142. The Bishopville Lizard Man

0:00 Imagine this. You're driving home one night from your job at McDonald's. You have a sack of fried fish sandwiches on your passenger seat, just waiting to be devoured. But it seems that bait has other plans as your car begins to jerk to the left and you begin noticing the telling signs of a flat tire. It's 2:00 o'clock in the morning. You really don't want to pull over to change it, but kind of have to. Since your dad is going to beat your ass if you destroy the rim in the wheel disc by just driving the last 7 miles, it's dark out there and the swamp is just yards away with absolutely no signs of civilization on the unlit country two lane back Rd. you pull over and gather the courage. I mean, what is there really to be afraid of? It's just the dark right.

0:49 The driver's side door swings open as you reluctantly force yourself out of the safety of the car to grab the Jack spare and tire iron out of the trunk. Crickets and cicadas are screaming in the human Musk filled air of escape or swamp. In the last remaining few days of June, the job gets done pretty easily for having to do the whole task in the thick of the night. You throw the tire iron Jack and damaged tire back into the trunk and you still be closed. A scuffle erupts from a decent distance behind you, and you turn to see a large figure on two legs running your way. The flight instinct kicks in and you haul ass back into the cab in the car, squeeze your eyelids down, clinch every muscle in your body, and sit waiting for whatever was passed by, but it never does. You slowly begin to relax and open your eyes as the nervous feeling begins to fade, and you think to yourself that you may have just been seeing things.

1:44 Your eyes drift to the left to see the upper five of an enormous creature with what looks like reptilian scaly skin. You juggle the key as you hastily push it into the ignition and turn it towards the front of the car. The sound of the engine coming to life feels good and relieving, but the sound of whatever that thing was climbing up on top of your car doesn't. Whatever it is, it's heavy. The only thing you see is 2 long scaly fingers with large black claws protruding from its prehistoric looking appendage in the upper corner of your windshield. You slam the gas all the way to the floor. Whatever that damn thing was tumbles down the back left side of your car. The relief of not having to deal with that thing anymore is great, but what the hell are you going to say to your dad in the morning?

2:29 The car jerks to the right as you hear whatever it is. You can scratch the top of the cab after jumping back on it while you're traveling at least 35 mph. Congratulations, you just met the lizard Man of skateboard swamp. Welcome back to Infinite Rabbit.

3:23 Welcome back to the Infinite Rabbit Hole Podcast everybody. I'm your host Jeremy. And tonight. We're going to South Carolina. Bishopville. That is ooh man, this was a this one was a long time coming guys. Let me tell you what now this one was fun. This was a good one. It's been a long time since I've done a a crypted episode. Those have been with the show for quite a while now. Know that you know I love doing the monsters and this was no different. This was right up my alley and thoroughly enjoyed doing the research for this. Without further ado, everybody, Episode 142. The Bishopville Lizardman enjoy Bishopville, SC with a population of just a hair over 3000 individuals. Bishopville encompasses an area of only 2.4 square miles off of US Route 15, with larger cities such as Sumter to its South and Florence to the east.

4:19 Brick buildings line Main St. as they've done since the beginning and white bordered house speckled the side streets reaching out away from downtown. The Piggly Wiggly serves the hub for groceries in the Cotton Museum for historical records of the area's past. But the secrets the area holds don't actually call this small town home, No, but on its western border lay the Skateboard Swamp, a tributary to the Black River and Winyah Bay watershed. And within this basin of monkey water, overgrown Bush and strange calls in the night lies the even smaller community of Browntown, which as of 2020. Only held a total of 206 people, this is where the secrets of the area are birthed.

5:03 The place of desolation. The history of hidden moonshine stills escapees with no place to live in civilization of bears, snakes, brambles, quicksand and sinkholes. The history of skateboard begins with the birth of its name in 1761. A woman of nightly deeds was no longer welcome in the parish of Saint Mark's, just South of the swamp. To escape her arrest, or possibly even worse, she fled into the swamp and was never seen again. It was then that the swamp was first referred to as Escaped Horse Swamp, with that title even showing up on land deeds from that time. Sooner or later the name was changed to something more familyfriendly. Another mystery of the swamp came in 1936. A haunted axe that was used to murder a woman by the name of MM Brown was part of an urban legend that described the axe moving on its own primarily on Halloween night. The act served as a grave marker for Miss Brown until 1978. The Skateboard bridge is home to a ghostly canine known locally as the Chain Dog.

6:06 This canine inspector is said to be heard running back and forward on the bridge while dragging its metal chains on certain nights. And in 1871, the famed Bishopville giant caused a lot of panic in both Bishopville and Manning when a ghostly large humanoid figure was seen by multiple people at varying times, which apparently had a metal collar on its neck. From this collar, they're swinging anvil and multiple sledgehammers. A few reports say that the giant vanished into thin air or solid objects, and one man even claimed to have been touched by its icy hand, but nothing that this swamp has ever offered up. Can hold a candle to the most famous monster of browndown. The cryptozoological darling is known by varying names and created a stir in 1988 that stretched throughout the country and even in too far away places such as Korea.

6:56 The creatures reality has been debated for 35 years, but one thing can never be taken away and that is that the creature scared the shit out of many people in the area surrounding Skateboard Swamp. Today we're diving back into the story and evidence of the Bishop of the Lizard Man. Early in the morning of July 14th, 1988 to Lee County Sheriff's Department, officers were dispatched to the way residents on the fringe of the skateboard swamp in Browntown to investigate a report of extreme vandalism to the family's 1984 Ford Ltd What they saw was not your typical vandalism. There was no broken window from an obvious attempt at a theft, no thin and elongated puncture holes and tires that were caused by a knife. No, the damage to this car was much stranger. Reddish hair and muddy prints were found on and around the automobile, and instead of the typical damage caused by vandals, the officers were confused to see not just bite marks, But it seemed that whatever caused this damage had attempted to chew on various areas of the metal skin of the car.

7:57 The Chrome molding was torn away from the wheel wells and fenders. The side walls of the wheels were scratched by what looked like large claws. The ornament was torn off the hood and through the bent hood of the car the officers could see that some of the wiring in the motor was torn out as well. The first impression was that this was caused by some sort of animal, but that wasn't really adding up. Yes, the damage happened on a property neighboring a large swamp, but the local animals were not known to resort to attacking a parked car, so the officers placed a call to then Sheriff. Listen, Truesdale. After the sheriff had arrived on the scene, he too was stumped as to who the culprit could have been. In his 14 years of service at the time, he had been called out to many animal attacks, Nothing looked like this. So the decision was made to reach out to South Carolina's Wildlife and Marine Resource Department to have a biologist come out and attempt to clear up the story with the evidence that was left by the vandal.

8:55 One of the first things that the biologist examined was the hair samples, and although not 100% confident in his answers, the best idea he had at the time of the investigation was that the fur may have belonged to a red fox. But of course red foxes aren't known to have the strength to physically cause the damage that was seen. So samples of the hair were gathered and sent to the University of Georgia for further deciphering. The same animal was blamed for the Prince left in the immediate vicinity of the car. But March larger prints were found about 25 yards away that seemed to be a very large black bear heading into the swamp. So the first official narratives were brought forward, one being that this was a human vandal who left fox fur and prints on the con and around the car to put blame on another creature or two.

9:41 A bear had been hunting a fox and the damage scene was the bears attempt to climb the car to get to the nimble animal. With damage to the hood and motor coming from the fox hiding in the area of the car and the bear tearing its way to get to its sly meal as the investigation was ongoing, onlookers and reporters began to show up due to the reports over their privately owned police scanners, and new narratives began surfacing. The Neighbors of the Ways and the other locals in Brown Town described that many of the residents have been witnessing a large, upright walking creature that was described by some as green and by others as brown. The creature had red eyes and many claim that it was about 7 feet tall, and every local that showed up to the scene was thoroughly convinced that this creature was the one to blame for the damage to the Wave family car if it were not for the complete certainty of the people who gathered the scene.

10:36 The sheriff would never have taken the claim seriously, but good thing he did. Many specific names and details were given to the sheriff and the vandal. Investigation at a residence on the fringe of the skateboard swamp took a strange and permanent turn towards the new legend of what the locals were now calling the Lizard Man. Before Sheriff Truesdale had been called to the scene, he had been in the meeting with a news reporter from the state's largest newspaper, simply named The State, and it was in this newspaper. By this reporter who had joined Sheriff Chewsdale out in Brownstown, the story of the scape or lizard man would be introduced to the world.

11:16 Christopher Davis Sheriff Chewsdale found it hard to believe that there was a monster loose in the area, escape or swamp. And when none of the people named during the initial investigation of the car damage wanting to share their experiences with the police or reporters, the seriousness of the Lizard Man began to decay in the coming hours. Two days after the Way family's vandalism on July 16th at about mid afternoon, a man by the name of Tony Davis and his 17 year old son Christopher walked into the Sheriff's station and shared the son's experience with an unknown animal. Tommy had seen the newspaper articles written by Miss Tutton and felt responsible to report his son's story as it seemed more and more each day that his son may actually be telling him the truth.

12:02 Chris Davis was heading home at around 2:30 AM after the night shift at McDonald's about two weeks before the car vandalism had taken place. The route routinely takes them along the outskirts of the skateboard swamp and this trip was no different. As he was about 7 miles away from home. One of the tires gave out on the Celica and the young man quickly grabbed the tire, iron Jack and spare out of his trunk and got right to the task at hand. The boy made quick work in the pitch at night while being attacked by every bug in the swamp, and as he was putting his tools back in the trunk, he noticed that approximately 30 yards away from them someone or something was walking towards them with its arms bowed outwards from the tree line.

12:43 The only light that was available in the direction of the incomer was the light of the moon. Chris described what he referred to as a quote redeyed devil as standing roughly 7 feet tall, what looked like wet green skin. Red eyes and only three fingers on each hand, Chris immediately ran to the driver side door and jumped in as he sat there, scared of what might come from this encounter, the creature came to stand about two feet from the driver side window. The creature climbed on top of the car and the only thing that Chris could see were two digits from one hand hanging over the top of the windshield. He made note that the claw at the end of the digits was black and sharp. Soon after it climbed on top of his car, the thing let out a guttal grunt and Chris turned the key and sped off as fast as it could. The acceleration caused the creature to tumble off the back of the car and at the same time damaging his side mirror. Chris watched as the creature hastily returned to its two feet and began running After the car.

13:42 Chris claimed to be traveling about 35 mph when the creature caught up to him and yet again jumped on top of the vehicle. He never heard the thing fall off. And as he approached his house early in the morning, Chris laid on his horn and tried like hell to get someone's attention. As his father opened the front door, Chris approached, yelling at the top of his lungs. His father was instantly concerned for his son, but at first sight he had no idea what it made Chris so upset. Chris looked back and began to cry as he realized that the creature was not on top of his car as he thought it was still was. After Chris explained the event, Tommy Davis went out to investigate and turn his son's car off. The drivers side mirrors bent down and there were scratches all over the roof. The trackway, Deputy Wayne Atkinson, was manning the desk at the Lee County Sheriff's Office at 2:00 AM on July 24th when two teenagers ran into the station. The boys were visually upset and were breathing very heavily. Before the deputy could ask what was wrong, one of the boys blurted out.

14:41 Quote, I think we saw the lizard man. Rodney Nulf and Shane Stokes were driving their girlfriends home when something large and running on two legs ran in front of their car and jumped the fence on the other side of the road. There isn't much else to tell this particular encounter, but a few hours later woman in Browntown called in to report a loud howling coming from the woods. If it wasn't for the birth of the Lizard Man sightings and the boys who had come in earlier in the night, Deputy Atkinson wouldn't typically entertain such a report too much. But this time we decided it might be a good idea to have a look. Both Atkinson and State Trooper Mike Hodge drove over and began patrolling the back roads along the woods and swamp with their spotlight. As it began their way down Branlett Rd. they discovered several crunched 40 gallon drums strewn along the road in various locations.

15:32 The men got out of the cruiser and approached to investigate, but found nothing out of the ordinary other than the drums themselves. So they jumped back in the car and headed back down the road away before you, turning and heading back to where they entered Bramlett Rd. From. As they approached the area with the barrels, a large trackway was highlighted by their headlights that were not there just a few minutes prior. Each three toed print was 14 inches long and seven inches wide at the widest point, and the stride length was just a hair over 3 feet. It didn't take long for them to jump back in the car and leave the scene as they made the decision to come back in the daylight so as to not put themselves in danger. Wandering in the woods following the tracks, the officers returned in the morning and this time they were accompanied by Sheriff Truesdale.

16:16 In the daylight, the three men were able to further investigate the litter of drums, footprints and the damage to tree limbs up to the 9 foot mark that were now visible in the daylight. The sheriff had seen enough to want to take this event seriously and had one of the officers head back to the station for casting material for the Prince and called in the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division to request tracking dogs. As the men were pouring the plaster into the print, a CNN news van pulled up and the sheriff moseyed over to answer a few questions before telling him that he had to complete the current investigation before he did any interviews on the matter as he was walking back. Three officers from the State Law Enforcement Division showed and were instantly interested in the strange tracks.

17:02 These men had a job that sent them into the woods, following tracks of various men and animals, and these were like nothing they had ever seen. The hounds trail. The tracks weigh about 150 yards into the Monkey Swamp before the sky let loose and downpour ruin, their chance at ever discovering what may be at the end of the tracks, a few from the past. Several weeks after the trackway that was found by the Lee County officers, a man by the name of George Holloman had come forward about a sign that he had, prior to the vandalism the way family car. In fact, the first time the Sheriff Truesdale had heard the name George Holloman was at the investigation by one of the onlookers.

17:43 Nothing had ever come from that lead. But that sure changed when Holloman walked through the door of the Sheriff's Office. George Holloman was a 31 year old construction worker from Brown Town and the sighting of something strained by skateboard bridge happened in October 1987. Holloman was riding his bicycle one evening when he had stopped on the South side of the bridge and took a few swigs of water and lit a cigarette. He was observing the side of the water falling under the bridge and the silence of the woods around him when out of the corner of his eye, what he originally thought was a damaged tree stood up to about 7:00 or 8 feet. George watched as the creature stared at him and made slight movements, but never really moving from his standing position.

18:27 A passing car's headlights illuminated the area a few yards away from the creature, but the light was enough to show bright red eyes reflecting back at him. Whatever it was seemed not to care too much for the passing car as it turned and began to walk into the tree line away from where the passerby had traveled. As the creature walked off, George took notice that it seemed to be covered in hair. In his report that was reported on August 13th, 1988, George passed on the information of the sighting and was unsure if it was the socalled Lizard Man, but he felt that with all of the reports going on, he found it important to pass on the description of what he saw. Shortly after George Hallman came forward with the story, another man felt comfortable enough to do the same. George Plyler was working at his home with a few men near Daybreak in the spring of 1986, two years prior to Christopher Davis's encounter.

19:20 As the four men were putting in a hog pen near the border of his property and swamp, the hairs on the back of Plyler's neck stood up and he immediately had the feeling that he was being watched. His sight settled on a set of reflecting eyes, peering out just past the trunk in the tree line. What he originally thought was a deer was clearly not, as he found himself terrified of the figure that laid in his eyesight. The creature stood on 2 legs with arms that hung down past its knees. The eyes were reflecting bright red and its face looked eerily humanoid. Whatever it was took off rather quickly as George was able to get one last good look at the creature's body. He claimed to not remember fur or hair on the body of the creature, but the legs were long and skinny.

20:04 When asked if he saw was the infamous lizard man, he replied it had a bibe, maybe similar to a lizard except for the head and it didn't have a tail or anything like that. Shortly after deciding as the sun came up, George wandered over where he claimed to have seen a few threetoed prints and swampy muck. A few weeks after the Christopher Davis encounter, another man came forward about a strange event that took place roughly a month before. Davis's Frank Mitchell was a crop duster and owned a rather large property with a private hangar for his plane and runway to go with it on the morning question. The fog hung low until later in the morning. Mitchell taxied his crop duster out to the runway and took off down to 3000 foot stretch of grass and just as he was beginning to lift into the air, a large upright walking grayish creature walked into the runway, completely unfazed by the approaching plane. The small aircraft soared over the creature and Mitchell was frightened as to what it was, losing sight of it. Immediately as the nose of the plane tilted up to take off, Mitchell made a quick bank back to his runway and by the time he returned the thing was gone.

21:11 In his retelling of the story, he claimed that it was impossible to remember exactly what the creature looked like, as he only saw it for a few moments. But his initial thoughts were that the face looked like that of an ape, not a lizard. The Ugly side. On August 6th, 1988, a headline from the State newspaper read, Florence Mann says he wounded the Lizard Man. This propelled the circus that Brown Town had become, and the local sheriff had finally had enough of the reporters, ruining the quiet area and random men wandering through properties, woods and swamps with loaded rifles and shotguns. So Sheriff Truesdale drove down to the Shaw Air Force Base to speak with the man who shot the lizard and airman by the name of Kenneth Orr. Mr. Orr story was ridiculous and the evidence, quote UN quote, that he had was even more ridiculous. Kenneth Orr was traveling on Interstate 20 to the base at 6:00 AM on August 5th when he took the exit for Hwy. 15 on his approach to Gin Branch Rd.

22:12 He witnessed a strange creature running at his car from the embankment up ahead, or described it standing 5 foot nine and having a lizard like tail with green but not scaly skin. As the creature got closer, he stepped out of his vehicle and commanded the creature to halt When it didn't or fired a warning shot into the air which did nothing to keep that creature from barreling down towards him. Or aimed and fired multiple rounds in this creature, with one clipping the side of its neck. The creature fell into his car, got up on its feet, and ran into the woods, never to be seen again. All that was left were a few scales and some blood on the hood of his car, or collected the evidence in a zip lock bag and turned it into Sheriff Truesdale. When he showed up at the base, Truesdale became angry at the quote UN quote evidence because it seemed to be nothing but fishios.

22:59 Or had obviously not done his homework on the difference between fish and reptile scales and even went as far to draw the creature you saw. It was literally an alligator on two legs that looked poorly identical to a local gas stations tshirts depiction of the creature Cheersdale charged or with a misdemeanor weapons offense for the unregistered 357 Magnum in his front seat and another misdemeanor for filing a false report. Truesdale was actually sort of relieved, and it was his hope that this little event would help deter others from looking for the creature or submitting false reports, or ended up having a warrant issued for his arrest. And when he showed up to the Sheriff's Office, he admitted to completely fabricating the entire story. He claimed that he only wanted to keep the legend alive, which worked.

23:45 But not how he intended. Instead, headlines in the following days really did number against the airmen. And seeing that the circus was finally ready to calm down. Not too fast now. So on August 18th, Christopher Davis would take a polygraph test to finally put all the naysayers in their place. The results came back that Chris was telling the truth on all accounts. Soon after results were announced, a new rumor was making its way through town. And that was that. A local bean farmer by the name of Lucius Elmore, also known as Brother, was responsible for scaring the shit out of Chris Davis that night. The road in which Chris Davis apparently had his flat tire on was only a half a mile away from the farmer's wellknown butter bean shed, which kept air conditioned with multiple window units in the summer to help keep the workers cool. The shed was located at the back end of his property, and he had been having recent issues with people stealing his window units at night.

24:41 So rumor was that since the event took place so close to Brother's shed, it must have been the farmer himself that scared Christopher. The farmer was a very tall man, known to be in the six and a half feet range and wore wide round glasses. Brother may have been patrolling his property when he saw Chris and went to investigate. His arrival may have scared the young man who was already on edge being out in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Chris would have jumped in the car, and when he pressed down on the brake, the illumination of the tail lights could have shined off the lenses of brothers glasses. This became the hot topic going through town, and although most of the residents now believe Chris did see something due to the polygraph, many began running with the story instead of the lizard man being the culprit.

25:25 Rumor was that Elmore himself was even confirming the accuracy of the story. Boeing questioned by reporters, Lucius Elmore aka brother, denied all possibility of that being the case and his daughter defended her father by stating that she was 100% certain that he was in the house with her on that night of Christopher Davis's story. On August 26th, 1988, an unnamed Colonel of the Army Corps of Engineers was driving home with his wife along Mcduffie Rd. in Ashwood, about 8 miles South of Brown Town, when a large brown being ran across the road in the beams, their headlights. The Colonel described the creature as standing 7-8 feet tall, running on two legs with a tail that didn't reach the ground. His wife, who is not paying attention the road, only witnessed the end of the counter when the creature ran into the woods along the road.

26:16 Unfortunately, when the officers arrived the next morning, the rain from the previous night seemed to erase all evidence that anything was ever at the location. One thing that stands out about this particular encounter is that the only detail that doesn't seem to jive with the previous serious reports was that tale that the Colonel had described Bigfoot. As many who are listening will have already concluded, there are many who believe that the Bishopville lizard man is actually a misidentified Bigfoot. In particular, a swamp ape that calls the southeast and southern Gulf states home. A cryptozoologist from the Cryptozoology Museum project in Malibu, CA, by the name of Eric Beckyard reported after a oneonone interview with Christopher Davis that he believed that what witnesses were reporting as either scaly or fleshy skin was actually the swampy muck coating the Sasquatch's hair that, when dried, most likely cracked and crumbled, giving it a look of scales in the moonlight at a quick glance. He believed that the creature was attracted to Chris that night due to the smell of McDonald's coming from a teenager.

27:19 But if what the citizens of Bishopville area we're seeing was actually a Bigfoot, then why would they have reported bipedal lizards instead? Looking back on the cultural history of humans throughout time, we can see that mankind has been fascinated with retroids for as long as we can imagine. Looking at art and literature we can see depictions of secrops, a once king of Athens, the Chinese inventor of fishing and trapping Fuji, the Egyptian God Sobek. In Hindu mythology we had the beings known as the not a shock, the Mayan brain God, the immortal beings referred to as the Xian from Taoism. The Hopi Indians had stories of the people that they referred to as their quote UN quote snake brothers, the Kappa from Japanese folklore.

28:04 Let us not forget the onscreen depictions of the creature from the Black Lagoon, the Sleave stacks from the show Land of the Loss, the Lizard from the Spiderman universe and most recently the Frogman, the Honey Island Swap Monster which also has a Mixer, Reptile and Ape reports, and the conspiracy favorite bipedal race referred to as the Reptilians, which some tie into the lore of the Honor Naki. All of which bear the likeness in some way to the Bishopville Lizard Man on July 30th, 1990. All six members of the Blyther's family encountered the Lizard Man after almost two years of silence from the creature Bertha Blyther was driving home along Brown Town Rd. With her five children, ages ranging from 4 to 18, as they were approaching the intersection of Hickory Hill Rd. They were traveling at approximately 25 mph when something large jumped at the passenger side of the car and attempted to pull her 11 year old Tamesha out of the roll down window.

28:59 Bertha turned into the left lane of the two lane Rd. is whatever it was jumped at their moving car during the attack. The only thing that any of them saw were the lower half of an upright brown hairy creature. But as Bertha speed up her 18 year old son, Johnny turned to look out the back window and noticed that whatever it was was bringing itself to its feet before disappearing into the darkness as the car gained distance. They all explained that it was very big and having had two arms as it was attempting to reach into the car and stood on 2 legs. In the fall of 1991, the young Elmore couple were driving along the road that connects Brown Town to Cedar Creek when Brian witnessed something crouched down on the side of the road in the headlights of his car As the couple drove by.

29:43 Whatever it was stood up and Brian shockingly asked Michelle if she had seen it. Michelle denied seeing and told him that he probably saw a cow or something. That's when Brian turned the car around to see if they could find it again. As they approached the area, the creature stood in front of the headlights and was illuminated in a way that caught Brian in awe as he almost hit the creature. He swerved at the last second and the thing ran into the woods, the official reports quoted Brian stating Quote like a gorilla but bigger, and Michelle described it as a brownish black and standing roughly 7 feet tall. So what do you think? Could there be a connection between Lizard Man sightings and our beloved Bipedal 8? Or could there possibly be two creatures in one place, The famous Mr. Lizard Man?

30:26 There was no doubt. Besides all the reports coming in from what were mostly credible witnesses, the country began to really pay attention to the area surrounding Bishopville, SC. On July 20th, another article was published which outlined Christopher Davis's encounter with an unknown bipedal creature on the outskirts of Skateboard Swamp, and Chris instantly became not only the talk of the town, but places far and wide began paying attention to the area surrounding skateboard. Chris became the center of attention for reporters, radio stations and carrier citizens alike, with a radio station out of nearby Bishopville, WAGS AM being the first to land the big interview, followed closely by local newspapers. The item. The State, Lake County Observer and the Independent Mail WCOS FM radio station out of Columbia really skyrocketed the story of the loser man when they offered $1,000,000 reward to anyone who had captured a desert man alive soon after.

31:20 The Associated Press and the United Press International would get a hold of the story in Bishopville as well as the little town of Brown Town, South Carolina would soon become the hotspot for curiosity seekers from all over. The furthest place take notice was the Korean Times, which reported on both the way families carve vandalism and the Christopher Davis account. But the most famous account of press coverage surrounding the Lizard Man was when Tom Brokaw, host of the NBC Nightly News, had made a mention of the creature with a Lee County Lizard Patrol hat sitting on his desk from that point. Floodgates opened, and soon the little town was being featured in the likes of NBC's Today Show, Fox News, Time magazine, People magazine, CBS Evening News, CNN, Unsolved Mysteries and Good Morning America.

32:06 Paul Harvey of the ABC Network even brought up the Lizard Man to the audience of over 1600 radio stations nationwide, including the Armed Forces Networks. A song from the famous country musician of the 60s, Jim Nesbitt, who is from Bishopville, was inspired by the famous reptilian in the latter half of July in 1988 and wrote a song simply titled The Lizard Man. The craze slowed down by the end of August in 1988, but the public's interest in Lizard Man never really died. In modern times TV shows such as Destination Truth Factor, Fake Paranormal Files, Animal X, Lost Tapes, We Are What and Mysteries the Museum have all dedicated entire episodes or segments to the famed humanoid reptile and countless podcasts have followed in their footsteps. The book I use is my primary resource. Lizard Man, The True Story of the Bishop of Monster by Lyle Blackburn is the only book that I have found that is complete dedicated to creature itself, yet many others have dedicated chapters or segments to the creature. Modern Encounters In 2008, Bob Rossen of Bishopville was getting ready to head to the hardware store when he was shocked to find that the family's blue Dodge Caravan was damaged overnight.

33:17 It looked like some animal had attacked it for hours. The hood had multiple bite marks, the fenders were scratched, bent and bit through, and there was blood in some places with damage. When the Lee County Sheriff's Office showed up to the scene, nobody wanted to be the first to say what everyone was thinking. The Lizard Man was back. Almost 20 years later, the damage was so severe to the material of the vehicle that nobody believed that it could have been done by a fox, coyote, or bear. Miss Rossen was the one that put the story together after the typical number of cats in the neighborhood drastically decreased in the same night. The running theory in the story of the Rawson's vandalism case is that whatever it was wanted to get to a cat or multiple cats that were under the van through the attempts at a meal, the places in which a cat would easily hide were the places that were most affected.

34:04 The cats are known to find their way into the engine area of cars under the hood, and some are known to lay on top of the tire in the wheel well. After gathering DNA samples from blood, the sheriff had taken a moment to look around the immediate area, which included the field where the bodies of a cow and a coyote were found. Months later, the results were in the culprit was identified as a domestic dog. Neither the Rawsons nor the Sheriff's Department bought that as an explanation for the damage done to the van. Then Sheriff Melvin was stated saying, Quote, if I didn't see the van. I might have believed it. A number of theories had come up surrounding the results, one of which was that the swabs may have been tainted by the German Shepherds of a neighbor who had come to see the damage.

34:44 Another possibility was that whatever it was may have had the blood of a dog on its body when it went after the cats, but whatever it was, the masses do not believe that it was a domestic dog, and the legend of Bishopville Lizardman had seemed to have come full circle. On the 4th of July in 2011, Leon Marshall was shocked to find his Dodge Journey in the solar state and promptly called the Lee County Sheriff's Department Yet again. There were teeth prints on the hood and Fender, but this time there seemed to be a rather large trail of dried saliva and a few white and black hairs left behind. The Sheriff's Department seem to be done with these cases and denied the chance to run a DNA sample on the evidence, so this particular case may never be solved. But in season two of the Scifi Channel show Factor faked, The team created multiple different tests which resulted in bullets being shot at a car, hydraulically operates, steel, jaws, and a bunch of commonly owned tools. The only one of the tests that yield similar results for the power tool, which led the team to believe that this was all a hoax or a case of vandalism.

35:45 Many have come forward to deny the Factor fake findings throughout the last decade. Well, that's it travelers. That's everything I found regarding the Bishop, Phil Lizardman. Not enough info? Well, that's okay because next week we dive into other reptoid creatures of cartigology and maybe one or two of those lizard brains can shine a light on the mystery of skateboards. Lizard man. Thank you all again and I'll see you next time. The next path of the infinite rabbit hole. Bye. I would like to thank you once again for tuning into the Infinite Rabbit Hole podcast. Please make sure to give us a follow and one of those beautiful five star ratings on your podcast player of choice. If you would like to join the conversation and stay up to date on all things infinite rabbit hole, head on over to Facebook and search for the Infinite Rabbit Hole Facebook group. You Don't Know it's Us when you see the logo. If you would like to help contribute to the cause, there are a few ways to do so.

36:46 First, head on over to anchor dot FM forward slash infinite rabbit hole. And click on the subscribe button where for $5 a month you'll get access to all the old episodes that will never see the free spotlight ever again. It's horrible stuff, but if you're into that kind of thing and go check that second, head on over to infiniterabbithole.com and click on the IRH Merch Shop tab and grab yourself a sweet Tshirt sticker or whatever else you see that you wouldn't mind owning Until next time travelers. I'm Jeremy and I'll see you. But the next fork in the path of the infinite rabbit hole all right.

37:51 Now it's heat for everyone else.