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.
In the 1977/8 and 1984/5 surveys, all the sites in this
hydrometric area were negative but a major increase
was evident in 1991 with 44% of sites positive. A
further 17 positive sites in 2002 now brings the
proportion of positive sites to 78% (81% if only the
sites common to all surveys are compared).
The greatest increases were associated with the
upper reaches of the Tawe and tributaries such as the
Twrch and Lower Clydach, where all the previously
negative sites became positive. Smaller rivers flowing
into the Loughor estuary also showed increases. Also
significant is the presence of otters on the Lliedi
reservoirs, near Llanelli, in an area with considerable
human disturbance.
Since the late summer, an unknown animal has been preying on ponds in back gardens across the Killay and Derwen Fawr areas, killing dozens of fish.
Members of a gardening club believe a mink or possibly an otter is responsible and are urging people to protect their ponds.
Following an attack that left around a dozen of their neighbour's Koi carp decapitated, Alma and Ray Jenkins have covered the pond at their home on Dylan Road in Killay with mesh.
There was blood and fish remains everywhere but just the heads were taken
Alma Jenkins
The couple say they know of at least eight incidents in the area in the past six months, but believe there could be many more that have gone unreported.
RW SwanseaThe problem for saying the Pluck Lake sighting was an otter is the distance. Steve Jenkins was only 3-4m from the creature. Thus it cannot be an otter I think.
At 4.00am on 20th May I saw an adult otter on the Oystermouth Road directly opposite tescos and swansea i was driving at the time and got within 20 feet of it and saw it for at least 30 seconds i was struck at how big it was and obviously that it was so close to the city centre. I didnt think that there was a wild population in swansea and actually reported it to the police.
The insect certain is the plague of fables.
This story's monster has a serpent caul,
Blind in the coil scrams round the blazing outline,
Measures his own length on the garden wall
And breaks his shell in the last shocked beginning;
A crocodile before the chrysalis,
Before the fall from love the flying heartbone,
Winged like a sabbath ass this children's piece
Uncredited blows Jericho on Eden.
And in the pincers of the boiling circle,
The sea and instrument, nicked in the locks of time,
My great blood's iron single
In the pouring town,
I, in a wind on fire, from green Adam's cradle,
No man more magical, clawed out the crocodile.
Man was the scales, the death birds on enamel,
Tail, Nile, and snout, a saddler of the rushes,
Time in the hourless houses
Shaking the sea-hatched skull,
And, as for oils and ointments on the flying grail,
All-hollowed man wept for his white apparel.
Man was Cadaver's masker, the harnessing mantle,
Windily master of man was the rotten fathom,
My ghost in his metal neptune
Forged in man's mineral.
This was the god of beginning in the intricate seawhirl,
And my images roared and rose on heaven's hill.
They suffer the undead water where the turtle nibbles,
Come unto sea-stuck towers, at the fibre scaling,
The flight of the carnal skull
They climb the country pinnacle,
Twelve winds encounter by the white host at pasture,
Corner the mounted meadows in the hill corral;
They see the squirrel stumble,
