• Generally, fairies were described as tiny ephemeral beings with wings who resided in forests.

• Elves, dwarfs and leprechauns were likewise residents of the forest. Unlike fairies, however, they were quite human in appearance - except for their diminutive size. They were often pictured as having their own miniature civilization, hidden away from the human world.

On a summer night in 1919, 13-year-old Harry Anderson claimed to have seen a column of 20 little men marching in single file, made visible by the bright moonlight. He noted they were dressed in leather knee pants with suspenders. The men were shirtless, bald and had pale white skin. They ignored young Harry as they passed, mumbling something unintelligible all the while.

In Stowmarket, England in 1842, a man claimed this encounter with "faries" when walking through a meadow on his journey home: "There might be a dozen of them, the biggest about three feet high, and small ones like dolls. They were moving around hand in hand in a ring; no noise came from them. They seemed light and shadowy, not like solid bodies. I... could see them as plain as I do you. I ran home and called three women to come back with me and see them. But when we got to the place, they were all gone. I was quite sober at the time."

Elves and fairies were considered quite real in past cultures, and were a familiar part of their rich folklore. In today's technological society, perhaps, we've simply replaced them in our imaginations with little gray aliens.

The first sighting was made by 17-year-old Bill Bartlett as he and three friends were driving north near the small New England town at around 10:30 at night. Through the darkness, Bartlett claimed to have seen an unusual creature creeping along a low stone wall on the side of the road - something he had never seen before and could not identify. The other boys did not see it, but it was obvious to them that Bartlett was shaken by the experience. When he arrived home, he told his father about his experience and sketched a drawing of the creature.

Just a few hours after Bartlett's sighting, at 12:30 a.m., John Baxter swore that he saw the same creature while walking home from his girlfriend's house. The 15-year-old boy saw it with its arms wrapped around the trunk of a tree, and his description of the thing matched Bartlett's exactly.

The final sighting was reported the next day by another 15-year-old, Abby Brabham, a friend of one of Bill Bartlett's friends, who said it appeared briefly in the car's headlights while she and her friend were driving. Again, the description was consistent. This is the creature they allegedly saw:

• about four feet tall on two legs

• hairless body with rough-textured skin

• long, spindly peach-colored limbs

• a large watermelon-shaped head, nearly as big as its body

• large glowing orange eyes.

Subsequent investigations into this unusual case turned up no hard evidence for the reality of the creature, but neither was there evidence of a hoax nor a motive for perpetrating one. Skeptics suggested that what the teenagers saw was a young moose, while UFOlogists who looked into the case wondered if there was an extraterrestrial connection.

The scene is the early hours of March 3, 1972. A police officer is cruising on Riverside Ave., which runs for a few blocks along the Little Miami River in Loveland, Ohio. On the side of the road he sees what he at first thinks is a dog lying there. He slows his vehicle on the icy road to avoid hitting the animal should it get up and run in front of him. He nears the animal and stops his patrol car, at which point the creature quickly stands on two legs to a crouching position. Illuminating the creature with his headlights, the officer can now clearly see that it is not a dog at all, but something he cannot explain:

• three to four feet tall

• 50 to 75 pounds

• leathery skin

• possibly wet, matted hair on its body that made it look textured

• possibly a short tail

• a head and face like a frog or lizard

Whatever this creature was, it looked at the officer briefly, then leapt over the road's guard rail toward the river.

The officer reported the odd sighting to the police dispatcher, then later returned to the scene of the incident with another officer. All they found was evidence that something had scraped the hillside as it made its way down to the river.

The creature may have been completely forgotten had not a second police officer seen it again two weeks later. The second officer also at first thought the thing lying in the middle of the road was a dog or roadkill. When he got out of his car to haul it to the side of the road, it got up, climbed over the guard rail this time, all the while keeping its eyes on the officer, and disappeared toward the river. His description of the creature pointed out the same frog-like characteristics. A subsequent investigation uncovered only one other possible sighting around the same time; a farmer claimed to have seen some kind of large, lizard-like creature. It thereafter became known as the Loveland Lizard or Loveland Frog.

What was it? Good question. If is was a frog or similar amphibian, it's the largest one ever recorded - and the only one known to get up and walk away on its hind legs.

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