Cryptid Alert

Across Ohio, in the spaces between small towns, something keeps getting seen.

For generations, families in the Buckeye State have swapped stories of shapes in the tree line, eyes catching a flashlight beam, and tracks nobody can explain. This book gathers the state's strangest, best-documented sightings and asks what's behind them.

A hairy giant said to nest in tall grass near Salt Fork. A frog-faced creature that sent an officer's patrol car swerving near Loveland. Pale, hollow-eyed children seen on a lonely Kirtland road after dark. A wolf-like figure that ambushed a railroad worker with a wooden club in Defiance. A massive shape said to surface in the waters of Lake Erie.

Each chapter brings its own witnesses, its own newspaper clippings, and its own question, from a giant serpent near Peninsula to a python that slithered through the Cuyahoga Valley.

Drawing on archival research, newspaper accounts, and interviews with longtime residents, Cryptid Alert: Ohio digs past the campfire versions of these stories to find out what actually happened - and why the sightings refuse to stop. For lifelong Ohioans, curious skeptics, or anyone who's ever felt watched on a dark country road, this book offers a fresh look at the creatures said to share our backroads.