143. Reptoids of Cryptozoology

0:02 Sometimes there's things that you will come across in your life that just don't make much sense, and dealing with an unknown, upright walking giant ape in the woods in North America is hard enough to believe. I get it. But what about those other creatures that reported with regularity throughout time? Ones that fly, swim, warp in and out of the other dimensions? What about giant moths? Or ancient prehistoric giants, birds Or dinosaurs that soar through the open sky. They're reported in different geographical areas and different times to have swooped down just to grab a family pet. Or worse, sometimes it's an actual member of the family. Yeah, there's plenty of strange stories to go around that you could ponder over and debate. Trust me, I do it all the time.

0:48 Out of all the things that go bump in the night, there is one category that really trips me up. One that just for some reason doesn't seem biologically possible at all. One that is shaped like us, walks like us, and may even think like us. But one thing is for sure, it doesn't look like us and for sure didn't come from our family tree. Nope. These things remind us more of lizards, phibians, reptilian aliens, and even dinosaurs. These are the things that really go bump in the night. The things that are truly made of nightmare fuel. The things that could possibly be another evolutionary line of a dinosaur or lizard that we were completely unaware of that could have potentially evolved intelligence as good or better than ours. These are the reptoids of the cryptidological world. Welcome back to the rabbit hole.

2:12 Welcome back to the Infinite Rapid hole, everybody. I'm your host, Jeremy today. Dive into the world of the Reptoids. Well, last week we talked about the Bishopville lizard, man. Yeah, well, that's by far the most famous and the biggest legend when it comes to reptoids in the cryptozoological world. But what about all the little ones? What about all the ones that are mentioned once, twice, maybe three times, maybe, maybe a little bit more. But nothing near as much as the Bishopville lizard. Man, there's a lot of them, trust me. There's a lot, and I did my due diligence to kind of put it all together for you. So hang tight, travelers. These are the reptoids of cryptozoology. Enjoy Charles Wetzel's encounter on November 8th. In 1958, a man by the name of Charles Wetzel was on drive and is 1952 Buick along N Main St.

3:07 in Riverside, CA. As he approached the area of the road that calmly succumbs to the rising waters of the Santa Ana River, Wetzel slowed his car as he approached the deep water and slowly began making his way through the flood. He was coming up to the sign on the side of the road that warns drivers of the rising waters when his radio began to become very staticky. He was turning the dial to tune to a new station, and he noticed a creature standing roughly 6 feet tall making its way into the middle of his side of the street. In response, Wetzel slammed the brakes and watched and awes. Whatever it was began to come closer and just stared at Charles as he grew nervous.

3:49 The creature was described by Wetzel as having a quote UN quote round scarecrowish head with a beaked mouth and reflective eyes, and as far as he could tell, it had no nose or ears. As the creature began to climb onto the hood of his car from the front driver's side, Wetzel was able to notice that the skin of the creature was scaly in texture as the creature began clawing at the windshield. Charles reached for his 22 that he kept on him at all times and aimed at the creature in an attempt to scare it off, but the creature showed no signs of fear. Wetzel then made the decision to get the hell out of Dodge in Florida. The creature fell off the hood as the car made an initial lurch forward and was run over by Wetzel as he drove off as fast as he could.

4:33 Wetzel went directly to the local police and reported the incident, but the police found no evidence that anything had happened at the scene. But the discovery of marks on his windshield, streaks of grease missing from his oil pan on the bottom of his car, proved that something was there and that he did seem to run over it. The very next night, another motorist on the same St. also reported seeing a tall, dark, shadowy quote, UN quote, something run across the road, the theus Lake Monster, on August 19th, 1972 at thetus Lake in British Columbia, Canada. Teenagers Gordon Pike and Robin Flulen were standing on the shore of the lake when a roughly 5 foot tall humanoid creature erupted out of the water and began running after them. The Victoria Daily Times reported that the teenagers were able to successfully get away, but not before one of them suffered a nasty scratch on his hand, which apparently was caused when the creature cut the boy with a sharp spike protruding from its head.

5:33 Both teenagers described the creature as having a scaly body, webbed hands and feet. A very. Dark head with large fish like eyes. The boys first reported the events of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who took the encounter serious enough to actually investigate the event. Unfortunately, nothing came to the investigation. Four days later on August 23rd, young boys by the name of Russell Van Dys and Mike Gold were fishing at Thetas Lake when they witnessed the creature poke its head out of the water and look around. When the creature resubmerged, the boys ran away. Both children described the creature as having a silvery body with a large monster like head, deep black eyes, and large ears. Again, the police investigated but found nothing. Unfortunately, when Russell Van Nuys was 49 years old, he claimed in an interview that it was all lie and it was all Mike Gold's idea to capitalize on the recent report of the creature attacking a few older kids from the area days before. No.

6:29 In the summer of 2006, a freshwater professional fishing instructor for the Freshwater Fisheries Society of British Columbia by the name of Jesse Martin was spending the day fishing for the shores of Fetus Lake. Just before the sun went down, Jesse decided a few more casts wouldn't hurt before he packed up and headed to the now empty parking lot. As he was loading his gear into his Ford Mustang, Jesse was alerted to movement in the shrubs nearby. A little unnerved Jesse got into the front seat and turned on the car, and as he looked into the rearview mirror, Jesse was surprised to see a large man like figure running on two legs towards the back of his car as he peeled out of the parking lot. Whatever it was seemed to have tried to unsuccessfully grab onto the passenger side of the car.

7:12 When Jesse got home, he was yet again surprised to see five scratch marks down the side of his passenger side door with what looked like fish scales speckled in within the area of the print Gator man. Along the banks of the swamplands through the southern United States, another reptilian of sorts has made itself known with a few different communities. Gator men are pretty much what they sound like. Standing at roughly 5 feet tall, the Gator men are described as having a human child sized torso before it tapers off into a thick Gator like pale 4 stubby Gator Legs protrude from its compact mid body and sport web toes and fingers. They also come equipped with dark green or black scales and a nice row of razor sharp teeth.

7:57 Legend goes that they move under the cover of darkness in groups of five or six, traversing the lakes and waterways from Texas to the Carolinas and becking in. They're even said to enjoy raw meat most of all, but can also survive on nuts, dry leaves and fruit. Reports of these creatures are most plentiful from the 1700s around the Florida Everglades, but have been reported sporadically throughout history in various locations along the Gulf States and a few inland swampy areas as well. South America even has their own Gator Man, in which they referred to as Hombre Cayman and said to possess both features of alligator and man. The legend describes that Hombre Cayman was once a fisherman who fell for a trick of a water spirit.

8:39 But the best documented cases of such creatures come from the most unsuspected areas of the United States. In 1973, reports of Gator men were popping up in the Newton Lafayette area of New Jersey, and in 1977, New York State conservation naturalist Alfred Holstruck claimed that there was a well known man alligator creature that would exit the waters of southern portions of the state to feed on the shores of various bodies of water. In 1974, an unnamed man was driving around White Meadow Lake in the Rockaway Township of New Jersey when his headlights fell upon a large reptoid on the side of the road. Although the creature had its back towards the road, he could tell that the scaly skin was greenish in color, and as he approached closer, the animal turned its head towards the left to reveal large bulging eyes and a lipless reptilian mouth. The consensus on the Gator Man seems to be that this is more or less folklore, born from the early years in the areas bordering the Everglades in South Florida. But who knows, maybe this could be the earliest depictions of what would later be referred to as lizard men, reptilian aliens. And of course, we cannot end this section on Gatorman without touching on the most famous of them all, Jake the Alligator Man.

9:51 Now Jake isn't like the Gator Man previously mentioned, it just so happens that it shares a name with them. The most recent place I could find displaying Jake is the Marshes Free Museum on Pacific Ave. in Long Beach, WA. Go ahead and Google Jake the Alligator Man and stare in all what literally looks like a human torso and a head merge with an Alligators lower half. Chupacabras. A list of reptoids would not be complete without at least mentioning the absolute most famous of them all, El Chupacabras. Yes, it is true that the American chupacabra is considered to be more candid in nature, but the original one reported in Puerto Rico in the 1970s and the one that is now active in Central and South America has a more common description of being reptilian or alien in nature. And I'm going to have to stop the coverage on this particular Cryptid right here and now, since the topic deserves an entire episode all to itself, if not a two or three-part series, I just wanted to include it in this list of possible reptile creatures.

10:56 More to come. Others Most cases of upright walking reptiles come in the form of 1 off reports that never get grouped into a large collection which ultimately depicts a new addition to the world of cryptozoology. I was able to gather as many of these stories as possible for you. In 1937, man was fishing from his boat near Saginaw, MI when he witnessed the man with reptile attributes come out of the water on two legs, lean up against a tree for a few minutes, and reenter the water. The man reported the encounter to the police with no evidence or followup sightings had ever occurred. In October 1954, a man by the name of Renzo Pugina of Peravocino de Urba, Italy, was terrified when he walked out of his house in the morning and came face to face with a large, bipedal man covered in scaly skin.

11:43 The creature reacted quickly and hastily, flew away. After reporting the incident, the police did find a spot on his lawn that was covered in an unidentifiable thick, oily substance. In August of 1955, Miss Darwin Johnson was swimming in the Ohio River near Evansville IN when she was grabbed from below the water by what she described as a very rough hand with an incredible grip. As she pulled herself out of the water, a friend of hers made Johnson aware that her leg now had a green spot on it. To Miss Johnson's surprise, this is where the creature had grabbed her. Lauren Coleman, a world renowned cryptozoologist, was one of the people who had an opportunity to investigate this report. In his book Mysterious America, Lauren includes that it is his honest opinion that this woman was the victim of an attempted attack by a reptilian man.

12:31 In 1966, a nine year old boy in Stevensport, Kentucky woke at about 1:00 AM to a loud sound outside his bedroom window. Unfortunately, he was unable to see anything, so he headed downstairs and pulled back the curtain in the living room and was terrified of what he saw. The witness was 49 years old when he was interviewed by Charlie Raymond, founder of the Kentucky Bigfoot Research Organization. In the interview, he described A brownish green creature that, incredibly, looked more like a reptile than a human. It had scaly skin, webbed hands, and the only thing human about it was that it stood on 2 legs. Charlie guesstimated that the creature stood anywhere between 5 1/2 to 6 feet tall.

13:11 As the boy and the creature made eye contact, it turned and ran on two legs towards Sinking Creek, which boarded his property at the time. He would continue to describe how the creature had a set of what looks like gills hanging off of its jaw bone down to its shoulders, small black eyes and a Ridge of flesh that began in its forehead and traveled to the back of his neck. Another encounter with a quote UN quote Frog Man was reported just north of Little Rock, AR, in 1952 at Lake Conway by a man named George Dillon. George was fishing with his trout line on his February morning when an area of his line seemed to have been snagged on something. He pulled hard and was shocked to see that what was attached to his hooks wasn't a large fish or an underwater relic, but rather a large aquatic creature that he was completely unfamiliar with. As he pulled, he noticed that whatever it was, it was snagged in the mouth by one of his hooks, and the thing was making a sad attempt trying to dislodge the hook with its tongue. The things had flailed around as if it was extremely scared and reached out and eventually put a hand on George's boat. The skin was green and spotted and reminded George of a frog, but the head was more like that of a monkey with a sharp jawline, blue lips and a toothless mouth. George claimed that the creature must have weighed about £80 and that it had very broad shoulders and a haunched back. The thing eventually freed itself and swim away. In Wisconsin, sometime in the mid 90s, a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource game warden was traveling along Hwy. 13 near Medford when a figure was

14:43 spotted standing in the middle of the road. As the warden approached, he could see that whatever it was had scaly green skin, and just as surprised as he was to see the creature, he was also surprised that it unfolded large wings from his back and took off into the air. The creature landed just behind the warden's truck and stood there for a few seconds before taking off again permanently. But roughly around the same time. Unfortunately, it is unclear as to whether it was before or after the Warden's encounter. Another group of men working at a construction site off of the same Rd. witnessed a creature that they described as being exactly like the one seen by the Warden. The creature sprouted wings and flew above the canopy of the trees surrounding the work site, and the men never saw it again in December of 1988.

15:26 Two Italian men, a farmer and security guard, had encounters with reptilian men on two different occasions. The encounter that the farmer reported was during the night and the creature had serpent like eyes and briefly chase after the witness before leaving the area. The second was only seen briefly and it fled into the nearby tree line. And in 1993, a couple out looking for their lost dog in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, were stunned when I discovered what looked like to be a very large bipedal creature with brown scales covering its entire body. The witness claimed that the creature had bright yellow eyes with thin slits when their flashlights shined on its face old three toes between February and October in 1948, the Tampa Bay area of Florida found itself with a mystery of its own.

16:09 Hundreds of large 3 toed tracks were being found throughout the area and extended slightly N into the Panhandle of the state as well, although most of the witnesses reported spotting a large creature with a rhinoceros like head. The three toed footprints are synonymous with dinosaurs such as Raptors. The creature eventually became known throughout the Gulf Coast communities as Old Three Toes and the area was on high alert for almost an entire year. The case that really sparked fear when it came to Old Three Toes was in February in 1948, when on Clearwater Beach, a young couple had parked their car and witnessed a large creature exiting the water before fleeing and reporting the sighting to the local police. When officers arrived, there were in fact dozens of three towed tracks along that specific section of the beach that looked as if the creature came in and out of the water numerous times before heading back in for good.

17:01 The very next morning, more people reported that the track for Beck Upon arrival, officers yet again discovered similar footprints in almost the exact same area. In March, a third set was found on another beach only a mile away from the original set that was tracked for over 100 yards before it disappeared in the grass. This was followed by another trackway showing up on Dan's Island on March 20th and another track on April 3rd, and Indian Rocks Beach just 10 miles South of Clearwater, with yet another one showing up in the same area on April 8th. On July 25th, pilots John Milner and George Orphanides were flying around the area of Hog Island when two men spotted a very large, strange creature swimming around with legs like an alligator just 200 feet offshore.

17:47 The pilots described it as having a very thick and large build and a proportionally sized tail, but the strange thing about their sighting was that they described it as having hair all over its body. Many people took this report very seriously, but some were saying that the thing must have been caught up in seaweed as there were no sea animals long hair in the area. Two more sightings came in after the pilot sighting, one of which was from a couple on vacation from Wisconsin in August. This sighting is where the famous rhinoceros had description comes from. And the less known sighting was in Chieftain near the Swanee River in October of 1948 before Old Three Toes disappeared for good. Now Florida was not the only place in history to have such sightings and reports of a large amount of three toed footprints being found on beaches.

18:32 Years earlier in the 30s, three Toed tracks were found beaches in New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Australia, Argentina, Nantucket, Island and South Africa. So what are they? Obviously we cannot engulf all of these creatures into one category, as they are from different times, different spaces and different descriptions. But what we can do is talk about the possibilities as a whole. One such possibility is that they are known creatures. Could some of these be actual alligators? Perhaps bats? Maybe large fish such as a sturgeon? One of my favorites for a lot of lizard encounters is the theory that these could merely be Sasquatch that have been covered in hardened mud, which may give the look of scaly, possibly Moss or lichen covered green skin. I mean the statures, right?

19:20 A lot of these creatures are extremely tall. What about tyrannodons? Specifically the one where the warden spots are flying artillian in the middle of the road? Could this be a prehistoric remnant? What about exotic pets? One theory about the Fetus Lake monster is that it is a Teague lizard that was reported lost by a local man a year earlier. But that really couldn't be, since exotic reptiles have zero chance of surviving the harsh Canadian winters. In fact, a lot of these stories, like the ones from New York, Jersey, Michigan, and Wisconsin may be in climates that are just too cold for reptile live in period. What about hoaxes? Maybe. In fact, most would probably say yes, that they are 100% all hoaxes. Although I'm not blind to the fact that humans do stupid things for stupid reasons, I would like to think that if anything was wrongly reported, it would be a case of misidentification instead of a hoax. But sadly that is most likely not the case. Let's head on over to the other side of the pool really quick. Let's ask the question, highly regarded in the world of conspiracy, what about the idea that some of these could be the feral brethren of the famed reptilian beings? They're said to control the politics of the world. How about an ancient race of dinosaurs? What if a small population of velociraptors or previously mentioned tyrannodons evolved in a similar fashion to humans and became bi people in a very slim population exists today like that of the Sasquatch?

20:39 In Lyle Blackburn's book Lizard Man, the true story of the Bishop Feld monster, Lyle describes how men by the names DA Russell and our sequin published a paper in the National Museum of Canada's Solagius #37 in 1982 that describes how the Cretaceous dinosaur known as the Staniocasaurus in Eculus, more commonly known as Trudon, was famously known as having a very large brain compared to its dinosaur brethren. And if not for the Mesozoic extinctions of a very large amount of living species on Earth, they may have developed a brain similar to that of humans. If you look up what a true down looks like, you'll notice that this creature was bipedal and very similar to looking like a velociraptor. So if it was given enough time to evolve, such as we had, it would not be such a far stretch to think that these creatures could have been formed in something resembling that of Gatorman or the Lizard Man of Bishopville. Or what if they are just what they are categorized as? Cryptids, an undiscovered species of animal yet to be categorized by science?

21:43 Personally, this one's my favorite, but unfortunately it is most likely not the case. It wouldn't be right to introduce you to the strange group of lizard men, weaned lizardoids and dynoids without at least mentioning that a lot of these amazing reports came around the time where there was a craze going on in pop culture. The list of movies alone depicting a man in the lizard costume of sorts is incredibly long for this time period. The Creature from the Black Lagoon in 1954, The Revenge of the Creature from 1957, Alligator People of 1959, The Hideous Sun Demon, also from 1959, The Reptile in 66, Knight of the Cobra Woman in 72, and The Legend of Gatorface in 1996. So it may be safe to say that most, if not all the people who have reported a Lizard Man of sorts did have some sort of recollection of what it might actually look like just from the movies alone.

22:39 Is this the answer to all of our reports? Most likely not all of them, but some of them. Very good chance at being a simple stretch of the imagination. But almost 10 years before the invention, the first movie camera newspapers were reporting in October of 1878 that a wild man had been caught in a rural area of Tennessee and was being transported by railway to Louisiana, Kentucky for a public display. A rather large news story at the time was spreading throughout the nation at the speed of black and white that this wild man they were calling it had a layer of scales all over his body which would fall off at regular occurrences around spring and fall. The creature also came equipped with a head full of hair, a fully grown wild man beard, huge eyes, easily doubled the size of humans and stood 6 foot 5 inches tall with webbed toes. The daily care for this man included regular housings to keep its skin damp and a diet raw fish and cooked meat. Apparently fish was the only thing he could eat raw. A report that surfaced a few months later in February in 1879 described the man as old and withered with a Gray sickly tone to his skin.

23:44 Dead looking hair and a blushed face. But then the report went on to explain that he was happily married with several children, and local doctors discovered that he was in fact a man with a skin disease referred to as ichthyosis. Ichthyosis is now a known skin disease that gives the skin an appearance of being scaly. If you're sensitive to the thought of newborns with unfortunate physical deformities, I would recommend not Googling this disease. Some of the pictures of the infants with ichthyosis. It's heartbreaking. Just don't do it. I added this part as a last bit of relative information, so you may have all the tools needed to decide for yourself what each of these creatures may have actually been. All right, travelers, we have one more case to look at. Next week, we dive into the first installment of the Infinite Rabbit Hole mini doc series. The Loveland Frogman.

24:35 This will wrap up our coverage of all things reptoids and cryptozoology. Of course, there are the Reptilians of both underground and the far corners of space, but those are completely different subjects altogether. So hang tight kids, we're going to get weird and one day we will jump into reptilian world. But until then, Next week, Frogman, thank you once again and I'll see you next. Path of the Infinite Rabbit Hole. Goodbye. 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.

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26:28 As the timeline, you into this tangent creating an alternate 1985 alternate. You need an Einstein for everyone else.