This Paranormal Life - #195 The Legend of the Lizard Man

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

In the 1980's, a creature from the swamp terrorised the residents of Lee County in South Carolina. Cars were destroyed, locals were stalked, even church car parks were no longer safe. Today Rory and Kit tackle the Legend... of the Lizard Man.Patreonpatreon.com/ThisParanormalLifeYouTubeyoutube.com/thisparanormallifeTwittertwitter.com/ThisParaLifeInstagraminstagram.com/thisparanormallifeSecret Society Facebook Pagewww.facebook.com/groups/thisparanormallife/Edited by Kami Tomanhttps://TomanEdits.comIntro music: www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did robots build the ancient pyramids of Egypt? What happens if you put a silencer on a knife? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hey! Welcome everyone to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new case

and come to the conclusion definitively, once and for for all to decide whether or not that case is true or it is false. My name is Roy Powers. Sitting across from me is my co-investigator, Kit Greer. Kit, welcome to the dojo. Oh, shit. Should I be training? I chop your neck. It's a sleeper.

I go straight to the mat, to sleep yeah it's like i barely even touched you you crumbled like dust i'm pretty sure if we watch the camera back you were falling before i even hit you how you doing kid i'm doing fantastic new year new pod my friend we kind of faked the new year's excitement well we recorded a couple episodes in advance but this is really it guys whenever you're hearing this this is us recording for the first time in the new year and it feels so good it's the new year we're new men yeah i have a mustache now i didn't want to bring it up i have a full-blown mustache a lot has changed i mean i personally got married yeah since the last year but um i think the real change has been in you since this

mustache i think i've grown up a little more than that you became a married man i became just a regular man with a mustache which is better i don't know what it is about growing a mustache but i told you i feel like i'm smart now i feel like i can speak with authority about things i know nothing about i feel like the mustache it's i don't know if it says much about like book sports but it's definitely like wisdom yeah like it like if i was walking down the street and there was a guy with his bonnet open with his truck or something i feel like i could lean against the wall and be like car problems and he'd be like yeah can you actually give me a hand whereas like old rory mustacheless rory they would have beaten him up he would have buried his

head and snapchat and kept walking he wouldn't have stopped at all whereas now i'd just be like yeah i could probably sort that out it's probably something with the uh the carburetor bud light yeah i'm sure i'm a bud light you know just you make it worse you get bud light and all the electronics um it's a new year two new men out on an adventure into the paranormal one thing that hasn't changed is the fact that we like to get straight to the investigation let's go this week's case was emailed in by alex mcintosh and also julie papura our story begins in lee county south carolina on june 29th 2 a.m oh very close to the paranormal hour. You usually give me shit for not knowing the date or time or region,

so I'm very happy to be hyper-specific this week. It's only because you sometimes play it up and say it's irrelevant to the story, which I just disagree with. Silence! Christopher Davis, a 17-year-old local, was driving home after a long day of work at a nearby fast food restaurant. The radio played softly as he battled to stay awake at the wheel. It was just a short drive and he'd soon be home.

The car rattled along the bumpy roads of Lee County as the car carried him back to his house. But suddenly... Oh no, not a ba-bump. Bang! One of Christopher's tires burst. Jesus! He slammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt. Christopher threw on the hazard lights.

What the hell was that? Christopher got out of the car to assess the damage. Luckily, only one tire had burst, and he had a spare in the trunk. So, he began to swap it out. This is really where the mustache comes into his own. You know he's got a mustache. Oh, yeah. You think a clean-shaven boy could work his way out of this situation?

And look, this is a scary place to have your tire burst. What did I say? 2 a.m. in the backwoods near a swamp? You're going to want to have a mustache in a situation like that after replacing the burst tire christopher opened the trunk and tossed it in the back getting ready to once again start the journey home but then hello he shut the trunk and began to walk to the driver's seat then another noise it sounded like bare feet running along the road. Christopher squinted back into the darkness, trying to see if he could make out what was causing the noise.

That's when the car's backlights illuminated a huge, towering, dark green figure racing towards him like the f***ing Terminator. Holy shit, it's like poison ivy or something. Like a green figure. Christopher jumped into the driver's seat and slammed his foot on the acceleration. But it was too late. The creature leapt onto the top of the car, latching on with its piercing claws. Holy shit. Christopher swerved the vehicle side to side, trying desperately to shake the beast off, eventually succeeding. He watched in his rear view mirror as the figure disappeared into the darkness this is terrifying whenever you said

some kind of bare feet rustling about in the bushes at 2 a.m i thought there was some kind of pervert out there but this is even worse some kinded up pervert with claws that is trying to take his life, it seems like. I don't throw this term around lightly, but super pedo. Yeah. Is what we're dealing with here, folks, by the sounds of it. We've heard many legends, but we're yet to see the evidence. As I've said many times before on the podcast, the only pitter patter of bare feet you want to hear at 2 a. 2am is your own going to the fridge for some late night shredded cheese. Sure.

You don't want to be swampside and hear bare feet on a road. Yeah, I mean, even if you're in your own home, if you hear the pitter-patter of feet at 2am, you better hope you have children. Because if you don't, you better hope you have children or feet. Otherwise, you're in big trouble when christopher finally arrived home he had the chance to examine his car the vehicle was covered in scratches and marks as if the monster was trying to tear it apart the police were called that night and christopher gave his statement i looked back and i saw something running across the field towards me it It was about 25 yards away.

I saw red glowing eyes. I ran into the car and as I looked, the thing grabbed the door handle. I could see him from the neck down. Three big fingers, long black nails, and green rough skin. It was strong and angry. I looked in my mirror and I saw a blur of green running. I could see his toes and then he jumped on the roof of my car. I thought I heard a grunt and then I could see his fingers through the front windshield.

They were curled around the roof. I sped up and swerved to shake the creature off. He got a pretty good look at this thing. Wow, yeah, up close and personal. Which is great. If you're gonna make claims like this you want to have the details to back it up for sure absolutely i mean this sounds like some kind of horrible humanoid what do you say three fingers green rough skin yeah

scaly but still quite strong and any described as being angry which uh strong and angry i think he said a dangerous combination. The police were skeptical, but obviously they took the case seriously. In fact, everyone did. In order for Christopher to get the insurance company to pay for the damages to his car, he actually had to take two lie detector tests about the incident, and he passed them both. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I guess that does make sense if you're kind of claiming that the accident wasn't your fault you don't want your premiums to go through the roof the green pedo should be paying for my car repairs you know he isn't insured no naked feet 2 a.m he's not calling direct line um what year did you say this was again oh boy i was very specific so i think we do have a year here june 29th i don't have a year damn it i have june 29 2 a.m south carolina i do know the year though this was i believe 1988 all right yeah because it definitely seems uh i'm pretty sure that's the year it seems a little questionable that they are even using lie detector tests i don't know how much they

use those anymore yeah that's true it was kind of old-timey police and those chat shows where they want to find out who's the dad those are like the only times lie detector tests we're done now richard you are of course a 12 foot lizard man and the child in question is a 16 foot lizard boy i have never seen that boy in my life i've always been faithful to you crystal the second test was actually administered by a south carolina law enforcement agent who said he couldn't prove that a lizard creature had attacked the car, but he believed that the 17-year-old believed that his car had been attacked by a lizard man. Yeah, this is a fun little low bar to entry that we pretty much demand from all our paranormal

cases. We don't need the whole story to be real, but we need the witness to at least believe what they saw. Yeah. this is a great start it's a great is that so much to ask for that the witness believes it happened because you'd be surprised how many people say things that they don't even believe so what does he look like this strange lizard man i can't imagine i have to go into much detail with this one, folks. He's a f***ing lizard man. It really, there's not much to talk about.

I know that we're told as children not to judge a book by its cover. Sure. But Lizard Man. That's the cover. That's the inside of the book. That's the book. Every page is the same image. It's not like his name is Squiggles the swamp swamp weasel sure you're not like wow

okay so what does squiggles what does his hair look like where does squiggles go to to hang out his name is lizard man i mean recently we had uh sam the sandon ghost clan right i don't know what that is we had to go into a lot of detail about what he looked like. Even that name alone doesn't tell you that his eyes are squares. He eats berries through his ears. Yeah. You know, there's a lot to decipher here. He had a microphone. This is the lizard man.

He is half lizard, half man. This is beautiful. This is the heart of this paranormal life. We're back to basics, Roy. This is where it all began. A lizard man. back to basics roy this is where it all began i like yeah lizard man i think episode like three was the uh frog man or the frog man yeah uh goat man goat man donkey lady this is great now we're on to lizard man just in case uh you couldn't mentally picture this creature i have brought a

illustration of what many people believe he would look like. So here is an artist's illustration of the lizard man. Yeah, I mean, we truly cannot be more clear, folks. Imagine a giant f***ing iguana, but it's got pecs and arms and legs. A human body. That's really all there is to it. You could say a man body with lizard properties. I also, I'm not going to go into this story, so I feel like it's just worth showing you the evidence. Here is an actual photograph taken of the lizard man

by a woman who had just come out of church, spotted him crossing a field, and managed to capture a picture of him, allegedly on her smartphone. This one is highly debated. There you go. I mean, without even, before I even look at this, if you get attacked by a

lizard man straight after you leave church your prayers are not working you're in the wrong religion you're not being protected no one's looking okay this lizard man is strolling like Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man. He's got a strut. He's strutting on his way, it seems, to destroy a city in the Power Rangers universe. This is a man in a giant lizard costume. Well, actually, hold your tongue. Hold your lizard tongue for one second. Because, as I said, it is highly debated.

As in by me being true a megazord is about to hit him is about to right hook him if you've just gone to church you take two feet outside you see a lizard man walking across the car park turn around yeah turn right you obviously didn't do a good job unless that is the result of the sins that you have confessed in the church. Is that a lizard man is going to go hand to hand with you in a car park? But it should at least make you question things. Unless your religion mentioned that, you know, they're leaving stuff out. Yeah.

I kind of wish you could, that like sinning was almost like a credit card. Like you could pay bits off as you're living. So I don't have to just go to hell at the end. Right. As long as you settle the bill at the end of the night, you can drink as much as you want. So it's like, I don't know.

I, I freaking, I didn't pay at a restaurant. I dined and I dashed. I'll later that night, I'll fist fight a lizard man in a car park. That's my punishment. He'll beat me up a little bit.

I've paid off that sin, you know? And then maybe the next day I cheat on my wife. Oh, I'm so sorry. Maybe I got a... I'll fist fight another lizard man. Preferably the same one because I actually started to get his moves down at the end. And I have beef now.

And then by the end, it's just me sinning so I can go one-to-one with the lizard man. He's like, please no more. That it's just me sinning so I can go one-to-one with the lizard man. He's like, please, no more. That's his punishment for sinning. He's got to go toe-to-toe with me in a car park. He's in church. He crossed the road. He's like, God, you got to save me.

This dude's kicking my eye. Boom! Kicked down the front door. You lizard prick! I'm running down the aisles. You're still drunk off the bar you just came from. Didn't pay. Yeah, as I said, this is a highly debated piece of evidence right here.

Yeah, I mean, that may have been taken on Halloween night, to be honest. Usually a police case, even one this weird, wouldn't hang around too long in Lee County. But Christopher wasn't the only one who'd had encounters with this terrifying creature from the swamp. Christopher wasn't the only one who'd had encounters with this terrifying creature from the swamp. In the months that followed, there were several more reports of an enormous lizard-like creature terrorizing the locals by scratching and biting cars in the areas close to the swamps of Bishopville. Wow. Police at the time, although still skeptical, were getting an increasingly high number of complaints about the Lizard Man, even from local residents that they would have considered reputable members of society.

I want to point out, I'm not implying that I believe that people who live near swamps aren't reputable members of society. They were amazed to find when some of the witnesses even had jobs. The swamp has a radius for sure i think the closer you are maybe to the swamp the highest point being living in the swamp yeah if you're in one of those houses on stilts in the swamp yeah you're definitely not probably being considered by the police to be a reputable member of society Maybe a reputable member of the wizard's guild. Not a functioning society. Yeah. You know, they'll talk to you

if there are swamp matters that need addressed. Right, yeah. Eventually, the reported cases got so high that the police were forced to do some investigating. How many cases just out of interest would it have taken for you as a police officer to take a break from the ongoing triple homicide yeah homicides burglaries the burglaries the robberies the murders and put that all aside and say we have to catch the lizard man yeah it's it's tough isn't it

people are getting scratched out there that's the kind of case where you know maybe the mayor has a kid who wanted to join the police force and you had to humor him and kind of breeze him through police academy he's goddamn useless right he keeps burning the coffee he keeps losing files that's when you put jerry because he's definitely called jerry you put him on the on the lizard man case yeah that's actually a pretty good plot for like a movie or something you don't expect them to find anything it's the case of a lifetime it turns out yeah it's like the hottest one and now they're all like they need jerry's help to find the lizard man that's pretty i like that i like that day one for me i'm dropping everything i'm going out to the lizard man

it doesn't take much it wouldn't take much for me i'm pretty bored of the homicides and all the murder stuff i'm ready to catch a lizard man well we actually have a chance of solving this one yeah there's like three officers in the interrogation room with a suspected murderer he's just about to confess i kick open the door i need every single officer to the swamp asap we let all the prisoners go do not listen to him give the prisoners weapons we're gonna need, woman, and child hunting the lizard. However, I do sympathize with the idea that if you have swamp lizard men running around your city, you can't have a peaceful society if you don't address the lizard man.

Right, right, right. You know, even if they're just scratching cars, you have to shut this down. Suddenly the crimes of mortals don't seem that important when there is a half lizard, half man roaming the streets. It's like, you know, in those those movies where the aliens invade. And as soon as that happens, it doesn't matter what was going on at Earth. Doesn't matter like what countries were at war because now we're all at war against the aliens. It really unites us us i think that's where cryptids don't get enough credit absolutely they bring us all together hell our entire listener

base hate each other they're from all different walks of life opposite sides of the political spectrum but what we can all get on board for is uh wanting to see et'sT.'s blood. Run in the streets. Two weeks after Christopher's original sighting, the sheriff's department headed out to some of the areas the monster was spotted and made several plaster casts of the strange footprints discovered at the sites. Ooh, great idea. The plaster casts were of three-toed footprints, measuring some 14 inches in length. When brought to biologists, they were deemed unclassifiable.

Wow. In fact, according to South Carolina Marine Resources Department, the tracks neither matched nor could be mistaken for the footprints of any other recorded animal. Jesus, man. Scary stuff. 14 inches, that's pretty big. Those are big old feet. Big feet, huh?

And three toes. I actually have a picture here of the plastered cast, if you want to see. Let me see it. There you go. Okay. I'm starting to see why these were unclassifiable. What we have here is... I just want to say, you know, i've handed you a decent amount of evidence

in today's case and which i appreciate i do appreciate well okay well it doesn't sound like because it's i hear some laughing i hear some chud i love it i love it i just don't want you to lose your evidence privileges well i don't see why i would lose the evidence privileges you're on the you're very close to losing your evidence but you should treat this case with the respect that it deserves this is two ovals perfect ovals with three sausages on the end you've said quite enough sir give me that back okay i actually i would have think helped the investigation if i didn't see those you know what you don't you don't get the evidence nobody gets the evidence what do you mean it online. This just became redacted. You can't eat evidence. That's insane.

So, I don't get to see it. You don't get to see it. No one gets to see it anymore. It's online. You downloaded that from Google Images. Congratulations, everybody. It's a lot of paper. Don't try to eat it. You're going to make yourself sick. You can't see it.

You're clearly struggling. At least finish whatever you're doing and then talk. Because you can't talk and eat that much paper. It's thicker than I thought it was. Well, I noticed. You got it printed on what card? Well, because I wanted to frame it afterwards. Because I thought you were going to really like it.

I think because the evidence is so damning, it's actually hard to swallow. Yeah. I think that's what it is. It's so convincing, I can't digest it. I think you can't digest it because it's an enormous amount of paper. I'm just going to give you a second. I just thought... Ah!

Jesus. Now no one gets... It seems to be... Now no one gets the evidence. There's a lump in your throat. I don't think you've swallowed it at all. I think it's just stuck there. I actually have a lot more evidence coming up as well so which is a lot less believable than what we just saw do you have any sriracha

for these next bits i need some sriracha and some pepto bismol i'd settle for some garlic mayo at the very least just to use as a lubricant to help it down. Because some of this evidence is pretty convincing. I think it's going to be tough to swallow. What the f***? Oh, shit. There is a chance I may have eaten the second half of that page by mistake. So this actually jumps forward a couple years.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Shit. All right. You have one piece of A4 left with three sentences on it which i think one of them just says conclusion and i might eat that too all right so be careful what you say you're literally jerry in the police you ate the evidence it's the perfect crime no jerry you're trying to solve the perfect crime uh i think that might be a new low

for this podcast i ate today's investigation so we could almost not complete it carrying swiftly along now via my iphone with the news now out that the local police were running around hunting a lizard man it wasn't long before lizard fever swept the county we've all been there new sightings attracted tourists who were either eager to see this monster firsthand or try to kill it the latter may have been spurred on by the fact that local radio station wcos had gotten themselves involved you're listening to wcos radio Radio Big. WCOS. Been a lot of buzz around here recently about the Lizard Man. Oh, Lizard Man.

Locals saying he's got an appetite for a little more than flies. Well, I'm not sure I believe the rumors, but prove me wrong, listeners. If you can bring the Lizard Man to the WCOS studio alive, I will personally hand you one million dollars. One million dollars. Have the money, y'all. It wasn't long before hunters, tourists, thrill seekers,

and oddballs, lots of oddballs, were swarming the county, all wanting a piece of the lizard action. So irresponsible. You know that all the local lizard researchers were just like oh no yeah every liz is gonna be like a lizard apocalypse in this county any any lizard that even steps foot

in front of these tourists is getting stomped because you know that the vigilante hunters didn't listen to the bit about capturing it alive. I don't think they listened to anything regarding its size, strength, or anger. They were like, a lizard needs to die so I can get a million dollars. Yeah. Local businesses began selling Lizard Man t-shirts. The local chamber of commerce encouraged the media attention and said it was good for the community.

That's right. The days of lizard fever were good, but ultimately short-lived. As the reported sightings of the Lizard Man began to die down, so did the enthusiasm, and the legend of the Lizard Man faded into nothing. Wow, just couldn't pin him down, huh? That was until August the same year. A local airman stationed nearby at Shaw Air Force Base entered the police station looking disheveled. He walked right up to the receptionist at the desk. My name's Kenneth Orr, and I'd like to file a report on a violent attack.

All right, can you tell me who was involved in the incident? The Lizard Man. The local police gathered as he told his tale. Kenneth said he was driving at night down Highway 15 when he'd encountered the creature wandering from the swamp. Without hesitation, he drew his rifle and fired multiple shots at the creature. Okay, so this was an aggravated assault, to be clear. He maybe should have had some hesitation. This was an aggravated assault, to be clear. He maybe should have had some hesitation.

This is just post the peak of lizard fever, where the stores are presumably selling lizard man hats, lizard man t-shirts, lizard man cosplays. You shouldn't just unload into anything that looks remotely like the lizard man. The local police laughed off his story. All right. I don't suppose you have any proof of this lizard man? Kenneth held out his hand

and onto the tabletop dropped a handful of bloody scales. Oh my god! It was pretty intense. I mean, I guess he maybe even picked them up from the scene afterwards or managed to rip a chunk of his flesh off.

Jesus. Pretty grisly. Kenneth stood by his story of what happened that night for two days. After that, he was charged with unlawfully carrying a pistol and filing a false police report. He then quickly admitted that he hoaxed the encounter to try and keep the legend of the lizard man alive. That's all? That seems like a lot of trouble try and keep the legend of the lizard man alive that's all that seems like a lot of trouble just to keep a legend alive hey that's the question that we gotta ask why would someone go to all that trouble just to say oh it was just to sell a couple more t-shirts because

it sounds like he killed a lizard by the way which is a lot of trouble you you don't go from a promising career as an airman in the military yeah to putting that all at risk by filing a false police report saying you killed a paranormal creature yeah it's almost like when they got him behind those doors they were twisting his arm a little bit almost like hey do you want to do you want to walk away from this this precinct as the crazy guy who thinks they shot a lizard or do you want to walk away as the guy who had a little too much to drink and filed a false police report maybe they twisted him kit maybe they got to him in there and he walks out being like oh actually yeah i don't know what i saw i was just making it up so i could sell more t-shirts and when in fact he fought the beast

he went toe-to-toe with the lizard man yeah i. I'd like to know what kind of, you know, MIBs, what kind of suits were coming in and out of the precinct that day. Yeah. 12-foot, green-skinned, red-eyed police officers. Imagine that. You go to report the lizard man. They're like, oh, we'll just take you into the interrogation room here so you can tell your version of the story.

The lizard man's waiting for you punching his fist it's like do you want to explain it to your to uh this uh lawyer we have at the precinct um i feel a little bit like he's gonna be biased because the lawyer has a tail i can see his tail through the pantsuit so um i think he might be on your side or the lizard side he's a good guy he's a good. He just ate a fly out of the air. He got it with his tongue when no one was looking at him. I saw that, by the way. I saw you eat the fly. No, you didn't.

Right, you sound weird at the very least. You can't deny that. I'm from Canada. We all sound like that here. But the truth is that Kenneth didn't need to make up some story to keep the lizard man alive. The legend of the lizard Man was far from over. Flash forward, September 2004. A man called the police after he found the bumpers torn off of his van and deep scratches down the side.

Wow. November 2004, a local Bishopville man awoke to find his outbuilding was broken into and the food in the freezer had been carried outside, torn apart, and eaten. A set of huge three-toed footprints were found at the scene. Wow. October 2011, the lizard man kills nine sheep and four goats. The animals were torn in two and parts of each of them were eaten. In a twist that no one saw coming,

two different sets of lizard men footprints were found. Oh shit. Leading locals to theorize that there were two lizard men in the area. They've cloned. That is interesting because we're now across quite a time span of around 25 years or so that's true um not impossible though

for a lizard man they could live for hundreds of years we don't know exactly but it does sound like it's maybe at least one of the same lizard men but now there's more yes there's some kind of lizard community going on yeah well isn't it frogs that can reproduce asexually is that right do i have that right isn't that what the plot of Jurassic Park is? No, frogs can change sex. Yeah. And they clone them with frog DNA so that dinosaurs can change sex. I don't know.

Maybe there's some sort of cellular mitosis going on. Maybe these lizard men are splitting into two and growing up into becoming lizard legends. Who knows? In March of 2012, a man returned to his truck to discover it was destroyed the tires were chewed there were scratches on the hood and roof and something had even crawled under the car and pulled a bunch of wires loose the lizard man cut his brakes he's trying to kill him and take his wife or something he's using modern techniques now to bother people. He's going to start doxing people soon.

March 2012, the lizard man hacked a local Facebook page. The lizard man was implicated in huge scale tax fraud. He owes the IRS a couple hundred Gs. And finally in April of 2012, a local man said he awoke in bed to strange noises he looked outside his window and a large creature with green skin was kicking his dog he's just a f***ing asshole he murders some people destroys other people's property now he's just kicking pets yeah usually you know these cryptids they want to they want to eat they want to hunt you know, these cryptids, they want to eat. They want to hunt. You know, the Beast of Bladenborough, the Wolfman, the Goat Ladies. They have some sort of objective or purpose.

Lizardman's just kicking a dog, cutting the brakes in your truck, waiting until you get out of church with a baseball bat in the car park. I do love his non-commitment to, to like secrecy as well yeah yeah he's like not trying to hide whatsoever he's trying to be caught he's hanging on to cars you can't get rid of him you must it must be so annoying if you're you know lee county and all these other places have these incredible cryptids you got like you know the frog wizard he smells like almonds you've got you know the hoedag he's a cuddly little indestructible ball if you get stuck with the lizard man whose only objective is just to inconvenience and terrorize people for no reason i don't think he

eats humans i think he probably eats flies or swamp shit or whatever the hell he is doing out there it's so weird that he just wants to annoy people yeah i know yeah i feel like if this was some kind of um children's parable they would talk to the swamp man he'd be like oh i've just had a thorn in my side all along i've needed help yeah i was just acting out to get attention this is like if sock rats had sex with a lizard and i wouldn't put that past him he's done a lot of weird stuff and this was their child yeah an annoying evil little lizard man the local man said he ran outside with his 22 rifle and unloaded his gun into the creature whoa the lizard man snarled at him before taking off into the woods seemingly unharmed jesus he's

got that armor scales are bulletproof and godzilla armor there are so many more cases involving the lizard man they continue to this day in fact in bishopville and all over lee county he's immortalized as a local legend stores continueores continue to sell Lizardman merch. There's even a Lizardman-themed restaurant you can visit. I don't know what they're serving up. Flies? Fly burger? It's either fly burgers or lizard burgers.

Either one don't sound very appetizing. In fact, the Lizardman even has his own Twitter account. At LizardmanSC. His bio reads, Born in Swamp. Relocated to Bishopville. Shy and misunderstood. Love wrestling, NASCAR, and flies.

Why does this read like a Tinder bio? Currently single, but looking. Okay. I did actually go through some of his tweets. It's funny stuff. He's pretty good wow so he really is which kind of does paint the picture to me that i guess because he doesn't really kill and eat people yeah he's not so demonized he's kind of like a lovable nuisance

it seems like yeah maybe it's almost like a badge of honor to be like you wake up you're like i don't believe it the lizard man got my truck yeah that's that's insane like you won't you won't believe this friends down at the bar the lizard man got me and they're like no way i've been leaving my truck by the swamp for weeks now waiting for him to tag it if he's not really killing your immediate family and friends turns out cryptids can just live alongside humans. Here's a great tweet from him last year. Happy Father's Day to all the dads. I am not a father.

I have yet to meet the right lizard woman. Okay. All of my online dating has been a disaster, but I'm still filled with hope. Wow. So actually there's quite a desperate theme to this Twitter account. I was looking all over the swamp for my phone.

I thought perhaps I had dropped it in a creek bed somewhere i looked down and it had been in my claw the whole time lol really relatable content it's good stuff it's good stuff i won't say that he doesn't have i mean he has a human side quite literally yeah he's half man and the half man is funny it is i mean he tweeted as recently as this year uh when the coronavirus drama was going on and he tweeted for those asking i'm fine i have always practiced socially distancing i don't need any toilet paper with spring comes lots of delicious bugs but i'm also half man so if you could spot a brother a couple cans of beef-a-getty that would be great spaghetti stay safe it's great stuff i love i wish more cryptids had twitter accounts

yeah look that just about wraps up our entire case into the lizard man i'm full i couldn't eat another bite of evidence so i think it's time to come to our conclusions kit i took you on a journey today you sure did from the outskirts of the swamp to the swamp and back back to the outskirts well it's really a day in the life of the swamp man i feel like frodo himself what are your thoughts on the the tantalizing legend of the lizard man this is really fascinating stuff for and i really do appreciate um despite my rude laughing at every piece of evidence you showed me i do appreciate the the dearth of evidence that we've had today from photographs of the beast itself to photos of footprints and testimonials i actually brought you a replica claw of the creature as well

that I presented as evidence and then quite quickly had to eat. But we cut that from the final recording because it was like 35 minutes of me really just trying to eat this claw. We thought you had to go to A&E for a bit. It was bad. It was really bad.

So if you wonder why the energy was a little off in the second half, it's because I ate the claw. It was blood loss. And it's pretty fascinating that the police determined all the way back in the 80s that one of the key witnesses was, to their estimation, telling the truth about this whole thing. But that doesn't mean I don't have doubts in my mind, Rory. And, you know, when I look at that footprint, I go, this definitely doesn't look like any other animal footprint I've ever seen. But it doesn't look that real either. It also doesn't look like any other animal footprint i've ever seen but it doesn't look

that real either it also doesn't look like a footprint at all of anything yeah um it looks like a hamburger and three sausages once we got into uh the most recent testimonials and sightings um i couldn't help but think couldn't a crocodile do all of these things yeah that is one of the most popular scientific explanations is that look you live next to a swamp you live near the woods crocodiles bears maybe aren't known for being this unnecessarily aggressive especially towards just parked cars but whenever you say that the underneath of your car has been torn up by something with three claws and teeth yeah that's crocodiles and we started having to say that i guess the lizard man got down on all fours

crawled under the car and f***ed it up he's got a bad back too so it really would have taken him 45 minutes max um yeah i guess it's you know it's when you hear those stories, those testimonials where we know it couldn't possibly be an animal. When it is chasing after a car going 60 miles an hour and a eight foot barefoot creature is chasing after you and jumping on the top of your car, a crocodile isn't doing that. So true. And that is kind of the sticking point of this whole case. But as chief investigator, Roryory what do you think in yourself i think you know the the most convincing evidence that we have is all the way back in whatever year it was 1988 i believe with christopher spotting the creature and uh and having it cling to to the car a lot of the cases that have happened since then aside from some of the more dramatic ones where people are shooting him at point blank range and he is basically standing there like he's like the

mandalorian bouncing off his beskar armor yeah those you know you got to take those with a pinch of salt i don't think those people were ever put under lie detector tests um i think you know one thing we always look for in a case is could there be a motive as to why any of these people would be making up their stories and as i said the the local governors of commerce whatever you call them they all in almost borderline encouraged people to keep telling stories about the lizard man to sell t-shirts to sell merchandise to make this a place people would want to come and visit and uh you know we've we've seen it before with a lot of cases people like to go to uh certain areas because that's where um you know people saw bigfoot or that's where they have like the mothman festival

and the statues it definitely there is a there is a monetary gain to having a cryptid resident in your county for sure especially when you have all else going on yeah it's like exponential the amount of money you can make uh so it's tough i think um when i heard and found the photographs of the clay plasters that had been made of the the actual claw prints in my head i was thinking like a godzilla style big dirty footprint you know super yeah detail you could see the claw marks scales if you see the pictures guys of these uh these plasters it's just not there it's just not i would love to show us all again what they look like of course i can't i ate it um so that evidence has been redacted but maybe i can tweet a link and

then i'll delete the tweet or print the tweet out and then eat the tweet of course look i think it's safe enough to say unfortunately this week although i do love this asshole lizard uh he truly is one of the best cryptids i've had fun investigating but i'm not 100 convinced that he is real so this week unfortunately is going to be a no from me i like his attitude i like his gumption but i'm just not sure he's real either it's a no he kind of he gives off the vibe of someone who like a like a washed up old man who has been roped into being santa claus and he's like there the beard's down and he's got like a cigarette in his mouth like the five o'clock shadow whatever it is that's the that's the energy that's person there, the beard's down and he's got like a cigarette in his mouth. Like the five o'clock shadow, whatever it is.

That's the, that's the energy that's personified in the lizard man. Yeah. Sometimes he wants to run after you on a highway. Sometimes he's just going to go kick a dog. Yeah. And then go back into the swamp and have a cigarette. Yeah. Sometimes he's tired.

Yeah. He's got like a brown bag with whiskey. He's just swigging it. Like, whoa, freaking out kids and stuff. They're just like, aren't you the lizard man he's like yeah punk bitch like walking around kicks their bikes yeah he's really a relatable 2020 cryptid in that way i like it yeah you know 2020 has been a hard year on cryptids as well a lot of people staying indoors there's not a lot of people to to mess with yeah and those who are outdoors probably deserve to be messed with.

So they're doing the Lord's work. Their industry suffers too. Unfortunately, a double no, but thank you so much to everyone for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. I had a ton of fun investigating the lizard man. I would, of course, love to thank the two people who i mentioned at the start of the podcast who sent in that email suggestion but i have since eaten the pages that mention their name i will not be able to shout you out again thank you very much if you have your own case that you would like us to investigate whether it's one that you just heard about online or one

that you experienced firsthand you're going to want to send an email over to this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com that's where we take a look at all the emails that come in and make informed precise laser sharp decisions by closing our eyes and clicking an email at random deciding what we're going to investigate next week if you're a fan of the show and you just can't get enough of that paranormal goo you want to hear what the lizard man you just can't get enough of that paranormal goo, you want to hear what the Lizardman does on the weekends, you want to go on over to Patreon.com. Which is surprisingly sexy. It's pretty sexy.

There's a reason he stays in the swamp. It's a pretty fun place to be if you're a Lizardman. If you want to hear all about the sexy swamp times head on over to patreon.com where from as little as five buckaroos a month you can get access to a whole ton of bonus episodes we have over 30 additional investigations that from the moment you subscribe you have full complete access to uh if you've caught up with the show or maybe you just want to hear uh some of these weirder more experimental episodes check them out we just rory what did last month's bonus episode sound like oh we're gonna do a we're gonna do a clip i just would love to hear

just last month's in particular i really feel like it might push me over the edge into becoming a patron if i could just hear a clip like a second of it all right cool yeah it was great uh so on the patreon as i said that uh you can get that you can get t-shirts you can get a bunch of other stuff why are you looking at me i just really feel i mean the t-shirts and all are great but if i could just get a little little clip a little of last month's episode just what he's trying to say just i just like a little what's this little morsel of last month's episode just give me an episode give me a clip right sorry play a clip from the from the episode okay yeah that's actually really that's a smart idea if you

were interested in in what those episodes are like here is a clip boink i got you bro don't worry about it play it all right sorry here's a clip from from a last month's bonus episode shannon robinson says does rory really take a poetry class or did he ever uh that's a great great question shannon i believe you're referring to a comment made in one of our more recent episodes where i said about the poetry classes, which I'm actually quite passionate about. It was relief, and it was to help me with my pretty dangerous gambling addiction. Yeah.

Yes, there was a joke flying around that all of my poems are about gambling. And it's not true. It's simply not true. Not all of them. Most of them. Sure. Sure, a whole bunch of them.

But yeah, you know what? F*** it. I'll do one right off the top of my head right now. Yeah, f*** it. Let's go. Let's put the practice into into effect into effect um okay listening let's go do you want a um haiku do you want a haiku sir yeah no that was the first line do you want a haiku sir how many is that am i over Am I over already? I don't know. One, two. What the f*** is a haiku? So, first line, do you want a haiku? Second line, do you want a haiku, sir?

Yeah. Last line. Hit me. That's the last line. It was unfathomable that you could fit gambling into that haiku, and yet you did. Hit me. But if we want to go with the traditional 5-7-5, I'm going to have to tweak it a little bit.

So the first line is, you want a haiku? Do you want a haiku, sir? Hit me. Hit me, please. So if that actually... As you can see, Roy has been going for months to a poem poetry class.

And it's really paying off. A little poem by roy powers called poker face next question called putting it all on black i hope you like that little clip i know kid did um yeah it was all right if you sign up for patreon uh and you sign up to the t-shirt tier make sure you complete the google form uh that we send over to you once you sign up you can put in your sizes your address and everything so we can get your shirt sent out to you asap pronto and once again thank you for listening to this week's episode onto the lizard man of course we will be

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