Leaping to Conclusions about Cryptid Frogs

One night, a young man drove

home alone along Interstate 76 near Brighton, Colorado. Swampland straddled

the highway as he approached a lake. A shudder suddenly ran down his

spine as he remembered this is the home of a terrifying monster …

Frog Boy.

Frightened

yet intrigued, he decided to investigate. He wandered around the area,

his feet sinking into the marshy ground. He stood still and listened.

The silence was broken by the sound of an incredible splash. Frog boy!

His heart pounding, he ran back to his vehicle and sped off. Only later

did he realize that what he’d heard wasn’t Frog Boy, it was probably

just a bullfrog.

The

Frog Boy of Barr Lake terrorized locals for three decades in this way.

Terrorized their imaginations, that is. Frog Boy can be categorized

as a cryptid, an animal whose existence has not been proven (and probably

never will be). Cryptozoology is the study of as yet undiscovered or

unproven animals, such as Bigfoot and el chupacabra; mutant versions

of known animals, like big cats and the Mongolian Death Worm; and hybrid

cryptids. Creatures in this last category are interbred species that

might be a cross of known animals, such as England’s Beast of Dartmoor,

a lion-pig. These might be part known animal and part mythological creature,

like the Jersey Devil, or legendary creatures that resemble common animals,

such as the horse-like unicorn. Whatever the mythical mix, these genetic

anomalies are the prototypical monsters of folklore.

Hybrid

cryptids can be humanoid or even part human. Hybrid human cryptids include

Spring Heeled Jack, the Flatwoods monster, Mothman, and werewolves.

Barring the prevalence of mermaids over mermen, “monsters” are rarely

female. They’re usually male, including alligator boys, monkey men,

goat men, owl men, lizard men, wild men, and of course, frog men.

There

are plenty of cryptid amphibians in folklore. Some are more plausible

than others, such as the African White Frog, a “pure white frog that

has been reported from areas of the eastern Congo rainforest.1

These sightings could be of a new species, a known frog, or an albino

frog. Then there’s the less plausible Cameroon Flashlight Frog, a

frog with a bioluminescent nose.2 Least plausible are the

frog boys of California and Florida and the infamous case of a half-man,

half-frog (or lizard) known as the Loveland Frog of Ohio.3

There

is the Hodag hoax. This creature had “the head of a frog, the grinning

face of a giant elephant, thick short legs set off by huge claws, the

back of a dinosaur, and a long tail with spears at the end.”4

The beast was “captured” and “killed” (that is, created) by

one Eugene Shepard in the late nineteenth century. He revealed his prank

when a team of scientists from the Smithsonian Institution planned to

visit to inspect the corpse. The Hodag is now the official symbol of

Rhinelander, Wisconsin, the town where the prank was perpetrated; it

also lends its name to an annual country music festival.

As

we know, fact is often stranger than fiction. A seventy-million-year-old

fossil of Beelzebufo ampigna, a real “monster frog,” was

discovered in Madagascar by a team of U.K. and U.S. scientists. This

relative of the horned toad weighed about nine pounds, had a body length

of up to sixteen inches, and probably snacked on small dinosaurs.5

There

are several medical defects that might be construed as “monstrous.”

There is a condition informally called “Frog Leg,” a developmental

dysplasia of the hip that can result in a frog-like appearance in the

lower limbs. If diagnosed early, this condition can be treated successfully.

Then there is the condition anencephaly, a neural tube birth defect

that results in the absence of major portions of the brain, skull, and

scalp.6 Infants with this condition often have a frog-like

appearance, with bulging eyes and deformed limbs. If not stillborn,

these babies rarely survive for more than a few hours or days after

birth, so a “frog-like” baby would not develop into a “frog-like”

boy.

Then

there is (or isn’t, as the case may be) the Frog Boy of Barr Lake.

After stories about fossils of mega frogs from the Cretaceous period,

bioluminescent amphibians, and a monster that is part frog, part elephant,

and part dinosaur, Frog Boy is somewhat of an anti-climax.

The

story of Frog Boy centers around claims of a cryptid hybrid amphibian

human that inhabits Barr Lake State Park in Brighton, Colorado. I originally

found out about Frog Boy via Bryan and Baxter of the Rocky Mountain

Paranormal Research Society. Unfortunately, they knew little more than

the name and alleged location of this cryptid. As a first step I contacted

the Barr Lake Nature Center seeking information about the legend. Park

Ranger Malinda responded on behalf of her team, “Sorry, none of us

have heard of this. You’ve got us curious though!” I knew the project

was in trouble if the source location had no archived accounts, sightings,

or stories to share.

I

began my own research, consulting books about local oddities, including

Weird Colorado,7 to no avail. Even on the Internet, that

guardian of fiction and fabrication, there were no references. I contacted

the Crypto Science Society at Denver’s Metro State University, but

they knew nothing of the legend either. I even emailed cryptozoologist

Loren Coleman, who has written about the Loveland Frog, but he hasn’t

heard of Frog Boy.

Frog

Boy exists solely in local oral history. There are no written accounts.

There are no images, no web tracks, remains, or other evidence, but

there is plenty of anecdotal evidence. All we have is a story … well,

stories. These have the hallmarks of urban legend. No two stories are

the same. Moreover, there are no primary witnesses; the tales are all

“friend of a friend.”

According

to anecdotes, reports of Frog Boy date back to the 1960s or 1970s. There

have been no sightings of Frog Boy, but he is green and scaly and has

webbed hands and feet. Some say he has the face of a frog and the body

of a boy. Some say he has the face of a boy and the body of a frog.

Some say he’s part boy; others say he’s part teenager, or he’s

part man. If you don’t see him you can smell his foul stench and hear

his splashes, croaks, and calls. He also speaks English. Frog Boy was

either born that way, the product of an evil Dr. Moreau-like laboratory

experiment, or the result of a tragic accident. Frog Boy was a boy-turned-frog

or a frog-turned-boy. He was abandoned by his parents, or he escaped

from a traveling circus. Frog Boy is extremely angry and violent and

has killed people, or he is ashamed of his appearance and shies away

from human contact. Frog Boy also shares his swampy home with a lake

monster. My favorite response was: “Frog Boy? Is that the guy who

paints his body green and runs naked through the streets?”

So

after all these years, is Frog Boy still a “boy”? Like an amphibian

Peter Pan of the lily pond, some say he never ages but is forever a

boy. Some say Frog Boy is dead. And the legend is dying. There

is no more to tell. Some legends flourish and expand, such as perennial

favorites Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, while others, like Frog

Boy, die out over a few generations unless they evolve.

With

such little information, it is difficult to trace the source of the

legend. It is interesting to speculate that Frog Boy might be related

to the Loveland Frog. Reports of Frog Boy emerged within a decade of

the Loveland Frog, and there are many similarities between their stories

and descriptions. Most intriguing of all is that Barr Lake is about

forty miles southeast of Loveland, Colorado. Could Frog Boy be the legend

of Loveland, Ohio, transplanted to the large body of water to Loveland,

Colorado?

There

is no evidence that Frog Boy dwells in Barr Lake, but there is evidence

that bullfrogs do. The legend is certainly is a load of bull.

References:

1. Cryptid Amphibians. Available

at www.angelfire.com/bc2/cryptodominion/amphibians.html . Accessed September 14, 2010.

2. The Cryptodominion: Home

of Hidden Animals. Available at www.angelfire.com/bc2/cryptodominion/frames.html.

Accessed September 6, 2010.

3. Coleman, Loren. 2001.

Mysterious America. Paraview Press.

4. Wikipedia. Hodag. Available

at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodag. Accessed September 6, 2010.

5. Paleontologists Reconstruct

a Monster Frog. New York Times. Available at www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/science/18frog.html.

Accessed September 6, 2010.

6. National Institute of Neurological

Disorders and Stroke. NINDS Anencephaly Information Page. Available

at www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/anencephaly/anencephaly.htm. Accessed

September 16, 2010.

7. Getz, Charmaine Ortega.

2010. Weird Colorado: Your Travel Guide to Colorado’s Local Legends

and Best Kept Secrets. Sterling Press.