Grassman: Ohio's Bigfoot

I appeared on the podcast, Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio, on February 18, 2020. In the beginning of the episode I provided a monologue of information about the Grassman and the reports that made it famous in addition to information about what it makes it different than Bigfoot. The blog post below is a copy of that monologue. The entire interview is available here.


   One of my first big impressions of Bigfoot was some time in the late 1970s watching the reruns of the original “In Search Of” television show that was hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I remember the voice of Spock presenting me compelling information telling me to believe in the possibility that such a wild creature or even a wild man may exist.

   While the series covered many paranormal and conspiracy theory themes the Bigfoot episode and imagery was one that made me question my preconceived notions of how the world worked around me and made me question what I thought to be true. I was raised to believe that such things did not exist, but I began to wonder if I was just told that so I could sleep better at night.

   I had little to worry about though as Bigfoot was a west coast thing. Nimoy had said Sasquatch sightings started in 1811 and a compelling incident in 1924 happened with miners in a gorge in Washington state near Mt. St. Helens that would eventually be called Ape Canyon.

   I knew beyond that television show that other sightings had happened in British Columbia and eventually a series of tracks discovered by a bulldozer operator named Jerry Crew in 1958 near Bluff Creek California would lead to the now famous generic moniker Bigfoot that was coined by the press. Bigfoot sightings continued to build and an all-time high in interest and debate into the creature’s existence boiled over in the 1970s along with the largest percentage of overall sightings, hoaxes or genuine, across the United States.

   My interest into the creature started a few years after I began investigating ghosts in 1996. I’m not sure exactly what it was that drew me to want to pursue cryptozoology and looking for mysterious animals that seemed unlikely to exist. It might have been something to do with infrasound or communication with extra sensory perception as I had researched in the ghost field. Granted, it might just have been the fact that this field, like ghosts and UFOs, is considered a paranormal field.

   Moving into the field of cryptozoology was an easy fit for me. I had spent many years hiking and backpacking solo in the woods of southern Ohio as well as my favorite spots in the Allegheny National Forest in neighboring Pennsylvania about a two-hour drive away. I have always enjoyed nature and animals and had challenged myself many years ago to learn how to track and stalk animals.

   Either way, I realized that Bigfoot was the king of the field of cryptozoology and despite wanting to learn all aspects of the field from others it seemed most groups in Ohio were geared toward finding Bigfoot. I did my own research and tried to find my own cases. Eventually I worked with the Sasquatch Research Initiative based in British Columbia, Canada and learned a lot about interviewing and conducting field investigations in a variety of cryptid research cases. It wasn’t much different than what I had been doing in the ghost field, but I learned new techniques that would help me doing interviews and investigations for any type of anomalous cases.

   In January of 2009 I joined Crypto Squad USA, a collection of bloggers who reported to Nick Redfern for the Regional U.S. Offices Of The Center For Fortean Zoology which is based in the United Kingdom. I went on to publish my own book on cryptozoology titled, “Handbook for the Amateur Cryptozoologist” in 2014.

   Later that year the book was awarded in the top ten cryptozoology books of 2014 by Loren Coleman. Coleman also wanted to sell the book at his International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland Maine and along with that wanted to contribute a foreword to the book. So, a second edition of the book was launched in 2015. Along the way I have written articles for Cryptid Culture Magazine and have spoken at conferences and other events in Ohio and elsewhere talking about Bigfoot and other cryptids.

   Some people might wonder, what’s a guy in Ohio got to do with Bigfoot and what is this Grassman creature while we’re at it? Is there a difference between Grassman and Bigfoot? And maybe bigger and related questions are; why are there so many different names for Bigfoot all over the world? Are these all the same creatures? If there are so many names and sightings, why isn’t Bigfoot proven to be real?

   To begin to answer these questions let me first start at the beginning with the state of Ohio. I’ve lived in Ohio for over 45 years which kind of gives away my age a bit, but it may surprise some out there to hear that Ohio has a pretty rich history of Bigfoot sightings and ranks as one of the top states in sightings historically.

   Earlier in 2019 research leading up to the Travel Channel series “In Search of Monsters” compiled a listing of over 23,000 sightings across the United States. Of these sightings the most took place in Washington with over 2,000 sightings. Obviously, none of these are confirmed sightings and I’m sure that some of these are hoaxes, misinterpretations, and embellishments. The number two state for Bigfoot sightings is California followed by my neighboring states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, and then Ohio, followed by Oregon and Texas.

   The Bigfoot Field Researcher’s Organization, BFRO, has consistently ranked Ohio in the top five states through the years and other groups rank Ohio in the top eight in overall Bigfoot reports yearly on a consistent basis.

   Ohio was colonized by French fur traders in the early 1700s and then became a British colonial possession after the French and Indian War in 1754. After the American Revolution the land that now occupies Ohio became part of the Northwest Territory. Ohio became a state back on March 1, 1803 although a formal declaration was not made until 1953.

   Ohio is named after the Iroquois Indians word “O-Y-O” which translates to “great river”. The Iroquois inhabited the area of Ohio around 1650. Prior to the Iroquois other Algonquin language tribes inhabited the region for hundreds of years.  The Monongahela culture, Springwells, and Fort Ancient culture occupied parts of Ohio all the way back to 500 AD. Prior and during this time the Ohio Hopewell culture ruled the land back to 200 BC.

   Going back further, the Adena culture possessed the area back to 1000 BC and it is known that other cultures made their way to or through Ohio as far back as 14000 to 8000 BC. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the beliefs of these tribes when it came to large hairy hominids until the mid-1700s. It is here that stories were purportedly passed down about wild and hairy men of the forests. But these stories were never substantiated with witnesses or reliable accounts of sightings. Many of these sightings were woven into the folklore or superstitions and these were more like god-like creatures than flesh and blood men.

   The Ohio history of Bigfoot can unceremoniously begin in 1869 with a newspaper account from Gallipolis, Ohio. The area is in southeast Ohio along the Ohio River and oddly less than five miles down the river from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, which in just less than a hundred years would be known for its own creature; the Mothman.

   The account in Gallipolis was uncovered by cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall who sadly passed away back in 2016. The account from January of 1869 was documented in the Minnesota Weekly Record and told of a hairy creature that jumped on a man who was riding in a carriage. The beast grabbed the man and threw him to the ground where he began to bite and claw at him. The man’s daughter who was riding along in the carriage found the courage after a few moments to locate a stone that she threw and hit the creature in the ear causing what was explained as a gorilla to scamper back into the woods. Gorillas were only discovered just over two decades prior although they were well known through articles covering the exploits of zoologist Paul Du Chaillu. The article described the encounter as from a wild man who was naked, covered in hair and gigantic in height.

   The biggest case in Ohio history comes from near the village of Minerva Ohio. From the case files of Ron Schaffner comes the story as it happened back in 1978. Sightings began in July and August of that year with one incident with children running home crying and completely frightened from what they had witnessed.

   To get an accurate portrayal of the events as they happened, I will read directly from Ron Schaffner’s notes on the case:

The incidents leading up to the August 21 sighting began about the first of the month. Mrs. Cayton believes the creature's appearance were due to her husband (Herbert) cutting down the thick brush next to the pit and that he also dumped some garbage around for the raccoons. 

Several nights later, the Cayton's grandchildren and their friends came running in the house crying in a frightened state. They claimed to have seen a large hairy monster in the pit. Mrs. Keck, Mrs. Cayton and Howe Cayton went outside to see what had scared them. They saw a creature that was covered with dark matted hair. They estimated it to be about 300 pounds and 7 feet tall. 

"It just stood there," said Mrs. Cayton. "It didn't move, but I almost broke my neck running back down the hill." 

Mrs. Cayton claims that she later observed the creature in the daylight. It was sitting in the pit picking at the garbage. She could not make out any facial features due to the amount of long hair covering its face. She remembered that the creature had no visible neck. 

The sightings then really took off with the August 21st sighting. Evelyn Cayton's family and friends were out on the front porch when they heard noises in the direction of an old chicken coop just to the right of the house. They saw two pairs of yellow eyes that seemed to be reflecting a porch light. Scott Patterson went to his car and turned the headlights on in hopes of getting a better look. The eyes were on what appeared to be two "cougar-type" felines. Then, the party saw what looked like a large bipedal hairy creature step in front of the large cats as if to protect them. This creature then proceeded to lurch towards Patterson's car. 

The witnesses fled to the house and called the Stark County Sheriff's Department. While waiting for the deputies, the bipedal creature appeared at the kitchen window -- about four yards from the kitchen table. Patterson pointed a .22 caliber pistol at it, while Evelyn Cayton loaded a .22 caliber rifle. The creature stood outside the window for close to ten minutes. They all could clearly see the creature because of the back-porch light. They decided they would not shoot at it unless the creature made any advances toward them. The biped suddenly left without harming anyone. 

"It doesn't seem to want to bother anyone", said Mary Ackerman. "It was just curious. We all felt that it wanted to be friends." 

Deputy Sheriff James Shannon arrived about 15 minutes after the call was made and about five minutes after the creature left the scene. A strong stench was still lingering in the area when Deputy Shannon began to interview the witnesses. Shannon later told reporters that it smelled like "ammonia-sulphur." Extra deputies were brought in and they searched the entire area on horseback and in jeeps. (The land behind the Caytons' was an old abandoned strip mine and beyond that were dense woods going up a gradual hill.) Unusual, but unsubstantiated footprints were discovered. 

Then on August 22nd Mrs. Mary Ackerman of Minerva drove to the Cayton residence to pick up her daughter and a friend. (Mrs. Ackerman is Evelyn Cayton's daughter.) As she turned into the driveway, she saw the same creature standing on top of the hill next to the strip mine. She watched it until it walked out of her view. 

August 23rd: The creature appeared again at the Cayton residence. Howe Cayton was not sure if it was the same thing. He fired a gunshot into the air and the figure departed.
On September 8th During the late daylight hours, Mrs. Ackerman observed two ape-like animals across the strip mine. She stated that she thought the creatures were standing in a tree but was not sure because of the distance. Again, she watched them for a while, until they were no longer visible in the thick weeds. 

On September 9th Jim Rastetter interviewed Henry Colt who lives about five miles east of Minerva on U.S. 30. He told Jim that he was walking through some woods by his house when he caught a glimpse of an unknown furry animal. Mr. Colt said that the animal was squatting next to a tree and let out a sound similar to a loud cough. 

   Schaffner had investigated other reports of large ape-like creatures in Ohio. In May of 1977 in an area west of Dayton Ohio two 13-year-old boys were walking a dog when they first encountered an awful stink like rotten eggs. They then turned and encountered a 9-foot-tall creature with long arms that hung close to the ground. The boys and the dog ran with the creature chasing them to a soybean field near the home of one of the boys. Luckily, the creature had vanished.

   The Preble County Sheriff’s Office was contacted, and two deputies responded. Nothing was discovered. Later a farmer contacted another researcher who passed the information on to Schaffner that large footprints had been discovered. The farmer’s property was about a half a mile from the earlier encounter. The tracks measured 14 inches long by 7 inches wide with the distance between tracks about 6 ½ feet.

   Another major sighting that went on to become known as the Kenmore Grassman took place in 1988 and was investigated in 1995. Kenmore is a community located in the city of Akron Ohio in the northeast part of the state. Investigators Terry Endres, Joedy Cook, and George Clappison investigated the case.

Joedy Cook and his Grassman model with
me at right during the 2009 Ohio
Paranormal Convention.

   George Clappison interviewed Dale Atkins and his son Tim, the names are pseudonyms to protect their real names, at their current home in Fairlawn Ohio. Dale described growing up experiencing grassman on a number of occasions from hearing it crashing through the woods and swamps to observing tracks- three-toed tracks.

   Tim had also observed the creature while camping and fishing in the area. In 1988 Tim had rocks thrown at him from what he said was about a hundred yards away and the rocks dropped straight down when they hit and did not roll away. Tim went back home and got his father and they both observed a seven-foot-tall creature weighing an estimated 300 pounds. They were able to get about 30 yards away from it.

   The two described other incidents like this one that were very similar, and they considered the creature very intelligent and they thought it also had the ability to communicate with mental telepathy although that aspect is not explained in detail in the report.

   The team went to the original area in the earlier reports and were able to find areas in the woods where it looked like something big had gone through digging up roots and eating berries from the tops of bushes. They were also able to find and cast three-toed tracks.
There are dozens of other cases between these time frames conducted by these and other independent researchers as well as collected by larger organizations like the Bigfoot Field Researcher’s Organization.

   So, back to some of the original questions I asked; what makes the grassman the grassman and not a Bigfoot? Why are there two names for these creatures that seem to be the same thing? The answer is multi-faceted as part of it has to do with the location. I mean, who doesn’t want their own monster named after their own town or area? The Minerva case of 1978 is considered to be the biggest modern-day sighting of the grassman, yet the story behind it is referred to as the Minerva Monster.

   Another creature nicknamed the Cedar Bog Monster is named after an area south of Urbana Ohio. The entire region west of the Columbus area is rich with reports from the 1940s to today including the largest concentration of cases in the 1970s when the whole United States was Bigfoot crazy.

   British Columbia researcher Christopher L. Murphy, who co-authored the book Bigfoot Encounters in Ohio: Quest for the Grassman in 2006 notes that the difference between Grassman and Bigfoot are not in the creature’s description but in its habits. The height, weight, color, and footprints are all in line with traditional Bigfoot sightings elsewhere in the United States.

   There are a few interesting things to note on this as there have been many cases of three-toed prints. Three-toed prints are not solely a Grassman trait and does not define the Grassman as there have been five-toed prints discovered in similar cases. Momo, the Missouri Monster that terrorized residents in the city of Louisiana Missouri in the northeast part of the state along the Mississippi River back in 1972 was discovered to have three-toes, smelled like a skink and was also seen carrying a dead dog under its arm; which are all traits of the Grassman.

   Another famous creature that appeared off and on from 1971 to 1974 in the neighboring state of Arkansas was described as seven-feet tall, smelling like skunk and rotting flesh and left three-toed tracks. This creature was named the Fouke Monster that went on to have a movie made after it called the Legend of Boggy Creek that came out in 1972. Fouke is over 550 miles away from where Momo was seen so this is more than likely not the same creature.

   The Honey Island Swamp Monster was reported from 1963 through 1974 in Louisiana. This bipedal creature was also described as seven-feet tall, smelling of skunk and rotting flesh, and left behind three-toed footprints. Three-toed Bigfoot-like creatures have also been described in Iowa in 1978 and Minnesota in 1989.

   Some hypothesize that the largest mammal with three toes, the giant ground sloth known as the Megatherium could be behind these sightings. It is believed that the Mapinguari, a Bigfoot-like creature of Brazil could be a megatherium even though they are thought to have been extinct for over 11,000 years.

   Another hypothesis is that the three-toes might be caused from the inbreeding of Bigfoot creatures. Christopher Murphy outlined some general descriptions that define the Grassman that included; the creature cries like a baby but screams like a woman, also growls or barks, is known to kill dogs, is often seen in corn fields, has a strong odor like rotten eggs, have been seen in small groups with up to five individuals, and is often related to strange deer kills with the liver missing.

   The Ohio Grassman is different than most Bigfoot sightings in Ohio but many of these habits and features overlap other cases in Ohio and elsewhere. Many stories might be hoaxes, stories that are elaborate pranks that might include physical evidence such as tracks, nesting sites, or tree structures. Other cases might be fraud, the case was made up or based on something other than what was described being seen. The individual might want attention or just to add to the growing database of sightings. The most common type of explainable case is misinterpretation. Many sightings might be tree stumps, bears, deer, or just hearing sounds such as fox or owls and allowing the mind to fill in the blanks.

   Are there genuine Bigfoot and Grassman sightings out there? Possibly, but until hard evidence can satisfy a skeptical scientific community these stories will be nothing more than stories, urban legends, and fodder for newspapers. On May 31st of 2019 Frank Trussell of Minerva Ohio was driving his Dodge truck when he was turning left from Lunar Road to Spring Road. After making the turn Trussell’s truck went left of center and off the left side of the road taking out a fence post and part of the fence. He told deputies he swerved to avoid a large Yeti standing in the roadway. Do we believe Trussell or do we just laugh it off? The area is in rural country surrounded by farms. He was cited for operating a vehicle without reasonable control and a Yeti was nowhere to be found nor did anyone look for it.

   The latest sighting of a large bipedal creature took place this year at the Salt Fork State Park which is a known hot spot for Bigfoot sightings and is home to a few Bigfoot related conferences every year and even has a primitive campsite named Bigfoot Ridge. The stories continue to pile up but we are still far from many of the answers we seek and the proof that will bring this creature to reality.


References:

• https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/in-search-of-monsters/articles/the-8-best-places-to-see-bigfoot-right-now
• https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/phillylists/240566751.html
• https://exemplore.com/cryptids/Bigfoot-Sightings-Ohio-Grassman
• http://blakemathys.com/cc5.pdf  (1869 encounter)
• http://web.archive.org/web/20050205001108/http://users1.ee.net/pmason/unusual.html (Ron Schaffner’s notes on the Minerva Monster case)
• http://web.archive.org/web/20050204091213/http://users1.ee.net/pmason/grassman.html (George Clappison’s Kenmore Grassman case)
• http://www.bigfootencounters.com/creatures/grassman.htm (Differences from Bigfoot and Grassman by Christopher L. Murphy)
• https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/07/the-mystery-of-the-three-toed-bigfoot/  (Three-toed Bigfoot sightings)
• http://www.cryptozoonews.com/minerva2019/ (Minerva Monster 2019?)
• https://www.dispatch.com/entertainmentlife/20200210/men-claim-video-shows-bigfoot-like-creature-in-ohios-salt-fork-state-park (2020 sighting at Salt Fork State Park)

Mysterious alligators appear in Pittsburgh

  We've all heard about alligators in the sewers probably being a myth (we hope so), but what about roaming the streets? On the October 16, 2018 edition of the Paranormal News Insider, episode #372, I covered a story where the previous week saw a kayaker find a live alligator in Waukegan Harbor in Lake Michigan about 40 miles north of Chicago. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for the kayaker, the mouth of the alligator had been taped shut. I also talked about two separate findings of alligators on the same day in Kansas City, Kansas of all places. All of these were released into the wild by someone and all three were less than three feet long.

  Well, in the middle of June of 2019 we look at the southwestern portion of Pennsylvania, specifically the Pittsburgh area. Back on May 18th a 3-foot-long alligator was discovered at the South Side Riverfront Park, which is along the Monongahela River, locally known as the Mon River.

  On June 6th a 5 to 6-foot-long alligator was discovered by a dog walker in a residential area in the Beachview neighborhood just south of downtown Pittsburgh and about three miles southwest of the May 18th discovery. Saturday, June 8th police responded to the 300 block of East Agnew Street in the Carrick neighborhood about two miles southeast of the last sighting and about two miles south of the May 18th find. This latest alligator was just over two feet long.

  Authorities believe the first two alligators discovered were discarded pets and they also believe that the three discoveries are not related. I’m willing to believe that all three of these were released or allowed to escape by the same person and are related. Why do I think that? The three discoveries happened in about a three-square mile area which is way too convenient to be a coincidence.

  The above part of the story was to run during the June 11th Paranormal News Insider, but I was unable to do the show due to circumstances beyond my control. As it turns out Pittsburgh police had inspected a home after the June 6th incident with the escaped 5-foot-long alligator. The alligator had torn through a screen door and dropped about ten feet to be able to scurry off down the street. On Tuesday, June 11th the home of Mark McGowan was raided, and 32 animals were removed and some of the animals discovered were deceased. Of these animals three were alligators with one having a preexisting neck injury and there were also two Burmese pythons. This begs the question, were these three alligators all related to this home or are there other locations in Pittsburgh harboring alligators?

  Alligators discovered in the north are not as uncommon as one might think. “Alligator” Bob Bavirsha of the Chicago Herpetological Society has rescued hundreds of alligators from the Midwest over the years. Obviously, most if not all were either released or escaped.

  Alligators are obviously known to live in Florida and southern Georgia, but also range along southern Texas into Mexico, all of Louisiana, and even part of southeast Oklahoma and southwest Arkansas. Alligators also live in the eastern part of South and North Carolina and even live in a swamp area known as the Great Dismal Swamp that extends into Virginia. Yes, Virginia, just south of Norfolk there are alligators. Granted, while prolonged cold can kill them it’s not impossible for them to survive in cold areas for short periods of time and they have even been observed frozen in ice with their snouts out of the water. Granted, the cold severely slows their eating and lowers their energy level.

  Cryptozoology is defined as the search for missing or hidden animals. This definition typically hugs the animals known through local folklore and stories and includes animals such as the mermaid, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, and more but also includes known animal species such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and other animals thought to be extinct. Some cryptozoologists don't consider out of range animals to be a part of cryptozoology due to the fact that people often release them into the wild for a variety of reasons. Take into consideration there are three places in the United States where macaque monkeys roam free (South Carolina, Florida, Texas). They didn't just find there way here as they were purposely let loose.

  I don't see these alligator sightings as cryptid findings but just as interesting stories that are strange and scary. People enjoy the thrill of investigating a place with a ghost, but how about stumbling upon a five-foot-long alligator while walking your dog in the northeast?

Let the "silly season" begin!

When I first started out in the paranormal back in 1996 there were very few people that I was friends with that I told I investigated ghosts. Many in my family had no idea I was into such a thing and I even hid this interest from a girlfriend as much as possible back then as well. Over the years the paranormal has become mainstream and those of us that make our rounds at paranormal conventions or libraries have become in demand. Those strange paranormal people have now become "rock stars" and everyone wants to know about what we do. While many of us do this all year round October seems to be the popular time of year when libraries and other mainstream sources want to hear what we do since it coexists with the time of the year with Halloween.

For the first time since I began speaking yearly at public events I will only talk about cryptids this year. My first stop for the "fall tour" will be at the Floyd E. Younkin Branch of the Pickaway County Library located in Ashville, Ohio on Sunday, September 30th from 2-4 PM. I had done a similar event at the main branch earlier in the year but have customized this presentation just for this appearance as I normally try to do. The focus here will be the basics of cryptozoology as the well as the most popular creatures and will then focus on Ohio based cryptids.

My second stop will be the following weekend, October 5-6, 2018, at the Un-Con XII (Unconventional) in Piqua, Ohio, discussing cryptozoology as part of the theme of "Alien Freak Show". This event is part "comic-con" but also just for those geeks and nerds that like to hang out with others with like interests. This will be a first for me to attend an event like this and I will focus on connection of cryptozoology and UFOs to sync with the theme of the event.

My third stop of the fall will be on October 13, 2018 at the Albatwitch Day in Columbia, Pennsylvania. I have always wanted to attend this event and am very excited to be able to speak here along with friend Rick Fisher and fellow researcher Tim Renner. The event centers on the Albatwitch which is described as a 4 foot tall hairy bipedal creature that seems to enjoy apples with Chickies Rock seemingly the center of their historical sightings.

Westerville Public Libarry in Westerville, Ohio

My fall tour will then wrap up at a library located in Westerville, Ohio, which is just northeast of Columbus and will take place on October 30. This year, 2018, will mark the tenth consecutive year that I have appeared at the Westerville Public Library and I am deeply honored to make this appearance. The Westerville Public Library is the only library I am aware of that has my books in it. This year I will present a look at Ohio based cryptids instead of my typical ghost presentations I have done in the past. My theme is "Ohio cryptids and strange creatures" and will be the second time I have talked cryptids at this library with the last coming in May of 2016, but this will be a new presentation.

After that I will be looking forward to 2019 where I am already booked at a few events in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, with the biggest one I am looking forward to taking place in Farmington, Pennsylvania being the 3rd Pennsylvania Bigfoot Camping Adventure which boasts 12 speakers and a number of special guests including the Appalachian Investigators of Mysterious Sightings, AIMS, or in other words the guys from the Mountain Monsters television show, making their second straight appearance. Bill Brock, host of the television show “Monsters Underground", Dr. Jeff Meldrum will be on hand as will Cliff Barackman of Finding Bigfoot.

Paranormal News Insider celebrates TEN YEARS!

The Show History

   I received an email from Daniel Bautz back on April 22, 2008 regarding appearing on his radio program titled the Grand Dark Conspiracy. I would be the first guest on this new podcast and I was kind of excited about that. We went back and forth with emails for a few days and finally recorded the show on the evening of April 29th. The episode went up with very little fanfare in early May and I began to help Dan add some content to his message board and we continued to talk about the paranormal and I passed on some suggestions for future guests.

 

2008 concept logo (top) and first working logo (bottom). Red
and green represented opposite ends of belief. In late 2017 blue
replaced the upper right swirl which expanded. Light blue stands
for the sky and dark blue for the oceans while green (land)
ties it all together (yes, thought went into the logo!).

His podcast was prerecorded and was only to be a monthly show to start off with. He had parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach on for June and his ratings began to slowly accumulate. He had another ghost-based guest, author John Kachuba, as his July guest and had emailed me about coming back on for August to help shift the show into a different direction with talking about UFOs and cryptozoology. During that interview we talked about the Georgia Bigfoot Hoax that was underway at the time as well as some other news. He wondered if I was interested in doing a monthly news segment and I jumped at the idea.

   The two-hour September podcast of the Grand Dark Conspiracy featured an interview with Stanton Friedman, campfire tales, and the debut of the Paranormal News Insider. Back then the Paranormal News Insider were a short five to ten-minute segment that I prerecorded and sent to Dan. Since the segment was on a monthly show I utilized the new Paranewsinsider.com website to essentially become a blog style format writing about some of the top stories broken down in the various segments which at the time included cryptozoology, UFO, ghost, and strange Earth. I changed strange Earth to other news some time in the second year of the show.

   The Grand Dark Conspiracy ran as a monthly show until August of 2010 when it went weekly beginning on August 30th. Shortly after I realized I did not have the time to keep up the website for Paranewsinsider.com and it transitioned into a static website, but this is when I began to track the conferences and conventions and added other things to continue to attract people to that aspect of the show. The Paranormal News Insider powered on finishing 2010 with 25 episodes and then rallied through 2011 with 52 episodes completing the entire year without missing a week. The show went on with 49 episodes in 2012 and then 43 in 2013. However, after the December 30, 2013 show the Grand Dark Conspiracy took a hiatus until August 5, 2014. The host show had bounced around a number of podcast hosts over the years including the Shark Radio Network and Fate Radio, but in 2014 a new opportunity arose that would take the show into a new direction.

2014 promo for the show going to AM radio

   Starting on August 5th, 2014, the show was broadcast through WQTT AM 1270 AM based in Marysville, Ohio. The station is just outside the state capitol of Ohio covering the Columbus metro area at night. Over the next ten months the Grand Dark Conspiracy was broadcast from 2-4 AM and worked its way into going five nights a week. The Thursday night show was subtitled “The Darkest Hours” for a couple of months until Dan decided that the name Grand Dark Conspiracy might need to be adjusted if the show were to grow into syndication. The Friday night show was co-hosted with demonologist Dave Considine and myself when I was able to join. Eventually Dan cut back the show to just one night a week, the Thursday night show (Friday), and rebranded the entire show The Darkest Hours Late Night.

   After the June 5, 2015 show there were some changes at the WQTT radio station and Dan opted to move on before the show was removed. This left the Paranormal News Insider without a home once again. I had toyed with the idea of taking the show out on its own a few times when I thought that Dan was going to stop broadcasting or at least between downtimes when the host show was silent and then return to his show as my flagship broadcast. I peddled the idea to a few existing podcasts and live radio shows but was turned down by them for a variety of reasons. Interestingly, a few that “decided to pass on the idea” suddenly came up with their own paranormal news segments that imitated my effort. It was then that I decided if I couldn’t join them I would then beat them. There was a chance that the GDC would come back as I had heard that it was to join another network in early July, but the show never appeared, and I never heard back from Dan on the idea.

   On September 8, 2015, the Paranormal News Insider made its debut on the CJ Mars Radio Network on Tuesday nights at 7 PM for a one-hour time slot.  During the next few months the network changed to WCJV Digital Broadcasting and had several great shows and hosts associated with it. However, just days after the April 17, 2018 show WCJV decided to cease operations immediately and after a year and a half and over 125 standalone shows it was once again without a home.

   I had toyed around with several ideas although I knew I wanted to continue to do a radio show. Of my several options one was to just produce it myself, another was to join another network, and other ideas included doing a completely different show with a focus on guests on another network and potentially doing the PNI on the side. I did a show in late May to address the issue that the show was homeless as well as cover some news. In July I decided that I should come to a conclusion and while I had many offers as well as other ideas I opted to join the Paranormal King Radio Network. The show launched with episode number 360 on July 17, 2018 live at 8 PM eastern.

On the Show

 

While the format has always been paranormal news as well as conferences and conventions various changes have happened over the years. The first 230 shows were prerecorded and contained music and sound effects as part of the experience of the short segment. Many of the GDC segments I did had musical themes and I had tried a variety of other things including the Paranormal Poll, a book of the week, and conduct an annual “Top Paranormal News Stories” of each year. Of course, I did other zany things including using different voices as a tool to “go back in time” with aspects of the paranormal. I created a character named Rex Ritter for the 1930s and 40s from voices I did for a rap album back in 2006 and a mellow guy named Burt Williams to talk about stories in the 1970s. There were also the Halloween specials that would at least have some scary sound effects or other segments from old television shows. One year I created a fake UFO watch where the episode was prerecorded but Dan cut out to me in the field. I used the noises that had been recorded during sky noise encounters and pretended as though I was involved in an alien attack. Granted, while the show was on the Grand Dark Conspiracy there were many times I would join Dan live in studio where once we did a live Ouija Board session and another we did a séance with guest Dr. Kimberly Rackley.

   As the show moved to a live format I could no longer run music and have sound effects to support the segment. At the same time, I have been able to dig deeper into these stories as well as reflect to similar stories or to educate the listener on what is really going on behind the scenes. While many view the show as just a recap of the paranormal news and therefore has a shelf life I feel it serves an important service to capture what is happening at the time and using it to reflect on to keep the history straight as well as to show how we continuously fall for the same things over and over. In another attempt to document the history I began doing the "Top Ten Paranormal News Stories" of every year since 2010.

   The types of stories I discuss are cyprtozoology, UFOs, ghosts and other paranormal themes, as well as space, physics, modern mysteries, as well as viral news topics. Generally everything revolves around the paranormal or unknown to some certain extent. I take my reporting seriously and do my best to be as accurate and transparent as possible as to where my information comes from

   I do my best to dig for the truth to these stories no matter where that takes me. Some say I’m skeptical, but with many of the stories I cover being about hoaxes and misinterpretations I stress that I’m just covering this news and trying to stay objective. It’s easy to believe but it’s also easy to dismiss outright, the focus for me is digging for the reality behind the story and letting it put together the truth for me.

Cougar and Cubs Spotted in Tennessee!(?)

WGNS Radio out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, posted a story on their webpage on September 4, 2017, that stated a man caught video of a cougar and cubs in Tennessee. While this might not sound like a big deal it would actually be something that has not been documented east of the Mississippi River in almost 100 years.

Mountain lions, known as cougar, catamount, puma, panthers, and nearly 300 other local and regional names in North and South America, have been officially listed as extinct since March 2, 2011, after a four year review among 21 eastern states. The last known cougar in the eastern United States is thought to have been shot in Maine in 1938 (taxidermied and show at left years later with Bruce Wright). Granted, this cougar was categorized as a separate species from the number of other groups of cougar including that of the Florida Panther and western cougar. Technically, according to some who dispute the eastern cougar as a distinct species, the cougar was extirpated from the eastern states and regulated to the mountains of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia in North America while still having a large roaming area of South America.

In the 1990s there began to be rumors and reports of cougar sightings although rumors had persisted since the 1940s despite the cougar never being officially documented. Eastern states laughed at these reports and declared that no mountain lions existed east of the Mississippi River. If ones were sighted they were either escaped exotic pets, ones that were let loose on purpose, or were just misidentification of a house cat.

Over the years the evidence became clear. On June 11, 2011, just three months after the eastern cougar was declared extinct, a mountain lion was struck and killed by an SUV on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford, Connecticut. This was less than 80 miles northeast of New York City. Granted, this was not an eastern cougar but a wandering male from the Black Hills region of South Dakota. This is the largest eastern concentration of cougars other than the small number that exist in south Florida. Numerous other states have reluctantly provided photograph, video, and physical evidence that mountain lions are wandering through states east of the Mississippi River.

The main point here is that despite a seemingly slow and triumphant comeback the cougars discovered in the east are wandering males from the west, again primarily from the Black Hills region. If this latest report from Tennessee were true it would be a huge victory for big cat lovers and huge headache for state wildlife management teams that do not seem to want to deal with having these ambush predators in their states.

This sighting was in the form of a video that was shot by Jim Kutz who lives in a KOA Campground in Lebanon, Tennessee. Mr. Kutz claims to have found evidence of mountain lions and set up a trail cam to hopefully capture evidence of them. He also states that he has been a trapper of game for quite a while and has trapped bobcat, coyote, fox, and other animals and these cats seem much larger than bobcat.

However, when watching the video it is apparent to me (and many others it seems) that these are in fact NOT cougars but are definitely bobcat despite the claims of Mr. Kutz. The cats in the video have ears that have a white stripe in the center. Mountain lions, including cubs, have solid colored backs of their ears which is generally dark brown. Another telltale sign is that bobcats have very short tails especially to that of a cougar. In the video it is clear that the tails of the cubs is far less than the size of its leg and bobcats (named for their short tail) have a tail that only grows about six inches long. A cougar on the other hand will have a tail that is about three feet long and will generally measure 2/3 the length of its head and body. The image in this paragraph shows two black and white photos taken directly from the video and shows the ears and body structure of a bobcat and cougar for comparison.

It is also apparent to me that despite Jim's background with trapping he's not very good at identifying these creatures on film. It's also apparent that Scott Walker, the person from WGNS who interviewed Mr. Kutz is not as knowledgeable about animals as he tries to be during the interview. Cougars do not grow to 800 pounds (try 220 pounds with males), they are not constantly traveling (especially with cubs), and they are not exclusively "night animals" as they are not just nocturnal but also crepuscular (active at dawn/dusk) and can also be observed during the day.

The Rise and Fall of the Loveland Frog

This article originally appeared in the November 2016 edition of Cryptid Culture Magazine.

Every area has their local legends or folkloric stories from crybaby bridges to purported water monsters or sightings of monkeys or monstrous snakes. In the world of cryptozoology there are animals that are reported that were thought to be extinct, animals that are found in areas that they are not supposed to exist, and cryptids that defy logic and biology.  These seemingly impossible creatures have given life to cryptozoology by partnering with the paranormal with tales of creatures that are mysterious and outright bizarre.

Loveland is a small bedroom community with less than 13,000 residents that occupies five square miles of land in southwest Ohio. The city sits about 15 miles to the northeast of the city limits of Cincinnati and has always struggled to form its own identity. The Little Miami River, a tributary that empties into the Ohio River, has always been a large part of the community and sets the scene for the Loveland Frog story that spawned from purported events in 1955.

The original Loveland Frog, or Loveland Lizard, story starts off as a “Legend has it” type of story where there are many popular variations that have been passed down over the last 60 years by those in the area. The common elements of the story include a business man who was driving home late one night who saw a few creatures he estimated to be about three to four feet tall. He purportedly described the creatures as having a head like a frog’s and deep wrinkles instead of hair. The man also described seeing one of the creatures holding a wand-like device that purportedly shot sparks from the end of it. The biggest problem with the story is no one is sure of the root of this tale. The man has no name and there is no physical record of any physical report along with no other facts such as just which road this occurred on.

For many this story is just an extension of the folklore surrounding the Shawnahooc, a bipedal reptilian creature described by the Twightwees of the Miami People that occupied this region of the mid-west in the 1840s. The Shawnahooc is also described by the Shawnee yet is folklore and is not described as a real flesh and blood creature but more than likely a metaphor for the fighting spirit of Native Americans. This story could easily be dismissed if it were not for the events that occurred 17 years later.

Friday, March 3, 1972, police officer Ray Shockey was heading back toward Loveland in his patrol car being careful due to icy conditions on the roadway. As his vehicle moved along Riverside Drive near the Little Miami River he saw a creature moving along the side of the road. As his car approached the animal it began to scurry across the roads and became illuminated in the headlights. As the creature reached the guardrail it then stood up on two feet, looked at him, and then crawled over the guardrail toward the river. Shockey described the creature as being three to four feet tall, about 50 to 75 pounds, and being covered by leathery skin. Officers were said to have investigated the area and purportedly noted scratch marks on the guardrail where creature went over, but there is no evidence to substantiate those claims.

Just when things seemed weird enough, fellow Loveland police officer Mark Matthews had his own encounter with a similar creature just two weeks after Shockey’s sighting. Matthews came upon a creature he thought was injured or dead and he intended to move it to the side of the road.  He got out of his car to move it when he said it stood up on its hind legs and hobbled over the guardrail and into the river. Matthews also stated that he fired a shot at it but was unsure if he injured it. Matthews would later change his story in 1999 to local media and in 2001 he was quoted as stating, “It was and is no 'monster'. It was not leathery or had wet matted fur. It was not 3-5 feet tall. It did not stand erect. The animal I saw was obviously some type of lizard that someone had as a pet that either got too large for its aquarium, escaped by accident or they simply got tired of it. It was less than 3 feet in length, ran across the road and was probably blinded by my headlights. It presented no aggressive action.”

Matthews’ admission that his side of the story was a hoax was probably made as an attempt to further separate him from the story. This odd and conflicting admission would help keep the Loveland Frog story alive as this created more mystery behind the modern stories.  The legend lived on happily until 2016 when another sighting opened a few doors and the legend took another dose of reality that may have eliminated what little credibility it had.

Sam Jacobs and his girlfriend were walking along Madeira Road near Lake Isabella in Loveland, Ohio, on August 3, 2016 when they purportedly saw the legendary Loveland Frog.  Sam was doing what just about every teen was doing in early August; playing Pokémon Go. Jacobs captured a quick video as well as some photographs during his evening encounter before leaving the area quickly. His story, video, and photos were in the media the following afternoon. Jacobs was quoted by a few local television stations he sent the story to including WLWT, the local NBC affiliate, “We saw a huge frog near the water," Jacobs wrote in an email to the station. "Not in the game, this was an actual giant frog.” Jacobs and his girlfriend went back to her house immediately after their sighting where his girlfriend’s parents informed them about the legend of the Loveland Frog –or so the story goes.

This new story, and its not so convincing evidence, prompted news services to suddenly take an interest in this story that seemingly had croaked a long time ago. Matthews, who now resides in Florida, gave a telling explanation of what really occurred during 1972 that attempts to tie the story up in a nice bow. He states that Shockey seemed convinced he saw something near the Totes boot factory (now known as Totes Isotoner).
Matthews did see a creature the night he was on patrol, but it didn’t go over the guardrail like reported it went under it. While Matthews had no idea what it was initially he decided to shoot it since he felt no one would believe him. He states that the creature was missing its tail and was half dead. Matthews put the creature, which turned out to be a three foot long iguana, into his trunk to show others what had been seen.

He guessed that the creature was living near the factory’s water pipes that released warm water that was used to cool ovens to stay warm. Being a cold-blooded creature it would have no other way of surviving the cold conditions of an Ohio winter. It was also pretty obvious that this was either an escaped or released pet which went unreported. Matthews told WCPO, "It's a big hoax," and, "There's a logical explanation for everything."

For some the story that Mark Matthews has been pushing since 1999 is total fiction. Some feel that it’s his way of moving away from the ridicule, stories, and the constant contact of people wanting to hear the same story told over and over.  James Renner, author of “It Came from Ohio” interviewed Ray Shockey for his 2012 book at his Loveland home. Shockey, despite telling the author he swore he decided years ago he wouldn’t talk about it anymore, is quoted in the book as saying that it definitely wasn’t an iguana and it was in fact much bigger.

So, which story is true? Did a pair of police officers independently see a three to four foot tall upright walking frog along a river in Ohio? Or did one officer misinterpret an iguana and another provided evidence for a logical conclusion despite the story never being revealed until 1999? When looking at both stories neither one makes much logical sense. The idea of a large upright walking frog is ridiculous. However, it was witnessed by two independent police officers and made a public story. If it was just an iguana why wasn’t this story squashed back in 1972?

What about this latest sighting? My interpretation of the latest Loveland Frog sighting rests squarely between an intentional hoax and a misinterpretation. Granted, if I had to pick one I would say a hoax since the witness went right to the media within 24 hours and pushed his story to the public. There was seemingly no follow-up or any type of investigation into the location of the sighting and the story disappeared as quickly as it jumped into the news. Personally, like many hoaxers, I feel he might have wanted the attention but was shocked by how much this story actually generated and did not pursue it any further. If I had seen this creature I would have returned that night with an array of flashlights, cameras, witnesses, baseball bats, or whatever else I needed to prove that this actually happened. If anything, a daytime trip to the location to look for a logical solution should have occurred before writing a blanket email to the media.

Ohio researcher and author James A. Willis offered his own theory on the latest Loveland Frog sighting. In his blog he states that he wasn’t impressed with the video and images when he first saw them stating that the creature appeared much smaller than three to four feet tall and that the eyes looked like “high beams”. While shopping at a local Big Lots retail store his wife showed him a Wilson & Fisher solar frog which has bright lights for eyes and matches the images closely. Not surprisingly, there is a Big Lots store about 4 miles outside of Loveland. Willis states that he’s not saying this is exactly the explanation, but from what I see he’s done a great job of providing similar photographs that help legitimize a hoax/misinterpretation.

So, while this latest chapter doesn’t look too promising for the Loveland Frog it did put a giant shadow of doubt on the story overall with the Matthews explanation. But, the conflicting information is just enough to keep this story afloat for just a little while longer.

Brian D. Parsons

Sources:

• WLWT.com.   "Are the Legends True? Man Claims he Spotted Fabled Loveland Frogman."  August 4, 2016.
• WCPO.com. “Officer who shot 'Loveland Frogman' in 1972 says story is a hoax.” August 5, 2016.
• Snopes.com. “’Loveland Frogman’ Spotted Again?” August, 5, 2016.
• WeirdUS.com. Loveland’s Frogman.
• Strangeandspookyworld.com. The Strange and Spooky World of James A. Willis, “Create Your Very Own Loveland Frog Hoax For Under $20.00!”
• Renner, James. (2012). It Came from Ohio: True Tales of the Weird, Wild, and Unexplained. Cleveland, Ohio. Gray & Company, Publishers.
• Image of Loveland Frog created by Tim Bertelink and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. The original file, and subsequent variations, can be found on the Wikipedia entry for the Loveland Frog. By Tim Bertelink - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47617140 

Are there really small hairless creatures killing people in India or is the truth too much to bear?

A viral story was let loose on December 1, 2016 by a Facebook user from India. Along with an accompanying photograph and video it was suggested that a creature was eating animals as well as people along the state borders of Kerala and Karnataka in India. Not only that, but this creature in the the cage was just one of four that have been seen. The post to date has been shared over 260,000 times and has spread virally just as designed.

However, is it true that there is some scary monster or even an alien on the loose? Wait, who said anything about an alien? The truth is the photo and video are based on a real animal that made a scary entrance in January of 2015. The creature was seen by workers at a Malaysian Palm oil plantation. The workers filmed the creature making a very slow getaway and it obviously didn't look very nimble or capable of killing a person. It was initially described as potentially being an alien, but those in the area were quick to realize that it was a hairless, and obviously sick, sun bear. It took a team from the Sarawak Forestry Corporation a couple of months to track down the animal and capture it and their hope was to help this obviously sick animal.

The sun bear initially responded to food and fluids, but within a few days began to withdraw from food and water. Every effort was made to save this animal from intravenously administering fluids to placing a feeding tube into its stomach, but in reality the bear was beyond sick. Sadly, the creature died on May 18th of 2015. An autopsy revealed that the sun bear was very old and was in the late stages of cancer.

Sun bears live in the tropical rain forests of mainland southeast Asia as well as the islands of Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia. Their habitat has been slowly destroyed and the numbers have dwindled in reaction to this as well as with commercial poaching.  The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the sun bear as a threatened species as it is considered vulnerable which is one step away from endangered.

Resources:

• 'Alien-like' creature from viral video has been found and captured (Inquisitr)
• Alien-like sun bear from viral video succumbs to cancer (Inquisitr) 
• Sun bear (Wikipedia)

Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2015

I bring you my annual list of the top stories of the paranormal world. There is no way for me to say this is the definitive way these stories should be listed and arguments for the arrangement could be made to put any one of the top ten at number 1, but this list is essentially my opinion on the matter based on a year with few groundbreaking or long lasting viral stories. I have been doing this list since the end of the 2009 season of the Paranormal News Insider.

How is this list assembled?

Stories make the top ten for two basic reasons. The first reason is the story must be viral. A viral story may only be popular on social media (YouTube, Facebook Twitter, etc.) through one or multiple platforms. These stories may also become viral through news media either locally, regionally, or globally. How big a story becomes is one thing, but how long the story lasts in the media is another. A story that is a flash in the pan that is a global story may not be ranked as high as a story that was a big story only regionally yet lasted weeks. The second reason stories make this list is based on the impact they have on the particular aspect of the paranormal field they have to do with. Stories that offer a glimmer of hope in a particular field will usually be ranked higher than a story that is based on a hoax. Using these two scales as a guide I rank each story against each other with both aspects and eventually whittle down a list of stories into a top ten.

Some years are fantastic and other years are duds when it comes to paranormal stories. I will be doing a top three from 2008 through 2015 sometime in 2016, but 2015 was a dud when compared to 2008 (Stephenville, Texas UFO, Georgia Bigfoot Hoax, Montauk Monster) and other years that had standout stories. Here is this years list:


10. A video surfaced in early September that was being called "Real Pterosaur Spotted over Idaho, USA". A few others splattered this over social media and have claimed that it took place in Ohio.

A small amount of detective work links the YouTube video back to the original source of o7tv YouTube channel. While the video itself looks realistic there are a few strange things about it. The flying creature looked stiff, rather like an electronic flying toy. Many posted this as a likely explanation along with a cheesy version of a radio controlled pterodactyl, but the comparison was not close. Many said this was CGI, but there seemed to be no evidence of it being a digital manipulation. In all likelihood the video is a fake of some sort. This YouTube user is also responsible for a number of other releases of videos that are admitted CGI hoaxes, such as the video from 2013 titled “Real UFO with aliens caught on camera” where a skinny alien seems to wave while it stands by a UFO sitting on a hill. The UFO suddenly darts into the sky and the camera drops as the person filming apparently runs away. Later, the UFO is seen hovering again only to shoot off after hovering for a moment. “Car Disappears on Highway”, “Dragon Flying over England” are also examples of viral hits from this user that have generated millions of views. These videos demonstrate some similar effects of those seen in the pterosaur video. So, was the video a real 65 million year old creature flying around Idaho? Probably not, but it's likely that we will never know and the amount of speculation surrounding this video landed it in the countdown this year.

Why it’s in the top ten: It was a viral hit and while many people figured it was the work of a hoax there were just as many that believed this could be real. There were very little details that pegged this as CGI, despite many people claiming it, and it pointed toward a mechanical version of the extinct reptile. However, no one could find a source for this being a remote controlled replica of this extinct creature. Why it’s number 10: While it was very viral it disappeared just as quickly as the creature in the video did. No further evidence could keep this story in the news despite it being one of the most shared videos dealing with the paranormal this year.

9. One story that evolved slowly at first before gaining a snowball momentum was the image of the purported Jersey Devil that was sent in to NJ.com and was shared with the world on October 12th. The story goes that a man named Dave Black was driving home in Galloway, New Jersey, when he spotted what he thought was a llama near the road. Suddenly, this llama-like creature spread its leathery wings and took flight over a golf course. Black was able to snap a few pictures, but only one came out. Then, the story began to develop. A day later a video was sent in to NJ.com

by a reader named Emily who was traveling through Leeds Point. She tries to add credibility to the video by stating she is a middle school teacher who moonlights as an algebra tutor for high school students. The video shows the dreaded Jersey Devil quickly flying across the screen as the person filming it lets out a quiet gasp. Even though most people realized this was not a legitimate story things quickly escalated for Kelly Roncace who wrote the piece. She was quoted as saying that once the video was added that "...all hell broke loose." She was getting calls from Good Morning America and news outlets all over the United States and beyond. It also got the attention of many skeptics and paranormal bloggers who were quick to dismiss both the photograph and video. Kelly was attacked by many, but she stated that her section is a features column and was not supposed to be taken as actual news. 

Why it’s in the top ten: This story contained different bits of sightings of a unique and well known cryptid and the story went viral beyond simple social media. The fact that Good Morning America and other news stations showed interest, although not serious about the creature’s existence, also added to this story being included on the list. Why it’s only number 9; the story did not have enough traction or validity or even follow up to consider it being any higher than number 9. If there were other viral stories similar to this with even a bit better evidence, the term used loosely here, this story would have been pushed to number ten or out of the top ten easily.

8. There exists some good evidence that the Loch Ness Monster was a story created for tourism in the 1930s. I mentioned on the September 29^th episode of the Paranormal News Insider how Crop Circles may have been born in English Pubs, now it seems that the Loch Ness Monster may have been created not at the bottom of Loch Ness, but at the bottom of a nice ale. The monster was supposedly created by a man named DG Gerahty, who was hired by several Scottish hotel owners to help drum up business through tourism. The group was supposedly inspired by Lake Ogopogo’s folkloric monster in Canada. They were also purportedly inspired by a book.

 Professor Gareth Williams suggested these claims in a new book that the Loch Ness Monster was created to help spur sagging tourism after the Great Depression. He also pointed out in his research that the answer to the story behind the monster may lie in a short extract from a semi-autobiographical novel called Marise. In the novel, the narrator described how the story of the monster in the Scottish loch was invented in a pub near Trafalgar square. Professor Williams said that the lack of sightings of the monster before 1930 strengthens the argument that the monster was made up in the early 1930s. Once a sighting took place the flood gates were opened and remain open to this day despite many photographs being disproved as hoaxes or misinterpretations. Many new photographs and evidence continue to pop up only to be discovered as hoaxes or again; misinterpretations. Is the Loch Ness Monster real? Not likely and this story might sound like a nail in the coffin, but the story of Nessie has survived this long and is doubtful to disappear due to facts just as it has all these years.

Why it’s in the top ten; this is a telling story about the potential origin of one of the most popular creatures in cryptozoology. While it seems to legitimately discount the creature as being real it will not take away from it being a popular cryptid. Why it’s number 8 in the countdown: this release of information did very little to disperse the legend of the Loch Ness Monster nor did it really gain much traction as a viral story outside of the United Kingdom or have any impact on tourism to the Loch Ness area, at least negatively.

7. The floating city in China. Thousands of people reported seeing a strange city floating in the sky complete with skyscrapers in the city of Foshan in the Guangdong province in China on October 9th. Numerous photographs and videos documented the strange event that left some wondering if a parallel universe opened up in the skies. If that wasn’t enough, just a few days later a similar event happened over the skies of Jiangxi (GEE-ONg-SHE) China. Conspiracy theorists were quick to make several accusations about the event in an attempt to explain what was happening.

Was it a Project Blue Beam test? Could this be a temporal vortex, a possible parallel universe materializing briefly into our own reality? Some also felt considering China's technological achievements that a top secret holographic technology was tested over a heavily populated area in an effort to gauge the public reaction. These are all nice guesses, but unfortunately the reality is a little less exciting. This event, while rare, actually happens often in China for some reason, but is known to occur most often in polar regions and is known as Fata Morgana. No, this isn’t some French socialite, but it is the name for a natural mirage caused by weather and the infamous temperature inversion. Fata Morgana is the Italian name for Morgan Le Fay, and other names, as the enchantress from the King Arthur legends. Fata Morgana can be seen on land or sea and involves the optical distortion and inversion of distant objects such as boats, which can appears as skyscrapers because the images become stacked, when rays of light bend as they pass through air of different temperatures such as in a heat haze. The real thing here is that while it’s quite a sight and does not happen often, it has been noted every few years especially here in the paranormal news arena. These sightings are also confused with UFO sightings as the mirage comes from below the horizon and makes an object appear in the sky and a Fata Morgana can also trick RADAR signals into perceiving objects floating as well.

Why it’s in the top ten: this story scared the living daylights out of a lot of people, and not just in China. It lead to an enormous amount of speculation, of which only a handful was discussed here, that made conspiracy theorists crowd around the warm glow of their computer monitor in their parent’s basements. Many websites stated that this was a sign of the end times. Other sites thought that the video was just digital manipulation. This speculation was no match for the amount of science that poured in from news and educational resources such as Discovery News, National Geographic, Science Alert.com, Accuweather, CNN, and others that properly described this as Fata Morgana and even listed a number of very similar incidents that had piled up long before these two in China. However, Snopes declared this story as unproven and that many pieces of this story do not add up. Why it’s number 7: this was a very viral story that nearly everyone involved with the paranormal or science weighed in on. It was interesting to see the diversity of beliefs between the paranormal, UFO, and conspiracy websites and it brought to light their emotional reactions to stories like these. It also highlighted how many bloggers and news organizations continue to peddle stories like these without doing simple research and finding the reality behind them, this is why I do the Paranormal News Insider. While the story had a logical outcome and was nothing short of explainable it did highlight the beliefs of many of the world in the strange, anomalous, and just downright scary things that happen every day.

6. On March 10^th a strange video has surfaced from the jungles of Costa Rica, no, not of a dinosaur, but of an extinct bird.

The video, uploaded only to YouTube, shows an iguana in the foreground and then a strange bird poking around a fallen piece of tree in the background. The bird looks slightly familiar and as the 48 second video comes to an end the edited clip shows the bird walking directly in front of the green tinted scene; a bird that closely resembles that of the once living dodo. The video was purportedly taken by a photographer who had set up video to record animals at night, when I first debuted the story I stated it would be wise to doubt the video until further information shows up. Dodos were first mentioned in 1598 and were slowly hunted to extinction in the mid-1600s and ultimately became a mythological bird. Dodos were only found on the island of Mauritius (MAR-RISH-ISS) which is east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. So, how would one end up in Costa Rica? The dodo was used as food, similarly to pigs which were released on the island of Mauritius. The Dutch who controlled the island in that time most certainly took the bird for trade and may have released them on other islands, such as Costa Rica, as a food source. The dodo bird video made many people, including myself, hopeful that this video was real and that we could rediscover an animal thought extinct. The video was a bit fishy from the way it was shot to how most of it was in focus except for what we were hoping to see. However, on the morning of March 16^th I found part two of the video that showed the dodo bird move its beak off camera and return with a cue card with “I wish I was real” written in Portuguese. 

The video was created for a conservation team, a non-governmental organization known as Civil Association Alternative Terrazul, that was looking for some attention by using the extinct dodo to draw in the general public and then educate them on living species that are closing in on extinction such as jaguars, African elephant, golden lion tamarin, Amazon River dolphin, panda bear, black rhino, hawksbill sea turtle, blue whale, and others. The project was known as almost a dodo.

Why it’s in the top ten: nearly everyone involved with cryptozoology, zoology, and the paranormal was weighing in on this video. Many were confident this video was the real deal despite some of the shortcomings described about the blurry nature of it as well as the uncommon camera type and placement. This was an extremely viral video that the conclusion of which was not broadcast very much. Sadly, the message of this organization seemed to miss its mark even after drawing a much larger audience than they anticipated. Why it’s number 6: this was an extremely viral video that had many people believing this could be the biggest animal finding since the coelacanth. Despite the cheesy nature of the video as well as the reveal it has gone down as one of the most believable cryptozoological hoaxes in recent history.

5. The Charlie Charlie Challenge. Gravity will hurt you, but not with falling pencils.  What started out as a Spanish-speaking schoolyard game has morphed into the poor man’s, or lazy man’s, Ouija Board and a silly little game that seemingly can only work if you put it on your Vine.

A 17 year old girl in central Georgia apparently instagrammed her game using the hashtag  #CharlieCharlieChallenge and from there it gained a lot of momentum. As of May 26th the phrase had been tweeted over 2 million times and is getting more social media attention than any news event anywhere in the world. The trend started late on May 23^rd and built up on the 24^th and went strong for a couple of days. A Priest in Philadelphia wrote an open letter to those involved with the cult-like practice where he taught in a Catholic High School saying that "there is no such thing as innocently playing with demons." Little did he know, these demons actually work in Hollywood. The whole Charlie Charlie Challenge may have started out from trends in South America where this new version of a couple of older Spanish games were merged, but it ended up seeming like nothing more than a viral campaign for the movie “The Gallows” in which the main character of the movie, which whom it is bad luck to utter his name, is named Charlie. During the movie, and as highlighted in the preview at the previous link, they attempt to contact Charlie by using the same exact method in a short Spanish preview "La Horca" or "The Gallows." However, Snopes.com disagrees saying that this video was uploaded a day prior to the breakout of the Charlie Charlie Challenge and that the date discrepancy is enough to discredit this theory. 

Why it’s in the top ten: the Charlie Charlie Challenge was one of the most viral stories of 2015 on social media let alone one of the top stories in the paranormal. Many people were afraid of this while many others laughed this off as a child’s game despite the similarities to the Ouija Board yet this story got the attention of worldwide media well beyond social media. Why it was only number 5: it really did little to bring the paranormal out of the dark ages of belief and superstition. While the fear behind the Charlie Charlie Challenge finally subsided it was just another scar on the face of the paranormal belief engine and did little to create acceptance or discovery in the paranormal. It’s mere presence on this list is due completely to the viral nature of the story.

4. Harvey Robertson, a Scottish tourist, was on vacation with his family off the coast of Parga off the northwest coast of Greece. He was taking photographs with his iPhone of the color of the water while sailing through sea caves when he took a photograph of a strange creature. The photograph was making the rounds as expert after expert were stumped as to what the creature was.

Some felt this was a Cuvier’s Beaked Whale; some thought it looked like a manatee, a cuttlefish, or even some sort of hippo-dolphin morph. Then, the bubble was burst.  Zoologist Dr. Darren Naish of the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton was the first to identify what he felt was truly in the picture. The strange creature was identified as nothing more than a half-sunken low freeboard boat fender. While so many people were contemplating what type of animal it was it seemed no one was willing to question whether it was even a real animal. I admit I was stumped and did my best to find a living creature to match, lesson learned. So did Mr. Robertson attempt to fool the general public? More than likely not. His photograph seemed to genuinely confuse him and if he did not see the fender when he took the photograph or view the picture to see the object he would have little reason to look for it afterward.  Still, there are many people who deny this logical explanation and feel that the animal is still out there. I’m sure it is and I hope someone finds that boat fender. 

Why it's in the top ten: This story went very viral and carried itself for nearly a week until the boat fender theory seemed to wash away the hope of finding a new mysterious creature in the waters off of Greece. Numerous experts weighed in on this story as it built momentum all over the world. Why it was only number four: despite being one of the top viral stories of the year the purported creature is more than likely just a boat fender. While this explanation is still being argued it is the most plausible. With it having no real impact on cryptozoology this story was only carried so far on the waves of popularity.

3. Misidentified Rocket Launches: Probably the biggest UFO story of the year, and definitely September, was actually very explainable. Dozens of videos and photos flooded the Internet on Wednesday, September 2^nd, especially in Florida where the Atlas 5

spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The rocket had a $7.6 billion Navy satellite system that was launched into orbit. The launch took place just after 6 AM and seemed to take a lot of people off guard as the rocket and its exhaust trail became illuminated by the pre-dawn sun as it gained altitude. Even people who were told what it was didn’t believe it since the rising sun lit up the trail and made it very colorful. Twitter was going crazy from the tweets of people thinking there was an alien invasion or that the world was coming to an end.

On Saturday, November 7^th the west coast lost their minds this time as a rocket was launched from out in the ocean catching many off guard. Earlier in the week the military had flights that normally travel over water to avoid noise over southern California to be diverted back over land on that evening. The Orange County Sheriff’s office tweeted that the large fireball in the sky was in fact a missile launched from the USS Kentucky, an Ohio class ballistic missile submarine. Speculation and rumors were and still are flying that the missile was some top secret thing or perhaps it was a test flight of a UFO being covered up or maybe even some other unknown technology. Why these thoughts? Well, Government. Not to mention the fact that people were taken off guard by the launch as well as saw the ignition of the missile that puzzled many. The missile was actually a Trident 2 missile that was not armed. Despite much speculation it has been cleared up that this is nothing more than a routine shakedown of the recently refurbished submarine. 

On December 22nd another rocket was seen over the western skies that also went viral. This one turned out to be a Russian SL-4 rocket body that was reentering the atmosphere and was visible for around ten minutes.

Why it's in the top ten: these rocket launches got a lot of publicity, both for the mere sighting and some for their scientific merit, but also a lot of speculation and fear generated by those who didn't know what was going on. The September Florida launch generated a lot of UFO and end-of-the-world type of speculation while the Trident California launch generated that and also some Government conspiracy talk. Even the recent sighting was thought to potentially be an alien invasion, I wonder where that thought came from? Why it was only number four: despite being extremely viral and some tense moments generated by fear and misunderstanding, these were obviously explainable examples of man made objects.

2. Bigfoot captured on photo/video (again, and again...). 2015 has been the year that Bigfoot has made numerous headlines of being captured clearly on photos and videos for the first time, well, a number of times. The year started out with photos from Florida of a fisherman who fooled a few people with a horrible Photoshop attempt as well as from the Arizona Department of Transportation that submitted a photo they jokingly thought resembled a family of Bigfoot.

While some so-called investigators claimed to have witness testimony and tracks, those of us who did some simple research found out these were just trees that never moved from their position. We then had the Turner,Maine video that was peddled by Bill Brock since 2014. The entire case turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by a kid that fooled many experts who claimed the video was the best since the Patterson Gimlin Film. Bigfoot’s Russian cousin then made his appearance in the Adygeya Republic area of southwestern Russia in what is now called the snowy woods video. A team of scientists were in the area following up on sightings when they captured the video. Some say that this was merely a stunt to drum up tourism. The Bigfoot Field Researcher’s Organization then debunked the first video of the year shot at Lettuce Lake Park near Tampa, Florida. While many felt this was just a Photoshop attempt gone awry, it turned out to be a hoax to get attention and ultimately make it on Finding Bigfoot. Then, a very viral story; the sighting of a purported Bigfoot family stalking bison near the Old Faithful Geyser at Yellowstone National Park that turned out to just be a group of people. 

Why it’s in the top ten: while Bigfoot hoaxes are nothing new, this series of hoaxes all gained momentum within the first few weeks of 2015 making it feel like everyone was getting in on the action. A few of these stories remained in the circle of Bigfootery while others generated a lot of public speculation and were viral stories. While most of these were obvious hoaxes some did bring to question whether these represented the proof that the world needed in order to validate the existence of Bigfoot once and for all. Why it’s number two: it didn’t prove anything other than Bigfoot investigators can either be gullible or very clever in discovering hoaxes. Despite these stories owning the paranormal headlines for the first few weeks of the year one story trumped all others in being viral and stirring belief in the paranormal.
 

1. The number one Paranormal News Story of 2015 was also one of the most viral paranormal stories of the year. The story took place Friday, March 6^th in Spanish Fork, Utah.

A woman was driving home from her parent’s house in Salem, Utah to her home in Springville only 10 miles away. Sadly, around halfway to her destination 25 year old Lynn Groesbeck lost control of her vehicle, struck a cement barrier, and ended up in the Spanish Fork River with her 18 month old baby strapped into her car seat in the back of the vehicle. Nearly 14 hours later fishermen discovered the overturned car in the river and called police. As police and firefighters arrived they made their way to the vehicle unsure if anyone were alive. All five of the three policemen and two firefighters at the scene of the car purportedly heard the words, "Help me, help me now," from inside of the vehicle accompanied with screaming. This fueled the men’s efforts in getting into the car quickly and discovering the baby and bringing her to safety. Unfortunately, Lynn had died in the crash and the 18 month old girl named Lily was unconscious yet alive despite being only inches from the freezing water wearing no gloves or hat. 

Despite many people claiming this is a feel good story this is a very sad story that the young mother perished and that her daughter will not be able to grow up with her. Was this ghostly voice an example of a crisis apparition? A crisis apparition is described as someone who is about to, going through, or just went through the dying process is able to communicate to someone through unknown means. Granted, this could also be pareidolia, the sound of rushing water or other ambient noise in the background that made the men feel as though they heard someone in the car. One question I had was that if these officers were wearing body cameras with sound, why couldn’t we at least hear that few moments of audio? Obviously, the discovery of the driver, Lynn Groesbeck, who can be partially seen in previously released video, would be a bit gruesome and insensitive to show. Days after the accident part of the video on the body cam was released, but on March 14th a full 11 minutes and 45 seconds including the moment where the voice was supposedly heard around the 1:58 mark was put on YouTube.  There was a lot of yelling, talking including female voices, radio chatter, sirens, cars, rushing water, and more going on during the rescue. The female who worked on the infant inside the ambulance was seen standing only a few feet away. This information might be enough to discredit the men’s claims. Lynn Groesbeck's autopsy revealed that she had been using heroin and was under the influence of Clonazepam, THC, morphine, codeine and hydromorphone. A small bag of marijuana and tramadol were also found in the vehicle. 

Why it's in the top ten: this was the largest viral story dealing with ghostly phenomena all year and despite the evidence of a bystander potentially being the source of the voice there still exists a strong possibility this was in fact a voice from beyond death. Why it's number one: Despite the tragic end to Lynn's life the focus has always been on the luck of the survival of Lily. This story will always be remembered as a miraculous effort for a mother to save her baby from death from beyond the grave and has inspired many people to believe in the possibility of life after death.

Honorable mentions: I am still mesmerized by the "Merman in Poland" video that popped up in late September. Even though it was one of the strangest things to appear in the paranormal news the story disappeared a week after it came out despite no one really finding out what truly was going on. The #UFOSA story of a series of green UFO sightings in South Africa on November 28th was an extremely viral story that turned out to be a viral hoax. I had a soft spot for this since I discovered one of the photographs was fake prior to it being released that it was a gimmick for an energy drink. Despite their viral strength neither of these stories made it in the top ten in a year where the stories were all fairly weak compared to past years. I'll explore the top three stories since 2008 when I began doing the Paranormal News Insider in a future blog post.