Thinking Sideways: Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp

a mock rry and this one sounds fun. Escape the room. Uh yeah. A lot of podcasters including us Thinking Sideways also up and vanished, Generational Why, and a whole bunch of other ones. So be there or be square. So go to crime con dot com then use promo code sideways twenty to get off your admission and we'll see you there Thinking sideways. The idea I don't know stories of things we simply don't know the answer to. Hey there, everybody,

and welcome again to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I am Steve as usual, joined by Devin Joe, and once again we have a mystery to share with you. Are really scary one this week it is this is this is a super scary one. Steve's doing his diligence to bring our numbers back down from week now. Come on, it's been a long time since we've got a cryptod. So I decided it was to do a cryptod. I got tired of talking about disappeared murdered people. Okay, okay,

that doesn't mean nobody gets killed. Yeah, you have to wait and see. In an hour they'll find out spoilers. All right, So today we're going to talk about the lizard Man of Scape or Swamp. And this was a listeners suggestion. It was suggested by Alex quite a while ago. Thanks Alex, Escape or like like land Apen, or like like like oars in Mineral. Yeah, just because it sounded like you were like skateboar, and I just didn't one way page escape whore swamp. I think, no, yeah, that's

a great type. I really did it scape Swamp And maybe maybe that was the original name and they decided to drop the w ah. I think it's probably. I think that's totally a type of autocorrect, if you will. Back to the story, though, this week we're gonna be talking about the Lizardman escapeboard swamp, which, as we've already been talking about, skateboard is a swamp. It is for those who don't know their geography and don't know skateboard swamp, like who doesn't, but in case you don't, it is

a swamp that is in South Carolina. And just to kind of give you some reference points here, it's about eighty miles or a hundred thirty kilometers south of Charlotte, at about forty miles or wometers east of Columbia. And it looks to me like from the arrows, it looks to me like it's actually like part of a river course. Maybe it really is. It is just part of a giant river course, is the best way to describe it.

Or it might be a backwater of a river or something like that, but it does it's not like a big square around thing. It's sort of sneaks around like it's not in a swamp or something like that. It's not that huge, No, not at all. It's actually not that big. All things considered, we're gonna be talking about a cryptid, and as always with cryptids, there are going to be variations upon variations upon variations of the story so I found a narrative and we're just gonna go

with that narrative. You will see variances all over the internet, so just be aware. Doesn't I don't know which one is right. We just grabbed one and ran with it. Yeah, a story, not a lizard. Correct. Well, you don't know how I do you marry search good point, lots of dead little lizards and departments come on. Our story starts in the fall of seven when George Holloman Jr. Was riding his bike near Skateboard Swamp. According to George, he was thirsty, so he stopped at a small creek to

get a drink of water. And oh, by the way, this was around midnight. Correct um. I said that the one that I read about this it was late at night, like around midnight. It was in the evening. I have seen variations of George's story, so I don't I'm not going to commit to a time. But George said that he was thirsty, so he stopped for a drink. He might also have wanted to have a cigarette, depending on

the version that you read. And by the way, George, it's a little late, I know, but you shouldn't drink out of the creek because even though it looks clean and clear and refreshing, well, probably somebody lives upstream. You know. There's a reason I didn't put that in my script, because I knew he would go straight for that little public service, and I was going to bring up cryptospridium

and Giardia. He stops for a drink and reportedly George said he felt like he was being watched, and he looked around and on the other side of the road he saw a green colored stump that didn't look quite right. So a green colored stump, yeah, So he said that he had decided that he was going to go over and take a look when the stump moved and then stood up, and what he saw was a creature that was over seven ft tall. It had green skin and horns or spikes depending on the version going down the

length of its back. And just a few minutes later, a car drove by, causing the creature's eyes to glow red. And at that point, apparently the car was enough to startle the creature that it turned around and walked away from George and into the swasp. How did it walk on two ft on two legs walking a person upright like a human wood. So I had George brought underwear. I do not know, because really that's that's the the end of George. I mean, George does not appear in

a lot of the accounts of this. No, he's one of the earliest accounts chronolog or he's the first if you take this in chronological order, he's the first one. But after that he does kind of just disappear. Actually, George, George was lucky too, kind of caught the critter in a good mood. Based on the next story that we've got, You're absolutely right, something about cars that sets this guy off. Maybe I actually there's a song about it that really

says that. But we are going to move forward in time again to a story that was told by seventeen year old Christopher Davis. Christopher Davis was driving home from work on the twenty ninth of June, so we're a year forward, and this was the this is the most this is the most most well known, most reported on version of the story. It was about two in the morning and he was driving home from work and he blew attire near escape or Swamp. He stopped and he

changed the flat. But as he was putting everything back into the car, back into the trunk of his car. He said he heard a thumping sound behind him, and when he turned around, he saw the lizard Man of Skateboard Swamp, which he didn't know that's what it was at the time about it at that time, but I think George the bicyclist hadn't said anything at this time. He had not. But so Christopher sees this thing running towards him, and not surprisingly, he jumps into his car

and tries to flee. He said that he jumped into his car and he shut the door, and he locked the door, and the thing went for the handle. At that point, he wanted out of there, so he turned on the car and he hit the gas and he drove away, and he said that it started to chase him, and then eventually it jumped onto his car, onto the roof of his vehicle, and he could see its fingers. Threw the glass over the roof of the of the car.

Lizard Lizard Guy was on top of the car. Yeah, supposedly he was doing forty miles when lizard Man was able to climb upon his car. I'm guessing that Christopher must have been then doing some evasive driving, swerving back and forth, and must have at some point managed to dump the lizard Man off of the car, because when he got home he didn't have lizard Man on his vehicle. But he did tell his parents what had happened, and

his car did have some damage. There were scratches on the roof and the driver's side mirror was banged up. And Chris's dad, yes, I was just thinking, how this sounds like a really convenient cover up for him having mashed his car up a little bit. We'll deal with this with um. So. So Christopher's dad, prompted by later reports of damage to vehicles, makes his son come forward and tell his story. And he doesn't tell his story

for two weeks. It's it's full two weeks later before Christopher's story comes out when he goes to the cops, and you can see footage of him, uh, you know, on local news telling his story. But when he tells the cops what happened. Here's what his statement is. He says, and I quote, I looked back and saw something running across the field towards me. It was about twenty five

yards away, and I saw red glowing eyes. I ran into the car, and as I locked at the thing grabbed the door handle, I could see him from the neck down, the three big fingers, long black nails, and green rough skin. It was strong and angry. I looked at my mirror and saw a blur of green running. I could see his toes and then he 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 where they curled around on

the roof. I sped up and swerved to shake the creature off. End quote, And as one of you observed before we started Christopher story, his is the most widely reported and the widely known version of the store or the end story of the Lizard Man of Skateboard Swamp. It's partially as Joe was talking about, we hear about him instead of Holloman because Holloman didn't come forward. It wasn't until this story and several others happened that Holloman hit came forward. I think that might be why people

don't give him as much credit as maybe he's due. Yeah, I can totally understand why he didn't say anything to anybody. Yeah, because you know, they think you're nuts. And of course I can totally understand why people would think, well, Halloman just wants a little attention and he sort of piggybacking on everybody else. Could have been that too, exactly. I had said when we were talking about Christopher's dad having him come forward, that there were other reports that had

prompted him to do so. Well. One of the events that had prompted him to make his son come forward took place on the fourteenth of July. There was a couple named Tom and Mary Way, and they lived in Bishopville, South Carolina, which is about ten plus miles from the swamp. Actually depends from the center of the swamp. It depends on the swamp is actually closer, you know. And yeah, that's why I rounded it is about ten plus miles. Just give her take, just depending on where in the

swamp the creator was. That morning, they were getting ready to leave the house and Tom went outside while Mary was busy doing I don't know what in the house, but he came back in and he told her to come outside and look at their Dodge minivan and the swat had to keep their car. No, no, he didn't keep their car, No, what did you do? The hood and the front of the hood was all scratched up and parts of it were pulled off. There were holes all along the front edge of the hood. Uh, you know,

like teeth mark size holes. The wheel well of the driver's side fender had suffered the same fate as the front of the hood. It was tore up and it had holes and scratches all over it. The molding had been torn off as well. The hood ornament was gone, and the in ten it was bent and reportedly, though I've never seen anything really concrete on this, reportedly some of the wires from the engine had been pulled out. I don't, I don't. I've never seen anything where somebody said, yeah,

it's right, here's those wires. Unlike with the footage of the van where they show the parts and pieces that were chewed off. I don't know. It's hard to say. I mean, it's it's it's impossible to do that unless you open the hood. Um. Now, the on the on the interviews that they've given, they say that there were tufts of hair and blood and footprints around the van, and that they had those taken in for testing and

casts were supposedly made tested them. Were these people and the cops supposedly took them in for testing, But I have never heard anything about them. And the only image that I've ever seen that maybe looked like blood on the hood of the van also looked like it could have been dried pay ain't. I don't know, but there's definitely there's the hood is definitely chewed up, and the

wheel well is definitely chewed up. I mean, when they looked at it, somebody's like, well, it's obviously that that an animal has been chewing on the molding of your vehicle. What kind of animal, well, obviously a lizard. Apparently, what else would do that? They do love metal, It's true, they do a cat. From from that point forward, there's a lot of stories of the lizard Man. During that year or so, there wasn't even a year. It's like a summer, like a couple of months over the summer

right there. There were some more, but it seems like the bulk of them were in a fairly short period, and like the summer of all. Yeah, there was there was some in the summer, then some in the winter, some in the spring, and then it really kind of started to taper off. It was about a year that

there was reports coming in. Now, the damage to vehicles really only happened during the summer because there were people who were parking around skateboard swamp and coming back to their car and finding it all scratched up and punctured. But that that only really happened during that summer from about July forward, but the lizard Man continued to be reported.

There were a footprints found around these vehicles and casts were taken of it, and you always see it reported is and the feet were fourteen inches long, which sounds big in theory until you think about the fact that I wear a size nine boot, and my size nine boot when you slap a ruler next to it, is twelve inches long. So they're not actually that huge defeat. They're they're big if they're from a critter like that, but they're not. But they're they're not gigantically insanely huge,

is my point. NBA player could have been could have been anything. Yeah. Now, the media went really really crazy with the lizard Man. They had a lot of fun with him, and they were reporting on him all over for a while. I'll but as we talked about things kind of died down, and then two years later, a woman named Bertha Blinders said that she and her children were were driving near scape or Swamp when a huge figure figure lunge at the car from out of nowhere.

And then after that there were sporadic reports, but you know, like I said, things had kind of tapered off from what they had been. In the summer of eight people were still reporting seeing the creature. Occasionally cars were being scratched up and blamed on the lizard Man. And just so we kind of get an idea, the reports are usually the same, They're very very similar to one another. They always report a creature that is somewhere between seven

to eight feet tall. They always say that the skin is green, greenish brown, brownish colored, like there's this whole green to brown spectrum that you see it described did people also said it was like kind of furry to you do occasionally see that always has three fingers and three toes with that. But that's a big staple of this story. Um. I think a lot of people might actually be familiar with the lizard Man of Skateboard Swamp and not realize it, and that is because of a

report that was made. Back in August, there was a woman who said she saw the lizard Man of Skateboard Swamp while she was stepping out of the back door of her church, and that she took a picture of it with her cell phone, and that picture was picked up by I would say, a very very reputable, reputable news source, the Daily Mail, our favorite, our favorite, And if you look at this image, it's I mean, this thing is buff, this lizard is this I mean, Marvel

and d C don't draw that kind of definition on their characters. Things just bulky and it looks like the incredible Hulk with a tail that even The Mail made fun of him. Yeah, I mean everybody did. But there was also a video that came out right after that of somebody who said that they saw a lizard man creature from a distance, you know, moving around in the swamp. And if you watch that video, it's just a blurry video of somebody way far away. And is it human?

Is it a creature? Like, there's no way to tell it really is. It looks like it's probably humanoid, But as far as it being a lizard man, you can't even tell how big it is or small or whatever. It's a little suspicious, so just a just a little bit, just a little so that in a nutshell, that's the lizard Man escape or swamp Um. You know, the locals love him. They think he's great. There's songs about him. There's teach shirts and mugs and hats. I actually gotta

get one of those. But but there's not a whole lot other than that stuff. Back in there's really not been any any really good reputable sightings. Um. You know, the the video is always crappy or you can tell they're really staged videos. I've watched some of them that looked like somebody had gotten ahold of a knockoff of the creature the Black Lagoon costume, and we're walking around in the dark. It's on shaky ground, swampy, unmussy ground.

You could say that. Yeah, I think, real quick, we should probably watch the video just to see what this guy looks like. So well, we're watching that. Let's take a quick break and then we'll go to theories. Now it's time for a listener mail. If we got an email here from Bob and Esta, California, Derek Team's Sideways, I would really like it if you would take at least six can talk about your sponsor Blue Apron. I

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That's blue Apron dot com slash thinking. Dude, that was so real. I'm telling you, it was the real deal. I gotta go change my underwear. Excuse me for a moment. Let's take a break. The subtimes the subtitle or of this episode is Joe have to change the underwear. That's right, constantly Joe's obsession with underwear. Are they uncomfortable today? So? I mean, are you okay? Do we really need to policy? You can change them? You know. That's a great thing

about these mysteries there is They're so scary. It gives me a great excuse to change my underwear, which I rarely do wash them. All right, well, let's go into theories. Theory Number one is that the Lizardman escapeboard Swamp is real. I'm sorry no. According to the Internet, a lot of people believe that the lizard Man could be real. Apparently something of the population of America also think that the moon landing is fake. So well, larger portion believe in

in Bigfoot. So I mean there's a lot of things that people believe in. And perhaps let's let's get back to the lizard Man. Yeah, okay, and then we'll talk about Shoopy later. Um, so let's let's explore this a bit. And I know that you are probably gonna have to do the same thing as I, which is set aside the disbelief because of the fact that, you know, you would think that something this big couldn't have gone undetected

for this long. But let's just set it aside. Yeah, I mean, they find like giant whales that have been living in freshwater seas all the time they have. They have found new species out there, although, like you know, usually that in the middle of the ocean two miles down or in the middle of nowhere where nobody is. I just saw the thing the other day where they found a boa constrictor that they thought had been extinct for fifty or sixty years, and they're like, what, what,

well these things are here. I'm just waiting for them to find the Dodo. It's out there. It's out there. I believe you find the Dodo and then it's immediately gonna walk into a fan book. Yeah probably Sorry, Okay, so let's put aside artic belief and listen to this. It's real thing. Okay. So, however, bunk it maybe. So if you think about it, South Carolina, it's not the most densely populated state in the Union. It's the four most populated as of the census, and it's a decently

sized state. So it's half populated. Yes, wait no, um and Skateboard Swamp is part of a tributary of the pad River. And if you look at the whole area, as Joe talked about earlier on the map, it's not like it's a big square swamp like it follow is a lot of waterways and courses and it it really ranges over a pretty decent area before eventually dumping out

into the Atlantic Ocean. Yeah, it's not it's not totally fettered water, right, And actually it would be a nice little highway if you were the sort of credit that was one of these mysterious big Foot like creatures that wants to avoid detection. It's a nice little highway to transit from one point from boy to point B because you're not gonna have a lot of people wandering around inside the swamp. Yeah, if you're shy and it's a

small population, you know, it's just naturally stays small. You could see theoretically how something living in that very specific micro ecology or something, Yeah, that that's a very specific environment could theoretically go undetected. And there we aren't talking like they came up from Florida through the Atlantic Osia. We're talking just this one specific little area. Yes, this is not Florida man strikes. I just want to make sure. Yeah,

they're they're definitely they wouldn't be a transplant. They would have had to have been there for they would. And also like the problem of them being both freshwater and saltwaters would be an issue as well for me. Well there so, as far as I can tell, lizard man isn't necessarily like you know, a swimming lizard as in its part time, you'd think it was a crocodile if you salt the water until it stood up. No, it's

more man than lizard. Yes, it is very humanoid. Yeah, I mean the accounts vary on the look of its face, like we talked about, you know in earlier it's got the red eyes. But the accounts vary from person to person is to what its body shape is. But it's always humanoid. It's just that three toes and the three fingers are the one of the common defining characteristics. After that,

it's all over the map. I should be noted. I don't mean, maybe you mentioned that not everybody has seen the tail that which doesn't mean that he doesn't have but not every witness reported him having a tail. It's very true. Not everybody says that. So either it's a rather small, stumpy tail, or it doesn't have one, or it could have been the angle they just saw from the front and didn't see the tail. Maybe I don't know,

but yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah. But there is the weird thing about the difficulty I have with this theory of it being real is there are no reptiles that are known to be or even appear to be humanoid um, even even the big ones, you know, I mean you think about like gators or the Komodo dragon, like those things can they will stand on two legs to to reach up to grab food, but they don't. They're not mobile, right,

they don't. They don't get around that way. So it's a little weird that suddenly we've got something that is human proportion in terms of torso and legs and our arms, but is a lizard. That's that's the weird thing is that we don't see this evolutionarily anywhere else. Do you see things like the velociraptor which was standing their hind legs but they're not humanoids shaped though, and the two arms and they were dying and maybe it's something like that that is some kind of weird hold over like

the turtle. It's still a dinosaur. But well so, one thing that's also interesting is and we I asked this specifically to be able to talk about this, is they keep saying it's got three toes or fingers, right, that's very rare in the reptile world. Most reptiles have five fingers and toesch hand so yeah, five digits. So, I mean even like crocodiles, even you know, chameleons have the like weird pinchey three things, but lizards have five. I mean, you know, it's really rare to find a reptile that's

got three, and so it's weird. I mean, if you see the picture that was taken, he's got three fingers, but he's also what has what might be a fourth finger, looks looks like actually an opposable thumb. I'm sorry, my mistake from that very legitimate my mistake, but still, I mean, even you know, four versus three verses five mean, yeah, it is a little strange. It's weird, but actually it's not unheard of. If you watch The Simpsons, they have

three fingers, that's true. The hard hitting documentary of the Simpsons Futurama also they have three Okay, yeah, I don't know. That just bothers me a lot. That does well. And also I've seen the I've seen a photograph of the plaster cast that was taken on the print, and it's um. You can see the heel on the ball. It looks more like it was meant to be a human rather than But we'll just say that most of the foot was okay, but then it's got four toes on it.

The three it's just three. It's that white cast, but they look like their wires with balls on the end. We're used to create the impression. That's the way it looked like to me, the toes to me looked like it looked like they'd used two large rocks to make the heel on the ball and then basically use like sticks, like because the toes that are remarkably cylindrical, Yeah they are. Okay, that's okay, Devins showing me a picture of another set

of plaster casts. So there's one that I liked at that were even different from that, and they were to it's yeah, yeah, there's there's and see that's and here's the thing, every every cast, if we're gonna get into the well, there's some problems with this being a real Every one of the cast that you see is different, like that, the feet are always different. And whereas one it looks like the toes are just slapped on top, the next one they look like they're dug in but

like they're pitched in the ground. Like it's really really really inconsistent, which if this was supposed to be a real critter, it should look somewhat the same. Now that you know, there could have been a family, some adults, some kids, I mean, And of course footprints are going to differ depending on if you're say walking or tiptoeing

or running, and they're gonna look a lot different. But but there's some general issues in terms of there's not even and to me, the one that I saw that had the toes that looked like they were made from sticks. They were cylindrical. I've never seen toes that were like that looked like that. Yeah, yeah, well, you know, this whole thing could just be a product of genetic engineering and manipulation, and maybe that's what it is. Is this is something from the isle of Dr Moreau and we

just don't get it. Well, yeah, I mean, is there like a large corporation and you know anywhere nearby that you know it's conducting hideous experiments and you should shoe. I'm ashamed of you. You should know better. There would be no way that we would know. That would be some secret organization being billed as I don't know, a gas provider or something like that. No, it's usually like a gas facility or like a plant or yeah, a telephone company, so it has a reason to draw huge

amounts of electricity and fuels. Yeah, but they've got a huge underground lab. Yeah, okay, it was. But I also haven't heard that the lizard man loves egos, so I'm not I don't think he's probably Okay, that's that's a good reason. All right. Let's move on to our next theory, which is lizard Man a total fake. Yeah, total fake. So this this theory is that, according to the theory, that this thing is totally bumpus, And there's some things about it that makes me think that it could be.

There's a lot of there's a lot of little towns around this country that have strange creatures that reside near them, and those strange creatures seem to be one of the things things that are economically keeping them afloat through the sales of T shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and any other paraphernalia that happens to have said critter plastered on it, but also tourism. Yeah, well that's exactly it is. That

it's you're selling those things. You're drawing people in, and drawing in just the kind of people you want to draw in, that's for sure. Yeah. And I'm not saying that this is done intentionally. Like let's take Christopher for example, Christopher Davis. I think that he may have believed that he saw something and then others took it and ran with it and then saw what a freaking gold mine it was. And that's why then people start adding to

the story and there's copycats. I mean, there was a guy who was caught putting on a rubber lizard man costume and eight like it, blatantly spoofing the whole thing. Yeah, I don't even know that that if you know the answer of this, But was anybody actually living in the swamp? I I know that there are residences in the area, but I don't know about actually inside of the swamp. I couldn't answer that. Yeah, I don't know that anybody could.

I mean, that's the kind of that's the part of this country where there are there are probably some people who have lived there for generation and are actually living in swamps and people yeah maybe yeah, maybe those people want to be like, you know, scare everybody else away

and keep them out of the swamp. Yeah. Yeah. And then and I actually kind of backfired on him because what happened is it generated all this interest and next thing you know, there's like there's like hundreds of hunters like going through the swamp, like trying to track down a hunt that shoot the swampman, and so all their privacy they wanted because they were probably growing pot or something, and all the privacy that they wanted, well, it just

went away entirely. And so there's no it's no wonder that the leisure men went away too, because they thought, oh crap, this is to totally backfired on us. So I guess regarding Christopher, though, I maintained that, you know, that's something I would have done when I was seventeen, if I had been like driving a little too fast on a back country road, popped a tire and run off the road and damaged my car. I replaced the tire, come up with a really convincing story about an alien

mutant dude he chased me. I wouldn't I would also not make up a story like that, But I don't know. It doesn't It wouldn't surprise me if it just happened that he did some damage to his car and was trying to cover it up. Yeah, you know, maybe he if he was drunk or stoned or something like that, and you know, went home. He could have been like, you know what, this is the best idea ever. My parents will definitely buy this, And at first they were

like no, but then other reports came out. What I what? What is amazing to me is that lizard Man if it's if indeed it's a hoax and it is all stems from Christopher's story. It is amazing to me that lizard Man became lizard Man based on the drawing that he made, because listen, draw what you saw, and what he drew was a three toed, three fingered thing that

looks like an alien, and it really does. It's got the bug eyes and the and the head shaped like it totally looks like it's a gray and it doesn't have the tiny little alien body builder version. No, it's actually not. His one was is kind of potato shaped with a tiny little head and real spindley arms and arms and legs, very spindly long arms and stuff. Not

not athletic looking at all. I have this great like this is a great little scene running through my head where they're like, alright, son, draw what you saw and he draws in and they're like no, no, no no. He's like, yeah, it looks like an alien and they're like, no, Son, you're crazy. It could have been a lizard, but not an alien. What color was it? It? Was scaly. Yeah, there's a lizard and that's just where the story came from. I'm sure, I mean, I'm just I'm I'm sorry. I'm

kind of making fun of this whole thing. I understand that, but but you know this, I mean, if we're in the hoax part, there's another problem with the whole story of the lizard Man, and that is that Christopher and subsequent people since then have said that the eyes glowed red when lights hit them. Then, well, it is surprising because most creatures that have eyes that reflect light, you like cats and dogs and stuff like that, it's usually a yellow or maybe kind of a greenish or in amber.

But red is not, like you know, the glowing red eyes. Red is not a color that formally reflects. Literally, just almost hit a skunk lass night, and its eyes were red as it looked at me terrified. Are you being serious? Yeah, I'm being serious. No, I was writing my yeah, ok, yeah, there's skunks that live in my neighborhood. But I mean, you know possums as well, they have little red eyes, but they're not red. They may be oranges, but they're not red. And this, this this story makes it out

to be that they were, it always says glowing red eyes. Okay, but in fairness, if somebody were like, what color eyes were that skunks, I would say they were glowing red. I wouldn't be like, I don't know, they were a subtle shade of amber, a red, right, I mean, like that's what I would say. I'm sorry that doesn't make sense, but I wouldn't. I mean, I wouldn't, and I know what a subtle shade of amber looks like. But you know, if you're scared, you say they were red. But you know,

the thing is. Christopher also says he saw this thing in his tail lights as he was driving away, which would make me think that it's the lights on the back of his car coloring it. The same thing with George. He said that, you know, car drove by and the eyes turned red. Could have been the tail lights again, and so like the just the the the the idea that the red eyes, that's that's really We're actually wrong about the color of this thing too, right, because they've

all it's only been seen in red light. So what color do you think he actually is? If you see like a greenish brown in red light? Color theory? Do do do? Well? Let me just pull out my handy dandy color wheel. You don't have one, not on my back pocket. Sorry. Okay, So I think there's some other actually better theories than there. Actually there are some other theories here or not. I'm actually managed to squeeze four theories out of this story. Yeah, this next one is

my favorite one. So the next theory is that lizard man isn't a lizard. Lizardman is another animal entirely. And I spent a fair a bit of time thinking about what George and Christopher had said they had seen, if indeed their stories are real, and the only thing that I could come up with besides this we talked about a little bit before of drugs or alcohol is a bear? Yeah, and South Carolina they do. And I think everybody knows that bears cannon will walk on their hind legs, especially

if they're suffering from like mange or something that's affecting. Well, the thing is, it depends on the animal. But you remember Petals. There was that bear and I think he was in California, was Petals or I don't member where Petals was at, but he was a bear whose front or front legs had been damaged in some way and the only way he could get around was to walk on his hind legs, and he walked everywhere like he

was known in the area. Well, and there was that only getting around that way, And there was that bear recently. It was like a really sick sun bear. And I think they were like, yes, and its skin looks kind of scaly because it was just like dry. And if there were a bear that had contracted something that was damned ng its skin pause included, you know, it would be walking around and on hind legs and look kind of scaly, but also have some fur and looey and

probably attack things that are big in its territory. And if anybody hasn't done this, so the bulk of this theory is that it is indeed a sick bear with mange. And if you have not seen a picture of a bear with mange before, it is nightmare inducing. And I want everybody to pause the podcast unless you're driving, at which point get your destination before you do this. No, just slam on your brakes. Why shouldn't you do that

to them? Um? But google image search bear with Maine and they are freakish looking and it is really scary, and I could see how something looking like that could scare the holy hell out of somebody. And in the dark, especially you know, if it's rab rabbit isn't the right word, but if it's angry and it's upset and it's cranky and it comes after you, like, I could see how that would scare the living daylights out of you and

you wouldn't know what you were looking at. And and and the black bears they have they're actually can they don't usually, but they can't get quite large. Yeah, it's it's not unheard of at all. I mean. And if you think about these things, if if there's one of these living in the swamp, well, I mean, if it's a bear in the swamp in general, we can look

at this two ways. If it's not sick, but it's swimming around in and brackish water, you know, sucky water that's full of organic material that could stain it, or it could it's for or it could just have that on it when it stands up to make it look greenish. And you know, animals can get stained by their environment. Did you guys see the cheeto colored alligator the other day that I put like that stuff happens or sorry, just to toss out there, um, albino animals do happen.

So if it were a white animal but be more prone to sdaining, they're looking dirty and weird. Yeah, I mean so so this does happen. Um And then you know, like I said, if it's if it's then actually got maine and it's in that environment and those things are affecting the color of it that would make its skin look that weird greenish brownish. They not look like bears when they have when they don't have fur, they just

don't know, they look like some weird nightmare animal. The only one that I saw that looked like a bear was an actual cub, like little eat bad cute cub. Except for also, like if you after you look at it for a second, it took. Yeah, you look at it and you're like and then you're like, oh, yeah, I know that's a bear. I see I can see

it now. I mean they really don't they really they can really be really scary and yeah, and if you think about the damage that was done to parked ours, if you look at the images of the that Dodge van that was chewed up, and then you look at some of the other stuff that was done. Like, the only thing in that area besides somebody having what's a really big what's the great like a Great Dane or

something that really had a chewing problem. A bear is the only thing that I can think of that could punch through the hood of the front of the hood of a vehicle and tear the molding off and chew up the metal like. It's the only thing I can really think of that would be able to do that. Kind of dog. I've never seen any dog, big or small, attack a car before and try to chew on it. Oh hold on, Yeah, Devon is showing us a picture of a car fender that is being chewed apart by

a rather large dog. I would say it's like a feral dog. Yeah, But but again that that's that's a fairly decent sized dog that windshield wipers too. But to go for the minivan m to get the hood like it did and to chew all that up, that's a taller animal. It's a weird angle for a dog to be up at. So yes, it could be a dog. No, I don't think so. I've seen the kind of damage

that bears can do. Two things, and they I mean they are strong and huge, sharp claws, sharp claws, although again I wouldn't necessarily say that it's healthy behavior from a healthy, stable animal. But again, if we're talking an animal that's suffering, um, you know, especially do weird things to try to relieve the but where they get confused. But I also they're hungry because they're sick and they're they can't really go out and do their you know,

feed themselves. Not yeah, I mean or you know, a minivan, Like was their food in the minivan? I mean, like I've seen apartment, you know, the front engine area. Was there an animal that crawled in there and the bear was trying to get out? I mean, like I've seen, like there are pictures out there. That's a good point because these people. If you watched the video of the interview of the lady, she talks about the what was

her name, I think Way was her last name. Yeah, But one of the things that she talks about is Mary. That's what it is. Mary says that she looked out the window and they had seven cats who all lived on their front porch, and all their blankets and pillows were spread everywhere, and there were no more cats. All the cats were gone, so that's a good point, Devin. It may have been going after a cat that had

crawled up into the engine compartment the high Yeah. It could also be that they converted it to run on like vegetable oil and they were getting their oil from McDonald's. It's not smelled like French fries, not in the eighties. Doesn't like French fries. That's a modern hippie thing, not a yeah. I mean, overall, there are a lot of reasons that this could have happened, and it's I like this theory a lot, especially again, especially with this timeframe,

to like in a six month year. I mean, you know, for me, what that sounds like is like there was a yearling bear who was out trying to like make its own little patch of territory territory, thank you, uh, you know, and he was sick and so he was there and then he died, probably because he was so sick, and so you know, they petered off. But that's you know, that seems like about the time of year where those

bears have to go off and fend for themselves. So I would explain why it wasn't happening really before and didn't happen. I mean, or it could have just been a bear looking for territory that happened to come through the area and was sick for whatever reason. I mean, there's a million ways it could happen. Even animals can go insane too, not just people that go nuts. Yeah, I mean, if you ever seen the poor polar bears at the zoos sometimes like, yeah, it's not happy. No,

except for the ones with the Oregon Zoo. Those are the ones I'm talking about. Okay, doak Well, we've done enough talking about bears. We've talked about lizards. Now let's talk about reptilians, because that's our next theory. Like the like the like the reptilian. Yeah okay, because now it's time to go to crazy town, boys and girls. Does anybody remember back during the election, before Ted Cruz was believed to be the Zodiac killer, he was believed to

be a lizard man. Yeah, okay, Well for those of you who don't, don't worry about it. You're better off not knowing. I just want to read you, guys a quote that's pertinent to this um quote. As twelve million Americans know, the U. S. Government is run by lizard people or to be scientifically accurate, reptilians who said that I don't know some people in the Atlantic because it's it's pertinent. Ye okay, well, I mean you know, twelve people,

twelve million people know this. It's gonna be real. Yeah, it's it's totally a well guarded secret. So as Devon has just still just let us know, there are people in this world who believe that our government is run by a super secret race of reptilians. The entire world is our governments, our human governments, our entire global economy and governments. It's all run by this super secret race of these reptilian creatures that live in underground bases all

over the world. And by the way, they're able to change their shape at will, so they are shape shifters. They happen to be about seven or eight foot tall, which is rather convenient. Um, and they've managed to infiltrate all of the highest levels of government and industry and that they're they're in control. Yeah. Actually they the documentary TV show from the BBC um Doctor who did an episode on this. Yeah, but unfortunately they don't that that

species that they exposed can't shift. They have to fit into space suits basically that are just human shape. Are the ones that have the weird sucker arms. No, well, let's let's go back to reality here talking about the real reptilian. Well, the thing about it is the I mean the reptilians too, they're not necessarily shaped shifters like say,

werewolves and things like that. If you're possessed of that kind of alien technology, you can have a holographic projector that can actually alter your appearance radically, Yeah, and make you look like a human view however they're going about it. They are changing their appearance from a seven to eight foot tall reptile creature cruise into Ted Crew Obama and Obama and Margaret Thatcher in the Queen of England, and that's why she's living so long. That's how she's lived

so long. Okay, So it turns out that the idea of reptilian humanoids, it's not it's not that old of an idea to purposes. It came about with the UFOs. Before that, like, reptiles were not part of any kind of really robust lore. There wasn't a real good laura around them. Yeah, it's crazy how conspiracy theories seemed to have only come around after we got really comfortable in life yet mass media. Yeah so so the it happened

around the forties. The UFO craze and the reptilians didn't really get attribute or reptilian creatures, humanoid creatures didn't really get the level of power associated with them that they we see today until the eight nineties, when a guy by the name of David Ike published a book called

The Robots Rebellion. Yeah. Now, for people who don't know David Ike, he in the seventies was a writer, and then through the eighties he was on the BBC on a couple of different programs, and then at some point in the eighties, it was right around the late eighties or early nineties, he had an awakening. Well, I was gonna say he took a turn around the bend, but you were probably putting it much nicer than I am.

He went on to another show at which point he told everybody that he was actually the son of God and that the world would end that year. Yeah. I he went around the band or he just decided there was more money in that kind of stuff, and as of today, the world has not yet ended. So I'm not sure exactly what happened there. Well, he's obviously a reasonable list. He's not the first person of predicting the

end of the world. No, he's not. He's not. But so apparently, what what Ike does is in the late eighties and early nineties, he starts talking and then writing about a lot of different things, like automatic writing and messages that he's he's he's getting like psychic experiences that he's having about that stuff. I've said on more than one occasion that I'm skeptical about that stuff. I gotta

tell you about automatic writing. Now, there's times I sat down, like to say, even write a script for this episode, and I'll a little later looked out at the page what I've written and is that's just a bunch of tasteless crap. Uh, you know, And so I know what happens. So to clarify what is automatic writing? Automatic writing is where you put down the pen and you don't try to write anything. It's at least the way I understand

automatic writing. And then your hand, as if possessed by another being, begins to write things where it says red rum, red rum killing your wife. You will get the insurance nobody will figure it out. Yeah, mailor this letter. Now it's okay. So I know I can tell you that mine always looks like gibberish because it's not actual words. Well it's worth it's just not in your language. So that's another being here. Dude, Ike starts doing this and

he starts having these experiences. Is he writing books in automatic writing? Because if so, I have a lucrative new business opportunity. So he what puts him on the map as he's doing this stuff, and then he begins to believe that there is a large alien force controlling our world governments. And he begins to come up with his theories about the reptilians and their shape shifting abilities, and

he starts writing books about it over time. You know, it's kind of like a footnote in the early nineties in his books, and then it becomes more and more and more. Yes, by the way, as a side note, have either of you looked at this is the funniest thing. I love Wikipedia sometimes for the drawings that are on there. Have you looked at the reptilian drawings on Wikipedia? Reptiliens for the reptilients I control? So don't worry about don't

don't google this, den I'm going to describe this. There is a reptilian creature that is a nice outline and got some gills, and then there's a humanoid man human man standing next to it in the same line drawing style. And what I want to know is why they decided that they had to include genitals on the human man but nothing like that on the reptilian. Reptiles don't have external because humans do. I didn't need to see the guys. It's the weirdest thing to include. But a lot of

questions about there's a lot of questions about that. But but I'll be honestly listen. I does some he says some things, he makes some claims, He does a lot of things, and I don't even begin to understand. I mean, I've watched videos and and reads a little bit of

his stuff, and I'm not tracking with it. So to give him his due and to try and give a third party explanation of what David I thinks, I've found something that is uh, it's a modified synopsis of his belief And so I'm gonna just read from Wikipedia or where is it from? This is from some other news

articles stuff it's a conglomeration of stuff. So this says quote I argues that the the humanity has been genetically manipulated by the Babylonian Brotherhood, a hybrid race of human extraterrestrial reptilians,

all so known as the Illuminati. He briefly in introduced the extraterrestrial hypothesis in his book The Robots Rebellion, and expanded it in and the Truth Sell Set You and the Truth Shall Set You Free, uh, citing some other books, and then in The Biggest Secret, which he published in I identified the Brotherhood as descendants of reptilians from the constellation Draco who live in caverns inside the earth. They are the deities known as the I'm gonna butcher this

Anunaki in the Babylonian creation myth accurate pronunciation. So why do they live with caverns? Do they like it down there? I'm guessing it has to do something with the fact that they're reptiles. I have no idea why they live in caves. Yeah, So the theory of directed evolution is not on. That is unpopular. There are a lot of people in this world who believe in directed evolution. Um. But this idea of of commingling evolution and that the ruling races reptilian is as as our fans like to

hear me say the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's a little guando crazy, it's super guando crazy. Well you go. You know, I'm looking for rhyme or reason here and there in their big genetic modification plan, because are they trying to make a smarter Are they trying to make his dumber dumber? Were we that we're we are sheep? We are sheep all my friend? Yeah, that is the reason that they are doing what they are doing to us. Now, what they are harvesting from us or getting from this

this venture of you know, cultivating the human race. I don't know, I haven't gone that far like stuff. Actually, I probably a food source, I don't know, not necessarily that it might be that they don't want to exterminate it because they would feel kind of bad about it. But at the same time they want to like sort

of negates as a threat to them. Uh, you know, admin humanity as a humanity is unlikely to reach the stars and colonized the galaxy and be a threat to their galactic empire and so it actually makes a lot of sense. They're being sort of humanitarian, but at the same time they're keeping us in our place and on our planet. But I can shed a little light onto the directed evolution theory the oftentimes people. The theory goes is that it's a um alien race that is otherwise

extinct in this world. So they came here um to try to cultivate a new kind of their species, and it kind of failed, but they ended up commingling or directing us in a certain way. But that those aliens are otherwise extinct in the universe everywhere else except on Earth. And actually, yeah, so the the reptilians who are basically our watchers are our shepherds. Yeah, but that like some sort of intergalactic war or something like that, it's made

all of the others extinct. But I don't understand one of the many their extincts here on Earth too though, because they've crossed bred with m Yeah, but they're still better than still bigger and smarter and fresher and all that yetuff sure, And that I mean, those theories usually come that, you know, they they the first interaction with alien was like Homo sapien, not the first little inkling

of a little thing of life. It was. Yeah, I mean, it's it's how a lot of people make the leap from like, how did we stop being animals and start being humans? Right? How did we get our intellectual cognition? Cognition? Yeah, cognition anyway, So that's that's kind of where people land a lot. So all you gotta do is to bring us back to our actual story of the day. Yeah,

well know the lizard man escape or swamp. The reason that I looked at like and his reptilian stuff is let's let's again suspend all the disbelief that we've already thrown out there, and let's say, okay, David Ike is right. Well, then maybe this is a situation where there was one of the members of that species, let's say a teenager.

You know, the teenagers are always not playing ball or something like that, and it is you know what, I hate those stupid humans, and I am gonna screw with some stupid humans and chases a human in their actual form, or maybe this is their way of playing a huge

practical joke on the human race. And it explains Bigfoot and the lizard Man of skateboard swamp and the chupa cabra and all these in the Mothman and all these other cryptids are okay, listen, you have a free pass for a month, take a form, pick it, screw with them, and then you're done it anymore. Alternately, they're the insane ones who don't get caught right away in then they're put down by their own species. Yeah, locked up. Yeah, they're they're hauled back and put into their you know,

they're there padded rooms. Well, if you think about it, it it could be a form of inoculation too, because things kind of accidents happen, your your little projector fails and suddenly revealing your true lizard form. Accidents happen. And so if you go out there and you create all these hoaxes like Bigfoot, lizard Man whatever, you create all all this stuff, that's who and so nobody is somebody actually sees you in your true lizard form. Nobody's gonna believe

you unless it happens on the floor of Congress. Yeah, and then you've got a really big problem. Yeah. But but otherwise I think those guys they probably like, you know, really really carefully, like check their little projectors. Well, that's why they have presidential aids, right, yeah, and and may

and maybe that's it. But the point is is that either this is you know, was it was somebody one of these creatures in the Ike universe having fun at our expense or breaking the rules and eventually getting caught and locked away, which is why the sightings of the lizard Man of Scapeboard Swamp doing what the lizard Man of Skapboard Swamp did in the beginning haven't happened anymore. So, I mean, I don't know that's that's but that's the way this theory is running. Yeah, anything to do it.

It was a sick yogi, not the same instance, you know, I mean they're the same thing happened every time. In one case it was probably a bear, maybe two, And then the rest of it was people made it up and they imagined it or they were like and like I said before, I mean, if you watch some of those videos, it is very very clearly a dude walking through the woods and somebody else is a flashlight shined on them as they're moving through the woods. Is so

blatantly clear. Yeah, well it's not that clear. Actually, they're they're so tiny in the distance like the guy that who the one in the dark with the flashlight that I'm talking about, that was very clearly somebody in a suit. Oh yeah, But like the one that was taken about the entre where he's off in the distance. It's like maybe he was using an older, crappier cell phone. He must have bad I guess, or somebody compressed that video to optimize it. It was when he took the video, right, yeah,

And so why didn't he like zoom in? Well maybe that's why it was so bad. Yeah, maybe have you ever taken a picture when you zoomed in on your terrible? Yeah, the quality definitely degrades. But I mean, especially if it's in the dark, which this one was not. This was a daytime video. The one Joe is talking about is the daytime I'm talking about is the night tipe. But he was not zoomed in. Yeah, yeah, not at all.

And I think the whole thing is is silly. So that's that's really you know, that's where the scales end. So I think what we need to do now is is take care of a little bit of in the show business. Here. If you want to read some of the links that we have for research on this story, you can go to our website which is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. On there we will have like I said, the research for this story and you can stream this or download from our website. You can do that with

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I've got here. Housekeeping stuff. Yeah, we're done. I think all right. Well this has been a soggy one, but we will talk to you guys next week. Bye guys,