CREATURE DUBBED ‘LIZARD MAN’ HAS TOWN ABUZZ

The Associated Press

BISHOPVILLE, S.C. (AP) - Some say it’s Bigfoot. Some say it’s only a bear. Others say reports of a creature standing 7 feet tall with red eyes and three-fingered hands are simply a hoax.

Whichever explanation one believes, there’s no question that stories about the apparition - dubbed Lizard Man - have seized this rural community this summer.

The reports began when Christopher Davis, 17, told police that he had been attacked by a creature while changing a tire in nearby Scape Ore Swamp about 2 a.m. in June.

He said the creature stood more than 7 feet tall and was black-green. It grabbed the door of his car, running as fast as 35 mph as he fled, he said.

Davis said he had swerved along the road before the creature broke off. "It was strong, and it wasn’t an animal, and it wasn’t a man," he told Sheriff Liston Truesdale.

As word of the sighting spread, hundreds of outsiders came to walk through the swamp. Reporters descended on the farming community of about 3,500.

Billy Moore, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department, said he had no doubt that there was something on the road with Davis that night.

"I believe he saw something. What it was I have no earthly idea. But it wasn’t no Lizard Man," he said.

Moore suggested that it may have been a bear. Or, he said, it could have been people stopping by a popular artesian well in the area. Others say it’s a South Carolina version of Bigfoot.

Cashing in on the interest, vendors are offering hats, T-shirts, inflatable toy dinosaurs and even "wanted posters" with an artist’s impression of the Lizard Man.

Truesdale has had enough. He said that when stories like the Lizard Man circulate, "a lot of people try to get publicity and feel important. We have enough to do without tracking down things like this."