Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp: South Carolina, 1988

Summary

Sightings Podcast Summary: "Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp: South Carolina, 1988"

Release Date: October 7, 2024
Hosted by: McLeod Andrews & Brian Sigley
Presented by: REVERB | QCODE

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Sightings, hosts McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley delve into one of South Carolina's most enduring supernatural mysteries—the legend of the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp. Combining firsthand accounts, investigative reporting, and in-depth discussion, the episode unravels the events that plunged the small town of Bishopville into chaos in 1988.

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The Initial Incident

The story begins with Deputy Rick Unger recounting the night that set off the chain of events leading to the Lizard Man legend.

[02:14] Rick Unger: "This whole thing started with a phone call middle of the night... when Mike Hodge and I drove our way out to Browntown... we were headed to the Way's place. 'Cause they were all in the huff about something. 'Mauling their car.'"

Upon arriving at the Way family's residence, Rick and Mike inspect a severely damaged Ford, initially suspecting vandalism. However, the nature of the damage quickly rules out human involvement.

[03:45] Narrator: "The chrome molding was ripped all over, and the antenna was so bent it looked right near ready to snap itself in half... the prints weren't human, see?"

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Investigation Begins

Realizing the unusual nature of the incident, Rick and Mike alert Sheriff Truesdale, who brings in a wildlife biologist to assess the damage.

[04:35] Rick Unger: "The biologist even found a tuft of orangish hair wedged in the fender and thought it might have belonged to a red fox."

Despite these findings, questions remain unanswered, particularly regarding the bipedal tracks that suggest a creature more formidable than a typical wildlife animal.

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Emergence of the Lizard Man Legend

Amidst the investigation, local rumors surface about a mysterious creature lurking in the swamp. Jamie Pritchard, a friend from high school, approaches Rick with alarming information.

[03:26] Rick Unger: "He needed to tell me something in confidence but that I wasn't to judge him and think he was crazy for none of it."

Jamie describes sightings of a seven-foot-tall creature with glowing red eyes, coining the name "Lizard Man." This revelation shifts the investigation from mere vandalism to a possible supernatural threat.

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Further Sightings and Evidence

As Sheriff Truesdale and his deputies continue their search, additional encounters heighten the tension. Kiefer Bull and Sean Bucks report a frightening encounter on Highway 15.

[10:17] Kiefer Bull: "Something big, they said, like a large, muscular thing on two legs... it jumped a tall fence and disappeared into the swamp."

Their discovery of crushed 40-gallon drums and large, unusual footprints adds credibility to the Lizard Man claims, although skepticism remains.

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Chris Davis's Terrifying Encounter

The plot thickens with Chris Davis's harrowing experience of being chased by the Lizard Man while changing a tire.

[14:37] Chris Davis: "A seven-foot tall red eyed devil... scaly hands with three webbed fingers and long black fingernails sliding down that windshield."

Despite attempting to escape, the creature persistently pursues him, leaving noticeable damage to his vehicle.

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Media Frenzy and Public Panic

News of the Lizard Man spreads rapidly, attracting national media attention and thrill-seeking monster hunters to Bishopville. The situation escalates as:

[17:00] Brian Sigley: "Groups of armed monster hunters started searching the swamp at night."

This influx disrupts the small community, leading to accidental shootings and a general state of hysteria.

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The Airman's Hoax and Resolution

An airman from Shaw Air Force Base exacerbates the situation by presenting fabricated evidence of the Lizard Man, including a sketch and dubious physical proofs.

[27:57] McLeod Andrews: "Escaped Horse Swamp, I guess, is not a great thing to put on a map."

Sheriff Truesdale investigates and uncovers inconsistencies in the airman's story, resulting in his arrest for filing a false report. This act serves as a turning point, quelling the rampant hysteria.

[23:52] Brian Sigley: "...that it was our duty to follow up... a warning shot to the public that lies and hysteria wouldn't be tolerated."

As the frenzy subsides, sightings dwindle, and life in Bishopville gradually returns to normal. However, Rick Unger's personal skepticism persists.

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The Narrator's Unresolved Belief

Despite the official conclusion of mass hysteria, Rick Unger's experiences suggest otherwise. In private, he conducts nightly vigils, driven by an unshakable belief in the creature's existence.

[22:00] Rick Unger: "I couldn't get over seeing those footprints appear on the road after we made that U-turn."

His final, inexplicable encounter leaves him convinced that the Lizard Man is real, even as the community moves on.

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Hosts' Discussion: Analyzing the Legend

Following the narrative, McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley engage in a thoughtful discussion, dissecting the plausibility of the Lizard Man legend.

Biological Improbability:

[25:10] McLeod Andrews: "Biologically, it's impossible. I mean, it's just we know about every creature on God's green earth, but... a lizard man, biologically, like a sentient lizard beast, just doesn't exist."

Possible Explanations:

The hosts explore various theories, including:

1. Mass Hysteria: The phenomenon where collective fear and rumors amplify sightings beyond reality.

   [31:16] McLeod Andrews: "It's kind of the whole mystique of it... like... it's kind of how big this legend actually got."

2. Human Pranks: Suggesting that some sightings could be orchestrated hoaxes or misidentifications.

   [32:45] Brian Sigley: "Brother Elmore... he thought someone was stealing an air conditioner from his shed... he wrapped himself in a burlap sheet."

3. Alternative Theories: Speculation about interdimensional creatures or connections to other mythical beings like Bigfoot.

   [35:26] McLeod Andrews: "I think I have an issue with breeding populations... Unless you, I don't know, believe in magic."

Cultural Impact:

The discussion highlights how such legends can shape community identity and attract media attention, often overshadowing rational explanations.

[30:34] McLeod Andrews: "But our lizard man prefers to eat cars."

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Conclusion

The "Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp" episode masterfully intertwines eerie storytelling with investigative journalism and critical analysis. While the legend remains unproven, the episode leaves listeners contemplating the thin line between myth and reality, and the powerful role of belief in shaping supernatural narratives.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Rick Unger ([02:14]): "This whole thing started with a phone call middle of the night... when Mike Hodge and I drove our way out to Browntown."

• Jamie Pritchard ([03:57]): "They've been calling it the Lizard man."

• Chris Davis ([14:37]): "A seven-foot tall red eyed devil... scaly hands with three webbed fingers and long black fingernails sliding down that windshield."

• Brian Sigley ([25:26]): "It really did make national news down there. There were monster hunters who descended on this town."

• McLeod Andrews ([31:03]): "Hair doesn't really seem like a lizard characteristic to me."

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For more detailed insights and sources, visit sightingspodcast.com.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

Imagine you're in a dark.

[McLeod Andrews]

And dismal swamp and ask yourself what.

[Narrator]

Scares you about this place the most?

[McLeod Andrews]

Is it the murky water with its unknown depths?

[Narrator]

The dense canopy blocking out moonlight? Or is it the thing you can't see that's watching from the shadows, studying your every move and waiting to pounce?

[McLeod Andrews]

Welcome to Sightings, the series that takes you inside the world's most mysterious supernatural events. I'm McLeod.

[Brian Sigley]

And I'm Brian. And today we've got our very first creature story.

[McLeod Andrews]

Swamp Thing.

[Brian Sigley]

Not quite. But in 1988, one sheriff's deputy in a lonely South Carolina town set out to uncover what was terrorizing people on the fringes of scape or swamp. And you will not believe what he allegedly found.

[McLeod Andrews]

Was it man, lizard or something else altogether? Find out on this episode of Sightings.

[Rick Unger]

This whole thing started with a phone call middle of the night. July of 88. Woke me up at an ungodly hour when the roosters hadn't even started going yet. But I remember it like it was yesterday. Look at me, waxing nostalgic when I haven't even introduced myself properly yet. Name's Rick Unger and I've lived in Bishopville, South Carolina ever since I came out. My mama in the clinic there and way back in 1988. Lord, I must have been deputy going on 10 years at that point. And when I got that phone call in the middle of that summer night, I had no idea that all the Bishopville was about to be thrown into chaos. None of us did at that point. So that night it was still dark when Mike Hodge and I drove our way out to Browntown, a little community just outside Bishopville and right on the edge of skateboard swamp. We were headed to the ways place. Cause they were all in the huff about something. Mauling. That's a quote. Mauling their car. Which you know, seemed kind of fantastical. To me at the time, but that's.

[Narrator]

How they put it.

[Rick Unger]

So we pulled up to their little lot and saw the whole family waiting for us in the driveway. Tom and Mary and even little Shirley was awake, and they all looked spooked as hell. And soon as Tom walked us over to see their Ford parked in their open air carport, I understood why they were spooked.

[Narrator]

The car looked like it had straight up been attacked. I mean, they were dents and scratches all over the fender and the hood. The chrome molding was ripped all over, and the antenna was so bent it looked right near ready to snap itself in half. At first I thought someone had just gone at the car with a claw hammer, like some kind of vandal might. But soon as Tom showed me the footprints and the surrounding dirt, well, that theory went right out the window. The prints weren't human, see? And as I looked closer at the fenders, I realized the chrome wasn't just scratched, it had been chewed. So I got to wondering if maybe this had been some kind of bear or something, being that we were right on the edge of the wilderness of the swamp and all. But what kind of bear attacks an immobile car?

[McLeod Andrews]

Mike and I quickly realized that this.

[Narrator]

Situation, being so unusual, deserved more eyes on it. So we rang Sheriff Truesdale just as the sun was coming up. He answered the phone sounding winded, and I figured he had just gotten back from his pre dawn run. Crazy that man was. And even though he was already good enough, he said there better be a body or a conundrum for us to be calling him this early. Lucky for us, we had one of the two. So 20 minutes later, Truesdale rolled up with a biologist from the state's Wildlife and Marine Department, and the pair took a good long look at the ways for it and agreed that it indeed looked more like an animal attack than an act of vandalism. The biologist even found a tuft of orangish hair wedged in the fender and thought it might have belonged to a red fox. But let me tell you, that ha had to have been the biggest fox in history to do something like that to a vehicle. Further, the tracks around the car just weren't fox prints, plain and simple. The biologist then conceded it could have been a bear, but those were undoubtedly rare in that neck of the woods. And further adding the confusion, he said the tracks were aligned in a perfectly straight progression, as if made by a bipedal creature, as if made by a human. Almost by that point, a whole crowd of looky loos had gathered around the Way's house, neighbors mostly, and a few who must have heard the ruckus on the police scanner. Even a local reporter showed up, camera in tow, and I was about to shoo them all away when Jamie Pritchard, an old friend from high school, pulled me aside and said he needed to tell me something in confidence but that I wasn't to judge him and think he was crazy for none of it. Now, since I knew Jamie pretty well, I knew he wasn't full of it. So I gave him my confidence, and he started to spin a yarn like you wouldn't believe. He said there'd been rumors going around among the folks, Brown Town, about some kind of creature, something big, seven feet tall with red eyes, being spotted in the area. I stopped him right there because I needed clarity. Was he really suggesting there was some kind of monster skulking around town? And when Jamie nodded his head, wiping sweat from his brow, I called Sheriff Truesdale over, and we listened as Jamie described how he'd heard several locals say they'd seen something unnatur around Scape or Bridge. After that, Jamie went real quiet and Sheriff Truesdale told him to spit out what it was. So Jamie looked him dead in the eye and said something I'll never forget. They've been calling it the Lizard man, he said for context. Bishopville's about as far into the middle of nowhere as you can get before heading back towards somewhere. There's about 3,500 of us in town, including Greater Lee county, and it's a pleasant enough place, all things considered, the kind of place families have been for generations, with lots of wraparound porches, an old cotton museum, a Piggly Wiggly, and of course, skateboard swamp. I'm sure there's a reason it got that name, and the story I was told about it, frankly, isn't Christian enough to recount here. So all I'll say is that it's a black water swamp fed by a sluggish stream, hidden beneath thick canopies of bald cypress and swamp tupelo, or as my mama used to say, escape oars, where the shadows start. So Sheriff Truesdale and us deputies spent the next few days trying to figure out what, if anything, was actually going on around the swamp in Browntown. We followed up on the names Jamie gave us, but couldn't find anyone willing to actually talk about what they saw. It only added to the mystery of the whole thing, and I couldn't get the whole idea of a lizard man out of my head. I'd imagine A dinosaur type creature wandering among the water oaks, Munching on anything it came across, including cars. And honestly, the whole thought gave me the creeps. Of course, the whole thing was impossible. But it must have been gnawing at sheriff truesdale, too, because he wasn't willing to give up on the thing. However crazy it sounds, he said, it's our duty to follow up. So each day we went out and spread the word around browntown, Asking for any info about the creature or vehicle damage. No one was in trouble, of course. We just wanted to talk. But no one came forward. Not one, that is, till kiefer bull and Sean bucks came rushing into the station one night. I happened to be on desk duty, and they told me a wild story about how they were out driving with their girlfriends along Highway 15. When something darted across the road in front of them. Something big, they said, Like a large, muscular thing on two legs. And before they knew it, it jumped a tall fence and disappeared into the swamp. Now, I'd been in law enforcement long enough at that point to know when somebody scared out of their wits or just blowing smoke. And these kids, they were scared. So, next thing I knew, Mike hodge and I were headed back out towards skateboard, following Highway 15 and checking all the back roads with our cruisers spotlight. And sure enough, along bramlett road, we found a heap of 40 gallon drums that had been crushed and scattered in a mess across the pavement. We got out to investigate and found claw marks. Yeah, unmistakable claw marks all over the barrels. And nearby, we saw a bunch of trees with branches snapped at a height of 9ft overhead. Clearly something had been there, and it had been big. But we couldn't see nothing and couldn't hear nothing. So we headed back to our cruiser. And I didn't say anything to Mike about it at the time, But I swear it felt like something was watching us from the trees. And it turns out, maybe it wasn't just paranoia. Because as soon as we'd gotten back in the car and made a u turn, we slammed to a halt. Because there were suddenly dirty footprints crossing the road right in front of us. Footprints that, swear to God, hadn't been there before. So we pulled our guns, took a breath, and stepped back out into the night. Up close, we saw that the prints were big. 14 inches long and 7 inches across, by my guess, with three claw like toes and a large oval palm pad with a huge, too big to be human stride. But as Mike and I looked to the woods again, we still couldn't see nothing at all. I wondered Then if maybe we'd been had by some kind of prankster. I know for a fact those prints weren't there before we got in the car. But they showed up in the blink of an eye. Time it took for us to make a U turn. And no human I know could move that fast. No way. Plus, the dirt on the side of the road was hard as rock, but the prints over there were a few inches deep, so whatever made them had to be heavy as a bull. And I'm not exaggerating because I tried stomping in the dirt myself and couldn't even make a dent. Suddenly, a sound echoed from the woods. A loud crack like a snapping branch or even a tree trunk. Mike and I instantly turned our flashlights and when nothing moved, we decided to follow those tracks into the woods. Now, I know what you're thinking. These dumb as bricks cops are about to get their faces ripped off or something. And lucky for me, that didn't happen. But we did follow those tracks 100 yards into the swamp before they up and disappeared in the dark water. And we spent just about the tensest few minutes of our lives standing there on the swamp's edge, waiting, listening, hoping that whatever was out there would reveal itself to be a stupid kid with some kind of plywood footprint maker or something. But it was too dark to see anything and eventually I got too spooked for my own good. So we went back to the cruiser and rang Sheriff Truesdale again. I felt bad calling him that early yet again, but he came right over wearing just jeans and a T shirt with a plaster kit to make casts of the tracks. And as we leaned over those footprints on the side of the road making those casts, I gotta tell you, inside I was shook. Something unnatural was happening around here. And I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching us from the trees. Of course, I tried my best to just brush that off as the willies and told myself right then that it had to be a hoax or a bear or something totally natural and explainable because it couldn't be some kind of creature like a gosh darn lizard man, right? But just couldn't, right? Later that morning, Tommy Davis and his 17 year old son Chris came walking into the station. Tommy had heard we were looking for information about the goings on around Skateboard Swamp and thought Chris might be able to help. And sure enough, Chris looked deeply shaking. He was wringing his hands tight enough to turn blue. And finally he spit out that he thought he'd run into the lizard man himself. So we gave Chris some water, sat him down, and he told sheriff Truesdale and me one hell of a tale. He just finished his shift at McDonald's and was driving home late along Browntown Road when just past Skateboard Bridge, he heard a pop as his 76 Celica caught a flash. Chris had no choice but to haul out his jack and a spare and he got to changing that tire. The bugs were eating him alive, of course, and the fish sandwiches he was bringing home for the family were getting cold. But he said that wasn't what was bothering him most. Instead it was the quiet. There were no frogs croaking or crickets chirping like usual. It was eerie, Chris said. And sure enough, once he got that tire changed and was putting his tools back in his trunk, he saw something on the road about 30 yards away. A man like shape, Chris said, but it wasn't a man. And as it started moving toward him, the moonlight illuminated two glowing red eyes. A seven foot tall red eyed devil, chris said. Of course. Chris panicked and jumped into his car as the thing kept moving closer. And just as he turned the ignition, the thing jumped on the Celica's roof.

[McLeod Andrews]

And Chris saw scaly hands with three.

[Narrator]

Webbed fingers and long black fingernails sliding down that windshield. And though he didn't see its face, he heard the thing all right, because it roared something awful and Chris hit.

[McLeod Andrews]

The gas as the Celica jerked forward.

[Narrator]

The creature fell off, but that wasn't the end of it. No, it got right back up and started chasing that car. Chris said he got going to at least 35, but the thing was keeping pace and managed to jump back onto the car, thudding heavy on the roof. Naturally, Chris was fearing for his life and tried to swerve to knock the thing off, veering left, then right and nearly taking out a guardrail in the process. But the thing held on and roared that God awful sound again and must have raked those fingernails across Chris's roof because metal started screeching and Chris worried he couldn't take it anymore.

[McLeod Andrews]

So he swerved one more time and.

[Narrator]

He heard a thump on the roof and then blissful silence. After finishing his story, Chris got awful quiet and I realized he'd ripped his styrofoam water cup to shreds. So Sheriff Truesdale set a hand on the kid's shoulder and told him it was okay now, that we'd get to the bottom of this and that we'd find this thing. A storm was brewing overhead as we set out to take a look at Chris's car still parked in the David garage. And sure enough, the thing looked a lot like the Waze's car, all scratched up by claw marks with the driver's side mirror all twisted and bent. I ought to take a moment to clarify here and say that Tommy Davis was well respected in the community and that Chris was a good kid. He wasn't the type to go out drinking or anything, and to my ears, his story was genuine. Sheriff Truesdale must have felt the same, because next thing I knew we were out in the woods looking at the spot where the whole thing allegedly happened. Sure enough, there were skin marks on the road and a bit of Chris's broken side mirror on the muddy shoulder. Plus, of course, they were those same three toed tracks we'd seen before. We tried to follow them to discern where the thing's hiding place might have been, but the swamp's a mighty beast all its own and we didn't get too far. Lucky for us, though, Sheriff Truesdale had enough foresight to call the state, which soon showed up with a whole mess of bloodhounds. And as angry clouds kept circling above us, the dogs tried to catch a scent with the state officers walking them along the road to better get a lock on something. But as soon as the sky opened up and the rain started falling, any chance of finding anything got washed away. Yep, Mother nature has a way of doing that around here. By this point, word was going around Bishopville proper that something was out stalking the woods. Escape or swamp? WAGS am, our local station, picked up the story later that day and was the first to officially broadcast a story about the Bishopville Lizard Man. The next day, the local paper picked it up too, and sure enough, sightseers started lining Browntown Road, hoping to catch a glimpse the famed monster. Day after that, WCOS FM out of Columbia offered a million dollar reward to anyone who could bring the lizard man in alive. And after that, all hell broke loose. National press descended on Bishopville and groups of armed monster hunters started searching the swamp at night. One night, Deputy Atkins found at least 20 of them out there with flashlights and guns, trying to use RA, meat traps and other crap like that to catch the thing. Of course, we were getting inundated with calls at the station, often from folks who thought they saw the monster, but just as often from NBC or CBS or whatnot, trying to get to the bottom of what was happening here. And it got tiring, I have to tell you, repeating the same story over and over that we couldn't confirm. There Was actually a monster and that our investigation was still in progress. But that did little to stop the chaos that had been unleashed in our little corner of Lee county. Sheriff Truesdale and I were out following up on a sighting report when a CNN van rolled up and asked to interview Truesdale on the spot. But that then got interrupted when we got a call that a bicyclist had accidentally been shot by those crazy armed monster hunters. Things were getting out of hand much too fast. And our last straw came just a few nights later. After midnight, an airman from nearby Shaw Air Force base came rolling into the station with a wild story of his own. He said he'd been driving home to base on Highway 15, and when he neared Gin branch Road, he saw some kind of green and lizardy creature running down an embankment. The man slowed to look, and the thing came at his car. So he drew his.357 Magnum and ordered it to halt before firing a warning shot. Of course, the creature didn't halt, so the man opened fire and allegedly hit it in the neck, Causing it to bang against his car hood before running off into the woods. Now, by this point, we were getting awful skeptical of these sightings reports without an iota of evidence to back them up. But this airman said he had proof. So he asked for a notebook and drew out a creature that looked almost like an alligator man with a long tail. And to seal the deal, he produced a blood spattered paper towel that held a patch of scaly flesh. But sheriff Truesdale wasn't buying it. He pulled me aside and told me those scales were undoubtedly from a fish. And I believed him because he was the best fisherman I knew. Further, that sketch the airmen produced looked an awful lot like a T shirt mockup that someone had brought into the station the other day. So we suspected that this airman's entire story was a hoax, Aiming to capitalize on all the hype. But just to be sure, Truesdale asked to go out and inspect the airman's vehicle. Notably, there was no blood or dent anywhere on the car that would corroborate his story. But his.357 Magnum was sitting right there on the passenger seat. And in 1988 in South Carolina, that right there was a misdemeanor weapons offense Given that the airman didn't have a permit. So sheriff Truesdale charged the airman for it and added a count of filing a false report for his hokey gator man story. It was a warning shot to the public that lies and hysteria wouldn't Be tolerated. And it worked. Soon enough, the frenzy began to calm down, and the news truck stopped rolling around town. Even the monster hunters went home eventually. And after days went by, Then weeks, the sightings of the lizard man all dried up. Life seemed to go back to normal in bishopville, and sheriff truesdale ultimately swore the whole thing off. A wild case of mass hysteria. But not me. I couldn't get over seeing those footprints appear on the road after we made that u turn. And I still couldn't shake the feeling I had that night that something was watching us from the trees. So even though I was just a deputy, and I was technically operating outside my duty and all, I decided it was my job to get to the bottom of this. So every night after my shift, I'd drive along brown town road Until I reached skateboard bridge. And then I'd just sit there, Listening to the night. Of course, I didn't hear much of anything Besides frogs and crickets. But then came that night, the night I came to know for sure that this whole thing wasn't a hoax, that the lizard man was as real as they come. The night started off normal enough. I was sitting there on the bridge with nothing unusual to report. So I got out my car and lit myself a cigarette. And as I stood there in the cool air, I noticed the frogs and crickets had all gone totally silent. So I looked out into the darkness of the swamp, and that's when it caught my eye. At first, I thought it was a dead tree, that lightning had struck. But when the thing moved, I realized it was no tree. It was some kind of creature. And it stood up right there in the swamp. With a basic human shape, but at least 7 or 8ft tall. Of course, I was petrified. And I felt the hair standing up straight on my head and the muscles going tight in my arms, and we just stood there, staring at one another. Until the car suddenly approached on browntown road, and its headlights caught the thing's eyes, and they burned bright red, like chris davis had described. Then, for one split second, that car blocked my view of the hideous thing. And as soon as it passed, the creature was gone, Vanished, Back into the dark. Or back to hell, for all I know. I don't go back out there to that swamp anymore, not to browntown road or skateboard bridge or any of it. And whenever we do get a blue moon call About a weird sighting out there, I'll pass it off to one of the new deputies. But they never find anything. No one ever finds anything. Some things I suspect just aren't meant to be found.

[Brian Sigley]

Sightings will be back just after this.

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[McLeod Andrews]

Welcome back to Sightings, where we're about to dig into that story you just heard. Or should I say slither in. We're going to talk about what's real, what's not, what's believable, what's not.

[Narrator]

And to help me do that, I'm.

[McLeod Andrews]

Here with my co host Brian, who once again wrote that story. The talented guy.

[Brian Sigley]

Oh, thank you. Well, this is our first creature story, McCloud, so I am eager to hear what you think of this one.

[McLeod Andrews]

Totally true. Hook, line and sinker.

[Brian Sigley]

Is that a little bit of the skeptical gecko coming out?

[McLeod Andrews]

Was I wearing it? That apparently, yes. Biologically, it's impossible. I mean, it's just we know about.

[Narrator]

I'm not gonna say we know about.

[McLeod Andrews]

Every creature on God's green earth, but I mean, a lizard man, biologically, like a sentient lizard beast, just doesn't exist. It just doesn't exist in the animal kingdom.

[Brian Sigley]

And we're done. All right, you know, I get it, I get it. I think I'm with you here. You know, it's a fun story, though. And you know, who wouldn't want to see a lizard man out in the. Well, I don't know. Does anyone want to see a lizard man out in the wild?

[McLeod Andrews]

No, I don't think I do.

[Brian Sigley]

I do have to say though, you know, as far fetched as the whole concept of a lizard man seems, aside from the main character in that story, the one you were reading, he's a composite of a few different people. But everything else in that story allegedly happened in South Carolina in 1988 and it really did make national news.

[McLeod Andrews]

That's wild because I've never heard of this lizard man before. But I mean, then again, I was three when it happened, so that's probably.

[Brian Sigley]

Why Same here, you know, but I guess in the spirit of open mindedness and actually having something to talk about on this podcast, we'll play a little game where I will try to convince you that there might actually be a giant, skeptical gecko rolling around down in that swamp in South Carolina.

[Narrator]

Ooh.

[McLeod Andrews]

All right, well, let's dig into the story then. So you said the main character was a composite. So there was no real Rick Unger.

[Brian Sigley]

No, he is a meld of another deputy who worked for Sheriff Truesdale in 1988 and a biker who spotted the Lizardman one night that summer. So that last scene in the story, the one where, you know, Rick, the character you're reading, comes face to face with the lizardman himself. That actually happened to a biker named George Holloman who ran across the creature when he stopped to get some water from a well or something. It doesn't really make sense because he.

[McLeod Andrews]

Was drunk from a biker bar.

[Brian Sigley]

Yeah. So in. Yeah, and this all happened near Skapore Bridge and Skapoor.

[McLeod Andrews]

Is that. Is that the real name of the swamp? It just seems so random. Like, was there a mine there or something?

[Brian Sigley]

Ore. No, the real story's actually a lot more racy than that. So in the 18th century in this part of South Carolina, there was allegedly a, quote, woman of ill repute who was run out of town and fled into the swamp. And if you don't know what I'm talking about when I say that, I guess I just have to say it. So forgive my language, but Escaped Horse Swamp, I guess, is not a great thing to put on a map. So I guess that eventually, over the years, became the more ambiguous and much more PC name of Skateboard Swamp.

[McLeod Andrews]

Are you kidding me? Escaped Whore Swamp.

[Brian Sigley]

That's the place.

[McLeod Andrews]

Escaped or swamp Escape or swamp Escape or swamp.

[Brian Sigley]

Yep.

[McLeod Andrews]

Oh my gosh. Okay, so we're in 1988 and we've got this creature in the PC swamp, and it's a lizard man who seems to like attacking cars.

[Brian Sigley]

Yeah. Cause that's all he seems to do is either show up in the swamp.

[McLeod Andrews]

Or you'd think there'd be other shredded animals laying around.

[Brian Sigley]

You would think, yeah. Yeah. But despite the fact that all that really anyone has to speak for this lizard man are random sightings and scratches on cars, it's kind of crazy how big this legend actually got. There really was national news down there. There were monster hunters who descended on this town. There was the million dooll ransom, I guess, for whoever could produce this lizard man. There was really a radio station who was willing to pay that. And it kind of caught the whole country's attention. And when I was writing it, because of that, I just kept thinking, number, this is, you know, kind of batshit crazy. And number two, I was really feeling for the cops in this tiny, tiny town who had to deal with the world kind of descending upon them and trying to track down leads and figure out what in the world was actually going on here in this tiny place that's like 50 miles from any big city.

[McLeod Andrews]

Yeah, it's. The story said there was a grocery store, a cotton museum.

[Brian Sigley]

Yeah. And not much else. You know, I mean, there's a Piggly Wiggly, you know, that's still there, by the way. Right. Downtown. Otherwise, you know, it's pretty much a typical small southern town, I guess. Antebellum architecture, everyone knows each other.

[McLeod Andrews]

And that's what jumps out to me about this whole thing. Because everyone knows there's allegedly a monster stalking the swamp, but no one can produce a shred of proof.

[Brian Sigley]

That's basically it. And that's the thing that keeps jumping for me. And in this story, we saw that military guy who. He tried to kind of game the system and pass off fish scales as the real thing. And it clearly backfired on him because he got arrested for. But other than that, you know, there's just the stories and sightings. And I should say it's not just the people of Bishopsville. Here's a little context, I guess, for you Cherokee and Alabama Native American tribes who are local to that area, they've actually talked about a lizard man. And allegedly, though, they ate nothing but raw fish. And when the fish disappeared, the whole population vanished, which seemed convenient, but that is the local Native American lore regarding that.

[Narrator]

Right.

[McLeod Andrews]

But our lizard man prefers to eat cars.

[Brian Sigley]

Cars, Right. You know, different strokes for different folks. I guess the one good thing about this is he's not eating people.

[McLeod Andrews]

Yeah, that we know of. No, in all seriousness, I have to say this lizard man seems to be kind of everything and nothing all at once. Like, some people said it was green, others said it was brown. They found three toed tracks and hair. Hair doesn't really seem like a lizard characteristic to me.

[Brian Sigley]

I guess that's kind of the whole mystique of it for, you know, these people in this town because it was so exotic and weird and baffling and kind of fun. Like, I mean, I guess, you know, it's kind of. It certainly made their town interesting for a little while.

[McLeod Andrews]

That's the thing. In a small town in the swamp, where there's just all this space, there's all this nature. And I can imagine the stories just kind of sightings starting to pile up and people starting to believe it and looking out for it. So is it possible the story just got out of control?

[Brian Sigley]

Yeah, I guess it all could kind of just take a life of its own in a weird way, you know? But I thought the same thing to counter that, though, in my effort to convince you that this might have happened. Sheriff Truesdale, like I said, was a real person. And he apparently knew his stuff. He was in the police for 37 years. He was chief for a good chunk of that. He was reelected many times. He trained at Quantico. He knew crime scene stuff. And he seems to believe that something was afoot. But I guess the question is, since it probably wasn't a 7 or 8 foot tall lizard human, what could it have been?

[McLeod Andrews]

Um, I mean, there's always the Scooby Doo theory that it was like, a dude in a crocodile head with who was trying to scare some kids away from his land.

[Narrator]

Mm, I.

[McLeod Andrews]

Honestly, I don't know. Are there commonly held theories about what it could have been if not a lizard man?

[Brian Sigley]

Well, there's a few. The first, as you touched on, is probably the Scooby do theory, which suggests the lizard man was actually a person. And in this case, there was a relatively widely held belief that the lizard man was a man who was trying to stop people from stealing air conditioners from his butterbean shed.

[McLeod Andrews]

A literal butterbean shed. A shed full of beans?

[Brian Sigley]

Yes, a shed full of butter beans that I guess he's drying or something. I don't know. His name was Brother Elmore, and he thought someone was stealing an air conditioner from his shed. So he wrapped himself in a burlap sheet and chased the criminal off of his farm and down the street. This happened the night that Chris Davis, the guy who had the lizard man actually jump on his car.

[McLeod Andrews]

But, I mean, there was documented damage to Chris's car, right?

[Brian Sigley]

Yes.

[McLeod Andrews]

And so. And why would he make up a whole story about a lizard man chasing him and not just, you know, come up with some more believable excuse for trashing his car if he. I mean, if he actually had been trying to steal the air conditioner.

[Brian Sigley]

Exactly. I think that's the big question. He had been chased. Even if he hadn't been trying to steal the air conditioners and he had been chased by this guy, I think you'd recognize, even in the dark, whether it is a Lizard creature on your car or a man in a sheet.

[Narrator]

Right. And I that.

[McLeod Andrews]

And that comes again.

[Narrator]

A man in a sheet isn't going.

[McLeod Andrews]

To be able to do that kind of damage.

[Brian Sigley]

Exactly, exactly. Sheriff Truesdale thought the same thing, but it turns out several years later, brother Elmore eventually said, yeah, I kind of made this whole thing up.

[McLeod Andrews]

Okay, so sounds like we scratch out Butterbean Elmore.

[Brian Sigley]

I love that name.

[McLeod Andrews]

If I ever have another child, it will be Butterbean Elmore. But, I mean, it still seems plausible to me that people were just seeing people in the dark and got caught up in the hysteria and mistook them for a lizard creature.

[Brian Sigley]

Right, right. There's one more theory, though, that's been floated about, and this one actually speculates that a lizard man is a different kind of monstrous creature entirely.

[McLeod Andrews]

Uh, like Godzilla.

[Brian Sigley]

Not quite. So, remember earlier how you said, you know, you brought up the hair and how lizards don't have hair? Well, is there another creature in the ether who's hairy and bipedal that is well known.

[McLeod Andrews]

Perhaps a yeti or, like a abominable.

[Narrator]

Snowman or a Bigfoot.

[McLeod Andrews]

Bigfoot. All right, Bigfoot. Wait, but Bigfoot. I mean, I mean, yeah, it's dark out in the swamp, but lizard man feels like a pretty big stretch to get from Bigfoot.

[Brian Sigley]

Exactly. I feel like you would see the hair. You would see more even in the dark. Which ultimately makes me agree with what you said earlier about mass hysteria, mistaken shadows. So I still want to believe that something more was going down there in Bishopville, but I don't know. There's no real proof. What's your take?

[McLeod Andrews]

I think I have an issue with breeding populations. The idea of there being a singular, sentient lizard man creature out there. There'd have to be more than one for it to have even come into being, ever. Unless you, I don't know, believe in magic.

[Brian Sigley]

Well, there's gonna be those who say, oh, what if it's an interdimensional creature and there's some kind of a portal or something in that sw. And at.

[McLeod Andrews]

That point, I don't know, I guess I say, like, in an agnostic mindset, I say, sure. You know, I can't say no, I can't say there's not an interdimensional portal.

[Brian Sigley]

Yep.

[McLeod Andrews]

And it's for the Bigfoot one. Then you have to. It's a whole nother can of worms. You have to talk about Bigfoot and whether you're not.

[Brian Sigley]

What is Bigfoot doing in a swamp in South Carolina?

[McLeod Andrews]

Yeah, exactly. When he's supposed to be in, like, what, the Pacific Northwest?

[Narrator]

Right.

[Brian Sigley]

Well, we'll get there when we ever do a Bigfoot episode.

[McLeod Andrews]

Wait, is that a tease?

[Brian Sigley]

He has been seen in all 50 states.

[Narrator]

Really?

[Brian Sigley]

Just gonna throw that out there?

[McLeod Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess. There's large hairy men everywhere.

[Brian Sigley]

Oh, God, no. Cloud. All right, listeners, we want to hear what you think about this. Hit us up on our socialsightingspod. Or you can email us theoriesightingspodcast.com especially if you've run across the lizard man in a deep, dark spot.

[McLeod Andrews]

Wonk or Bigfoot or large hairy men. Strangely large hairy men. An escaped pet iguana. Doesn't matter. We want to hear it. That's not true. I don't actually want to hear about your iguanas unless they're cute. Send pictures.

[Brian Sigley]

Send pictures.

[McLeod Andrews]

And Brian, it's October now, so I hope we're heading somewhere scary next week.

[Brian Sigley]

We sure are. And all month, we're going to be bringing to life the spookiest sightings that we could find. And next week, we are heading to my home town of Colorado Springs for a haunting straight out of a horror movie.

[McLeod Andrews]

I'm getting chills just thinking about it. So stay tuned next week for another episode of Sightings. Same time, same place.

[Narrator]

See you then.

[Brian Sigley]

Sightings is hosted by McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley. Produced by Brian Sigley, Chase Kinzer, and McLeod Andrews. Written by Brian Sigley. Story music by Jack Staton. Series music by Mitch Bain. Sound design, audio editing and mixing by Macuba Noens. Artwork by Nuno Sarnatus. For a list of this episode's sources, check out our [e-mail] Sightings is presented by Reverb and Qcode. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you're first to hear new episodes every week. And if you know other Supernatural fans, tell them about us. We'd really appreciate. Appreciate it.