The Lizard Man of South Carolina

Searching the Web for "lizard man" will most likely give you The Lizardman, a sideshow performer, or it will give you the Lizard Man, a humanoid cryptid that seems to have resurfaced recently.

The cryptid in question is described as being seven feet tall with scaly skin, glowing red eyes, and three fingers on each hand. Alleged footprints are three-toed. Without going too deeply into the back story (which is explained by the link above) I can't help but see the resemblance to the reptilian humanoids or the Reptilians that pop up a lot in conspiracy theories and UFO lore. As it happens, lizard people pop up rather often in regards to the paranormal as can be seen by this search on paranormal.about.com.

I can't help but find myself wondering if the Lizard Man might be an extraterrestrial or an extradimensional, assuming it's not a hoax or misidentification. Considering how it likes to maul automobiles, the only thing that it could be besides an actual seven-foot-tall lizard would be a bear. I'm not really sure how someone could misidentify a bear to such a degree but I suppose anything is possible in the dark.

If this is a bear, I suppose one would also have to ask why it likes to destroy automobile fenders. Bears and other animals have been known to break into cars to get at some food that's inside, but I'm not sure why a bear would bite through the chrome bumpers or other outlying metal parts of a car. It just seems exceptionally odd to me. Even in the case of a Lizard Man biting the cars it's still very odd.

A humorous bit of speculation I have to offer is that perhaps this Lizard Man is a stranded alien and it is attacking cars in the hopes of salvaging material to repair whatever it used to get here in the first place. Not understanding Earth technology, all it manages to do is result in repair bills and scary stories for the people that encounter it. So then it sulks off, homesick, waiting to try again another night or perhaps hoping that someone will send a damn rescue mission. This is the stuff of science fiction, but if there really is a Lizard Man running around South Carolina and attacking cars in incidents decades apart then why else would it be doing it? I suppose the creature could just not like cars.

Anyway, here's a recent article from the Huffington Post that suggests the Lizard Man may be back:

Lizard Man Reportedly Mauls And Bites Through South Carolina Couple's Car

My final verdict on the mysterious creature in Kentucky.

With some input from a friend and further inspection of the photos, I'm convinced that the creature I discussed in this post is a hairless opossum, probably the victim of the same kind of severe mange that is causing coyotes to be confused with the Chupacabra in other places.  I'm hoping that some official identification will be made by a professional, but I honestly don't expect to hear much more about this.  In case we do ever get an answer, I decided to put my judgment here for the record.

Mysterious Creature in Kentucky

Mysterious creature found in Nelson County

It looks like another mangy forest creature to me and not a Chupacabra or anything like that.  If I had to take a guess, I'd say it looks like a hairless raccoon and not a bloodthirsty killer of livestock.  No doubt the poor critter is strange looking, but I really don't think it's that much of a mystery.

Lately, whenever a hairless creature that's not immediately identifiable turns up it seems to be labeled as a Chupacabra or some other monster.  It's interesting to note that the original descriptions of the Chupacabra don't match the appearances of these creatures very well at all.

UPDATE: Strange creature in Louisiana is viral marketing.

A friend tipped me off to the fact that the strange creature in Louisiana that various media outlets have been reporting on (and which I did a blog post about a couple of days ago) is a viral marketing image for an upcoming Playstation 3 game.  I knew that the image was too good to be true and I'm glad to see it outed so soon.

Creepy Resistance Viral Spooks Media

Strange creature in Louisiana?

There is growing buzz about a picture taken with a hunter's trail camera that shows what appears to be an unearthly creature in the Louisiana woods.  You can get the story here and here.  Naturally, this kind of thing stirs controversy.  Is it real?  Is it a hoax?  Is it a misidentified animal or human?

When I first saw this last night I thought that the backstory was extremely suspicious.  The camera was allegedly destroyed but the data card survived and the hunter wished to remain anonymous.  This alone was enough for me to want to write the whole thing off.  I'll just come out and say that I don't think it's legitimate.  I want more details on the whole thing before I believe there's a ghoul stalking the woods of Louisiana.

Maybe someone with some photo manipulation experience would like to take a look at the photo?

Eastern and Western Monsters Are Surprisingly Similar

Boo! Chinese & European Monsters Strangely, Eerily Similar 

In light of this information I would like to pose a question.  Are the monsters of different cultures so different because of some complex psychological aspect of humanity or because these creatures actually existed (or still do exist)?

To the present day there are sightings of Bigfoot-like creatures all over the world, from the United States to Russia to China.  Dragons are another cross-cultural cryptid.  It seems that if Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch is an actual creature then it still exists in remote places, but what about dragons?  Did they exist at one time and went extinct?  Were they just figments of our imaginations?  Maybe the legends of dragons actually come from large lizards left over from the age of the dinosaurs such as the creatures reported in remote parts of the African jungles.

What I’m getting at is that we should consider why such different cultures have such similar monsters.  Are we wired to invent the same creatures or did these things actually terrorize us in the distant past?  Personally, I think it could go either way.  The similarities are definitely eerie.  What do you think?