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Lankenau County Lizard Man
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Lizard Man" redirects here. For other uses, see Lizard Man (Masters of the Universe) or Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp.
For reptilian humanoids in conspiracy theories and ufology, see Reptilians.
In North American folklore, the Lankenau County Lizard Man, or Lizard Man of Wynndone, is a scaled, reptilian creature who reportedly dwells in the wilderness of Lankenau County, Indiana. Over the years, the creature has inspired numerous commercial ventures and hoaxes.[1]
Folklorists trace the figure of the Lankenau County Lizard Man to a combination of factors and sources, including similar folklore surrounding the Mothman figure, folk belief among Native Americans and loggers, and a possible effect of an ergot of rye infestation in a local bakery.[2]
A majority of mainstream scientists have historically discounted the existence of the Lankenau Lizard Man, considering it to be a combination of folklore, misidentification, and hoax, rather than a living animal.[3][4]
History
On December 24, 1955, a series of police reports were filed in the Wynndone Township in Lankenau County, Indiana. Said reports included testimony of "strange figures lurking in the shadows" [5]. Six similar reports were made by people living on the outside of town, each claiming a "Lizard Man" was watching them from the woods [6].
Shortly thereafter, on December 26, 1955, two young couples from Wynndone Township, James and Linda Scott and Steve and Mary Kelogg, told police they saw a large grey creature whose eyes "glowed red" when a car's headlights picked it up. They described it as a "large lizard man with ten-foot arms and a face like a crocodile", following their car while they were driving in an area outside of town known as "the TNT area", the site of a former World War II munitions plant.[7][8]
During the next few days, other people reported similar sightings. Two volunteer firemen who saw it said it was a "large bird with red eyes". Lankenau County Sheriff George Johnson commented that he believed the sightings were due to an unusually large heron he termed a "shitepoke". Contractor Newell Partridge told Johnson that when he aimed a flashlight at a creature in a nearby field its eyes glowed "like bicycle reflectors", and blamed buzzing noises from his television set and the disappearance of his German Shepherd dog on the creature.[9] Wildlife biologist Dr. Robert L. Smith at Purdue University told reporters that descriptions and sightings all fit the sandhill crane, a large American crane almost as high as a man with a seven-foot wingspan featuring circles of reddish coloring around the eyes, and that the bird may have wandered out of its migration route. This particular crane was unrecognized at first because it was not native to this region.[9][10] However, the likelihood of a sandhill crane flying several hundred miles off its migration pattern have lead most to believe that this is not possible [10].
The Lankenau County Lizard Man was connected to many disappearances in the Wynndone Township area during December and January of 1955 and 1956. The most well-known of these disappearances were teenage girls, seventeen-year-old Janice Caville, thirteen-year-old Cindy Moloney, and eighteen-year-old Elise Mcauliffe. All three went missing on December 30, 1955 while hiking in Wyndonne Township. Caville and Mcauliffe returned two weeks later, bruised but with no memory of the past two weeks. Moloney was found dead in the woods yet another week later, having died of blood loss and found with evidence of injuries suffered during rape [11][12]. The police were not able to identify a culprit, yet many suspect that this was the work of the Lizard Man due to abnormal scarring indicating bite marks and an "occult lettering" carved into Molony's back post-mortem [12]. Most other disappearances were for only a day or two, with victims being found alive in the woods, having no memory of what had occured while they were missing. The only other recorded death was of 67-year-old Samantha Johnson, who was found with similar scarring to Cindy Moloney [12][13].
Several reported sightings of the Lizard Man continued into the 2010's, with a message board still attracting thousands of users making theories about the whereabouts of the Lizard Man [14].
Analysis
Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand notes that the Lankenau Lizard Man has been widely covered in the popular press, some claiming sightings connected with UFOs, and others claiming that a military storage site was the Lizard Man's "home". Brunvand notes that recountings of the 1955-56 reports usually state that at least 300 people saw the Lizard Man with many more "afraid to report their sightings" but observed that written sources for such stories consisted of children's books or sensationalized or undocumented accounts that fail to quote identifiable persons. Brunvand found elements in common among many Lizard Man reports and much older folk tales, suggesting that something real may have triggered the scares and became woven with existing folklore. He also records anecdotal tales of Lizard Man supposedly attacking the roofs of parked cars inhabited by teenagers.[15]
Furthermore, many are quick to point out that around the time of the original sightings, a local bakery reported an unknown fungal infection in rye and wheat stores, that many believe to be an ergot of rye infestation [16]. Such an infestation could cause ergotism, a disease known to cause manic behavior, vivid hallucinations, and other distorted perceptions. However, such cases are rare, with only one notable case in the 20th century in French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951, resulting in five deaths [17]. This infestation has also been called into question by theories in recent years, being the focus of a theory of the outbreak being some sort of government test [18].
Several theories have touted the Lizard Man to be the product of Project MKUltra, but there is little to substantiate this [18].
In Popular Culture
In conspiracy theories
The Lizard Man plays a part in many conspiracy theories due to its nature and its similarity to other known conspiracy theories [18][19]. Many are quick to notice the similarities to physical descriptions of the Lizard Man and reptilians and details of "flashing lights in the sky" in reports and assume the Lizard Man is an extraterrestrial being, but this theory has fallen out of popularity with "Lizard Truthers" in recent years [19].
In January, 2018, a Tumblr blog by the name of "Lankenau Truth" posted a series of images of snowy woods. Among these were several pictures of the three teenage girls who went missing during the Lizard Man sightings, in particular the youngest girl, Cindy Moloney. Many of the images of Moloney appear to be taken covertly while she is sleeping, has her back turned, et cetera. Five of the images show evidence that the two older girls, Mcauliffe and Caville, were in a sexual relationship at the time, and ten of the images appear to be blurry shots of the Lizard Man, featuring the known red eyes, crocodile maw, and long talons, all of which galvanizing new rumors about the Lizard Man [20].
In film
The 1999 film The Blair Witch Project features several brief mentions of the Lizard Man and Lankenau County, but no other connections are made. [21]
In popular music
The British rock band The Clash once had a planned song seemingly about the Lizard Man, but guitarist Mick Jones said that it would be "in poor taste" [22].
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Lizard Man" redirects here. For other uses, see Lizard Man (Masters of the Universe) or Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp.
For reptilian humanoids in conspiracy theories and ufology, see Reptilians.
In North American folklore, the Lankenau County Lizard Man, or Lizard Man of Wynndone, is a scaled, reptilian creature who reportedly dwells in the wilderness of Lankenau County, Indiana. Over the years, the creature has inspired numerous commercial ventures and hoaxes.[1]
Folklorists trace the figure of the Lankenau County Lizard Man to a combination of factors and sources, including similar folklore surrounding the Mothman figure, folk belief among Native Americans and loggers, and a possible effect of an ergot of rye infestation in a local bakery.[2]
A majority of mainstream scientists have historically discounted the existence of the Lankenau Lizard Man, considering it to be a combination of folklore, misidentification, and hoax, rather than a living animal.[3][4]
History
On December 24, 1955, a series of police reports were filed in the Wynndone Township in Lankenau County, Indiana. Said reports included testimony of "strange figures lurking in the shadows" [5]. Six similar reports were made by people living on the outside of town, each claiming a "Lizard Man" was watching them from the woods [6].
Shortly thereafter, on December 26, 1955, two young couples from Wynndone Township, James and Linda Scott and Steve and Mary Kelogg, told police they saw a large grey creature whose eyes "glowed red" when a car's headlights picked it up. They described it as a "large lizard man with ten-foot arms and a face like a crocodile", following their car while they were driving in an area outside of town known as "the TNT area", the site of a former World War II munitions plant.[7][8]
During the next few days, other people reported similar sightings. Two volunteer firemen who saw it said it was a "large bird with red eyes". Lankenau County Sheriff George Johnson commented that he believed the sightings were due to an unusually large heron he termed a "shitepoke". Contractor Newell Partridge told Johnson that when he aimed a flashlight at a creature in a nearby field its eyes glowed "like bicycle reflectors", and blamed buzzing noises from his television set and the disappearance of his German Shepherd dog on the creature.[9] Wildlife biologist Dr. Robert L. Smith at Purdue University told reporters that descriptions and sightings all fit the sandhill crane, a large American crane almost as high as a man with a seven-foot wingspan featuring circles of reddish coloring around the eyes, and that the bird may have wandered out of its migration route. This particular crane was unrecognized at first because it was not native to this region.[9][10] However, the likelihood of a sandhill crane flying several hundred miles off its migration pattern have lead most to believe that this is not possible [10].
The Lankenau County Lizard Man was connected to many disappearances in the Wynndone Township area during December and January of 1955 and 1956. The most well-known of these disappearances were teenage girls, seventeen-year-old Janice Caville, thirteen-year-old Cindy Moloney, and eighteen-year-old Elise Mcauliffe. All three went missing on December 30, 1955 while hiking in Wyndonne Township. Caville and Mcauliffe returned two weeks later, bruised but with no memory of the past two weeks. Moloney was found dead in the woods yet another week later, having died of blood loss and found with evidence of injuries suffered during rape [11][12]. The police were not able to identify a culprit, yet many suspect that this was the work of the Lizard Man due to abnormal scarring indicating bite marks and an "occult lettering" carved into Molony's back post-mortem [12]. Most other disappearances were for only a day or two, with victims being found alive in the woods, having no memory of what had occured while they were missing. The only other recorded death was of 67-year-old Samantha Johnson, who was found with similar scarring to Cindy Moloney [12][13].
Several reported sightings of the Lizard Man continued into the 2010's, with a message board still attracting thousands of users making theories about the whereabouts of the Lizard Man [14].
Analysis
Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand notes that the Lankenau Lizard Man has been widely covered in the popular press, some claiming sightings connected with UFOs, and others claiming that a military storage site was the Lizard Man's "home". Brunvand notes that recountings of the 1955-56 reports usually state that at least 300 people saw the Lizard Man with many more "afraid to report their sightings" but observed that written sources for such stories consisted of children's books or sensationalized or undocumented accounts that fail to quote identifiable persons. Brunvand found elements in common among many Lizard Man reports and much older folk tales, suggesting that something real may have triggered the scares and became woven with existing folklore. He also records anecdotal tales of Lizard Man supposedly attacking the roofs of parked cars inhabited by teenagers.[15]
Furthermore, many are quick to point out that around the time of the original sightings, a local bakery reported an unknown fungal infection in rye and wheat stores, that many believe to be an ergot of rye infestation [16]. Such an infestation could cause ergotism, a disease known to cause manic behavior, vivid hallucinations, and other distorted perceptions. However, such cases are rare, with only one notable case in the 20th century in French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951, resulting in five deaths [17]. This infestation has also been called into question by theories in recent years, being the focus of a theory of the outbreak being some sort of government test [18].
Several theories have touted the Lizard Man to be the product of Project MKUltra, but there is little to substantiate this [18].
In Popular Culture
In conspiracy theories
The Lizard Man plays a part in many conspiracy theories due to its nature and its similarity to other known conspiracy theories [18][19]. Many are quick to notice the similarities to physical descriptions of the Lizard Man and reptilians and details of "flashing lights in the sky" in reports and assume the Lizard Man is an extraterrestrial being, but this theory has fallen out of popularity with "Lizard Truthers" in recent years [19].
In January, 2018, a Tumblr blog by the name of "Lankenau Truth" posted a series of images of snowy woods. Among these were several pictures of the three teenage girls who went missing during the Lizard Man sightings, in particular the youngest girl, Cindy Moloney. Many of the images of Moloney appear to be taken covertly while she is sleeping, has her back turned, et cetera. Five of the images show evidence that the two older girls, Mcauliffe and Caville, were in a sexual relationship at the time, and ten of the images appear to be blurry shots of the Lizard Man, featuring the known red eyes, crocodile maw, and long talons, all of which galvanizing new rumors about the Lizard Man [20].
In film
The 1999 film The Blair Witch Project features several brief mentions of the Lizard Man and Lankenau County, but no other connections are made. [21]
In popular music
The British rock band The Clash once had a planned song seemingly about the Lizard Man, but guitarist Mick Jones said that it would be "in poor taste" [22].
