One of the most bizarre creatures reported in recent times is undoubtedly a nightmarish entity from

South Carolina, which has been aptly nicknamed Lizard Man. According to eyewitnesses, it walks on

its hind legs, stands just over 7 feet tall (2 meters), and has glowing red eyes and green scaly skin.

It has only three toes on each foot and three fingers on each hand, but every toe and every finger has

4 inch (10 cm) long black claws.

Lizard Man first made its presence felt at around 2 am on June 29, 1988. This was when a 17-year-old Christopher Davis
was changing a flat tire on his car near Scape Ore Swamp, which is just outside the backwater village of Bishopville in
South Carolina's Lee County. Chris was placing the jack into his cat boot when he spied something very large running on
its hind legs towards him, across a field close by. As it drew near, Chris jumped inside his car and tried to slam the door
shut, but the horrifying reptile man seized it from the other side, gripping the mirror at it attempted to wrench the door open.
And when Chris tried to accelerate the car and drive away it jumped onto the roof, and then fell off. When Chris arrived
home he was trembling with fear, the roof of his car bore a series of long scratches and the wing mirror was severely
twisted.

The massive media publicity generated by this incident led to many other Lizard Man reports emerging during the summer
of 1988, but the same could not be said for Lizard Man itself, who eventually disappeared without ever having been
satisfactorily explained. Another sighting of a lizard type creatures was on August 19th, 1972 by Robin Flewellyn and
Gordon Pike. They were allegedly chased away from the beach around Thetis Lake in British Columbia, Canada by a 5
foot (1.5 meter) tall, silver colored bipedal monster, with six sharp points on its head, which had unexpectedly surfaced in
the lake. A witness to the second incident, on August 23, said it was "shaped like an ordinary body, like a human being
body, but it had a monster face, and it was all scaly." It had a sharp point on its head and "great big ears."

Four days later, at around 3:30 p.m. on August 23rd, Russell Van Nice and Michael Gold could only watch in amazement
when what was presumably the same creature suddenly stepped out of the lake, looked around and then walked back into
the water, disappearing from sight. According to their description, it was humanoid in shape, but with scaly silver skin,
huge ears, the face of a monster and a pointed projection on its head.

In 1977, a State Conservation naturalist called Alfred Hulstruck claimed that a scale-covered man beast regularly emerged
at dusk from the red alga-choked water of Southern Tier in New York State. Five years earlier, in March 1972, two
policemen saw a frog-faced humanoid creature, about the size of a dog, plunge into Little Miami River near Loveland,
Ohio. In this same area, back in 1955, a respectable businessman claimed that he had seen a quartet of 3 foot tall (1
meter) frog-faced creatures squatting under a bridge like fairytale trolls.

Another longstanding tradition of scaly humanoids features the fish men of Inzignanin, near Chicora- an area sandwiched
between North and South Carolina. These beings were said to be covered with scales and had webbed hands. Most
distinctive of all, however, were their tails, which were as thick as a man's arm, about 45 cm (18 inches) long and relatively
inflexible, like those of crocodiles or alligators. According to local lore, they lived only on raw fish and therefore soon died
out when the area's fish supplies became exhausted.

In 1954 archeologists on an expedition along the Amazon River encountered a bizarre aquatic biped with gills and scales.
In November 1958 a Riverside, California, man driving in a car near the Santa Ana River was attacked by a similar
creature, with a "round, scarecrowish head," shiny eyes, and scales. It left long scratches on his windshield, and as he
accelerated, he hit it and drove over it.

Though fairly rare, accounts of reptilian bipeds crop up from time to time, usually in brief sighting reports. But the idea of
such creatures was current at least as early as 1878, when Louisville's Metropolitan Theatre exhibited the "Wild Man of the
Woods," described as six feet, five inches tall and covered with "fish scales." Presumably this reptile man was an ordinary
man garbed for the occasion, which was the culling of cash from the credulous, but nearly a century later, in October 1975,
residents of tiny Milton, Kentucky, north of Louisville, reported seeing a bipedal "giant lizard."

Both Milton and Louisville border the Ohio River. So does Evansville, Indiana, where on August 21, 1955, Mrs. Darwin
Johnson was swimming when a clawlike hand gripped her knee from below the water and pulled her under. She struggled
with the unseen grabber and managed to free herself, but no sooner had she come to the surface than she was dragged
down again. She was able to lunge at a friend's inner tube, and the thump she made on contact with it apparently scared
the attacker away. Though never observed, the creature left a green palm stain on Mrs. Johnson's knee and scratches and
marks for which she sought medical attention.

Northeast of Cincinnati, in Loveland, Ohio, along the Miami River, reports of more or less reptilian bipeds have been made
since at least 1955, when a driver returning home from work at 3:30 am on May 25, reported that he had spotted three
grotesque-looking creatures with lopsided chests, wide lipless frog-like mouth, and wrinkles rather than hair on their
heads. One held a spark-generation, bar-shaped device above itself. He watched them from his parked car for three
minutes before leaving to alert Loveland Police Chief John Fritz. As he did so, he smelled a strong odor reminiscent of
"fresh-cut alfalfa, with a slight trace of almonds." Fritz found nothing but was nonetheless convinced of the witness's
sincerity.

Nearly 17 years later, on March 3, 1972, at 1 am, two Loveland police officers encountered something comparable: a four-
foot tall, frog-faced biped with texture leathery skin. They saw it jump over a guardrail and descend an embankment
leading to the Little Miami River. About two weeks later one of the officers saw the thing again, first lying in the road, then
getting up to go over a guard rail. He took a shot at it but apparently missed. A local farmer also reported seeing such a
creature.

Bibliographies:

Clark, Jerome. (1993). Unexplained!. Washington, D.C.: Visible Ink Press.

Coleman, Loren & Clark, Jerome. (1999). Cryptozoology A to Z. New York: Fireside.

Shuker, Dr. Karl. (1996). The Unexplained. New York: Barnes and Noble.

Lizard Men