The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the Lizard Man have been a long held obsession for people all over the world. But why? Why do people want to believe in Cryptids? Could it be the fact science has found such animals as the okapi (a member of the giraffe family) and the coelacanth, a fish thought to be extinct for 65 million years. Our guest Lyle Blackburn, author of the book Lizard Man: The True Story of the Bishopville Monster, shares with us his opinion.
Radio Wasteland: We want to talk to you a little bit about cryptids in general. You know, what is it about us that really draws us towards this? Because, you know, there are so many people out there whose argument is that this is just impossible. This is just impossible, that a bigfoot could be living out there and we didn’t find it or or or something like that. You know what keeps us going? You know, I can’t let it go. I still find it interesting every day, you know? What do you think keeps society interested?
Lyle Blackburn: Well, I think it’s a couple of things. I think we’re just it’s ingrained in us to be fascinated or frightened or, you know, about things that may be out there about things we don’t understand. And, you know, monsters in the woods, I mean, that dates back to the oldest of tales and things that have scared people in the dark. And this is that people report these kinds of things in modern society. You know, the lizard man may almost be like Creature from the Black Lagoon or Bigfoot. This sort of wild man or ape-man living in the woods. It just appeals to our base nature of something that we just, you know, we can’t let go. We just want it to be resolved. Want proof, we want to be able to say it. It definitely doesn’t exist. But so far, you know, the case just goes either way. We can’t disprove it. We can’t prove it yet. We do have some credible, solid witnesses and an occasional photo or video that looks promising. And it just sort of like the carrot that dangled in front of us that we keep chasing perpetually until I suppose one of these comes out of the woods, if possible.
Radio Wasteland: Yeah, we haven’t found any humanoid ones. We have found actual cryptids in our science, haven’t we? We’ve actually found animals that we thought were extinct that were back or animals that there were sightings of that we ended up figuring out. So it’s not too far outside of the realm of possibility as well, is it?
Lyle Blackburn: Oh, definitely. I mean, you know, things like the Okapi or the Coelacanth, you know, things in the sea, of course, you know, a lot more area. And really even you know, the mountain gorilla was basically encrypted at one point. It was something people had seen and would, you know, were telling others and others didn’t believe it until one was shot. And, you know, so it’s not in the too distant past in which big animals were out there that we didn’t know of. And, you know, people tend to think of this as the modern world, their cell phones and this and that game cameras everywhere. But I’ve been in places in some of these swamps, in mountains and areas where there is just woods after woods, dense, you know, swampy, rugged bottomlands that people just aren’t. And if you if one was to go out there and be dropped into these places, people would soon realize that it’s not that hard for something to be 20 yards away and just to hide in the shadows. You’d never see it if it didn’t want you to know. So it’s not that it seems improbable, but it’s not impossible.
Radio Wasteland: Yeah, that’s been one of my thoughts, too, is that look how good animals are at hiding from us. And they’re not even as smart as a humanoid or or or a monkey. And they can hide like nobody’s business. You know, something really wanted to not be found. It probably could get away with it for quite some time.
Lyle Blackburn: I think so. I mean, this business about, well, there’s no bones for Bigfoot, this and that. But, you know, you have to look at the populations of, you know, like in Washington state. How many bears are there? Well, there’s, you know, thousands and thousands of bears. And yet it’s very rare to even run across the bones of a bear. And if you consider there could be a viable population of that state of, say, 250 Sasquatch you like, what are the chances you’re going to find the bones of one of them if you don’t run across bones?