QUOTE
THE LIZARD MAN OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA SWAMPS
If one didn’t know better, they’d see Bishopville, South Carolina as just another sleepy small southern town surrounded by swamps. One would never guess that this quiet place could ever become the focus of international attention. But that’s just what happened one summer fifteen years ago, when reports of a strange and never before seen creature turned backwater town of Bishopville into a place rife with frenzy and fear.
In 1988 the eyes of the world focused on Bishopville in hopes of catching a glimpse of the mysterious and dangerous Lizard Man. The sensation began in June of that year when seventeen year old Christopher Davis was on his way home from working the late shift at a local McDonald’s. As he drove along the outskirts of town, along the border of Scape Ore Swamp, his tire blew out. It was already approaching two in the morning, and the exhausted teenager simply wanted to go home and get to bed. The events that occurred that warm June night as Chris labored to change his tire would make it difficult for the young man to ever sleep soundly again.
Suddenly the quiet stillness of the darkened back road was shattered when Chris heard a loud thump in a bean field across the street from his disabled car. What happened next incited a panic which would last for three straight months. Davis described his experience this way to the AP wire services a few days later:
“I looked back and saw something running across the field towards me. It was about 25 yards away and I saw red eyes glowing. I ran into the car and as I locked it, the thing grabbed the door handle. I could see him from the neck down – the three big fingers, long black nails and green rough skin. It was strong and angry. I looked in my mirror and saw a blur of green running. I could see his toes and then he jumped on the roof of my car. I thought I heard a grunt and then I could see his fingers through the front windshield, where they curled around on the roof. I sped up and swerved to shake the creature off.”
When Chris Davis arrived home late that night, he woke up his parents who found him to be absolutely panicked. They tried to calm him down, but Chris insisted he had been assaulted by some sort of strange beast. His father checked the car in an effort to figure out what exactly was going on. The mirror on the car door was twisted and hanging off. The roof of the car had deep scratches and grooves etched into it.
Police were contacted and Davis told them that the creature was seven feet tall, had red eyes, lizard-like skin and scales.
In the ensuing months, hundreds of people claimed to have encounter the Lizard Man in one fashion or another. Numerous three toed footprints were found in the area, some as long as fourteen inches. The press picked up on the story quickly and drew massive amounts of attention to the town. Posses formed and hunted the swamps for any sign of the reptilian creature. The Lizard Man was also spotted outside of Bishopville, as residents of all of the greater Lee County area claimed have witnessed him. Local businesses cashed in, manufacturing and selling Lizard Man bric-a-brac in their stores. The sheriff’s department was receiving so many calls about the Lizard Man that they had to set up a hotline specifically for leads and reports related to the creature.
Other Lizard Men have been reported in Ontario, Ohio, New York, California, and even New Jersey (Weird NJ issue #8). There are even folktales amongst Carolinian Native American tribes which tell tales of the Inzignanin, a race of fish-men who once lived in the area.
By August of ‘88 the hype over the South Carolina Lizard Man had largely died down. While the Lizard Man has been spotted sparingly in the years since 1988, he has never again generated as much publicity as he did that summer. Was the Lizard Man just an elaborate hoax, as some have speculated? Was he perhaps just and angry black bear misperceived in the dark of the night, as others have alleged? Or does a strange reptilian humanoid stalk the swamps of South Carolina to this day?