighting of some kind, but I genuinely believe that he believes truly that he saw something that night.

true avenue of him going to the Loveland police chief's house, not the police department. He went straight to that man's house at 4 a.m. to tell him about this. And this is where he added the detail about the peculiar scent of alfalfa and almond. The chief was oddly curious about the story with him not being able to detect any deception on the part of Honeycutt as well as any kind of like inebriation or anything like that. He said he was very...

you know, he was there basically. On the level. Yeah, he was on the level. The details about the alfalfa and almond was so out of left field that Honeycutt had to believe it to some degree. Like there's such a weird detail to add. So Honeycutt, the chief went alone to the area where he was unable to find any evidence of the sighting.

So immediately, this is pretty compelling to me. Like, that's a very compelling initial sighting that it's got the law enforcement on the side of the sighting. Like, they believe that there's some kind of compelling reason to go investigate further, which in and of itself is pretty compelling to me as an audience listener. Because it adds a bit of authority to the situation. Yeah, as soon as you call in the cops. Because the only other time that... I don't know if aliens count as cryptids, but the only time I can ever recall that, Roswell. That's it. Yeah. That's the only other time...

So purely just based on that fact, I believe him. Well, remember, all this information is also coming out from a UFO investigator. So maybe they're not frog men. Maybe they're alien frog men. Yeah, I mean, look, that's far out. How dumb do our species sound if that's what we are?

You know, like he actually did see aliens. Yeah, he saw aliens running to cops. Like, I'm telling you, I saw a giant frog with magic wand. It's like, dude, are you from like 13, 18? Why are they frog men? What did you say, DxMo? If I was a police chief, someone came to me screaming that they saw frog men who smelled like alfalfa and almonds, I would... I wouldn't know what to say. I'm sorry. I would be like, oh...

I'll tell you one thing. I'm going to where that man saw the sighting. Yeah, true, actually. I'd be way too curious. Look, Eve, I'd be way too curious. And on top of that, day off from paperwork. Well, it's 4 a.m. Are you still going to go to work? Oh, yeah. Right, right. He's sleeping. Yeah, maybe I tell him to fuck off then. I don't know. Yeah. Come back at working hours, please. Yeah, we open at 8. So, yeah, show up then and then I'll go investigate.

The UFO investigator, Leonard Stringfield, and his colleague, Ted Blosher, both examined the case during the summer of 1956, which, if you're not keeping track, is about four years later. Blosher personally interviewed both Honeycutt and Chief Police Officer Fritz. They also described, or sorry, they also discovered that a UFO had been sighted...

And sighted earlier from the Loveland Ground Observer Tower on Lebanon Road at 7.48 p.m. on May 24th, 1955, which was approximately eight hours before this encounter. So it's either 1955 or 1952. I can't be sure of exactly when the UFO sighting as well as this initial sighting was made because they...

in retellings, there's multiple sources out there that refer to it as either 1955 or 1952. It was one of those two years. What is known though is that that UFO sighting was made approximately eight hours before Honeycutt's encounter. So, yeah.

This UFO sighting was well documented and reported by an article published in the Loveland Herald newspaper on June 2nd, 1955. All of this leads to a compelling theory. Could the sighting have been a sighting of extraterrestrials? And luckily we have the expert on aliens here with us today, Mr. Jordan Shanks, to let us know. I want to find out what you think. Does this sound like a potential alien sighting?

Yes. Yes, it does, Jackson. What is your rationale? I'll tell you why. Oh, okay. All right. Is that all the time we have? Is it? That's good enough. Then go on. Talk about your petty theories about Frogme. I know the truth. No, please. What's your rationale? Like, what makes this sound... My rationale is...

Aliens are usually described as quite reptilian and frogs are quite reptilian. Not exactly. And so there would be some crossover with that.

And I think that, honestly, as soon as this whole time when this guy was saying that, I was like, no, come on, you just saw a crash landing site. That's what you saw, mate. Way more believable. We don't believe these silly stories about, you know, an evolved species on this planet that might be hiding from us that we haven't discovered yet. It's far more likely that they're from an inordinate distance in space that seems physically impossible to see.

I mean, but when you add any additional information that there was literally a UFO sighting made in that area, well-documented sighting in the area eight hours beforehand, it does become a lot more compelling. Yeah, it does. And it's like, hold on, like, wait a minute. So all of this happened in the same night. This dude was driving around three 30 in the morning. It's dark, you know, probably only lit up by his headlights and,

He could have seen... I mean, there's a theory that it could be the Loveland Lizard, like we touched on earlier. So, potentially, this wasn't a frog at all. There's that... That's still a potential point there. So...

Who knows? You know you say aliens are reptilian. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to connect the dots here, connect the red threads here. Nice. Bye. Subscribe. Well done. Fantastic. Thank you for doing that. You're welcome. I had to get that in there. I was just saying, come on, boys. If they just changed this from...

Frog meant this was an alien sighting. Immediately. I'm 80% more, I believe you. Just on that. Remember, this is a sighting that generated those sketches down below that we already made fun of looking like kind of like cavemen with hunchbacks. To me, they look more alien than Frog. Those pictures. They do.

Yes, but the one right next to it of a frog holding a wand. Literally a frog with a wand. Yeah, that looks more frog than alien, that one. Well, then again, you know, if you scroll down, if you scroll down to page seven, you know, we got the picture of the photograph of the frog.

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SelectQuote. They shop, you save. Go to selectquote.com slash SpotifyPod today to get started. Dog man with his eyes lit up. Yeah.

That definitely looks a lot more frog than the caveman drawing above, in my opinion. But that one is from a later sighting. This caveman drawing that we're talking about right now literally directly comes from Robert Honeycutt. He worked with a sketch artist to get these done, basically.

SketchArtist is giving him a lot of credit here because this looks like something I could have done when I was like eight. But yeah, regardless, SketchArtist did this. So based off the information that Robert Honeycutt described. And to me, yeah, when we take everything into account, the sighting earlier of a UFO in the area

as well as just the general appearance and nature. And also the wand. He described it as like a metal cylinder. That could have been a technology from the alien civilization, potentially, instead of a magical frog wand. So I definitely think this initial sighting of the frogman, the story that created the frogman in the first place, genuinely sounds to me like a...

More like a UFO alien sighting as opposed to a cryptid sighting. Yep. I subscribe to that theory. That's what I think too.

No, the contest is over. It's not a frog man. It's an alien. We're changing it. It's the Ohio Loveland Frog Alien Man. Frog Alien Man. Surely there's a catchier name. Nonetheless, it is tentatively penciled in. The Ohio Love Alien kind of sounds cool. I'd be down for that. The Ohio Love Alien. That goes hard, actually. But again, it sounds like it's still doing the mating dance.

Oh yeah, wait, what pose would the aliens have been doing? I feel like they, although if they were injured after like a UFO crash, although it doesn't say that the UFO crashed, it was just sighted. Nevermind. I was going to say maybe the hunchback could be from damage from crashing the UFO perhaps. Yeah, maybe. I mean, could be. I don't know.

According to Blosher, the strange encounters in Loveland didn't stop there, and there were indeed many other witnesses. Around early 1955, a young policeman for civil defense reportedly saw something unusual while driving across a bridge, likely the one crossing the Little Miami River near Claremont County. Similar to the original story, he claimed to observe four...

small unusual figures moving in a very peculiar manner. He also spoke of the overpowering odor in the area. When this policeman reported this event, he was apparently ridiculed by his co-workers and so he chose to remain silent. They made fun of him for saying frogmen. That's sad.

I mean, you kind of have to, though, if your friend comes to you and says, dude, you won't believe what I saw. Yeah, you've got to pay them out. But deep down, I'd also be like, damn, what if he's telling the truth? I've got to go explore this myself. Yeah, in my own time, secretly. And it wouldn't be like mean ribbing either. I wouldn't be mean about it. I'd just be kind of like, you know, playfully teasing, even though deep down I'd believe.

Right. Yeah. Agreed. When this, when, yeah, so he was ridiculed when Blocher interviewed the young policeman who has remained anonymous out of fear of being teased again. Reprisal? Yeah. The frog men will get me. 90 year old bullying. Yeah. Or is he more scared of the frog men potentially taking retribution against him perhaps or spreading his secrets? He doesn't say. Maybe he is. Yeah. He,

He claimed that the beings he saw differed from the sketches created from the original sighting. He instead described them as approximately three feet tall and he described them as more human-like. He claimed the sighting only lasted 10 seconds. The more human-like would put it in the realm, again, of aliens, I would have to imagine.

But why? Again, like we don't really know what aliens look like, but of the many artist depictions that I've seen in Nicolas Cage's absolute robbing that he didn't get an Oscar for signs. Yes. They look like humans in that. I love, I unironically love the movie signs. I unironically can't remember the movie signs. Yeah.

I just remember it scared the shit out of me when I was little. Yeah, me too. That's all I remember. Particularly the found footage aspect of the scene where they first see the aliens on the news broadcast. Like how they're passing through randomly like Venezuelan birthday parties on the street or whatever. They're just there in the background. I distinctly remember that scene and it stuck with me. Unfortunately, signs ended badly.

I get that there was like a biblical and spiritual message and symbology to the theming of that movie. But just the idea of the aliens dying from water just kind of ruined that movie for me. Made them way less threatening at the end there. But whatever. Spoiler for science.

Jackson has deep opinions on this. I love that. I thought it was just going to be like a throwaway reference, but this seems to have deeply moved you up there with citizen cane. Well, it was the citizen cane of our generation. God, I wish that they put that on the, on the DVD cover, the citizen cane of our generation. And then my name underneath it. Who the fuck's Jackson?

Yeah, man. One additional sighting was explored by Blosher, a woman named Emily Magnone and her husband claimed to have experienced an odd event around the same time as the police officer did in 1955. So yeah, again, it's all popping off in 1955. Like there were a lot of sightings at this particular time.

They claim that at their home in Loveland Heights, they were awakened by their dog barking outdoors at night. It was then that they immediately noticed that the air was thick with an unpleasant swamp-like odor. The

The following day, their neighbor had also mentioned a similar situation when she was awoken by the dog's barking. She added a peculiar additional element, however. She claimed that when she peered outside, she saw a strange tiny figure that was around three feet tall. It apparently was adorned in sticks and vegetation. So it made a... Okay, well now it doesn't sound like an alien if it's wearing vegetation as an outfit.

Is that like camo vegetation? Yeah, yeah. It sounds like, again, like a ghillie outfit, like what you were wearing recently. Yeah. Damn, I could have caught him, man. You could have beaten him. Maybe Emily saw you time traveling back in time. That's probably what it was. A time anomaly.

So it was apparently adorned in these sticks and vegetation and it stood silent about 15 feet away from her back porch. When she turned on her porch light, the creature or figure disappeared instantly. However, when she turned the light off again, it reappeared immediately in the same spot. She repeated this multiple times. That's such an odd element of this story. It's like warping in time and space based on when there's light.

That's what the wand is for, dude. Invisibility. Oh, he's Harry Potter. Holy shit. But yeah, what a weird element. Maybe, yeah, maybe it is more magic. Although, actually, now that I think about it, aliens likely have cloaking abilities, surely. Jordan, back to you, expert on aliens.

Yes. Yes, I would imagine they would. Any further questions, Jackson? I can just picture him just holding a coffee like, yes. Yes. Yes, they do. That does make sense. Thank you. That's all the information I need. Yeah, well, I don't know. You would imagine, right? Surely. Well, how else would I have evaded detection? I honestly feel like being an alien expert is incredible because you're right about everything, potentially. You can't be wrong.

Yeah, I would have believed you either way. Yeah, if I said, actually, that's a common misconception, who's the expert here? Especially if you use those words. Those are very large words. Yeah. Yeah, Jordan, with enough confidence, dude, you can't be wrong.

You can't be wrong in this. You really can't. I can't wait until I'm one of those guys on the History Channel that they cut to in between the really shit 3D images of pyramids getting built by UFOs. And it just says, like, a name tag pops up, you know, like a lower thirds name tag on the bottom of the screen. Like Jordan Shanks. And then underneath, in italics, Alien Expert. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then my degree, sorry, my university that I went to without the degree.

That's always what happens as well. Yeah, yeah, just the university name. It just says like, yeah, it just says like Alex Hawke and then it just says, I don't know, Mississippi University. Yeah, that's enough credibility for me. Yeah. I mean, he's got a degree.

The crew from Cryptids Across the Atlas also researched another strange case that happened about four hours down from Loveland. This sighting was a bit different to the other sightings and is not really mentioned in relation to the Frogman in contemporary sources. Like how we contemporary sources on the Loveland Frogman.

Two women, Debbie Johnson and Chris Lamble. Lamble. That's an interesting name. I want to say Lambie, but there's an L in there. It's Lamble. Chris Lamble spent the hot summer's day of August 21st in 1955 by the Ohio River. While in the water, Johnson's leg was grabbed by a large hand she described as furry and claw-like.

She screamed, alerting everyone else around that she believed she was in danger. She began to kick her legs in an attempt to get free. After kicking the hand off, it quickly moved and grabbed her from behind, managing to drag her under the water. Lamble ended up throwing a tube to Johnson, scaring whatever lurked under the water away. They swam fast to the shore, where Johnson noticed scratches, bruises, and a hand-shaped green handprint on her leg, which took days to leave.

Interesting. So this is four hours away. Yeah, they could have traveled downriver. But then what? This is definitely the most aggressive example or aggressive sighting in most other situations that I've read about the frogmen. They are very timid creatures that just kind of don't do anything other than timidly move away if you notice them. But meanwhile, well, but a frog's natural environment is probably water, right? So maybe they felt more emboldened in the water.

That, yeah. I mean, that could explain that. Yeah. Because I was going to ask if maybe it was like a different cryptid. If there's another one that's like four hours south. Where would that be? Four hours south of Cincinnati. There's probably another one. Yeah. I actually don't know where this was. Now that I'm thinking about it. It was just in the Ohio River, which is a pretty long river from what I know. So.

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It could be anywhere, but it's four hours south from Loveland.

Could this particular encounter be attributed to the frogmen? It's possible. The time of the encounter was around the same time as the previously described sightings. However, the nature of the creature or entity involved in this encounter certainly seemed more malevolent than the frogmen as portrayed in other sightings. Yeah, I don't buy this one. Personally, I don't attribute this one to the frogmen. Not this one. Not this one. No, I think there was something. It was probably just like a large fish or something, maybe. Yeah.

That's what my mind immediately went to whenever you were reading that. That's, yeah, probably a fish or something. Yeah, like a... A really big, big fish. Yeah. Like, I've definitely swam in, like, creeks and stuff, and fish do, like, nibble at your feet sometimes and stuff, and you're like, what the fuck was that? That felt like something grabbing me. But then it's obviously just like... Has that happened to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fish or sea, like... What's it called? Like, seaweed? But, like, creek seaweed? I don't know what that's called. But the algae underneath? Sometimes you, like...

You know, you rub up against that in the creek and it feels like a hand's grabbing you, but it's just like the algae. Oh, man. How wussy would you have to be to have seaweed wrapped around your leg and think that that was some epic struggle for survival? I mean, I could see it if you've never experienced it before, maybe. And also a fish nibbling at your feet.

What, you don't think that's scary? Is that really the same as a green handprint that's on your leg for days? No. It kind of ties in, though, to...

And like that whole realm of things. Cause I mean, I kind of get it, you know, if I'm swimming in the water and I feel something like that, I'm going to freak the hell out. Like it's the fear of the unknown. You don't know what's down there. Yeah. Yeah. It's like darkness. You don't know what's in the darkness. So you're more scared of whatever's in there. At least. Well, I'm not, I'm not scared of the dark anymore. I can say that with my full chest. I've moved on from that. Yeah. But yeah,

Man, you've made a lot of progress in these past couple of months. Purely from Red Thread, I've learned to overcome my fears of the darkness. I'll make a video. I'll make a video on fear of the dark. But you're going to make a video called Why Jackson Isn't Scared of the Dark Anymore. Yeah, I'll do that. Thank you. Just two hours of bullying me, being scared of the dark.

I'll jump scare the shit out of you at the end. Yeah, I'll watch it all. I'm very enthused until that jump scare. And then I'll be scared in the dark again. It'll be great.

Chapter two, the latest sightings. The frog man or frog man stayed out of the spotlight for nearly 20 years after these initial sightings until 1972 when it waddled from the swamps once again. This time, however, we have more information as the witness was again a police officer, a respected community member who wasn't this time bullied into silence. It's very weird that most of the people who have sightings of this are policemen.

Yeah, that is strange. Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder if that, I wonder if it has to do with like, maybe the frogman kind of became a character within that local police department's culture and so that they would constantly tell stories of it, kind of. And, you know, maybe that's how policemen kept having sightings in quotation marks because they were playing around with each other. Yeah, or as you are fervently dismissing, maybe they saw it

You don't know. Maybe they did. And on top of that, respected community member, who I really like how you added this into it, wasn't bullied into something. LAUGHTER

I think it's also the 70s sounds like a much more easygoing, free-loving time than the 50s. Yeah, they finally came around to it. Seeing a frogman in the 50s feels very different to the 70s. Why? Because he was wearing a trench coat or something? Had a cigar in his mouth? Why is he wearing a trench coat? That's what I think of when I think of the 50s. I think of like Mad Men.

Oh, sorry. Our time warped into the 70s. Yeah, all right. All right. Your story passes this time, Jackson, with your sighting, and we'll get to yours later. But now, but for now. I wish I saw the frogman. The frogman is the one cryptid I would want to see actively. Yeah, me too. I really want to see the frogman totally. I get why now Nexpo, you fervently attempted to see him.

Oh, yeah. But it seems like next week you want to see him and then you want to take a quick glance of him and run away. No, I got this really shitty quality VHS camera. So what I would do if I saw him, record it on the lowest quality footage I can, drop it online, and then just dip. Yes. And let it just do its thing, you know? Are you ever kind of...

Do you get the motivation or the desire to fake one of these things? Maybe not as Nexpo, not on your channel or stuff. But sometimes I do get the idea in my brain like, man, I would love to fake a cryptid sighting and then just post it online just as an anonymous account and just see kind of what happens. Just the social experiment aspect of it. I'll tell you what will happen. There is something fun about that.

There will be a lot of comments in the bottom that are in Spanish that I assume are South Americans that genuinely believe it. True, yeah. That seems to happen every time you see something that is obviously fake and then you just see endlessly just being like, Dios mio. Why? Why does this always do the rounds in Peru? I kind of...

Dude, I kind of miss that innocence of the internet. Watching videos and stuff of just the creepiest, obviously most fake shit now, but back then. Oh my god, dude. Maybe not believing it, but having that little shred of innocence in your brain where you're like, well, maybe. Well, maybe it's true.

like yeah dude have you guys seen that video of that uh it's like that the lady in the white dress uh that's like kind of just like walking like chasing a of someone in a vehicle and like they're freaking out trying to get away and it's it's been debunked it's like fake footage but it's it was something that i fully believed was real like was it like 10 to 12 years ago yeah i distinctly well i feel like i remember this was it like a ghost sighting

yeah it was like like a ghost or a witch sighting or something yeah she was like i think i remember like limping towards the vehicle yeah dude yeah oh yeah and it was out in like that i was horrified kind of like a dirt road yeah yeah yeah yes yes i remember that footage yeah i remember that terrifying me as well when i was like 12 oh yeah that's good yeah it was definitely because um i think because the internet was so new at that point no it's also because we were 12 yeah

I think it was mostly that. I think adults at the time, if you were like a 40-year-old man using the internet at that time and you saw that, you'd be like, yeah, right. Just with age. With age, you become more boring. Less cool. I'm still watching it now, and even though it is debunked, I still believe it. Well, I was going to say, you kind of dodged this, Jordan, because you are an alien expert who actively believes in aliens, so you are still cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm still living the dream. Yeah, you are. You've got that 12-year-old mindset. I do. May I just say the viewers are looking for you. I envy it. I envy it. I could show you any video. I could fake a cryptid video to you and you'd be like, no way, man. Like, oh, man. I wouldn't believe it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just you with green face paint on. Wow. That's a frog man if I've ever seen one. I feel slightly offended over that, actually, now that I think about it.

Yeah, so this police officer, back to the sighting, it was March 3rd around 1am in the morning and Officer Ray Shockey was battling icy conditions as he drove via Riverside Drive to Loveland. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, something ran in front of the car, which forced Shockey to halt the vehicle.

I feel the urge for Jeffrey Epstein, but I'm not going to. The creature had also stopped like a deer in the headlights. Speaking of headlights, these now illuminated the creature for Shockey to see. This provided a clear view and Shockey was able to get a good look at the creature. He noted the details of the creature. It stood around three to four feet tall and he guessed it to be around 50 to 75 pounds, which is, you know, 22 kilograms to 34 kilograms.

and it had leathery and wrinkled skin. It stood up tall from its crouched position and stared back with its bulging eyes at the officer who sat shocked. Shockey didn't move. His name is Shockey. That's great. Shockey didn't move as it then turned around and climbed over the guardrails on the side of the road and escaped, possibly to the river. Like, possibly to the river. Also, like, it's a 50-50. It could have also gone to UFO and flown off. Like, possibly.

The possibilities are endless. I mean, that... Yeah, yeah. I mean, that seems more logical. Right, Jordan? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Absolutely. It's more logical. But again, we can't dismiss that it did go into the river. Well, as UFO could have been downstream, the quickest way to get there may have been the river.

Apparently it needed to use those frogman-like legs to swim through the current. Apparently Shockey's fellow police officer peers came out and investigated this incident later on and did find scratches and marks on the rail, the guardrail, but there is unfortunately no evidence of this.

This particular frogman didn't wait as long until his next sighting, and it came just two weeks later. Curiously enough, however, it was another police officer who saw this mysterious frog creature. A man by the name of Mark Matthews was driving in the same area at roughly 6 a.m. So all the sightings are around the same time as well.

And frogs. Well, that's where all the frogs hang out. Yeah. Yeah, they're nocturnal. Mostly nocturnal creatures. It all checks out. Yeah, it does. That's completely true. And again, purely because they're all cops, I'm believing every last one of them. To the litter. We have to. We have to. It's the law. I mean...

So yeah, he was driving in the same icy conditions and something off the side of the road caught his attention. At first, he thought it was an injured or possibly deceased animal and was concerned that it may pose a hazard in the terrible weather conditions at the time. He stopped his car and hopped out, intending to either help the animal or move its body into a better location, but it suddenly jumped up, frightening Matthews, who instinctively grabbed his gun. He shot the creature. What the fuck? Damn.

You shot the frog man? Come on, man. He shot the creature, but it managed to get away unharmed, staring Matthews down suspiciously as it climbed once again over a guardrail and disappeared from view. Matthews stood bewildered at the large frog creature he had just witnessed. His description mirrored the previous, except as it ran away, he could clearly see that it had a tail, a detail not mentioned in other reports. Ooh.

Okay, well, wait. What kind of tail? Is it just one of those stupid little French bulldog nubs? No, I don't... Is it a nub? I don't think he would have said it then if it was a tail. Well, I'll tell you what it could have been, actually. It could have been a tadpole frogman. Oh, he's... He could have nearly shot a teenager. True.

Yeah, true. It could have been like a young frogman, let's say, on his pilgrimage out from the river. That checks out totally. That's fine. Frogmen can absolutely have tails. I mean, you guys raised tadpoles as kids, right? Yeah, actually, yeah. Next, though, you've got no experience of it. No. No, you raised toads, didn't you? Toads, yep, that's right.

I've got toad men out here. Well, yeah, Dixman. Dixman, I don't know if you know this then, but there is this strange phase that probably lasts less than a week where you're raising the tadpole and it has its four legs and it is...

more or less just a frog, but it still has this little tail at the end of it. That's part of the evolution. Oh, really? Yeah. During its transformation. Okay, so that makes sense then. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so mid-transformation. If the frogmen are more...

Well, if they're frog, then they likely have the same life cycle. So there would be a period of time where they're tadpole men, for example, or where they're swimming in the rivers slightly larger than normal. Boys, boys, is it strange that I'm putting frog man up way higher than I normally do any cryptid that we do on this channel? Like in terms of believability? In terms of believability. Well, police officers. Again, it's the police officers. It's the credibility. Yeah. It all checks out.

So far, the only quirk in the story that really is like a, ooh, got you, is it was 1952. No, it wasn't. It was 1955. 1955, and now it's 1970. This sighting is in the 70s. I know this one's in the 70s, but before they were saying it's either a sighting in 1952 or 55. And look, that's a common mistake.

Honestly, if someone said to me when was COVID, I'd be like, I don't know, 96. I can't remember. Like, you know?

Like, yes, I get you. I get this. I feel the same way towards this. There's more credibility for this one for some reason. I can't pinpoint it. I think it's just the different professional people. It's not like some random person, you know, who's had an experience. I mean, initially, yes, but there are like prominent community members that have had experiences and they all kind of share the same details and the same time period.

Yeah, there's some level of credibility here, weirdly enough. But at the same time,

It's still got the same issue that all cryptids have where I can't... I just cannot believe it because if there did exist a frogman who was seen like this, there would be way more sightings and way more proof of it existing in the first place. And that's always such a hard aspect for me to get over in terms of rationality. Like, it's been seen multiple times. It's been shot at. Like, there has to be more. There has to be more evidence of its existence for me. Yeah. Yeah.

yeah yeah yeah which is why i want to lean more towards aliens like at least then i i can know that they like vanished they like use their ufo technology to leave the planet maybe and that's why we haven't seen them since yeah yeah i mean if you like sorry i was like going over the next paragraph it's uh crazy um would you like to read it they even wait me yeah go for it

Oh, dude, can I do my Nexpo voice? Yeah, go for it. I would love that. Oh, dude, hell yeah. Okay. All right. Because this is crazy. A news article appeared roughly two weeks after Matthew's encounter, dating March 27th. The article reported that the officer had fired three shots, which had presumably all missed as the creature fled. Hey, don't judge my voice. No, no, that's not the voice. I'm laughing at him missing. How did he miss? Oh, okay. How did he miss from that close? Well, apparently...

Dude, it, okay. However, as an updated article was published on April 12th that clarified that Matthews had, in fact, fired four rounds from his .357 Magnum, which had successfully hit the animal, killing it. He killed it.

The freaking frog man died. He killed the frog man. Oh my God, bro. Is this the first... No, never mind. I'm not going to say that. I was going to say, is this the first example of frog man police brutality? But it's probably... Man, this last sentence, come on, do the voice. Do the voice, expo. Please do the voice. However... However...

As he had shot at the creature while it was running away towards the river, it had managed to leap into the river as it died, and the river current carried it out of sight. Are you serious? That's their excuse? Oh, my God. I'm imagining it like, we were so close. Still belated. Still belated, boys. Jesus Christ, bro. The timing.

God bless. This is crazy. It's such a funny thought, like jumping into a river and dying in midair, being like... This lifeless corpse hitting the river, floating away. This really wasn't the 70s, wasn't it? That's such a cheap 70s action film. Yeah, I was going to say, it sounds like an action movie scene. Like jumping, trying to dodge the bullet, getting struck in the chest and falling into the river, bleeding out and floating away. Managed to leap into the river as it died. Yeah.

It's so convenient, though. Although... I wonder if that's ever happened in the history of any animal ever. I think it included gazelles. They died mid-air. Imagine if this did happen, though, and how confused you'd be as that police officer. Like, what the fuck just happened? Just imagine, like, the Matrix. Yeah. Like, slow-mo bullet time. Like, the frog just kind of leaping over mid-leap, and then...

The idea of a cryptid existing this one in a million animal and getting shot to death as it leaps into a river is so funny. Oh my god. So good. But also, speaking of credibility, does explain why he's never been seen again. Yeah, yeah, right? Surely his corpse will be found eventually, though. That's so good.

I love that though. I mean, the Ohio river is long. Next, but you're right to do your voice. Your voice. I'll tell you one thing. I'll tell you one thing that paragraph needed authority. Yeah. That really needed someone. I was so blown away by that, by that one little detail that I just, I had to do it. It's so good. It's such a good story now. It's an old timer. Oh God. It's,

So suddenly the frogman had been spotted. It's honestly one of those things that's like, you know, you couldn't write it. No, yes. It's honestly up there with that. It's...

It can't be made up. It's too beautiful. Trying to say that to a straight face with someone. I shot it and then it died in the river while it was jumping into it. And then the news reporting that and going, are you sure? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happened. I mean, again, you can't make it up. I'm just as confused as you guys. It must have happened. LAUGHTER

So good. It needs to be made into an animation of some kind, like a small gif. If there's an artist out there that can do that. Oh my god. Again, if they do one of those History Channel documentaries, god, I would love to see the 3D animation. We should do a live reenactment of it. Yeah, with an exposed voice. But put some more gravel into it with the like, but unfortunately, dark mid-air. Making it impossible to recover the body. Oh.

So good. I love the frog man. Suddenly the frog man had to be spotted twice within two weeks after hiding for years. Locals were either scared or ready to track him down. Unfortunately, it would be a while before he came out of hiding yet again. I mean, he's dead, so he's not coming out of hiding. That was not coming back.

Chapter 3. Recent sightings. So in July 2016, a mobile game was released that had the world in a bit of a chokehold for a while. We are, of course, referring to Pokemon Go. At the beginning of August that year, did you ever go through a Pokemon Go phase? Either of you?

Yes. Dude, imagine going and catching Pokemon and Pokemon Go and then you see the freaking frog man. Dude. It's like IRL Pokemon. Yeah, it is. I'd be freaking out. And be pissed off that it's not a Charizard. Yeah. Damn frog man. Is Pokemon Go still going? It is still going. Yes. Damn. It's not very popular. Some people never left. I don't think it's very popular anymore, but it's still going.

Alright, alright. Actually, I could be wrong. It's Pokemon. It could be played by everyone still. I'm not sure. But, yeah, I mean, I haven't played it since 2016 when it first hit that craze. That was such a fucking like lightning in the bottle moment though. It was in a

Dude, that was wild, bro. I feel like everyone played it for like a month and then... Yeah, it stopped. Yeah, it's such a sudden stop too. I don't understand how everyone was playing it constantly. And it was good. I loved it. I loved going outside and walking around and stuff. Sure, you're still looking at your phone, but it was like a weirdly nice sense of community to it. It was fun.

At the beginning of August that year, a man named Sam Jacobs was out wandering and looking for Pokemon to catch with his girlfriend when something stopped him in his tracks. They were at Lake Isabella, and as they crossed some train tracks, they saw what they believed was the frogman back with a vengeance. He's been healing up over the last 40 years, tending to his bullet wounds.

Jacobs later claimed, quote, 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. End quote.

Whatever he saw, he described it as a four feet tall or 1.2 meter tall massive frog that walked on its back legs. Incredibly, he managed to get a video of the frogman. So we're showing up on screen right now an image taken from said video, brightened to give a clearer picture from this frogman sighting. What do you guys think? You can also click the link. There's a link in the script of the video. I'm going to open that up right now and have a quick looky for myself.

Oh yeah. Okay. Interesting. That is a frog man. That is. Yes. He's there, man. He's lurking.

He's ready to pounce. He's lurking. He doesn't seem to be moving really at all. Although he kind of turns to the right at the very end, it seems like. It kind of lines up though with the original sightings of the frogman, how he was kind of like just chilling, doing his own thing. You know, I mean, maybe subtle movements, but, you know, not violent like the 70s one. Or even like not really antagonistic either. Just kind of observing. Right. Almost. Yeah.

Like a frog would, honestly. I do like one of the top comments on it is, dude, throw a Pokeball at it. Yeah, it's all just Pokemon references. Someone said, why is the footage of cryptids always so bad?

To be fair, it's a very, very good point. Yeah. But also it's 2016. I could see the, like someone's phone quality, especially in low light situations like this.

Yeah, maybe, but you turn the flash on. But the image has been brightened here and it really looks like a frog. It does look like a frog man. Looks like a frog man. What else? How would you fake this? What else could that be? Do you reckon that that's a friend that put flashlights in a suit of a frog? Yeah. What the hell else is that? How would you fake it other than just being a genuine frog man? I don't know.

I don't know. Hey, man, that's genuine. That's genuine to me. It looks genuine as fuck. Hey, like, honestly. It's the eyes, bro. Yeah, it's the eyes. For a cryptid photo, that's about as good as it gets. I honestly agree. Like, yeah, it looks fake, but in terms of cryptid photos, this is probably one of the more quality ones, I would say. Don't you reckon? Yeah. Personally, yeah. I think so. What I did not know, though, or realize until this video, was that the frogman...

Has glowing eyes, apparently? Well, in the dark, maybe. Huh. Although, yeah, no, you're right. It wasn't really described as having glowing eyes before. And one eye, especially in the dark video, one eye definitely seems brighter than the other. Which is a bit of a weird... Oh, the batteries of the flashlight. Yeah, one of them's dying. Yeah, it was...

Yeah, interesting though. Also, he did, again, speaking of credibility, I don't think you can get more credible than saying that you're swearing on your grandmother's grave. So, gotta believe it, honestly, due to that reason.

Chapter four, a hoax and other possible explanations. So in August of 2016, shortly after the Pokemon Go sighting, this whipped up everything into a storm surrounding the Loveland Frogmen. An article was published by WCPO Cincinnati titled Officer Who Shot Loveland Frogmen in 1972 Says Story is a Hoax. End quote.

Oh my god. This breaking news came from former Loveland police officer and third Frogman Cider, Mark Matthews, who saw the post about the couple playing Pokemon Go. Matthews called in and gave the scoop on what actually happened 50 years ago. He claimed that Ray Shockey had called him late one night after seeing something weird near the Little Miami River.

Matthews at first thought that this was just a joke, but by Shockey's tone of voice, Matthews had realized that he was telling the truth and that he had seen something, though what he saw was ultimately unknown. It wasn't until a month later when Matthews was driving through the same spot when he too saw the creature.

Apparently though, the creature was near the guardrail but was not climbing over it. Instead, a smaller creature was crawling under it. But Matthew could not decipher what it was. Knowing those that he told would doubt him, as many had doubted Shockey before, Matthew shot at the creature. What's with the instinct to immediately shoot things? Matthew shot at the creature and took it with him. He later claimed that the animal was already half dead anyway when he shot it. That's not a very compelling excuse. What?

Yeah, yeah. How do you know? Yeah. What are you, a frogman expert? This is a species that we have no contact with at all. No knowledge of its biology. Yeah, yeah. It was moving slowly, yeah. He moved it. He showed it to Shockey, who confirmed that the creature was the same one he had seen. When they took a closer look, they realized it was just a large tailless iguana. What? What? What does a tailless iguana look like?

Can they even get that big? What? Also, why would you shoot it then? Surely people knew what an iguana was at that time. I'm looking at photos of iguanas. It's very clearly an iguana, a lizard. I mean, man, look, I'll say this. If it is an iguana, that makes a lot of sense why people are always seeing it on the side of a road. That is a very iguana place to see it. Although the other sightings are like there were three of them.

Hey man, three iguanas chilling? Yeah, I guess it's possible. Yeah, that doesn't seem that weird. True. Matthews had actually been saying for a while that the whole event was an over-exaggeration. In 2001, he had participated in an email interview where unable to find the original source...

where he said, quote, Yeah, for real.

If it's just killing you, just pick it up and put it over the guardrail and let it live its life in bliss. Why'd you shoot it? Even then, you wouldn't have to shoot it. Just pick it up and put it in your trunk and go show your friends if you really care that much. Yeah. You just shot an iguana. Dick move. That's a frogman no-no in my opinion. Oh, man.

And

An author who wrote a book about urban legends and mysterious things in Ohio spoke to Matthews about this event, who told him the whole story. This author, though, left out everything after Matthews shooting at the iguana in an attempt to present the story in a more mysterious tone. Over time, the story grew, but Matthews has said that he himself does not believe in the frogmen or any cryptids with him, stating, quote, it's a big hoax. There's a logical explanation for everything, end quote.

Apart from the, there's no logical explanation for you shooting at it. I'm sorry. I'm getting hung up on this, but there is no logical explanation for you seeing something you don't understand and immediately shooting at it. Like that sucks. I just don't want to believe. I just don't want to believe it's an iguana. Honestly, they said it had no tail. So well, it could be a tailless iguana. I don't know.

Hey man, those don't exist, okay? It's a frog man. I choose to believe in the reality where he shot at it as it jumped into a river and then its deceased corpse floated off dramatically. Like, I wish we could have just ended there. Oh man, that would have been perfect. I would have gone to sleep tonight happy. But unfortunately, Red Thread, we deal with facts here. We could not leave out that information, unfortunately. Yeah.

It's all good. It's all good. I'll deal with it. It's all right. Yeah. Can you release a video on the true story of the frogman? The true, true frogman exposed coming up next. Yeah.

Oh well. The legend of the frogman has also been connected back to the First Nations groups of the area, like the Shawnee tribe. We've also seen Twightwee mentioned also in many articles. There is a mythological beast named the Shawnahook who is said to stalk its stake, sorry, is said to stake its claim in the area. It's a reptile that stands on its back legs

and torments those that live nearby. When you google the Shawna Hook and Shawnee, no articles appear about this river demon besides relating it back to the frogman. Due to the nature of the sightings, dark, nighttime, bad weather, the sightings themselves could have easily been misidentification of regular animals, for example, like the iguana that was misidentified in the 70s sightings.

There is no doubt, though, that Loveland has fully adopted the frogman. The creature is even the city's official mascot. In 2023, the first Frogman Festival occurred, and it now continues every year. The city also holds an event every leap year celebrating and honoring the story of Frogman. Yeah, I always love that aspect. Like the Mothman, for example, where...

The cities or the localities kind of take hold of the cryptid or the myth or whatever, the urban legend, and turn it into an event that the people of that town can hold some kind of identity towards. Yeah, it's cute. I love that stuff. Really good. It would be very unfortunate if they found out that it was a giant iguana that was shot by their police officers. And that's where it was all born from. Very sad.

Yeah, but that still only explains one frogman. Yes, it does. There's still the 1950s. Yeah, this is the other thing. So iguanas definitely aren't from Ohio, are they? No. Not even close. That's a good point, actually. Yeah. So it just had to be someone's escaped pet and that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, how do you explain the 2016 sighting then?

We've still got a bunch of others. Well, the 2016 is real, genuine. How do you explain there being three of them? Three of their pets? Three pet iguanas from the 50s that lived out. So I think what we've got here is at least two different species. We've got the frog man from 2016, who could be the same as the 1950s version. Could be some kind of alien. I definitely think the 1970s is obviously iguana, so we can rule that out. But

But I think... That's incredible that our most logical explanation for the 50s one is, oh yeah, it was an alien crash. Yes. You just mistook that. I think the most logical... Common mistake. The most logical answer for the 1950s, other than it being a hoax or fake or misidentification of something, is alien. Yeah, you just saw an alien. That's it. Yeah. Whereas the 2016 one, the most logical explanation is a Pokemon Go fan faking something.

for attention. But if not that, then that could be the first genuine sighting of the Ohio Loveland frogman that is not actually an alien. Or maybe it is an alien. Who knows? Yeah, I guess that's where my thoughts are. What about you guys? Yeah, I don't have any original thoughts to cover on. I'd just be padding yours, I suppose. Those are pretty damn good conclusions.

The 2016 sighting is what kind of gets me because I mean, there's 12 seconds of you can see like a creature, obviously, like, you know, like you said earlier, it turns his head to the right. It's clearly like animated. So unless it's a person, I guess a person with flashlights like taped to their head in a way or like some sort of like headband with lights.

I don't know. That's the most convincing to me. Yeah, what's interesting about that, though, actually, now that I think about it, is the creator of that, the person shooting the video, wouldn't... He wasn't the one that brightened the image. That was brightened by the audience. So I don't think he would have expected maybe someone to potentially do that and see the greater details of the image below the darkened image.

But even when you do brighten it by someone from outside of the person who made this, it does look like a frogman. You can't see any details that would speak of it being a hoax. You don't see any wiring or anything like that. You don't see it being an outfit, potentially, or the lights being something different. I mean, could it be an animal? Some other animal of some kind? I don't know what's around Ohio. Maybe it's an owl that is accidentally in the water.

Oh, shit. No. What could it be? I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know. But I'm telling you, most likely it's Frogman. I mean, yeah, it is green, actually. You're right. That does seem to be green coloration on it in the brightened image. Or at least that's what the pixels say.

That's a very good question, Jackson. What could it be? This is the whole thing. It's pretty much just a really budget version of Occam's razor because what else could it be? If it was brightened by people outside of the person who took it, you would expect there to be some proof shown that shows that it was an outfit worn by someone or some kind of evidence that it's like, you know, flashlights and stuff. But I can't see anything like that in it.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe we'll see what the comments say. I'm very interested in hearing what people have to say about that one. It's probably been debunked and we just don't have that information here for some reason. If it has, then whatever. What about, do you have any other information to add on the frog man next? No, I think we covered pretty much everything on it. Yeah. I don't have much to add. Did it live up to your expectations for the frog man? Hell yeah. This was awesome. I'm glad. Yeah.

This was more than I thought it would be. Yeah. There's a lot of history with the frog bed. Surprisingly. A lot of different situations to dive into. Very happy that we did cover him. I think he's certainly one of the more interesting cryptids that has a bit of character to it. So I'm glad that you could join us for this episode. And you gave us this episode, really. So thank you very much, Nexpo, for joining us. Yeah, of course. Before we do wrap up, though, we do have...

questions. So you can sign up at official.men for a free seven-day trial. What you get is ad-free early access to all of our series, including Red Thread. But yeah, you get early access. You see what episodes are coming out well in advance. You can ask questions for us to answer on the show. And that's what we've got right here. So we've got five questions. First one comes from Jared Legend. Among the long list of known cryptids in the world, what made you want to do an episode on the Loveland Frogmen now? And I guess that could

could be directed more so towards you, Nexpo, since you were the one that suggested this one. Like I said earlier, I had covered it and tangentially covered it a couple of years ago on my channel.

from a video game that I had played. And it's one of those cryptids that I think is just so out there, just so absurd and almost hilarious in a way that it made. That's why I wanted to cover it here and talk, talk with Jackson and Jordan about, has it proved to be hilarious as well? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And the reason for us obviously wanting to do an episode on it is because Nexpo wanted to do an episode on it and we of course want our guests to be comfortable on the show and get something out of it. But realistically, I would want to do an episode on the Love Land Frogman anyway, probably. If I had known about him beforehand, he would have been on my list because he's a very entertaining figure. Very cool cryptid. Squeak asks... I would chill.

Sorry? Sorry. I would chill with him. I would have a beer with him. Oh, absolutely. Again, he doesn't seem antagonistic in any way, really. So pretty chill cryptid. Yeah, he's chill. Squig asks, do you think there's a Loveland Toad out there waiting to be found?

It's potentially, as we've learned, a Loveland Frogman could potentially be the Loveland Toadman. And we just don't know the distinction by the sounds of it. Okay, so what we're saying is there's no possibility of there being a toad that's found unless it's a hybrid between. Maybe the Loveland Toadman is the evil version of the Loveland Frogman and the Loveland Frogman is keeping him in check, basically. He's our protector. Dude, that's the one that was biting.

Oh, yeah. Okay. That was the one in the river downstream that was more aggressive. That was a Loveland toad. But again, maybe that's my Australian toad hatred peeking through. Maybe toads are pretty chill as well. I'm not sure. I don't know. I would imagine the toads eat frogs. They're just so massive. I think that's just... You're basing it off their appearance.

Yeah, I am. Totally. In fact, I'm going to Google that right now. Do toads eat? Maybe they're like super chill and beneficial, but because they're ugly, we just have a deep hatred for them for no reason. Yeah. Toads do eat frogs. Nevermind. Oh my God. Such horrific images.

Damn, that's dark. Oh, I didn't need to see that. No, you looked it up. Just two legs hanging out of a cane toad's mouth getting slowly sucked in. Oh, no. Like they're spaghetti. Yeah, I'm team frog man now. That's fucked. How could you never not be? You're right. Your first instinct is absolutely correct. This is not just an Australian-centric view of the world. They are evil. Can you look up do frogs eat toads?

Geez, Jackson, you're asking for a lot. Is it a cyclical thing? Do they hunt each other? Do frogs eat toads? Drumroll. No. Oh, wow. Wow. It actually is a situation where they are just the innocent ones. They're just the crap ones. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Fuck toads. Musty asks, if you could make one animal on earth bipedal, what animal would it be? For me, definitely a Mata Mata turtle. I feel like they would be funny. I don't know what that is. Mata Mata turtle. It's just a turtle.

It's just a turtle. Oh, wait, no, they've got interesting faces. Oh, that's a cool looking turtle. It's like a long neck turtle. That's pretty cool. Oh, yeah, I can see that being bipedal and looking cool. For me, like turning any creature that's not bipedal, bipedal is inherently creepy to me. Like I'm imagining a dog standing on its back legs and just walking around like that. That's terrifying to me. There's something really, really scary about that. Just not right. It's like the uncanny valley. Trying to think of what I would turn.

What about you guys? You got anything? Axolotl. Are they already? That's not bad. No, I don't think so. No, they're not. That'd be the Axolotl for sure. I know. I would make a giraffe by Beetle so it's even taller.

Oh, that'd be crazy. Can you imagine how much taller that is now? Yeah. Yeah. That would be terrifying. I mean, it'd be scary. It's just such an awkward thought thinking about them with their weak little legs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it'd be super funny. Like it'd be, they'd basically just be a giant line straight up to the sky because the neck is so vertical anyway. It'd be such a weird look. Uh, it would be like one of those cartoons where there's stairs. Yeah. Yeah.

Toastmunch asks, are there any cryptids that you guys actually see as scary or are they all too hoaxish? Jackson's scared by all of them except for Frogman, right? Well, no, I said I think Frogman is the least creepy. Well, Loch Ness Monster, I don't want to be in the Loch Ness ever in my life. I actually do have a phobia of being in there.

That really scares me. One of my biggest fears in life, for some reason, is being eaten by a sea monster. So you do have like, that's all the phobia. Oh, yes. Huh? Oh my God. You do have that's all the phobia then. What the hell's that? It's the fear of like deep ocean kind of like what's under the water. Oh, is it? Pretty sure it is. Yeah. That's what it is. Right. Call me that. Put me down for one of those. Yeah.

Dude, oh my god, yeah, the loss of phobia is nuts. Yeah. Fear of the ocean, fear of anything in the ocean, yeah.

I don't fear of anything in the ocean. I mean, I can go in if there's the flags out and there's some of the guys from Bondi Rescue watching. I can do that. Lifeguards, yeah. But, you know, every time, I don't know. What, you guys don't have that. You were kind of alluding to it before, Jackson, where you're going around in a, as is the only source of water that we talk about on this podcast, Billabong, and you're in some kind of body of water, especially fresh water because it's so much murkier. Yeah.

It doesn't freak you guys out. I always think there's going to be some bunyip thing or something that's going to hit me. I don't have that fear for some reason. It's a totally rational fear in my opinion. Like you have the fear of not knowing what's underneath you, but for some reason I do not have that fear. I'm totally fine with like swimming in the ocean.

Really? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, to be fair though, I go snorkeling quite often and stuff like that. Yeah, but when you're snorkeling, you can see what's underneath you. Yeah, but when you're at the top, you don't. When you're at the top, you don't. And you spend a lot of time at the top as well, waiting around. I didn't even know that you went snorkeling that much. Jesus. Okay. There you go.

Yeah. So no, not really. Not scared of anything except the dark. No, I said I wasn't scared of the dark anymore. Anymore. Oh yeah, that's right. Jackson, literally fearless man. I'm trying to think maybe Goatman. I think Goatman probably scariest because he's always portrayed as having like an ax and very vengeful behavior, isn't he?

Goat Man. The Goat Man? Yeah, the Goat Man. I think it's definitely like those ones. Again, Goat Man is visually pretty scary because it's a bipedal goat hybrid. But also, there's that element to the stories where he is like an evil malevolent spirit who wants to kill things. So yeah, I would have to go with Goat Man personally. But then you got Wendigo as well, which is also pretty scary. What about you guys?

Oh, dude, for me? God, yeah. Interesting thing you guys brought up thalassophobia because the Japanese... What's it called? The Ningen? The Ninjin? I completely butchered that. But essentially, it is a cryptid that has fucking arms and hands and a face. And it's like... It looks like a massive eel with shoulders and arms. And, dude...

that's terrifying okay look look look all right blast phobia deep sea gigantism we don't know what the hell's in the ocean like we've only explored like five percent of it you know like the species that are out there like there's so many things that we have not found we're still finding um so when it comes to like you know being hoaxish you know uh i typically lean more towards believability for for cryptids that

um or in the ocean that's because i do have thalassophobia uh pretty bad and i made a whole video on it and it's like oh my god yeah so definitely uh honestly any deep sea cryptids scare the shit out of me but yeah this one definitely the ninja one is it's certainly looking at it there's one picture of the ninja which is pretty fun i don't know like an iceberg or something like that and it looks like plasma

It doesn't have any arms. It's just a head with some legs. The best way to describe it is a tadpole with legs. That one's bipedaling. Yeah, that one's, yeah. There's some drawings of the ninja, which are pretty cool. Like women, like sirens basically with boobs and stuff. So that's kind of cool.

It's cool because they've got boobs. Less scary. What are you looking up to find these boob ninjas? I don't want to tell you. You're going to waste the rest of your day on this. Looking at the traditional drawings of the ninja, it's like a tuna with the head of a demon, basically, which is pretty scary looking. Mm-hmm.

But yeah, like you were saying. Yeah, that's terrifying. Like you were saying though, 100% it's more believable if it comes from the ocean because you think about the stuff that we're pulling up, we're still discovering in the deep sea, like those deep sea trenches and stuff like the Marianas Trench and things like that. There are abominations that come out of down there that you see pictures of them and you're like, that can't be real. That's got to be made up. And then you look into it and it actually is a real thing.

Yeah, no, there is literally monsters in the ocean. The blobfish, and he's not even from the deep ocean. Like, look at that guy. And now imagine, like, someone telling you there's a fish out there with a very sad-looking face, basically. You'd be like, yeah, right. There's no fish like that. That's not real. But then there's actual...

yeah it exists so I can 100% see things coming from the deep sea that are just kind of beyond our comprehension and in any other light would probably be classed as a cryptid yeah I agree and final question Peng asks if you put every cryptid in a ring to fight each other who do you think would be the last one standing I think Wendigo but Nessie can die I think the Wendigo literally can't die

Oh, really? Yeah. I think it's like... Well, that's unfair. It's been a while since we did the Wendigo episode. Can Wendigo die? Yeah, they can be killed, actually, but they're incredibly difficult to kill. You need to use silver, steel, or iron bullets, or a dagger.

Well, a dagger's easy, right? Yeah, that's pretty easy, especially if the Sasquatch is in there. Yeah, okay. You'd be able to teach him to hold one. I thought they couldn't be killed. They just kind of come back even more vengeful, but maybe I'm wrong. Okay. Well, what do you guys think then? Nessie? I think Nessie just because of the size. It's because of the size. It is pretty large. He's out on a ring. It's not his natural element. Hmm.

Is there anything bigger than the Loch Ness Monster? Godzilla. I mean, Jesus, if we're going with that, Kraken. But I think a Kraken actually just would die because it's on land. Actually, a Kraken is a good pick, though, honestly. Took down naval ships. And cryptids do not include aliens. No. I reckon the Sasquatch has a pretty damn good chance. It's in his natural element. No, Wendigo or even the Goatman beats the Sasquatch, in my opinion.

Okay. For me, it's between Wendigo and Groatman. They've just got the most supernatural abilities, like infinite strength. Yeah. And Frogman has no chance at all. No, Frogman's dead. He got shot by a police officer. Yeah, got shot by a cop. I don't think he lost a single round in this fight ring. What about the, what was that thing that you were into again? Me? Fuck. Yeah. Wasn't it something else?

I'm into a lot of things. Drop bears. Sorry, bun yips, bun yips. Nah, I don't think so. I don't think they have the strength to take on Goatman. And what was the other thing we were talking about before? The Ningen? Yeah, it's just a fish though with a scary face. Yeah, it's basically just a fish. You're right. Yeah, I can't think of anything. I can't think of anything above like Goatman or Wendigo. What about Nexpo? You got anything?

I would have to defer to you on that one. Okay. Honestly. Yeah. Awful idea. Don't ever defer to me. I will be proven wrong immediately. Having said that, Kraken probably could... If it was an even playing field, like, I don't know.

If it was a fight in the water and the goat man was on land at the same time, like on a boat, then maybe, I don't know. I don't know. It's too difficult. Let us know what you think. That's going to do it for Patreon questions. Remember, head over to official.men for a free seven day free trial to try it out. You get early ad free access to our shows. It's great service. People love it. Go check it out.

That's going to do it for this episode. And also, no, sorry, I've got a little PS for this video because you guys started talking about deep sea animals and I looked at it. Go look at what a barrel-eye fish is in your spare time. Learn something for once, all right? That is the most bizarre animal I've ever seen and it looks like he has leaves in his head.

Oh, it's like the translucent one. Oh, yes, I remember this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. See? Isn't that incredible? Like, that could 100% be mistaken for a cryptid. I mean, it is a cryptid. It's an alien. That is just a straight up... It is. I'm sorry. Yeah, the deep sea has it. Cryptids do exist. What a nice, cool... Man, all right. This was a cool episode. Yeah, we learned a lot. I think that's a pretty damn good conclusion.

Go look up deep sea animals. Just look up deep sea animals and then, yeah, that's your cryptids right there. Uh-huh. Yeah, IRL cryptids. Oh, my God. IRL cryptids. Go pay millions of dollars to go into a submarine deep down in the Mariana Trench. Oh, Jesus. Nothing bad will happen. What could go wrong?

I get it now. I get it now, James Cameron. I see what you were going for. Yeah. That's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. Thank you very much for joining us and enormous thanks to Nexpo. Thank you for joining us and spending some time with us. It was fantastic. Thank you so much, guys, for having me. Love having you on. You can go check out Nexpo on his channel. It's just Nexpo, right? That's just the channel name.

Yeah, just Nexpo. It'll be in the link below as well. Description below, I mean. It'll be linked below in the description below. So go check out Nexpo. I'm sure you've all already seen his incredible work already. But if you haven't, go check it out. It's fantastic investigative work of dark, mysterious things that you'll all

enjoy a lot. I'm sure you will. If you're here on this channel, you will enjoy Nexpo's content. So go check it out below. Big thank you again for coming on. Really appreciate it. That's it from us. Jordan, you've got live shows, right? Is that still going?

Yeah, at some point. I think I've got Perth and others. Perth is next. Links below. You can go buy tickets if you're in Australia to his live show as well as go check out his channel, of course. Links below. Go check them both out. They both do great stuff. Thank you very much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Thank you, guys.