Current Crazy Croc Encounter
Chad Arment has passed along updates on a 2 to 3 ft long crocodilian being sighted and photographed in Hickory Lake, North Carolina. Seen for a week now (since Mother’s Day, May 11, 2008), it remains uncaught.
What is that thing in Hickory Lake?
Another link at CrytoMundo was to a story about a new species of ancient croc found as a fossil which was in the news in late March:
2005 has been a bumper year for crazy croc incidents, with reports from areas as diverse as South Seattle, Wash., Rehoboth, Mass. and Charleston, West Virginia... (Editor's Comment: We've had isolated crazy croc sightings in the USA before. Fortean researcher Loren Coleman has documented hundreds of them dating back to the early 1930s. But, to my knowledge, this is the first sustained crazy croc flap we've ever had, with sightings every week.)Source
Another incident in 2005 was in Cyprus - "Wildlife workers in Cyprus are trying to verify reports that crocodiles may be on the loose at a popular tourist nature spot after they became too dangerous for their owner to handle."
"The reptiles are believed to have been smuggled in to the eastern Mediterranean island, where crocodiles do not breed and the closest nature cousin is the innocuous chameleon."
This is the fourth report in three weeks about out-of-place crocodiles or alligators turning up in areas far from their natural habitat.
OUT-OF-PLACE ALLIGATOR SNAPS AT A MAN IN KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE
One of the weirdest Fortean phenomena is the "Crazy Croc syndrome," the sudden and unexplained appearance of alligators in places far from their natural habitat.
Just such an incident occurred last week in Kennebunkport, Maine (population 1,200), a seaside resort town on Route 9 located about 26 miles (40 kilometers) south of Portland.
(Editor's Note: The Bush family mansion, summer home of former President George Herbert Walker Bush, and his son, Gov. George W. Bush, the current Republican Party candidate for USA president, is located on Walker's Point in Kennebunkport.)
(Editor's Comment: Cue spooky organ music...) "An alligator that nipped at a man's trousers was likely someone's pet that was set free, police said."
"William Sartry shot the 31-inch-reptile dead. He said the alligator approached him while he was walking around a pond in his back yard."
"'You're going to think I'm nuts,' Sarty told a police dispatcher when he reported the incident." (See USA Today for September 20, 2000, "Maine," page 6A.) from
Source
As always Charles Fort was the first to notice Crazy Croc Syndrome in his book LO!:
Fort thinks telportation (a word he invented) might be involved. It is interesting that so many Crocs should have been seen in the 1860s in one area.Maybe, in September, 1929, somebody lost an alligator. According to some of our data upon the insecurities of human mentality, there isn't anything that can't be lost by somebody. A look at Losts and Founds -- but especially Losts -- confirms this notion. New York American, Sept. 19, 1929 -- an alligator, 31 inches long, killed in the Hackensack Meadows, N.J., by Carl Weise, 14 Peerless Place, North Bergen, N.J. But my attention is attracted by another "mysterious appearance" of an alligator, about the same time. New York Sun, Sept. 23, 1929 -- an alligator, 28 inches long, found by Ralph Miles, in a small creek, near Wolcott, N.Y.
In the Gentleman's Magazine, Aug., 1866, somebody tells of a young crocodile, which, about ten years before, had been killed on a farm, at Over-Norton, Oxfordshire, England.
In the November issue of this magazine, C. Parr, a well-known writer upon antiquarian subjects, says that, thirty years before, near Chipping Norton, another young crocodile had been killed.(6) According to Mr. Parr, still another young crocodile had been seen, at Over-Norton. In the Field, Aug. 23, 1862, is an account of a fourth young crocodile that had been seen, near Over-Norton.(7)
It looks as if, for about thirty years, there had been a translatory current, especially selective of young crocodiles, between somewhere, say in Egypt, and an appearing-point near Over-Norton. If, by design and functioning, in the distribution of life in an organism, or in one organic existence, we mean anything so misdirected as a teleportation of young crocodiles to a point in a land where they would be out of adaptation, we evidently mean not so very intelligent design and functioning. Possibly, or most likely. It seems to me that an existence that is capable of sending young butchers to medical schools, and young boilermakers to studios, would be capable of sending young crocodiles to Over-Norton, Oxfordshire, England.
