Lizard Man Museum (Bishopville, SC)

In 1988, 17-year-old Christopher Davis was fixing a flat tire at 2:00 AM when he encountered The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp, a seven-foot-tall reptilian humanoid. Here is Davis's account of the evening according to a document at the South Carolina Cotton Museum in Bisophville:

"The moonlight was out. I turned around and saw a red-eyed devil." So stated Christoper Davis. About 2 a.m. he had a flat tire along the road next to Elmore's Butter Bean Shed on Browntown Road in Lee County, South Carolina. Mr. Elmore had been harvesting butter beans and learned that someone or something was staling his butter beans.

"I had finished changing the tire and was putting the things in the trunk," Christopher said. "I turned around and saw a red-eyed devil." He was about 30 yards from me, in the field. It had real long arms. When he would run, his arms would swing. I ran to the driver's side and got in. When I was sitting in the car I saw him from the neck down. I pulled off and after about 2 yards he jumped on the roof. I could see the creature's three-fingered hand through the windshield. I saw hands, rough-looking, black-fingernailed hands. After he jumped up on the car, he grunted. A deep grunt. He grunted one time. The creature fell off."

Granted, when you look at this with a skeptical eye, it reads like the worst teen excuse ever to explain a missed curfew. Red eyes? Black fingernails? Butter beans? Nevertheless, casts of the Lizard Man's footprints were taken from the swamp and you can still see them at the Cotton Museum.

Additionally, a t-shirt cottage industry sprung up as more and more sightings occurred during that summer.

With a $1,000,000 bounty on his head, the Lizard Man went into hiding near the end of the summer. While you hear a national news story every few years, for the most part, if you want to catch a glimpse of the The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp, your best bet is to make a visit to the South Carolina Cotton Museum in Bishopville.