Status: Unverified — the main witness's account changed over time and a skeptical investigator calls it implausible; the cause of the car damage is unknown.
About the pin: Pinned in Bishopville; the reports were around the swamp east of town.
Credit: João Pedro Federal / Wikimedia Commons · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
In July 1988 the Lee County sheriff's office investigated a report of a car damaged overnight at a home near Bishopville, South Carolina, at the edge of Scape Ore Swamp. The car reportedly had tooth marks, scratches, hair and muddy footprints. Soon a 17-year-old local reported that a creature, which he described as green, about seven feet tall, with three fingers and red eyes, had attacked his car.
The story ran in more than 100 newspapers. A radio station offered a $1 million reward for capturing it alive, and tourists and hunters came to the area. An airman filed a report that he had shot the creature, but two days later he withdrew it when he was arraigned for carrying a pistol and filing a false report.
The researcher Ben Radford says the main account changed from telling to telling and does not hold up, and another investigator suggests the teenager may have seen a local farmer guarding his shed. A religious-studies professor notes the pattern: a strange sighting, media attention, more sightings, then curious tourists.
Sources: Wikipedia: Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp
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