Not Lizard Man
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 17th, 2008
DNA testing has shown an attack on a family van some blamed on the legendary Lizard Man appears to have been actually done by a domestic dog.
Something chewed up the front fender of Bob and Dixie Rawson’s van in February 2008. Bite marks were left on the wheel wells and blood was found on the vehicle.
The Item of Sumter reported that a veterinary lab in California tested the blood and found it came from a dog.
But Bob Rawson isn’t sure, saying it would have to be one big dog.
Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin isn’t convinced either. He thinks it was a coyote or wolf.
Lizard Man became a phenomenon in the area 20 years ago when people began reporting a tall, big-eyed swamp creature. Authorities never figured out exactly what prompted the sightings.
Wetzel’s “It” by Bill Rebsamen from Mysterious America (page 273).
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
this is very interesting new update article about the lizard man ie sc sasquatch. i think in my honest opinion i smell a cover up of some sort with this lizardman pheanomena or sasquatch. thanks bill green. p.s. one day i would like to get a lizard man t-shirt it looks interesting & neat.
That’s a very awkward part of the car to be chewed. Don’t you all agree? How can any animal, no matter what its size/strength, position its mouth to make those marks. I can see how they might be claw marks but teeth marks? And if they are claw marks, could a dog have done them?
What would the cover up accomplish? I don’t dismiss the possiblity, I just wonder to what end.
Could be a coverup, could be a lot of things…
I do agree that it must have been a big dog to do something like that. Looks to me maybe a coyote or wolf.
One never knows.
I have to agree with Richard, for one dog to do that during one night? It seems a bit far fetched and why would a pack of dogs decide to gnaw on a van?
I can see one obsessive dog managing that over a period of days or weeks, but I just can’t picture a dog doing this amount of damage over night. Not to mention the strength it would take to dent metal like that, even dogs with muscular faces and jaws (like Pitbulls or American Bulldogs) would have to work at doing that amount of damage.
I know this sounds silly, but was there any blood on that car before hand? Say from maybe a road accident involving a deer or something of that nature? Something that would attract a canine to the car in the first place?
well i don’t know about you but i have a great dane and he’s a chewer and if motivated i have no doubt he could do that to a car in a short amount of time . being familiar with large breed dogs like danes mastiffs etc. They are very capable of chewing though walls solid oak tables stereo systems you name it they have very powerful jaws. i even knew of a mastiff that destroyed a dish washing machine that had been removed and was sitting in his backyard and he got bored so its very possible
Mastiffs are molosoids, a breed of dogs that were used in ancient times to fight in battles alongside soldiers. Although now dog breeders make sure the temperament of these animals is balanced and peaceful, to train one of these giants for combat or defense is strongly discouraged, because the damage they could inflict is tremendous.
Having siad that, one of the things I wish the most is to own a dogue de bordeaux 🙂
There isn’t any way it could have been a coyote because they aren’t that big and do not have the jaw strength to do that kind of damage. I would say the same thing is probably true for a wolf because the only really big wolf in North America is the timber wolf and they are pretty much restricted to the western part of the country ie, Idaho and Montana.
The only wild member of the dog family that is most likely to have the jaw strength to this kind of damage would be a hyena and how many of those are running wild in the US. Not only that but why would any coyote, hyena or wolf attack a car? And not just attack it once but numerous times.
I definitely don’t believe this was some dog, not even a wolf.
But it made me wonder. Were there any missing dog reports put in that night? Say whatever totally dilapidated this car first snacked on some domestic dog, the culprit could then be covered in dog blood when it decides to eat the van as dessert. So it just left the dog blood behind and never really harmed itself in the whole attack.
Ever seen a house where the owners let the dogs go wild? Bored dogs will chew almost ANYTHING to pieces. They don’t need a good grip to chew something up. Eating a van is strange, sure, but falls easily within the realm of something a big, strong, bored dog could pull off. I’d love there to be more to this case but this seems like a reasonable conclusion.
I will say that I’m THRILLED to actually see the results of the DNA tests reported. So often you hear “they’re sending it in for testing” and that is the end of it.
Interesting. You would have to think that it would require a lot of jaw strength to leave those type of marks. I agree w/ archer1945, a Hyena might be able to do it, but it’s not like there are a lot of them running around in North America. I don’t think it could be a coyote, but does anyone know if a wolf could do this?
I agree, bored dogs will chew anything. But do they have the jaw strength necessary to chew metal? Maybe a Hyena (but I haven’t seen too many running around in North America lately), but does anyone know if a wolf would be capable of this?
A mastiff could easily do that kind of damage (probably smaller dogs too…but mastiffs come to mind)
Once saw a picture of a guy with a mastiff and he used to walk his dog with his pick-up truck…had the leash around one of the side view mirrors and would go down the street with the thing, because he couldn’t keep up on foot, or stop the thing if it decided to run…