Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 18th, 2008
Thank goodness the ghosts are gone. It’s back to monsters this evening folks, so let’s celebrate.
Tonight’s “MonsterQuest” is about the “Ohio Grassman,” one of the local names for the Eastern Bigfoot-types reported in this Midwestern state, a bona-fide cryptid. It also features good guy, well-known Ohio Bigfoot conference organizer and Cleveland Indians fan Don Keating.
Don Keating describes a plaster casting he has in his collection from early 1991 for the History Channel’s program “MonsterQuest.” The casting is from a series of five footprints discovered near Newcomerstown. Photo provided by the History Channel
Radio talk show host Tim Binnall & Don Keating at the Mass Monster Mash, October 13, 2007. binnall photo.
Don Keating of Cambridge, a former Newcomerstown resident and the originator of the Eastern Ohio Bigfoot Investigation Center, will be featured on [an] episode of the History Channel’s “MonsterQuest” miniseries.
The episode, to be broadcast [June 18, 2008] at 9 p.m. [Eastern USA Time Zone] is titled “Ohio Grassman.”
* * *
Keating said he was first contacted about being involved with the “MonsterQuest” production in mid-February. He said one of the program’s producers and a cameraman were in Ohio from late February to early March “shooting interviews and conducting day and night research.”
Keating was interviewed for several different parts of the show, as were residents of Noble County, Canton and Sunbury, the latter who claim to have sighted a Bigfoot at Salt Fork State Park near Cambridge in late December 2006.
He said he’s not sure how much of his interviews and nighttime research will be included in the show, but estimates it will be “a good bit.”New Philadelphia, Ohio, Times Reporter
There exists one small book on the topic of this region’s unknown hairy hominoids, fashioned by Chris Murphy, entitled Bigfoot Encounters in Ohio: Quest for the Grassman. It covers a bit about the work of Keating and other Ohio researchers (such as Joedy Cook, George Clappison, and Matt Moneymaker). The Grassman lists and sighting reports are framed by material on Sasquatch in general.
Here is the History Channel overview of the Ohio program tonight:
“MonsterQuest : Ohio Grassman”
Airs on Wednesday June 18 09:00 PM Eastern
MonsterQuest : Ohio Grassman
Also airs on Thursday June 19 01:00 AM Eastern
Just miles from the industrial cities of Ohio, there is a bogeyman that has terrified local children for over a century. According to stories and sightings, the Grassman is similar to a Bigfoot, but builds strange nests and has been known to attack. Can science help explain this creature? Is a primate skull, a strange print and a new video the first direct proof behind the legendary Grassman? We’ll sift through the existing evidence and take to the skies in a search for what is stalking Ohio.
Meanwhile, the “Vampire Beast” episode is repeated tonight too, twice on the History Channel.
MonsterQuest : Vampire Beast
Airs on Wednesday June 18 08:00 PM
Also airs on Thursday June 19 12:00 AM
In the fall of 2007, residents of Bolivia, North Carolina started losing pets and farm animals to an unknown creature. Is it the same mystery predator with a taste for blood that preyed on goats and dogs in Bolivia more than 50 years ago? One-part history, one-part science and one part monsters, take a look at legendary creatures around the world.
(By the way, I understand that Don Keating may not be a great fan of the “Grassman” moniker, but after this evening, Keating’s name probably will be tied to that beast’s local label in the general public’s mind for years to come.)
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013.