Late to the Game(s) - Retro! Reissued! Remastered! Oh my!

Exploring reports from the Pacific Northwest to the TriState The author pauses by a pool in Area X during a 2009 outing with the NAWAC (nee TBRC) to           check  camera traps.  When you say the word "Bigfoot" most people think of the Pacific Northwest (PNW). After all, that's the area where the phenomenon of big, hairy bipeds was given that particular name, after Californian Jerry Crew began finding large footprints around his road building equipment while constructing logging roads in the remote forests of his state. After taking casts of the prints, and going to the local newspaper with them, the name Bigfoot was coined and interest in the monster spread like wildfire. Soon northern California, Oregon and Washington would become ground zero for the quest to document the elusive creature.  But Bigfoot sightings aren't restricted to the PNW. In fact, there are reports of ape like creatures from every state in the union, with the exception...

Original sketch of the Loveland Frog.  Some sources  attribute  this  sketch to Ray Shockey,  others to  his sister.  In Loveland, Ohio, along the banks of the Little Miami River, people claim to see Frog Men. Since at least the 1950s, if not earlier, the Loveland Frog has been a fixture in the imaginations of people living in this small, quiet, river town. Like with most legends, there are some variations  in the first story associated with the Loveland Frog. What we do know is that the witness, identified in many accounts as a Mr. Robert Hunnicutt, encountered the creatures he saw along the banks of the Little Miami River in the early morning hours (3:30 to 4 AM in some versions) during the Spring or Summer of 1955. Depending on the source, the night in question may have been in March, May, or July. He saw three or four creatures, either along the side of the road, on a bridge, or standing under a bridge, again depending on the source. R...

Devil lore is rich and old. In the early Christianization of Europe (4th to 8th centuries CE), traditional beliefs died hard. While folks might have given up openly worshiping or honoring the old gods and nature spirits, they kept their beliefs and traditions alive as superstition, legend, and folklore. At the same time the early church demonized these old spirits and beings, conflating them with the devils of the new, Middle Eastern religion poised to sweep the continent. Fast forward 800 to a thousand years and, while the superstition, fear, and mysticism remained, all the superficial traces of paganism had been neatly laid over with a thin Christian veneer. In this new paradigm there was no room for ambivalent spirits, no space for tricksters that taught while also tormenting. There was simply good, and there was evil. Misfortune, illness, tragedy, all could be (and were) attributed to the Devil. We see this in the 1638 case of the thunderstorm at Widecombe-in-the-Moor, in Dartmo...

The area of Blue Run/Morris Lane is still fairly rural and secluded. (image courtesy of Google Earth) On the Evening of August 17, 2004, according to the late investigator Kenny Young, three ladies from Lucasville ventured outside to check out what they believed to be headlights or powerful flashlights from someone illegally trespassing on their property. There had been a number of thefts in the area recently, according to their report, and their initial concern was that someone was there looking to steal something. Little did they know how that evening, and those to come, would play out. The lights Lisa, her roommate Sheila, and Sheila’s friend Della (last names withheld by the investigator for privacy reasons) had been spending the evening socializing at the home near Blue Run and Morris Lane when they first spotted the lights. After watching them for quite some time, as they reflected off of a mailbox, they moved into the kitchen to see if they could determine exactly where t...

Lucasville, Ohio (image courtesy of Google Earth) In December of 1896, Scioto County, Ohio would see one of its oddest, and least explainable, reports of an apparition. While presented as a sort of ghost story, it doesn’t fit your typical haunting. In fact there are some elements that seem more akin to modern Bigfoot sightings, such as late night screams and vocalizations, and others that seem to indicate an abduction or disappearance. You can’t even begin this story without addressing inconsistencies in the early reporting. While some sources list the story as first appearing in the December 14, 1896 issue of the Portsmouth Times, a review of microfiche in the local history department of the Portsmouth Public Library reveals the story actually ran in the December 16 issue. If only this were the end of the confusion, but this story leaves more questions unanswered than answered. What we do know is that the events of the evening in question began at the home of a Mr. Henry Crowe. ...