Lizardman: Is It For Real? Part Four: Taking It to the Grave

Scape Ore Swamp. As close as you can ever get to Lizardman without him jumping on the hood of your car.

I put the question to Eddie, the docent at the South Carolina Cotton Museum on the day of my visit. Does he believe the Lizardman is real, or is it all just a big hoax? With a smile, he told me about the automobiles that were damaged back during the Lizardman’s reign of not-so-terrifying-terror in the late 80s. He knew some of the people involved, and he had no doubts those people were telling the truth about what had happened. Fair enough, but couldn’t some dog have chewed up their car? He assured me that there is no dog big enough to do that kind of damage to a vehicle. He also assured me of the honesty of Liston Truesdale, who was the Sheriff at the time and who took all the Lizardman sightings seriously. Some have alleged that it was Truesdale behind the whole scam. Those who knew the man, Eddie told me, would vehemently disagree.

Moreover, not all the people who claimed sightings of Lizardman were in any way connected to the Elmore family. And moreover, moreover, Eddie told me about one of those eyewitnesses. An old-fashioned, devoutly religious, small town southern lady, the last person in the world, he said, who’d ever be capable of telling a lie. She swore that she had indeed seen the Lizardman, no matter what the skeptics said. “I will take it to my grave that I saw it!” she said. Eddie sure believed her. And I believed him.

So *was* there a Lizardman? Some people claimed that the creature they saw did not have scales or a tail, but rather looked more like your standard Sasquatch. Was there a hoax, then, with a guy in a Lizardman costume, and then a real Bigfoot also made some appearances at the same time? Or was the Lizardman a shapeshifter, able to alter its appearance? If there’s one thing of which I’ve become convinced in my years of studying the paranormal, it’s that truth really is stranger than fiction. That a real-life cryptid might show up at just the point in time that some local farmer staged a prank by dressing up in a costume would be far from the strangest coincidence I’ve ever heard of.

What do *I* think? Really? Where does the truth lie?

I believe in Lizardman. That’s the truth.

By The Evil Cheezman

WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 MORTUI VELOCES SUNT!

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