you are now listening to cryptid cocktail party
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of
Crypto Cocktail Party, a show where we have a
few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive into
the unknown. I'm your host, Dave, joined as always
by my wonderful co -host, Sarge. But today we
also have two very special guests. We have the
hosts of A Better Way to A podcast. And I'll
let you guys introduce yourselves just so that
way the listeners know whose voice is whose.
So whoever wants to go first, fucking have at
it. I'm Andrew from The Better Way to A podcast.
And I'm Jordan. First of all, that. intro fucks
holy shit that was fucking holy shit we gotta
talk to a tractor boy and tell him we gotta we
gotta get something harder for ours because that
was that was i got pumped up right that's uh
that's my my buddy's band killed by a yeti out
in arizona yeah no relation whatsoever that's
no they just uh he wrote that custom just for
us uh out of the kindness of their hearts so
well i mean he could be related to a yeti i have
seen his beard Yeah, he's a hairy, hairy man.
Andrew Jordan, how are you guys doing? Doing
well, man. Doing well. This is actually the first
time Andrew and I have been back on a podcast
in a minute because we've got a bunch of pre
-recorded ones that we're airing now, so it's
nice to see your face. Nice to see you guys.
I know. I feel like we don't talk anymore. We're
so busy. Because everything's in group chats.
Everything just exists in group chats. I'm glad
we could be the thing that brings you guys together.
I mean, I don't know if this will be fun or anything.
This is also, I want to say, the most on time
I've been for a recording in maybe six months.
Nice. Easily. Easily. Well, I appreciate it.
And Sarge, how are you doing, Sarge? I feel fat,
Dave. I feel fat. I ate a lot over the last many
days. Yeah, it's just that time of year. I'm
already fat, but I'm fatter. Get on that GLP
-1, that bootleg GLP -1. I'm going to get on
the real stuff. Apparently, the VA is hooking
me up. Oh, cool. Hell yeah, brother. That's good
shit. Makes me bleed out my asshole, but other
than that, it's great. I'm fine with it. I don't
use it for anything else. No, it's crazy. My
blood pressure is better. My body odor changed.
uh and is like less stinky um my impulse control
is better this stuff might actually be a miracle
drug honestly well i'm excited to get on it because
i am a sweaty fuck so yeah it's gonna help with
that it helps me with my sweatiness also not
all the way because i'm extremely damp but yeah
i'm permanent but it did help extremely damp
andrew's a moist guy he's like a wet wipe 24
critical for real I'm not going to lie. Talking
about being damp and wet is kind of a good segue
into the episode. Getting into Dave's kinks now.
I thought this was going to be a sponsor segue,
but no, this is the cryptid. The cryptid is wet.
The cryptid is a damp cryptid. Not a sponsor,
just a fan. But before we get into it, I guess
we ask this to any guest. Andrew Jordan, are
you guys cryptid guys at all? Is that your kind
of vibes? I definitely, you know, I think like,
um, I'm, I fall somewhere between a skeptic and
believer, you know, um, you know, I try, I try
to mostly believe what I can see, but I've had
some like weird encounters. Right. So there's
whenever someone's like telling me about like,
um, like I love the fictional side of cryptids.
I love like made up stories and like myths and
legends and stuff, but I also kind of hold out
like a little bit of space for believing like
firsthand stories, not like believing them outright,
but, but, you know, giving them, you know, the,
just, you know, the little bit of respect that
like, you know, there could be something out
there. Right. Yeah. That's kind of, that's, that's
kind of like our stated, like we don't believe
every story, but we do believe that the people
believe that they saw something or they. Yeah,
for sure. Experience something they can. can't
explain because i feel like if you just go in
a whole hog being like fuck you you're an idiot
kind of defeats the purpose of like yeah it's
not fun yeah it's not fun that's not nice no
i mean no but there are some stories where you're
like this come on now you can't yeah there's
some stories where it's like okay you're you've
clearly got a A long medical history. Yeah. No,
aliens did not come and tell you in perfect English
that your ancestor was Napoleon and then massage
your prostate until orgasm. Like, no, I don't
believe you. If we weren't supposed to do it,
it wouldn't be in our ass. And what about you,
man? Is this something that you're into? Dude,
as somebody who loves sci -fi stuff, like I love
sci -fi movies. I love sci -fi books. um i want
to believe i am like i believe in aliens i 100
believe in aliens and i think like if i'm going
to say that i believe in aliens then i have to
leave room for the possibility that there are
things on our own earth that are inexplicable
or that we we just don't have the information
like i we don't even know about we don't even
know all there is to know about our ocean and
like that to me is like absolutely wild so there's
got to be shit that we miss elsewhere too or
shit that like is rare and and you know comes
up with these stories yeah and also the ocean
is way more terrifying than any cryptid could
ever be yeah the ocean's insane yeah it's literally
insane oh did we lose andrew or what's going
on No, I just had to mute my microphone. I felt
a sneeze coming on and I got boogers all over
my face. Just give me a second. Andrew's like
a, Andrew's a toddler with children. I'm leaving
that in. I love you, Andrew. All right. So this
story that I'm going to tell you is, is I'm not
going to, I usually do like a whole preamble
about it. I'm not going to do that because there's
a lot to go through. But the story is pretty
much got everything. It's got. the rural South
in the 1980s, which I'm sure it was an awesome
time. It's got seven foot tall reptilian. We're
going to be talking about the lizard man of scape
or swamp. Is this anything that either any of
you guys have ever heard of? No, I've heard of
reptilians and lizard people. And, you know,
I've met a lot of like, usually on our side of
the, uh, the, the content. It's not a David Icke
episode. I was going to say, this isn't going
to be a David Icke reptilian people are Jews
thing. It's not. We gathered that you weren't
largely anti -Semitic. We do kind of check people
out sometimes. Is there an anti -Semitic aspect
of reptilian overlords? Yes. Very much so. Oh,
no. Yeah, like, I didn't know either until I
watched a couple of deep dives on, like, David
Icke and that whole, like, group. And essentially,
like, they all use the code words, like... the
Rothschilds and the Bilderberg group. And it's
literally all just coded language. It's a way
of saying Jews without saying Jews. Yeah. It's
David Icke uses reptilians the same way that
Alex Jones uses the globalists. Yeah. Oh man.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. I did not think I was. Wasn't
David Icke the one who came up with the reptilians?
I feel like he was. Yeah. Yeah. So our story
has nothing to do with that. I promise. I promise
this is going to get weird. Yeah, so our story
kicks off on the morning of July 14th, 1988 in
the rural area of Browntown, just outside of
Bishopville, South Carolina. I'm going to take
you downtown to Browntown. Did you say Browntown?
That's a real place? Yeah. Browntown's kind of
like a, it's not like the name of a town. It's
kind of like how Boston or Philly has neighborhoods.
Okay. Because for me, Browntown's a state of
mind. Like pretty much right after I have Taco
Bell. Anywhere I wind up is Browntown. Browntown's
a vibe. Sometimes it's a public restroom. Other
times it's somebody's backyard. Sometimes it's
an intimate encounter at a truck stop. But anyways,
we're already so far off the rails. I haven't
even got to the first paragraph yet. All right.
Tell us what happened in Browntown. All right.
So it was the morning of July 14th, 1988 in the
rural area of Browntown, just outside of Bishopville,
South Carolina. That morning, a local family
woke up to find that their car had been just
absolutely destroyed overnight in their driveway.
Now, thinking it was just some shit back kids
or some drunk asshole with a crowbar. It's just
Dirty Mike and the boys. They called Lee County
Sheriff's Office to report the vandalism. Now,
Sheriff Liston Truesdale responded to the scene
personally, and the second he saw the car...
That's a made -up name, dude. Liston Truesdale?
Yeah. My name is Johnston Honestman. That's literally
like a random sim name. Okay, I'm sorry. Sorry,
sorry. Sorry, dude. When I said you have free
reign to interrupt me, you gotta let me get through
a sentence. Oh, God. Oh, God. So, Sheriff Liston
Truesdale responded to the scene personally,
and the second he saw the car, he realized pretty
much immediately that this wasn't just like your
typical kids on summer break causing mischief
type vandalism. the car which was a 1985 ford
ltd was just completely fucked up i couldn't
find any pictures of it but the description that
they gave kind of makes it sound like yeah you
ever play street fighter 2 for the sega you know
that like random scene in them like the random
like uh mini game in the middle you have to beat
the shit out of a car oh yeah yeah vaguely It
kind of was like that. So the fenders were ripped
clean off the body. The antenna was all bent
to shit. Wiring was yanked out. The chrome trim
was torn away and visibly chewed up. And there
were these deep scratches and bite marks gouged
into the metal. So, yeah, it didn't look like
someone had taken a baseball bat to it, but like
something was actively gnawing on it. And to
make it even weirder, in the mud around the car,
Sheriff Truesdale found large three -toed footprints,
which he took plaster casts of. reason i really
don't know it said that he like considered sending
them to the fbi but he never actually did maybe
he just thought they were like rad as fuck and
like one of them kind of already clued in to
like something somewhere you know it's like some
people might not think to do something like that
right off the bat until like an expert tells
them like you know oh take take casts of the
footprints but he was just like he was immediately
he's like This is fucking weird. I'm not listing
Truesdale. He's a fucking straight shooter. He
knows his shit. Yeah, he's running. These need
casts immediately. Yeah. Don't want to get the
reptilian overlords involved, though. His deputy's
like, Sheriff Truesdale, how do you always know
what to do? I've been prepping for this since
I was a fetus. All right. I want to know how
nobody heard that. Dude, that was my thing. Like
in the middle of the night, like no one heard
just something fucking up your car. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know. Well, what was the family situation?
Wait, so is that it? Is that the end of the story?
No, I have so many more. Oh, okay. Let's go.
Let's go. Let's go. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Now, he later told reporters that in all his
years of law enforcement, he had never seen anything
like the damage he saw on that car. Not kids,
not a dog, not a bear, anything. In an attempt
to figure out just what the hell mauled the shit
out of this car, Truesdale began going door to
door in the area asking residents like, hey,
you seen anything unusual lately? And to his
surprise, pretty much everyone was like, yeah,
dude, we've seen a bunch of weird shit lately.
Yeah, I've seen some weird shit, man. Where the
fuck have you been? So multiple locals who had
never reported anything and all independently
of one another all admitted that they had seen
some weird shit in the weeks leading up to that
car being destroyed. all in the same general
area and with the same description. A tall, dark,
scaly, red -eyed figure. Some saw it crossing
the road in front of their cars late at night.
Others saw it moving along the tree lines. Others
claim they saw it coming in and out of Skateboard
Swamp. And I kind of already said this, but it's
important to note again that none of these early
witnesses had talked to one another. Like, it's
the rural South. You start talking about seven
-foot -tall lizard men, and people are going
to start thinking that you're... batshit crazy
yeah yeah and it is the 80s so probably and none
of these people had seen any news coverage or
reports of this thing because there wasn't any
yet so this was all like private person to police
reporting if that makes sense like They were
all very much independent of one another. There's
no memetic spread of lizard man memes. Exactly.
Not yet. Is that a word? Yeah, is that a word?
Oh, like meme. Memetic, yeah. What the fuck,
dude? Get out of here with your big words. Okay,
bye. So once Sheriff Truesdale realized multiple
residents had... that had sightings of a tall
red -eyed lizard man lurking along skateboard
swamp he did what any small town sheriff usually
does in a weird situation like this goes in there
with a shotgun you're getting ahead of yourself
so sorry he made a straightforward boilerplate
run -of -the -mill public statement confirming
that yes something unusual had been reported
and that his office was looking into it and normally
that would have just been the end of it just
a strange local story that stayed Very local,
but a local radio station manager caught wind
of the sheriff's comments and decided that this
is way too good a story not to share. So he took
the liberty of pushing it out on the AP wire.
And that's when shit got real, real fast. So
within days, Bishopville was swarmed with reporters
and not like local news people and radio hosts
and stuff. I'm not like good morning, America.
People Magazine, the LA Times. There's some pretty
big names that came to Lee County wanting an
interview with the sheriff. They wanted to get
photographs of the footprints. They wanted pictures
of the car. Now, with all this, at the same time,
the sheriff's office was so overwhelmed with
calls that they had to set up a separate phone
line just for the press alone. Truesdale, at
one point, kind of lost his cool when talking
to some reporters, and he just like... kind of
like pointed at him and very sternly said, we
didn't ask for this. You did. Which, good for
him. I like that. There's a lot of activity in
Browntown. Yeah. It's very regular. Yeah. A lot
of ins, a lot of outs. A lot of shit. We're getting
stretched thin in Browntown. It's going to explode.
It's a powder keg. Browntown's a powder keg.
God damn it. And once the story hit the national
news, it was all over. People started showing
up by the thousands. Roads that normally saw
maybe a handful of cars a day were now like bumper
to bumper traffic. Any road that led into Scape
or Swamp was packed with cars. Locals estimated
that around 50 ,000 people came through that
summer, which is like kind of unimaginable for
a small, quiet country community. And these weren't
just curious families, reporters and skeptics
rolling through, hoping to catch a glimpse of
the monster. And this is where we get into Sarge's
favorite part of any good cryptid story. The
monster hunters. Yes. Hundreds of them. These
are just like men just tromping through the swamp
with rifles, shotguns, pistols, all convinced
that they were going to be the one to bag the
creature. And along with it, fame or money or
both, basically overnight. bishopville became
a drunk diy cryptid safari so people were so
people from out of state were rolling up in pickup
trucks with camo gear and spotlights like they
were looking for deer others wandered through
the swamp just absolutely hammered and going
full zach baggins screaming at the lizard man
to show himself uh others just sat on the roofs
of their cars with rifles watching the tree lines
like they were in like vietnam the rice patties
Bad time to be a tall guy in Browntown. Bad time
to be a tall brown guy, especially if you have
red eyes. Was there ever a good time to be anything
in Browntown? No. No. A toilet paper salesman.
Folks who had never even carried a gun in their
lives were not carrying one. Teenagers snuck
out into the swamp with flashlights. Oh, right.
This is my kind of story now. Some people swore
as they could hear, quote unquote, something
big splash into the marsh. But with that many
people out there, it's probably some stupid asshole
just falling into the water. Just an asshole
in Browntown. I regret bringing up the Browntown
thing. I didn't even have that. It was a very
important detail. I know. And now with this influx
of ding -dongs in town, the sheriff's department,
which is just a small rural office, was completely
swamped, pun intended. Deputies spent nights
responding to calls about movements in the woods,
suspicious shapes, strange lights. But most of
the time, these were just false alarm pranks
or nothing at all. A hillbilly carrying a torch
and a shotgun walking through your backyard.
But occasionally they did find tiny bits of evidence
that something very big and extremely strong
had been moving through the swamp. One report
stated that one night officers came across a
section of woods where the trees had been trampled
and three 40 gallon oil drums had been dragged
into the road and then crushed as if this thing
was attempting to do like his best stone cold
Steve Austin impression. Jesus. Now, even though
the sheriff and his deputies weren't too stoked
on the influx of. drunk rednecks nearly shooting
each other in the face every night, the town
of Bishopville leaned hard into the attention.
Local shops sold Lizard Man t -shirts, hats,
bumper stickers, vendors set up roadside stands
with little souvenirs, and a Columbia radio station
offered up a $1 million reward for anyone who
could capture the creature alive. But the fun
wasn't contained just to South Carolina. Over
in Vegas, and this is true, Bookmakers were taking
bets on whether or not the lizard man would be
caught dead or alive, which is pretty amazing.
So the whole situation was chaos. It was commerce,
but it was like it was how I word this. It was
chaos. It was commerce. But in reality, it was
just a community trying to just ride the wave
of something that at this point was completely
out of their control. So, yeah, they're making
the best of it. Yeah. How are you guys feeling
so far? Andrew, Jordan, you guys? Yeah. I'm feeling
good. I want to know what happened. Yeah, no.
I think these townsfolk are – it's got to be
like what the people in – like where they launch
the space shuttle off of feel like whenever they
launch a rocket. You know? No, Cape Canaveral.
You're right. Orlando. Cape Canaveral. When did
you say Glen Cove? I said Orlando. Oh, Orlando.
Yeah. That's Disney World. It's all Florida.
Yeah. It's all Florida. It's got to be like how
Floridians feel on a daily basis. Yeah. Just
influx of old people coming down, moving into
housing developments. Yeah. And I can understand
why someone, why, you know. you're a local, you're
a business owner, you might want to lean into
it. Oh, yeah, obviously. It's not sustainable,
it's not good culturally for your town, but there's
not a lot of else going on down there. You could
make a nice little egg. Make your bank and fucking
move on. I'd make fun of it, but I'd lean into
that shit hard. Oh, for sure. You have to. But
even with all this hype, one thing was still
missing, and that is a definitive story, like
a witness willing to say more than just, yeah
i saw it like we needed like a like a face to
face with this thing and this is when 17 year
old christopher davis makes his debut and he
walks into the lee county sheriff's office to
tell them about his encounter with the lizard
man of skateboard swamp so he told the the deputies
that on june 29th two weeks before the whole
car incident he had been driving home from a
late shift it was around 2 a .m when one of his
tires blew out on a rural stretch of brown town
road right along the edge of skateboard swamp
So he pulls over, changes the tire, and had just
like stood up to put his jack and tools back
in the trunk when he heard heavy footsteps approaching
from the tree line. When he looked up, he saw
this towering dark figure walking out towards
him. He described it as roughly seven feet tall,
green with snake -like scales, and three long
clawed fingers on each hand. It had large glowing
red eyes and it moved fast, like way faster than
a person should in the mud. He also described
it as being lean but muscular, which I interpreted
as also meaning like fuckable. Yeah, he had luscious
full lips. I swear, half the fucking cryptids
we talk about are described in the same way that
like a middle -aged soccer mom would describe
the new soccer coach. Or like one of those smutty
novels. Can you describe him for me? Yes, the
light glistened off of his velvety skin as I
felt my loins yearn for his musk. His giant lizard
dong dangled tantalizingly. His muscles are all
thin you eat. That's the only thing I've heard
about the new 28 Years Later movie. I've not
seen it yet, but all I heard is that there's
a naked zombie. The dong is overhyped. It's not
a huge part of the movie. It's a huge part of
the zombie. Humble bragging. It's just an average
-sized dong. I don't mean that it's an average
-sized dong. It's a massive dong. I'm saying
it's not a huge part of the movie. It doesn't
take up a lot of screen time. Yeah, I don't think
it would be a main character plot. I will say
that that zombie is hogged the fuck out. But
you got to remember, he's also like 10 feet tall.
So proportionately. His name is Samson, dog.
Yeah. But proportionately, I think it's just
a normal size dong for someone who's 10 feet
tall. Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. Tell
that to the person on the other end of it. I
will. It's a good movie, though. You should definitely
watch it. It's a phenomenal movie. I want to.
You got to keep that guy out of brown town for
sure. Yeah. Brown town's not big enough for even
one of you. Yeah. He, he said it was lean and
muscular. I did leave it. He also said that it
was wet. Are you sure this, this is a, this is
a cryptid story or it's just like, sure. If I
want to tell you, I kissed that lizard man on
the mouth and changed, but the rest of this story
is true. You'd be surprised how many cryptid
descriptions. are unintentionally horny uh we
we did one on i think it was like the mantis
man yeah and they said that he had strong calves
that he walked up the embankment what is the
psychosexual thing here where like people are
people who encounter cryptids are they just like
randomly uh predisposed uh to just be like attracted
cross species attracted like i don't like i don't
know like why why do they all want to fuck the
cryptid Well, no, it's like, it's like all those
chicks on Tik TOK who are like monster fuckers
who think like Frankenstein is fine. You know
what I mean? Like what? There's a whole thing.
I think we're on different parts of the internet.
We got different algorithms. It's a whole, you
gotta think about it. You got, you had twilight,
which was vampire. Yeah. And then you got. True
story. A lot of Guillermo del Toro monsters are
kind of. Yeah. Yeah. The shape of water. That
was. Yeah. That was weird. That was. So I think.
But like, you know, challenge. So I think through
like through his. Not my proudest. Like a monster
fucker. Kind of like. Proudest. It was hard,
but we got there. It was hard. That's what the
water man said. If the flesh is willing. That's
what I said to the lizard man of Skabor's Swamp.
So he's tall, dark, handsome. So it's coming
at him through the tree line. So Davis, pants
absolutely filled with shit at this point, dove
into his car and started it. But before he could...
Before he could even pull away, the creature
rushed him and jumped onto the roof. Now it's
clawing and pounding at the top of the car as
he floored it down Browntown Road. He told the
deputies he could feel the car rocking from the
weight. He did everything that he could to try
and shake this thing off. He's jerking the wheel,
slamming the brakes, everything to get this fucker
to come down. I could feel the weight of his
ample body rocking against my vehicle. I felt
the slippity slappity of his meaty claws he finally
managed to shake it off and the lizard man flew
off the road and onto the roadside like the road
beside him and luckily for us Davis does not
have the survival instincts of an acorn and didn't
do the whole like let me get out of the car to
see what it was yeah he he was smart and he just
kept driving until he made it home now when asked
why he didn't come forward sooner like like if
this thing had attacked him why wait so long
to report it uh well he said that like he was
afraid no one would believe him like when he
got home like that night he was understandably
hysterical and it took hours for him to calm
down enough just to even like explain to his
parents what had happened so they kept it quiet
like a family secret out of fear of ridicule
but when he heard about the shredded car and
the other sightings in the area he realized his
experience might actually like matter so that's
why he came forward when he did uh he even offered
like a detailed verbal statement he provided
a sketch of the creature and even volunteered
to take a polygraph test which he passed with
flying colors do you mean he drew the sketch
yeah can we see this sketch i mean you can google
it i don't know how to share i just want to see
if it's like a really horny sketch It's like
an anime girl. There's not been this much interest
in Browntown since my doctor asked for a stool
sample. Oh, it literally just came up. Lizardman
of Skapor Swamp. Yeah. Bro, there's a couple
different iterations and some considerably hornier
than the others. Yeah, very horny. Damn, there's
one where he's got, he's fucking jacked. Oh,
is this a sketch? Please tell me this is it.
Is this the fucking sketch, dude? Oh my God.
Christopher Davis. It's signed by him. Oh, it
looks like I drew it. All right. Okay. Draw that
with his left hand while having a seizure. There
is no fucking way. Yeah. That's not great. It's
so bad. The picture of what attack Christopher
Davis. I love this. By Christopher Davis. Yeah.
That's amazing. Holy shit. All right. So not
horny, but very funny in a different way. But
Christopher Davis definitely failed anatomy class.
You know, his mom put that on the fridge. He
may have failed a lot of stuff. I'm sorry. If
he's got like an intellectual disability, I don't
mean to be making fun of him. He does. I have
no idea. Maybe. Who knows? You can make fun of
the drawing objectively. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't
want to attack Christopher Davis. I can't draw
much better than that. But as an art, as a critique
of art, it's not. hilarious clearly he wasn't
scarred enough yeah right yeah he was really
traumatized there'd be some more detail on there
yeah but uh but it was with that sketch and the
fact that he passed a polygraph test uh that
the sheriff finally had something that he hadn't
before which was a full first -hand encounter
from a credible witness who saw the creature
up close and once christopher davis's encounter
went public the floodgates opened and waves of
sightings came in all throughout the summer one
of the earliest came from a local man named george
holman he claimed that he stopped late one night
at a well off the side of the main road and as
he stood there taking a drink of water he noticed
what he thought was a dead tree leaning near
the roadside when suddenly the tree stood up
straightened and took off running into skateboard
swamp He only got a glimpse of the thing, but
he described it as a massive dark shape with
glowing red eyes. The whole thing happened so
fast that he said he didn't really have time
to process it. He just raced back to his car
and got the fuck out of there. Around the same
time, a local farmer reported that livestock
on his property, like hogs and goats, were being
brutally murdered. Not eaten, they were just
killed and then left by something prowling around
the edges of his farm at night. Presumably by
this thing that people were seeing down by the
swamp. And then one of the more well -known reports
that summer came from a man named Frank Mitchell,
a private pilot with a small runway on his property.
One night while attempting to take off, he was
forced to abort when a large upright lizard like
figure that he estimated to be around nine feet
tall walked directly across the runway. It wasn't
just like these three sightings. By the end of
the season, at least a dozen credible sightings
or encounters had been documented by the deputies,
all clustered around the scape or swamp area,
all within weeks, sometimes days of each other,
and all describing the same creature. And as
is the case with stories like these, as quickly
as the reports surge, they began to taper off
as the summer faded. But before the quiet truly
set in, there was one final incident. On August
5th, a 26 -year -old man named Kenneth Orr, an
airman stationed on Shaw Air Force Base, walked
into the Lee County Sheriff's Office and filed
one fucking hell of a police report. According
to Orr, he had been driving along Highway 15,
not far from the swamp, when the Lizard Man suddenly
appeared on the roadside. He claimed that the
creature charged at his car, forcing him to fire
his pistol through his window in self -defense,
hitting it at least once before it fled back
into the swamp. is a wild story, almost unbelievable.
But Orr didn't show up empty -handed. He brought
evidence. He had with him several dark greenish
-brown scales and a small vial of blood. Both,
he claimed, came from the creature after he shot
it. And for a moment there, it kind of looked
like this might be the break that everyone was
looking for, like actual physical evidence, a
supposed encounter with a serviceman, and a signed
formal statement from said serviceman. But...
That feeling didn't last very long because two
days later, after investigators noticed some
inconsistencies in his story and started asking
just the most basic of follow -up questions or
admitted that he made the whole thing up and
was arrested for filing a false police report
and also unlawful possession of a pistol because
he did not have a permit to carry said pistol.
The scales, they were just fish scales and the
vial of blood was obviously not lizard blood
because first of all, How would he have gotten
it? Yeah, that's what I was going to say. He
got a vial of blood for what? Yeah, he shot it.
He mopped it up and squeegeed it into it. I'll
tell you, as a veteran, when a veteran tells
me something, I'm immediately more skeptical.
Yeah, right. Sure, I'm not, so I have no idea.
Yeah, you should be. Same. Don't trust them.
But he actually never said what the blood was,
which to me is far more worrying, I feel like.
No, that's not loser's man blood. That's just
my blood. I just carry that. That's what I was
thinking. He just opened a vein. He's like, that'll
be fine. He's like fucking Angelina Jolie and
fucking, what's his name, who just had the vials
of blood? Oh, Billy Bob Thornton. Oh, Billy Bob
Thornton, yeah. That was the worst couple ever.
We'll talk about a score of a decade. But when
asked why he filed the report, he said it was
because he, quote, wanted to keep the legend
alive. He said he wanted to keep... He looks
like a great big spoon. So yeah, he just said
he wanted to keep the legend alive. And it wasn't
long, like... Before this hoax made local and
national is partially because it was so fucking
stupid and partially because it was the first
openly fraudulent lizard man claim. The Orr incident
injected a new layer of doubt into every sighting
that came before it and every sighting that would
come after it. And it confirmed what the skeptics
had been saying all along, that people are willing
to lie and fabricate lizard man encounters just
to be a part of the story. And it's with that
final bullshit story that the sightings finally
came to an end after. Two straight months of
sightings, panicked locals, monster hunters,
and a national media circus that the reports
just kind of suddenly stopped. By early fall,
the phone calls stopped coming in. Whatever people
had been seeing, hearing, or convincing themselves
was out there. It just wasn't showing up anymore.
Sheriff's Truesdale later said the silence, quote,
came as quickly as the excitement did. One minute,
people were convinced a seven -foot -tall reptilian
humanoid was stalking the back roads, and the
next, Bishopville was just kind of back to business
as usual. So years later, reporters would ask
Truesdale what he thought was going on, and he
offered a pretty grounded practical theory. It
was probably just a bear, just a big old lone
bear roaming through the swamp. I remember that
bears famously have scales and red eyes. Well,
he pointed out that... Bears can stand and move
on two legs for a brief period of time in low
light or with wet or mud -covered fur. They can
appear smooth, shiny, or all the colors. Yeah,
I was going to say, like a bear caked with layers
of dried mud in the dark might look like scales.
Yeah, and a bear is certainly strong enough to
damage a car and could have easily... dragged
and crushed those oil drums. Do bears have that
eye shine? You know, like some predators have?
Yeah, they do. So there you go. That eye shine.
It's not red. Those beautiful eyes. Those beautiful
fuckable eyes. Deer have like eye shine. Most
mammals, most, you know. Yeah, but there are
different colored eye shines depending on the
animal. And mostly predators, I heard, I don't
know, I'm not a biologist, but I heard predators
have the most intense that you can see with the
naked eye with just a flashlight or a car's headlights.
Most ambient light would probably pick it up.
But most importantly, you pointed out that once
a bear leaves an area, sightings usually end
pretty abruptly. Yeah, because it's not there.
Yeah, obviously. No, he wasn't claiming that
the bear theory solved everything. Just that
in his experience, people can underestimate how
fucking weird a common animal can look under
the right conditions, especially in a swamp at
2 a .m. And you got like your adrenaline pumping,
but not everyone. bought that explanation for
a lot of the locals. It didn't feel like a satisfying
answer to months of fear and excitement. Plus
the legend was already firmly locked into place.
Like once you give something like a name, a shape,
a story, it's not just kind of, it's not just
going to go away quietly. Still officially by
the fall of 1988, the investigation was cold.
There was no new tracks. There wasn't any physical
evidence beyond some damaged cars and plaster
casts. And there wasn't any photos or clear video
of the thing. like whatever had stirred everything
up whether it's a real animal mass hysteria or
like a real life blizzard man it slipped back
into scape or swamp and stayed there so wait
what happened to the footprints then oh he didn't
make casts you he made casts he didn't do anything
with them they're just hanging on his wall yeah
actually no you mean i'm sorry go ahead dave
um well i was That's the end of the story. Oh,
I was going to say, Andrew, you made a good point.
I just looked it up and bears can sometimes have
red eyeshine. So good call. There you go. Interesting.
All right. The other thing I was going to say
too is, okay, if I'm giving sort of some faith
to these people that they did see something super
strange. So what we saw in the original story
was before the sheriff had heard anything about
this, a whole bunch of locals had seen it and
had their own independent stories. Yeah. nobody
was sharing their stories until there was a public
account of it and some credibility and then they
stopped sharing stories when there was some high
profile like there was like a high profile like
case right and so now now sharing stories is
silly right yeah so before suddenly everyone's
like taking it seriously and then now suddenly
everyone's like oh this might actually all be
bullshit and so the people might clam up you
know yeah pretty much But that actually segues
into my next thing, which is theories. We got
some theories, guys. Anyone? I'd have to say
that it's probably not. There's probably not
one giant fuckable lizard that wandered around
for a while and then disappeared. There could
be. You don't know. You know, I've seen what
some bears will do to a car when they're exploring
it and trying to get food out of it and stuff
like that. If you left a McDonald's fry underneath
the seat, I can see a bear fucking your car up
trying to get to it. Because those things, I
would almost do it. Also, you guys ever seen
a bear with mange? Like a big grizzly bear? Yeah.
imagine a mangy bear caked in mud hungry as shit
pissed and horny pissed and horny trying to kiss
a man on the mouth not too far from cocaine bear
territory anyway so still a possibility another
theory is that everything was a hoax is that
like from the beginning yeah and it wasn't just
like people working together to create the hoax
but like one person said something and then the
other person said something right right the person
said something that's how a lot of hoaxes go
is that it's like there's the initial act or
the initial lie and then you have the spontaneous
um yeah everyone wants like a little piece of
it right they all just want to be part of the
story that's like when i call out from work because
i'm hung over and i say i'm sick and then the
next day two people call it from work and they
say they caught what i had like yeah i bet you
did buddy yeah you fucker and then there's like
to go into the hoax is that there was like tourism
factor like the chamber the chamber of commerce
openly admitted that the lizard man craze was
like financially great for the area it They'd
bring in 50 ,000 visitors in one summer. There
was merch tables set up. Radio stations were
offering rewards. So maybe they were part of
just perpetuating the hoax so that way it could
get out further and further. And then you got,
again, another mistaken identity, which is the
human edition. Maybe it was just a dude. Maybe
it was just a fucking dude. Just a weird dude.
Just a big, wet dude. Just a wet guy. Just an
Andrew in the woods. A big lumbering mutant.
Fucking Baron Trump. Just a thick Baron Trump.
Just crushing oil barrels. Fucking up cars. Oh
man. And then there's probably the most practical
one. Which is just mass hysteria. A bear fucked
up a car one day. Everyone just assumed. Everybody
lost their shit. Yeah. Went straight to lizard
people. But that doesn't explain the initial
weird thing about the story is that so many people
that had never talked to each other about it,
if you believe the story, had a similar like
encounter, right? That's sort of the seed of
all the madness, right? Yeah. They probably just
heard about it and then they just became - Although,
did all of those claims that the claim that all
the stories were coming in come from the sheriff?
Oh, good point. The same Sheriff's Dale was more
like Lord. Tell no lies. Dale. Yeah. Cause what
if he was like, Oh, here's this thing. Oh yeah.
By the way, I've been getting a lot of unrelated
and totally random calls from people saying the
same thing. Just, just saying what I'm saying
is true. See, I don't know because he seemed
not stoked on all the attention. That's the perfect
cover. All for the bit. It's like a professional
wrestling thing. He was just maintaining his
heel character. He's out there just like, get
out of my town, you fucking tourist. And he gets
home and he's like, yes. Can't break kayfabe.
He walks in the house. He's like, honey, I nailed
it today. They totally believe it. he's got his
like three different costumes tucked away in
the uh in the attic yeah man bear pig get my
stilts they need another uh another sighting
yeah we got i gotta go i gotta go fuck up this
uh this kid who can't draw Did he come into work
all fucked up the day after that kid almost ran
him over? Yeah, right. I want to know. I went
a little too far. I got a little too into the
part. The only person I know with a dong this
big is my husband. What did the lizard man and
my husband have in common? I think the best theory
is probably the hysteria aspect of it. I think
it started with one thing and then everybody
was like. Wow, now is a perfect time for me to
bring some excitement to my boring -ass life
in Browntown. That's fair. It's like, try something
a little different. Yeah. Try lying to the news.
Try lying to the news. A little experimentation
in Browntown. Try Browntown, just once. It never
hurt anybody. Exactly, just once, just to see
how it feels. Dip a finger into Browntown. Yes,
exactly. See how warm it is down here. They expected
a finger. They got a fist. On that note, thank
you guys for having me. Thank you for coming
on. I can't wait to listen to this. We'll have
to do a reciprocal. We'll come and we'll talk
about armed cryptids on the A Better Way to A
Podcast. Deal. Sounds good. We'll talk about
arming the cryptids to fight fascists. Hell yeah.
Love you guys. Bye. Andrew, what do you think's
going on here? I think it's a mixture. I think
it probably falls somewhere in between mistaking
a wild animal for something, mass hysteria, a
hoax. I mean, I think there's just a little bit
of – I think it's like a perfect storm of little
pieces of all of this stuff, right? Yeah. Because
it's never – It's never just one thing, you know,
reality is complicated and, you know, shared
narratives are messy and dynamic. And, you know,
there's probably some people that really did
see something. There's probably some people that
never saw anything and lied about it. Oh, for
sure. There's probably any number of weird looking
fucking animals in the swamp. When it's nighttime
and you're scared, your eyes can play tricks
on you. True. The only thing I feel about the
misidentified animal thing is that if you're
in a small town, even growing up in a small town
in New Hampshire, I lived in a small town in
Maine for a bit, you kind of get familiar with
the wildlife there. And if you live near a swamp,
you've probably seen a bear. covered in mud you
know what i mean like you yeah i feel like you
would know what that would look like so either
it's completely a hoax or people were just playing
up what they were seeing like yeah yeah or could
see an unusual looking bear it could be like
an unusually large bear or something that yeah
i don't know what the bears are like down in
south carolina or even if they have bears i don't
know they do they do black bears are really are
pretty they've got a pretty big footprint across
the u .s yeah um and i i don't know that brown
bears are down there though yeah black bears
aren't really that big no they're easily they're
easily scarable it's not like they're gonna fucking
run and jump on to the top of your car bears
don't get rabies so it's like it could be it
could be that like the initial stories were one
weird animal like a normal animal, but maybe
it looked weird. It was a little fucked up in
some way. And people got a little freaked out
because it's something that's not usually in
the area or doesn't usually look like that. And
then it's like, you know, Christopher can't draw.
Maybe he made that whole thing up, right? Maybe
he fucking rolled his car and was like, how am
I going to explain this? Oh, lizard man. True,
yeah. He's a 17 -year -old kid. He's probably
fucked up. He got home from a late shift, quote
unquote. out with the boys, hammered, fucking
ran into a sign or something and shit like that.
Fucking lizard man did this. No, mom, listen,
I swear to God, it was a seven foot tall lizard
man. He jacked my shit up. But that's what I
mean. I think there's a mixture of it. I think
with a lot of these things, it's like a perfect
storm of circumstances to create this. shared
narrative yeah i mean that's the same you say
the thing about like the whole mothman shit like
to like like a bunch of people saw something
weird and then a bridge collapsed and they just
kind of conflated it all together into this one
i mean not gonna lie if there's any cryptid i
want to believe in it's the mothman yeah me too
but you got to kind of give it a little bit of
leeway uh sarge what do you what are you thinking
what are your thoughts on this uh coked out hulk
hogan yeah yeah plausible plausible All things
are era accurate. So that would be my guess is
that he just did a shitload of coke and started
fucking around in the swamps for about two months.
You're telling me the true American was down
in the south running around in the mud? I mean,
where else would you find a true American? That's
fair. Just scaring the shit out of the locals.
Yeah. All right. So that's the end of the episode.
Thank you, Andrew. Yeah. for coming on and also
your co -host who had to leave abruptly early.
Uh, so I guess, well, he made it almost to the
end. He did. I'm proud of him. Uh, normally this
is where we would plug our stuff, but I'll, I'll,
I'll give you the opportunity to, uh, say your
piece, plug, whatever you need to plug. I've
never been on this side of it before. Um, yeah.
Uh, just check out the podcast, a better way
to a, we talk about inclusivity in gun culture.
Um, we have one episode where we talked about
cryptids with the, uh, the, um, dirty Steve from
tractor boy, uh, who actually came up earlier
in the episode. That's weird synergy. Um, yeah,
but, uh, we just talk about guns and rights for
everybody. Um, and we're explicitly, uh, pro
gay and pro trans and trying to push back on
traditional gun culture and create a new little
slice of gun culture for people like us. Yeah,
you guys have been doing awesome work with those
billboards. Those billboards are fucking awesome.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love the, you know, surprisingly
little hate for them. We thought we would stir
up some people and make some people mad and get
some hate, but really just messages of support.
Well, I mean, to be fair, they are the vocal
minority of people that are usually opposed to
those things. I feel like it's. You get on the
internet, you kind of get this outsized sense
of importance to those people. Yeah, nobody wants
to put their face on it. That's why they do it
on the internet. Yeah, and we found this out
when we went to SHOT Show the first time, which
is an industry show for the gun industry, was
that we're always in combat online, specifically,
weirdly, specifically with anti -trans people.
But then you go and talk to people face to face
and they're like, oh, lit. That's cool. That's
a really cool idea for a page. And I love what
you guys are doing was like the general message.
And, you know, most people, regardless of what
their their personal feelings are on like, you
know, gay people or trans rights or whatever,
you know, are very happy to see people having
fun and enjoying their life and exercising their
rights. Hell yeah, man. I love it. Yeah. You
guys are doing God's work. I appreciate you guys.
I'd say that as not a religious person. As an
atheist. I'm like a crypto -Christian. I'm like
the most undercover religious person you'll ever
meet. I appreciate you taking time on the Lord's
Day. On the Lord's Day. Yeah, that's right. To
come talk shit about cryptos with us. Hell yeah,
dude. Sarge, you got anything you want to plug
before we hop off? Yeah, just hit me up on the
socials. Sarge the Destroyer on all of them.
You'll find me. Yeah, I found you. I think I
followed you back. Before I even knew you were
on this podcast, I was like, oh, I like this
guy. That sounds about right. I'll make sure
I follow you back, too. Every time Dave posts
something awesome. I get like a million follows
and I don't know who to follow back. So I got
to get through there and actually find people
I know because a bunch of people just follow
me and I have no idea. I think you already follow
me and you don't realize it. Okay, good. Sarge
has a tendency to follow just everyone back apparently.
Oh yeah, team follow back. No, not everyone.
Not everyone. I get it, man. That's the way to
grow. So yeah, so follow Sarge on all his socials.
You can find him at the link. and our Instagram,
which is at Crypto Cocktail, where you can follow
us. You can find us at TikTok, Crypto Cocktail
Party. Yeah. Also, if you guys want, leave us
a rating and review. It super helps the show
get into other people's ears, eyes, whatever
the fuck. Yeah, whatever. Now, usually this is
the part where Sarge would say goodbye and I
love you to the audience. Your gracious co -host
already said I love you, but would you like to
say goodbye and I love you to the audience? You
talking to me? Yeah, I'm talking to you. Goodbye,
audience. I love you.