The fabled Bishopville South Carolina swamp creature known as Lizard Man appears to have surfaced again Sunday afternoon.
The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp (also known as the Lizard Man of Lee County) is a reptilian humanoid cryptid which is said to inhabit areas of swampland in and around Lee County, South Carolina along with the sewers in towns near the swamp.
Sarah, a Sumter woman who says she went to church with a friend Sunday morning, stepped out of the sanctuary to see the Lizard Man running along the tree line.
So she did what anyone else would do — took a picture with her phone.
Sarah, a Sumter woman who says she went to church with a friend Sunday morning, stepped out of the sanctuary to see the Lizard Man running along the tree line.
“My hand to God, I am not making this up,” she wrote in an email to the ABC News 4 newsroom. “So excited!”
She says they were just a mile or so from Scape Ore Swamp, the site of a similar spotting of what may also be the Lizard Man in May.
A man who asked not to be identified submitted a short video of what he thought was the Lizard Man Monday morning. He said he took the video in May while coon hunting but kept its existence quiet — until he saw the reports of Lizard Man outside a church.
“I saw your lizard man story and it’s given me the courage to send you a video I took in early May,” the man wrote. “Though my wife believes me that it’s real, she said she would be embarrassed that everyone would think I was a loon so I kept it a secret.”
The man said he took the video in Scape Ore Swamp just off Camden Highway in Bishopville.
In the 20-second video, the photographer ducks behind a tree as a dark figure with what appears to be a long tail walks by some 30 or 40 yards away.
The video stops as the figure appears to turn towards the camera.
“If you’re wondering I absolutely believe it’s real. I also don’t know if it’s the same thing you posted,” he added. “When it noticed me I high tailed it out.”
Scape Ore Swamp is the area where most of the Lizard Man sightings over the last 30 years have been focused.
Yes, there is quite a lot of local lore surrounding the reptilian humanoid, including the first sighting in the summer of 1988.
Known as the Davis sighting for the witness Christopher Davis, it starts with then-17-year-old Davis stopping on a road bordering the Scape Ore Swamp to change a flat tire at 2 a.m.
He heard noises, turned to see a 7-foot beast charging at him, so he ran for the safety of his car. The Lizard Man jumped on the roof as Davis tried to drive away.
There were scratch marks on the roof and one of the side mirror had been damaged.
And the legend was born.
There have been plaster casts of the mythical beast’s claw. There have been million-dollar rewards to capture the Lizard Man alive.
Since the first sightings in the late 1980s, the Lizard Man sightings have trailed off.
One of the last alleged encounter with the Lizard Man came in 2011 when a Bishopville couple reported their car had been mauled overnight.
There were teeth marks in in the metal and saliva coating several discarded parts.
Still, there have been searches by Destination Truth and Mysteries at the Museum as recently as 2013. In a 2014 episode of Ancient Aliens, the Lizard Man was mentioned.
The tales have been documented in a cryptozoology book titled “Lizard Man: The True Story of the Bishopville Monster.”
But the creature has not been seen in more than a decade — until now, possibly creating yet another ripple in the swampy waters around Bishopville.
In the month that followed the Davis sighting there were several further reports of a large lizard like creature, and of unusual scratches and bite marks found on cars parked close to the swamp. Most of these are said to have occurred within a 3-mile (5 km) radius of the swamps of Bishopville.
At the time, local law enforcement officials reacted to reports of the Lizard Man with a mixture of concern and skepticism, stating that a sufficient number of sightings had been made by apparently reliable people for them to believe that something tangible was being seen, but also that it was more likely to be a bear than a Lizard Man.
Two weeks after the Davis sighting, the sheriff’s department made several plaster casts of what appeared to be three-toed footprints – measuring some 14 inches (36 cm) in length – but decided against sending them on to the FBI for further analysis after biologists advised them that they were unclassifiable.
According to South Carolina Marine Resources Department spokesperson Johnny Evans the tracks neither matched, nor could be mistaken for, the footprints of any recorded animal. Evans also dismissed the possibility that they could have been made by some form of mutated creature.
The sightings attracted tourists interested in seeing the creature and hunters interested in tracking it, and nearby radio station WCOS offered a $1 million reward to anybody who could capture the creature alive.
More Sightings Over the Years!
On July 30, 1990, Bertha Blythers and her five children witnessed a strange creature near Scape Ore Swamp as they drove home from a restaurant in Bishopville. At approximately 10:30 p.m., they crossed over the interstate and were nearing the intersection of Hickory Hill Road when suddenly a large figure appeared out of nowhere and lunged toward the passenger side of the car. In a statement given to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, Bertha described the creature as being tall, wide, and having “two arms like a human.” She could only see it from the waist up, but there was no question that it was “big.” She was not able to make out any clear facial details in the short time it was in front of her, but she was quite sure the body was covered in brown hair. “I never seen anything like it before,” she told the police. “It wasn’t a deer or a bear. It was definitely not a person either.”
the bridge at Scape Ore Swamp / Bishopville, SC
In October 2005, a woman in Newberry, South Carolina reported to the police that she had seen two creatures resembling the Lizard Man outside her home. The responding officer, Michael Kennedy, apparently amused, told the woman that the creatures “just like to check on humans from time to time.”
In February 2008, a couple in Bishopville, South Carolina, Bob and Dixie Rawson, reported strange damage to their vehicle, traces of blood, and the disappearance of some of their cats. Based on how the damage looks, some have claimed that this is the “return” of the Lizard Man.[11] The blood traces from the Rawsons’ vehicle were sent to a Veterinary lab in California and were found to be from a domestic dog. Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin believes it was a coyote or wolf.[12] Soon after the incident at the Rawsons’ home, Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin discovered a dead cow and a dead coyote in a field next to the Rawsons’ home.
In 2011, Bishopville, South Carolina residents, Leon and Ada Marshall, reported that their car had been mauled by some kind of animal. Former Lee County Sheriff stated that the damage on the car looks much like the damage from earlier incidents. Deputy Fletcher Williams inspected the car and surmised that teeth were responsible for the damage, as if the car had been “chewed up.” To further suggest that an animal had been the vandal, a clear trail of saliva was visible from “the front passenger door across the front of the vehicle to the driver door” and on the discarded strips of bumper material. He also found long white and brown hairs.
This could be a elaborate hoax or there is really a Green upright walking Lizard with glowing red eyes roaming South Carolina?
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