Unexplained Mysteries of Lizard man

Wikipedia

Lizard Man

The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp (also known as The Lizard Man Of Lee County), is a humanoid cryptid which is said to inhabit areas of swampland in and around Lee County, South Carolina.

Description
The Lizard Man is described as being seven feet tall, bipedal, and well built, with green scaly skin and glowing red eyes. It is said to have three toes on each foot and three fingers on each hand which end in long black claw-like nails.

Davis sighting
The first reported sighting of the creature occurred on June 29, 1988, and was made by Christopher Davis, a 17 year old local youth, who is said to have encountered the creature while driving home from work at 2 AM. According to his own account, Davis stopped on a road bordering Scape Ore Swamp in order to change a tire which had blown out. When he was finishing up he reported having heard a thumping noise from behind him and to have turned around to see the creature running towards him.

The creature is said to have tried to grab at the car and then to have jumped on its roof as Davis tried to escape, clinging on to it as Davis swerved from side to side in an effort to throw it off. After he returned home, Davis' side-view-mirror was found to be badly damaged, and scratch marks were found on the car's roof--though there was no other physical evidence of his encounter.

“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.” 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 being found on cars parked close to the swamp. Most of these are said to have occurred within a three-mile radius of the swamps at 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 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. However, reports of the creature began to decline at the end of the summer with the last credible sighting of the year being reported in July.

On August 5 Kenneth Orr, an airman stationed at Shaw Air Force Base, filed a report with the police saying that he had encountered the Lizard Man on highway 15, and that he had shot and wounded it. He presented several scales and a small quantity of blood as evidence. Orr recanted this account two days later when he was arraigned for unlawfully carrying a pistol, and the misdemeanor offense of filing a false police report. According to Orr, he had invented the sighting in order to keep stories about the Lizard Man in circulation.

Events
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, 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.

The blood traces from the Rawsons' vehicle were sent to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources for evaluation, in hopes that their source could be identified, but the samples were deemed contaminated. 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.

Dead cow, coyote found near site of "Lizard Man" mystery

We have been following a renewed investigation into the "Lizard Man." Thursday we have learned that two dead animals were found in a field near the home of Dixie and Bob Rawson. The Lee County Sheriff's Department says it could be linked to some pretty serious damage to the Rawson's van.

Last week, the Rawsons showed us how the van's front grill was chewed up, and how the wheel wells on both sides were bent. When some of the Rawson's cats went missing too, neighbors said the "Lizard Man" might be responsible. Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin is out to inspect the field near the Rawsons on his four-wheeler. "Just going to ride the field, see if there are anymore animals laying out dead."

Already, they've found a cow and a coyote. It's significant in that they were both found only yards away from the Rawsons' car.

"This is out of a book," says Dixie Rawson. And now, Rawson doesn't know what's fiction and what's real. WIS News 10 first showed you last week the bite marks and bends on her van. Neighbors told her it was the Lizard Man - a seven-foot green giant whose first reported sighting near Scape Ore Swamp 20 years ago entrenched him as a legend in these parts, a legend that's never been confirmed.

So investigators told the Rawsons not to worry, all that must have been done by some other animal - likely, a coyote. Now Dixie Rawson asks, "If the coyote did this damage, what killed the coyote and the cow? Was it the Lizard Man? I don't know."

Sheriff E.J. Melvin says, "I don't want to get anybody alarmed. But for some reason, I'm sticking with the coyote. But the coyote, that coyote is dead."

What's left now is more speculation. Authorities had hoped to extract some blood left on the van's hood, but the Department of Natural Resources says the sample taken was somehow contaminated. For the record, DNR believes the holes were made by a dog - a dog trying to get at cats underneath the cars.

About a half-dozen of the Rawsons cats are still missing nearly a week after the attack on their car. The passing time is doing little to answer their questions.

Dixie Rawson says, "We're here in this quiet little town and all of a sudden, this happens."

How this happened, no one is quite sure yet - making clear only that the Lizard Man mystery isn't ready to be solved.

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