Something's Lurking in Ohio... Something's Breathing in Illinois

This week on Champagne and Murder, Please, we're leaving the world of serial killers behind and stepping into two mysteries that still refuse to die.First, we're heading to the banks of the Little Miami River in Loveland, Ohio, where terrified witnesses claim they came face-to-face with a creature that looked more like something out of a fever dream than reality. Standing several feet tall, covered in leathery skin, and sporting unmistakably frog-like features, the Loveland Frogman has spent decades hopping between local legend, police reports, and cryptid lore. Is it just another case of mistaken identity... or has something strange really been hiding in the shadows all along?Then we're traveling back to the summer of 1944 in Mattoon, Illinois, where ordinary families began waking in the middle of the night unable to move, overcome by a mysterious sweet-smelling gas that seemed to drift through open windows before vanishing without a trace. Panic swept through the town as more reports poured in, newspapers fueled the hysteria, and a phantom attacker became one of America's most bizarre unsolved mysteries. Was the Mad Gasser a real criminal, an industrial accident, mass hysteria, or something even stranger?Pour yourself a glass of champagne, lock your windows, and maybe don't trust anything croaking at you from the dark. Because this week, we're diving into one legendary cryptid and one unexplained panic that continues to haunt the Midwest decades later.As always, we'll sprinkle in a little history, a lot of speculation, and just enough sarcasm to get us through another unforgettable night.https://www.lovelandfrog.com/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-loveland-frog-legend-180981453/https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/loveland-frogmanhttps://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2023/03/03/loveland-frogman-ohio-cryptid-legend-explained/69961627007/https://www.newspapers.com/https://www.ohiomagazine.com/travel/article/the-loveland-frogman-legendhttps://www.wvxu.org/local-news/2023-03-03/loveland-frogman-ohio-legend-history-cryptidhttps://www.history.com/news/mad-gasser-of-mattoon-illinoishttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-mad-gasser-of-mattoon-180979675/https://www.newspapers.comhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Gasser_of_Mattoonhttps://www.americanhauntingsink.com/madgasserhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/40168543