Bishopville Lizardman- South Carolina

It looks like something attacked your car with a small chainsaw. There are deep scratches in the sides and on the bumper. The wheels slashed and flat. The edge of the hood is mangled as if an animal chewed on it. But what kind of animal gnaws metal? Your eyes slide from the damaged vehicle to the swamp that comes right up to your backyard. You know there are bears and coyotes out there. Maybe even pumas. Could something like that have done this? But you’ve also heard the stories about that other thing out there, lurking among the tupelos and sedges and dark, still water.  The thing that walks upright like a man, but which is covered with hair and scales, and has only three fingers and three toes.

Rumors of a strange beast inhabiting Scape Ore Swamp just outside Bishopville, South Carolina allegedly go back decades. But the creature first entered pop culture in 1988 when a couple woke up to find that the car parked in their driveway had been heavily scratched and chewed by an unknown vandal. A few days later local teenager Chris Davis went to the sheriff claiming he’d been attacked by a strange bipedal monster while he was changing a flat tire on a lonely dirt road near the swamp. Davis said the beast was covered in thick hair and green scales. When it jumped on the roof of his car and scratched at the windshield, he saw that it had only three fingers on each hand.

It didn’t take long for local newspapers to conflate the two stories, even if there was no direct evidence that the being that had attacked Davis had also damaged the couple’s car. The strange monster was dubbed the “Lizard Man” due to the scaled appearance Davis had described. As so often happens when word of a monster gets out, Bishopville became a tourist draw as people came from all over to see the home of the mysterious creature. A local radio station even offered a tongue-in-cheek reward of one million dollars to anyone who could bring it in alive. The Lizard Man was apparently quite shy, however, as only a few brief sightings were reported after 1988. Hoaxes were actually more common than actual sightings. For instance, two sheriff’s deputies found a supposed footprint that they made a plaster cast of, but even a cursory look at the print can tell a viewer that it is clearly a crude fake.  When the hype surrounding the Lizard Man began to die down, a Bishopville local claimed that the monster had attacked his car and left behind blood and scales. He later admitted that he had faked the damage and the evidence in an effort to keep the legend alive.

The Lizard Man is often depicted in pop culture as a bipedal reptilian being. However, the limited descriptions of it suggest that it is mammalian. More like a swamp-dwelling, three-digited variation of a sasquatch than an upright saurian. It’s worth noting that hairy tridactyl hominids have been reported form other wetland areas of the American South and Midwest. Perhaps they are a separate species, or at least subspecies, of North American hominid.

Though the Lizard Man hasn’t been seen in a long time, it has become a fond part of Bishopville’s culture. The town has even begun hosting an annual Lizard Man Festival in honor of their famous cryptid.

On a side note, the name of the Lizard Man’s home, Scape Ore Swamp, has its own weird history. It is allegedly a corruption of Escaped Whore Swamp. According to local folklore, during the Revolutionary War Continental troops came across British soldiers being entertained by a group of sex workers. The Red Coats were captured but the women were allowed to flee into the nearby swamplands, giving rise to the name.

SOURCES

Lizard Man: The True Story of the Bishopville Monster by Lyle Blackburn

American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America by Linda  Godfrey

An article from The State about the Lizard Man festival

An article from South Carolina Public Radio about the Lizard Man

An article from Mysterious Universe about the Lizard Man