Predatory

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Story 1: The Secret of Skatepoor Swamp.

In an isolated rural corner of South Carolina, there is an area of swampland that has come to gain no small amount of notoriety.

Is this inhospitable region home to one of North America's most infamous cryptids?

Join us as we delve into The Secret of Scape Or Swamp.

On a cold midweek morning in February of 2008, Bob Rawson whispered goodbye to his sleeping wife, Dixie, before slipping out of his front door to go to work.

It was still dark as he crossed the open ground between the farmhouse and the spot where the family truck was parked, but as he neared his vehicle, his hand ferreting in a cavernous jacket pocket for his keys, he caught sight of something which caused him to take a sharp intake of breath.

The switchboard operator for the Lee County Sheriff's Department had struggled to understand the content of the panicked phone call she had subsequently received from Mr.

Rawson.

He needed help urgently as a crime had been committed.

No, nobody had been hurt and no, he didn't know who was responsible.

But he and his family were not safe, and they needed police protection, immediately.

The two deputies who were dispatched to the Rawson farmstead were intercepted by the homeowner well before they had chance to turn off the main highway and onto the road leading up to his property.

Torches in hand, they had followed closely behind as he had half run to where his truck was situated, gesticulating in an animated fashion at the front of the parked vehicle.

In the dim torchlight, they could see that extensive damage had been caused to the vehicle's exterior.

but it was only when they looked more closely that they realised why Rawson was so agitated.

Parts of the front wheel arches on both sides of the truck had been twisted and bent outwards, so they now jutted out at right angles from the main chassis.

The surface of these damaged strips of metal was scratched and covered with indentations, almost as if they had been chewed upon.

Damage of a similar nature was to be found on the vehicle's front grille, where in places, the metal had been pierced right through, as if bitten by a wild animal of some kind.

Struggling to come up with a satisfactory hypothesis, the two officers had called for a crime scene examiner in a bid to identify who or what was responsible.

Samples taken from the damaged metalwork were sent off for analysis, and a week later, it was confirmed that canine DNA had been recovered from the swabs.

But when detectives reattended to share this information, Rawson had merely shaken his head in disbelief.

Without speaking a word, he had led the officers across his property to a field in which the bodies of a number of dead animals lay.

In addition to the remains of several domesticated cats, there were a number of dead cow carcasses.

and a corpse of a recently departed coyote.

In calm and clear terms, Mr.

Rawson explained that the DNA the analysts had found most likely belonged to the coyote, but it had come from the mouth of whatever had killed and eaten the animal before subsequently attacking his truck.

The Rawson farm was being stalked by an unseen attacker, one which resided in the neighbouring swamp and had been haunting the area for over 20 years.

The cities of Sumter and Bishopsville are as indistinct as any other found dotted around the rural reaches of South Carolina.

Indeed, were it not for the region of dense swampland which separates them, these two communities may well have remained in quiet anonymity, with no reason whatsoever to invite the attention of the national press.

But even from the day that this inhospitable patch of land was first named, it has flirted with notoriety.

What most local historians agree upon is that Scape Horse Swamp earned its title from the phrase Escaped Horse Swamp, in reference to a long-past incident involving a local female of ill repute.

It is here though that their disagreements begin, as it appears that the region possesses more than its fair share of stories involving ladies of the night.

One tale has the woman in question being driven out of a nearby town by the angry wives of her clients.

Another more colourful version is believed to have occurred during the Revolutionary War, when a group of local militiamen surprised an encampment of British soldiers who were entertaining some of the local prostitutes.

Having captured their opponents, the revolutionaries then drove the women away and deeper into the marshland.

But the incident which would truly propel Skapor Swamp into the national consciousness would occur many years later, in the early hours of the 29th of June, 1988.

At approximately 2 o'clock that morning, a local youth by the name of Christopher Davis was driving home from his shift at a nearby diner when his car sustained a flat tyre.

Davis coasted the vehicle to a spot just off the main road and immediately set about changing the tyre in question.

The highway had been quiet with no other vehicles passing by.

He had just deposited the damaged tyre in the boot of his car and was wiping the dirt from his hands when there there was a rustling sound in the bushes behind him.

When he turned around to look, there was nobody there.

But as he closed the boot lid of his car, he heard the rustling sound again.

Attempting to stifle a growing feeling of apprehension, Davis slowly walked back to the passenger side door and retrieved a torch from the glove box.

Switching it on, He directed the beam into the bushes where the noise had emanated from, but there was nothing to be seen.

As he took a step backwards away from the foliage, lowering the torch so that the light was now pointing towards the ground, a huge dark shape suddenly emerged from the brush.

Davis instinctively raised the torch again to illuminate the figure, before immediately dropping it to the ground and crying out in terror.

Bolting over to the driver's side door, The terrified teen frantically fumbled for the door handle, his mind utterly traumatised by what he had just seen.

The creature that had been advancing towards him was between six and seven feet tall, dark green in colour, with water glistening and dripping from the scales that covered its naked body.

He leapt into the driver's seat and immediately gunned the ignition, only for the car to be rocked from side to side by a violent impact.

With a sickening feeling, Davis glanced in his mirror to see a ghoulish face leering back at him through the car's rear window.

A pair of menacing red eyes regarded him, which almost seemed to glow when the moonlight caught them, whilst a mouth full of misshapen teeth opened and closed beneath them.

The team let out another cry, flooring the pedal and sending the car hurtling back up onto the highway.

Over the roar of the engine, he heard several loud bangs, and then a scrabbling noise on the roof of the car directly above him, before another heavy impact shook the vehicle.

Panicking, he slammed down hard on the brakes and watched in disbelief as a huge shape was immediately thrown onto the road in front of him.

In the intense beams of the car headlights, he could see that the creature was broad and muscular, with three talon claws at the end of each of its hands.

For a moment, it lay motionless, before its head suddenly snapped to the side, staring back at him.

In a heartbeat, Davis again floored the accelerator, the car shooting off down the highway and leaving the creature lying where it fell.

Several days later, when the teenager learned that the local sheriff's office was investigating a report in Browntown of a parked car having been attacked by a mysterious creature, he called the police.

Deputies attended his home address, photographing the deep scratch marks on the boot and roof of his vehicle, as well as a missing wing mirror, before asking him to take them back to the scene of the encounter.

Davis showed the officers the tire marks which demonstrated where he had braked hard to dislodge the creature from his roof, before leading them onto the bushes from where it had first emerged.

Strange tracks were discovered in the thick mud just inside the tree line.

and so plaster casts were taken and sent off to the South Carolina Marine Resources Department for analysis.

A few days later, Sheriff Liston Truesdale received a phone call from a Dr.

Evans, informing him that the casts had been of a large foot with three clawed toes, and that they did not match anything that the department kept on file.

As the weeks progressed, there would be further overnight attacks on vehicles, with deep gouges and bite marks found by their owners the following morning.

These incidents, as well as further sightings of a large lizard-like creature would intensify during the following month, all centered on a five-mile patch of swampland on the outskirts of Bishopsville.

Then, on August 5th, an off-duty airman reported that he had shot and wounded a creature that had attacked him on Highway 15.

Since then, there have only been sporadic sightings of the Scape Or Lizardman, but these have stubbornly persisted up until the present day.

As beguiling as the tale is of a lizard man emerging from his swamp swamp to spend his evenings chasing passing motorists before attacking their vehicles, the skateboar story is not without its flaws.

And one of the greatest undermining factors of the tale is the testimony of Kenneth Orr, the man who was alleged to have injured the beast in the weeks following the original Christopher Davis encounter.

When the airman contacted police to report his actions, He also handed over what appeared to be blood and tissue samples he had recovered from the scene of the incident.

Two days later, Orr found himself being arrested for illegal possession of a firearm and making a false report to the police.

When he subsequently appeared at trial, he stated to the court that he had fabricated the entire incident for attention.

No records of the tissue analysis he had provided or the reasons for his sudden change of heart have ever been revealed.

prompting suspicions about the integrity of the police investigation.

Perhaps curiously, however, the scape or swamp monster is only one of a colourful gallery of reptilian monsters who are alleged to haunt the highways and byways of the United States.

Indeed, it appears that the Sasquatches which apparently saturate the North American continent have a significant amount of cold-blooded competition.

During the 1950s, the city of Loveland, Ohio was plagued by sightings of oversized aquatic monsters.

Motorists reported that whilst driving at night, they had seen what they described as tall, frog-like entities either crossing the main highways ahead of them or fleeing into the safety of the nearby bodies of water.

Over time, these entities became known as the Loveland Frogs.

with reports concerning the creatures continuing until the spring of 1972.

Following a fresh wave of nocturnal sightings, police officers shot and killed a 4-foot-long iguana which was believed to have escaped from a local collector.

With this animal's death, sightings of the Loveland frog also quickly ceased.

Several months later, two youths who were fishing on the shores of a lake in British Columbia reported seeing a scaly creature which had sharp claws and spikes on its head swimming through the nearby waters.

When further witnesses to the incident also later came forward, the legend of the Thetis lake monster was born.

However, much like the Skapor Lizardman and Loveland frogs before it, this new creature ended up being dismissed as the product of overactive imaginations.

Investigators were quick to point out that the description of the Canadian cryptid was strikingly similar to the creature featured in the movie Monster from the Surf, which had been screened on local television only four days before.

Returning to the dark and foreboding depths of Skapor Swamp, the authorities maintain that the creature which was encountered is likely to be either an alligator or a large monitor lizard.

In poor weather or lighting and under severe levels of stress, they propose that witnesses have misidentified everyday creatures, believing that they were standing upright on two legs when they were more likely either clambering or rearing up in an aggressive manner.

The damage to motor vehicles has been laid at the door of coyotes and bears, or even attributed to human offenders.

Much as it was alleged that pranksters have sought to cash in on the famed Mothman sightings in West Virginia during the 1960s, there are suggestions that local residents have manufactured sightings of the lizardman in order to increase tourism in the region.

And yet, with still further sightings having been reported since the attacks on the Rawson household in 2008, perceptions seem to be slowly moving away from a rational explanation towards one that is far more speculative in nature.

Some experts continue to draw parallels between the mysterious tracks recovered by local deputies and monsters from a far-bygone age.

Dr.

Rudy Manke, a naturalist from the University of South Carolina, believes it is entirely possible that if the Scapa Cryptid does indeed exist, it may be descended from some form of bipedal dinosaur.

Historically, some tall birds such as emus and ostriches once possessed scales and a thick hide, as opposed to their more feathery descendants.

Could this be where the three-toed animal tracks have really originated from?

As the technology we carry on our person continues to evolve at a startling rate, it seems highly likely that the secrets of Scapor Swamp will not manage to remain an enigma for much longer.

Be this one of the most successful hoaxes in American history, or a true evolutionary wonder waiting to be uncovered, it is inevitable that at some future point, the mystery of the lizard man must be solved, once and for all.

Story 2:

The Lurking Horror

In previous episodes, we have examined stories of impossibly oversized creatures whose mere existence appears to defy belief.

And this week, we will be looking at perhaps the most horrifying of these alleged beasts: a gigantic species of spider known to those who have survived encounters with it as the Lurking Horror.

Turning to see the fatigue and exhaustion etched upon the faces of the men stumbling along behind him, Remy Janssen shook his head in frustration and signalled for the column to stop and rest up for a while.

Watching as his few remaining men moved amongst the survivors, administering carefully rationed food and water, the sergeant was amazed they had managed to survive thus far.

The mercenary attack upon the outpost they had been guarding had been short and brutal, with half of his small command perishing in the opening moments, the remainder fleeing alongside the surviving missionaries.

On some level, he could not resent those who had attacked him and his men.

They were simply carrying out their duty.

themselves in the employ of the local slave-trading gangs, whilst his pay instead came from the far-removed Belgian government.

It had been his idea for them to head north into the jungle, away from any other settled areas, in the hope that the relative isolation would discourage their attackers from pursuing them.

But now they had become hopelessly lost, roaming aimlessly through a maze of impenetrable vegetation, their supplies dwindling with each passing day.

An unexpected commotion roused Janssen from his thoughts.

His hand reached down instinctively for his rifle before he hurried towards the rear of the column.

When he arrived, he found one of his men slowly backing towards him, the soldier's weapon pointing nervously towards the surrounding undergrowth.

In fearful and hushed tones, the man informed him that something had come creeping out from the trees, before then seizing hold of and abducting one of the surviving missionaries.

Almost immediately, a panicked cry sounded this time from the front of the column, followed moments later by another.

Within seconds, the terrified men were running this way and that, screaming aloud in horror.

As Jansen watched on, dark shapes came scuttling out of the darkness around them, colliding with and knocking the fleeing men to the ground before dragging them back into the shadows.

Suddenly, something erupted from the tree line a short distance away, rushing towards him at an impossibly fast pace.

The NCO's life was spared only by the reflexive speed with which he was able to raise his rifle and open fire.

Both he and the soldier next to him looked down at the twitching carcass that came to rest at his feet, a thick mass of hair, covering eight giant legs, which extended out from a distended body.

As the brush around them now came to life with a deafening chorus of rustling and hissing, the two soldiers immediately turned and ran back in the direction they came from, trying to ignore the screams of the men being dragged away and the vision of the horrifying creatures which would be responsible for their deaths.

During our Enemy Unexplained episode, we related a number of stories in which soldiers reported encountering horrifyingly oversized creatures within the forests of Vietnam.

One such tale made reference to a similar incident which had historically taken place in the Belgian Congo.

where a gigantic python had been photographed by a pilot flying low over a remote part of the territory.

But it appears that it is not only the snakes of this mysterious region which have been known to grow to a terrifying size, with persistent stories of a reclusive species of giant spider also residing there.

In November of 2000, Notable cryptozoologist William Gibbons had been travelling across the Congo basin looking for evidence of a famed dinosaur-like entity known known as Makelembomb.

Whilst on his travels, he and a companion had stopped at a village to speak with the occupants, asking if they had ever encountered the legendary cryptid which he was hunting.

It soon became apparent that they had not, but the leader of the tribe, a man named Timbo, did relate the existence of a giant species of spider.

The chieftain had related that these dangerous creatures were known to grow to such a size that their leg span came close to a staggering 5 feet in width.

Their limbs and upper body were said to be dark brown in colour, making them difficult to see.

Only the fact that their abdomen tended to be a distinctive shade of purple meant that tribe members were able to pick them out amongst their surroundings.

Villagers would sometimes encounter shelters which had been constructed by the reclusive creatures, where leaves had been woven together with spider silk into a structure comparable in size to a tribal hut.

On other occasions, the remains of an antelope or other large animal would be found lying near paths and trails, still held fast amidst the silken trap which had been strung to capture them.

It was explained that the children of the Bakka tribe were taught from a young age to keep a safe distance from these creatures, due to the potent venom carried in their fangs.

Their elders would warn the youngsters to keep a watchful eye out for distinctive clusters of yellowy-skinned eggs, hidden away deep in the forest.

As Gibbons then proceeded to move through the basin during the course of his expedition, He began to question members of other tribes about the alleged existence of these enigmatic arachnids.

And it was during the course of these conversations that he learned the name which had been given to the species by the native people of the region, the Javar Fofi.

Upon returning from his expedition, Gibbons resolved to conduct wider research into the purported existence of the Javar Fofi, and in doing so, discovered that a number of alleged encounters had already been published.

One such incident had been recorded by fellow cryptozoologist George Eberhardt in the pages of his 2002 encyclopedia, Mysterious Creatures, a Guide to Cryptozoology.

The chapter in question made reference to the account of an Englishman named Reginald Lloyd, who had been travelling through the Congo with his wife in 1938.

During one stage of the couple's journey, They had been driving along a track which bordered a particularly dense area of forest, when something had darted out unexpectedly, right in front of their car.

Slamming his foot hard on the brakes, Lloyd had then peered out through the windscreen, expecting to see a monkey staring back at them.

But after wiping the dried dust away from the glass in an effort to identify the culprit, he had suddenly recoiled in horror.

The offender was not a primate, but instead, a giant brown-coloured spider, with a leg span which the Englishman would later estimate to be roughly three feet wide.

After a few seconds, this creature had suddenly reared up in an aggressive display towards the stationary vehicle, causing Lloyd to take his foot off the brake and drive away in the opposite direction as fast as he could.

This encounter had proven so troubling for the couple that upon reaching their next destination, they they decided to cut short their trip and catch the next available ship home to England.

But by far the most horrifying encounter alleged to have taken place between human beings and the Javar Fofi is said to have occurred in Uganda during the late 1890s.

The newly established British authorities received word that one of their citizens had passed away in a small village, located not far from the shores of Lake Nyasa.

A detachment of soldiers was duly dispatched to investigate this report, later finding a simple grave located at the settlement, along with personal possessions which identified the man lying within as Arthur John Sims.

Under questioning from the patrol, it was related by villagers that Sims had been a missionary, who had briefly stopped off at their village during his wider journey through the region.

But several days after Sims and the two porters travelling with him had left to continue their journey, the holy man had suddenly staggered back into the village on his own, rambling incoherently.

As his condition gradually deteriorated during the following days, The Englishman explained that he and his companions had been making their way through a particularly dense area of forest.

But as they had done so, the trio had become ensnared in some form of web-like structure, which they had blundered into.

Whilst in the process of trying to cut themselves free from the strands, the men had suddenly been attacked by two giant spiders, which had apparently been lying in wait nearby.

Sims had told the villagers that he believed the creatures were a mating pair.

with the larger female measuring roughly 4 feet wide and the accompanying male roughly half that size.

During the attack, the two arachnids had repeatedly bitten their prey.

The sharp pincers they possessed apparently injected some form of toxin, which had instantly begun to dull the senses of the struggling men.

Firing his pistol repeatedly at their attackers, Sims had managed to successfully free himself.

but had then gone on to flee the scene when it became clear that the two porters were beyond saving.

Despite repeated efforts, the tribespeople treating Sims had been unable to reverse the effects of the deadly poison flowing through his veins, and a day later, he had sadly passed away.

This incident would go on to generate strict guidance for the occupying British troops not to venture too far into the forest, and to heed any warnings offered to them by the native population.

In addition to stories of giant spider attacks having taken place within the Congo, near-identical reports have also been received from numerous other locations across the globe.

It is alleged that during World War II, an Australian soldier serving in Papua New Guinea encountered a creature similar to the Javar Fofi.

He was part of a patrol responsible for ensuring that Japanese soldiers, in the process of being besieged in one of their encampments, did not manage to break out into the surrounding forests.

Having briefly stepped away from the rest of his unit in order to relieve himself, the hapless infantryman had suddenly found himself standing face to face with an enormous spider's web.

He would later describe this material as having a slightly fluorescent green hue to it, and being roughly 10 feet in width.

A particularly hairy spider was sat regarding him from the base of this structure, similar in size to a large dog, such as a German shepherd.

Utterly terrified that he was about to be attacked, the lone Australian soldier had produced his machete and hacked away at the massive arachnid, before fleeing back to his unit.

20 years later, a similar story would emerge from the battlefields of Vietnam.

where a patrol of five US servicemen reported having been attacked.

The Americans had been slowly and stealthily making their way through the jungle, keeping a watchful eye out for any possible enemy activity.

A rustling in some nearby bushes had quickly sent the patrol into a prone position, in preparation of carrying out an ambush on whoever was moving towards them.

But as they had laid down with their weapons levelled, They had been amazed to instead see several large spiders come rushing out of the foliage towards them.

These creatures were described as being between two and three feet in width, with a bewildering speed and dexterity to their movements.

The patrol had immediately opened fire, tearing the onrushing spiders to pieces before they had turned and beat a hasty retreat.

Despite the significant amount of anecdotal evidence pertaining to the recorded encounters with the Javar Fofi, members of the scientific community remain somewhat sceptical of their existence.

Several fossils have been uncovered around the world purporting to be oversized prehistoric spiders, only later found to be either hoaxes or other creatures whose outlines have degraded to give a false representation.

The largest living arachnid species encountered by explorers are the Huntsman and Goliath tarantula, both of which have been known to grow up up to 30 centimeters in width.

This is markedly smaller than the creatures described by these witnesses, and zoologists believe that it is the internal makeup of arachnids that prevent them from growing to a greater size than those discovered thus far.

One reason is that all species of spider possess a very delicate set of respiratory organs, either consisting of a series of small tubes or air pockets, otherwise known as buck lungs.

These are very inefficient, even for spiders of a small size.

It is theorised that such structures would cease to function if they were much larger, which is why a giant species of spider has never been scientifically catalogued.

Another issue is that the spider's exoskeleton is very heavy, taking a great deal of effort for the creature itself to move around.

As with their lungs, scaling this up would prevent the creatures from being able to move with any speed, and they certainly wouldn't be able to stick to their webs or traverse vertical surfaces.

That said,

it is entirely possible that the spiders encountered by witnesses may not actually be spiders at all, at least not as modern science would classify them.

One commonality to the reports received from Africa and Vietnam is that these creatures have always been encountered in close proximity to a water source.

This raises the possibility that they may instead be some form of crustacean, such as the Japanese spider crab, which can grow up to 12 feet in width.

Although such a huge creature with a thick exoskeleton would be unable to support itself on land, This may not be true of smaller specimens.

But if this were the case, how do we explain the webs and venomous toxins reported by witnesses?

There are also many depictions of giant spider-like creatures throughout Japanese history, known as the Suchigomo, which again allegedly lived in or near to water.

Drawings of these mythical demons bear a striking similarity to tarantulas.

despite this particular species of spider having never been found to reside within Japanese territory.

This again suggests that whatever creature such legends were based upon may have been a large crustacean, as opposed to a giant arachnid.

There remains huge swathes and tracks of the Congo which are still unexplored, meaning that the truth behind the stories of the Jafar Fofi cannot be fully ascertained.

It may well be at some point in the near future, Forensic or surveillance evidence may be produced which conclusively confirms the existence of this horrifying cryptid, and this raises a concerning question.

If there are giant snakes and spiders hidden away in the African jungles waiting to be found,

then what else may be lurking there alongside them?

Bedtime is glorious.