The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp

It was first reported by 17 year old Christopher Davis on June 29, 1988, around the hours of 2 AM. He was driving home from work, taking a road that borders Scape Ore Swamp, when his tire blew out, forcing him to stop. While Davis was changing the tire, he claimed to have heard a loud thump from a field across the road.

    “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.”

Davis would later give a clearer physical description of the creature as being around seven feet tall with the same details as above.

Davis arrived home in a panicked state, waking up his parents. Trying to figure out what had happened, his father went out to look at the car. There were scratches around the door handle and the side-view mirror had been twisted badly. On the top of the car was a series of deep scratches and grooves.

This report sparked off a rush of Lizard Man reports that lasted all summer and encompassed not just Scape Ore Swamp and Bishopville, South Carolina where the original report was made, but the whole of Lee County. At the height of the Lizard Man scare, police were receiving so many calls about the Lizard Man that people with more immediate problems could not get through, and a separate Lizard Man Hotline had to be established.

By August of the same year the Lizard Man scare had died down, and few reports concerning it have been made since.

As of July 2005, the Lizard Man has "reappeared" in television promotions for South Carolina's state lottery.

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."

Also rather common are the myths of "Serpents of Wisdom" who enlightened humanity before the dawn of civilization.

In the Book of Genesis, God punishes the serpent for giving Eve the apple by decreeing, "Upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of your life" (Genesis 3:14 KJV), implying that it had legs before then. It is therefore often portrayed in Western art as a humanoid (woman) with a snake's tail, and sometimes lizard-like feet, as in a detail from Bosch's Last Judgement. In the Middle Ages down to modern times, the Devil was often conceived as a humanoid with reptilian characteristics, as were demons in general.

The Hopi refer to a race of reptoids called the Sheti, or "Snake-Brothers", who live underground. The Cherokee and other Native American peoples also refer to reptoid races.