In the winter of 1959, something very unusual was seen in the New Richmond, Ohio area. In January, one of the local police departments received a letter from a remaining anonymous eyewitness who reported seeing a real monster in the Ohio River.
From the style of the message, one could understand that the man was very scared. He described that he was walking along the river bank and saw in the muddy waters not far from the bank something alive with tentacles, which he at first took for an octopus. However, later he doubted that it was an octopus and the nature of this creature seemed frighteningly unusual to him. That is why he wrote to the police.
The police only shrugged their shoulders at such an anonymous letter, probably thinking that this was the handiwork of some mental patient. However, this was only the first sign.
Soon the police were called by a truck driver who was driving from New Richmond to Cincinnati and saw something strange in the Little Miami River, in southwestern Ohio. According to the driver, the creature was "hard to describe" and he had "never seen anything like it before."
After the call, the police walked to the Little Miami River area but saw nothing unusual there. But soon there were two calls at once from two different people who also saw the monster in the river on the same night when the truck driver saw him.
After that, in the local press there were notes with the headlines "What was that?", Dedicated to the observations of an incomprehensible aquatic creature. And the observations of eyewitnesses continued to flow and became more and more.
The strange animal was seen in different parts of Cincinnati, New Richmond and Hamilton County. At the same time, an incomprehensible incident happened in Cincinnati when many street lamps went out, especially in the area of Kellogg Ave.
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It was officially said that powerful gusts of wind were to blame, but broken power poles were found, which raised doubts that the wind did it. These doubts were further intensified when, that evening, when the lights went out, a certain driver said that he saw a large strange animal jump out of the water across the bridge.
According to the man, the animal moved awkwardly, as if it was difficult for him to walk on land. At the same time, it looked like a human and moved on two limbs.
At that time, it was still unclear exactly what this monster looks like. None of the eyewitnesses gave specific descriptions. But soon there was a message from a woman who lived near the Ohio River and this message made the police remember that very first anonymous letter, as it also described a creature with tentacles.
The woman described this creature as a "big octopus." And after her, another local resident said that she saw a strange gray creature with ugly tentacles, thin chest and "fat bags" under a bald head.
Unfortunately, despite the flood of reports from eyewitnesses, society reacted to this story mostly with humor. Reporters joked about the invasion of aliens, and skeptics assured that people just saw a snag in the river and the rest added to their imaginations.
But the fact is a fact, several unrelated people from different parts of Ohio almost simultaneously saw a very unusual animal and at least three described that it had tentacles. This creature soon received the nickname Octomen (Octopus Man).
Maybe they saw a large octopus escaped from the aquarium? But in winter, this creature would probably have frozen to death on the very first day in the wild, and even more so it could not travel long distances between Cincinnati and New Richmond.
Maybe it really was an alien or some kind of mutant or other cryptid. Anyway, in the months and years that followed, this creature was never seen in Ohio again.