This Paranormal Life - #156 Do Mutant Alligators Live in the NYC Sewers?

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

New York City can be a dangerous place. Rats as big as your head, Rent so expensive you can't even afford shelter from the rats. Your landlord? Also a rat. But what if I told you the REAL threat was below the streets... down in the dark sewers of the city...Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Louis BlatherwickIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you eat birthday cake if it's not your birthday? How do you wash a waterproof coat? All of these questions you can find the answer to on THIS PARANORMAL LIFE! Hello everyone and welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself and this guy Kit Greer investigate a brand new tale, case, claim, beast, legend, story, cryptid, alien, and find out whether or not it is really paranormal or if it's just a crock of shit. There's a lot of crocks of shit. And speaking of crocks, boy, do I have a great episode today.

Like the shoes, perchance? No, not the shoes. The gators. Oh. Exactly. Before we get into this episode, that second intro question, how do you wash a waterproof coat? Do you actually need some feedback on that? I genuinely do.

Okay. This isn't even a bit. I ordered a... Can I see the thing? It's here somewhere in the flat. I accidentally dropped an entire salt beef mustard bagel on my white waterproof coat today. It looked like something had exploded on me, like a bank heist had gone wrong, and I opened up the case that had an ink bomb in it.

It's a complete mess. And I don't know how to wash it now. Do you take it to a dry what do you, dry cleaners? If it's, so it's waterproof, so it's, I think you just wipe it, don't you? Well, it didn't wipe very well because that white jacket's looking pretty yellow. Look, just email us in, This Paranormal Life, if you have any tips on how I can fix my expensive Nike jacket. Sorry, back to the show.

Got a little sidetracked there. This week, we're getting our episode ideas. Not where we usually get them. Not from the dark web and not from our inbox. I found this suggestion as a post from Jamie Brock Webb on the This Paranormal Life Facebook page. Okay, so not the... A different inbox, if you will.

Sure, yeah. And a different dark web. Still a listener's suggestion. But he didn't say like, hey, investigate this. He was just like, hey, check this out, you bunch of freaks. Okay. And I did. And immediately I was excited, curious, and a little aroused, frankly.

Interesting. So, I followed the link, which led to a very recent New York Times article about something I feel is very important to talk about. Our story today, Kit, is one of legend, passed down from generation to generation. But perhaps there is some truth to this legend it's up to us to find out didn't you say this was a new york times article the other day how is this a legend passed on through the generations it's a new york times article about a legend passed down from generation to generation is that the new york times remit i thought they were like cutting

edge news they write some some classics as well some oldies. Some myths? Every year they print the f***ing Bible, alright? It didn't happen yesterday. The New York Times? No! No, publishers! You can write stories about old shit. You think Hogwarts is around now? No.

It's happened. It's done. I think let's get back to the cross. Sorry. I'm getting fired up here. Today we're heading to New york city the big apple the city that never sleeps yeah this city is like a zoo you got the wolves of wall street you got the sharks of finance but today we're talking about new york's most deadly predator

one that lurks below the city streets in the the dark sewers, waiting for the right time to strike. Is it like a condense or lawyers? It seemed to be where you're going with the zoo analogy. No, I'm just implying that this is a, you know, New York City. It's a dangerous place. Okay. It's 1932, and police in Westchester County, just north of New York City, are working at the station on a lazy Sunday. They've got the baseball on in the background. They're polishing their guns. Relaxing.

So what police men do to relax? I think on a lazy Sunday, definitely. If you get too excited watching the baseball, you don't need to be polishing your gun while you do it. That thing will go off. On a triple, it's going off. The door to the station swings open and a group of kids walk up to the main desk. The receptionist is reading the newspaper, not paying attention, when he hears a loud thump of something being dropped on the desk.

He lowers the paper to see a three-foot dead alligator lying on the table. Jesus. When the officers at the station asked the kids, Where'd you find this alligator? They said, The Bronx River. It's swarming with them. What?

That's right. Today, Kit, we're going to talk about the legend of the New York City Alligators. Jesus Christ. All right. I've been to New York a couple of times. I'm sure you've been a few times. Yeah, I've actually only been once. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, not once did I hear about alligators. I thought it would have come up. I think it's a pretty popular New York myth. I mean, there's even, I think, like a bronze statue in one subway station of an alligator popping out of a manhole and grabbing a baby really yeah very tasteless actually now that i think about it i'm just imagining the one time you went to new york city was to do all the crock tours of yeah exactly you didn't give a shit about the empire state building everyone's going around on like the traditional new york city uh yellow

cabs and i've got one of those like hover gliders that's just going around on like the traditional new york city uh yellow cabs and i've got one of those like hover gliders that's just going around the swamps now there's two kind of versions of the legends of the new york city alligators the first is just simply that there are alligators living in the sewers nothing more nothing less but others believe the gators down there have mutated from ingesting sewage water oh which isn't a good combination no i mean i've seen and now i grew up on the teenage mutant ninja turtles yeah and i mean it went well for them but by all accounts that nuclear waste could have turned them into any kind of i mean there seem to be other sort of mutant criminals in that world yeah so if these crocodiles we've said it before they have they get into contact

with the nuclear waste and they don't have a rat sensei yeah exactly where they end up if splinter wasn't there to steer these guys in the right direction we would be talking today about a gang of little turtles stealing babies from subway stations. 100%. One of the earliest recorded encounters of an alligator in New York was 1907, when the local newspaper wrote an article about a man named Charles Gidds, who went to pick up a strange object while in the sewers. inflicted little injury. It was learned a week later that an alligator had escaped a week ago from freeholder John W. Roach and who welcomed its return with many thanks. That was fast. Yeah, so this is, I think, one of the first recorded instances of a man in the sewers in New York City

coming across an alligator. And he has the scars to prove it and he has the witnesses to prove it. It really happened. So there has at least on one occasion definitely been a little alligator. A little baby one for sure. Yeah. Now it should go without saying that alligators aren't local to New York. Sure. But that being said, the year was 1907. There's a number of possible explanations as to how a baby alligator ended up in the big city i guess one is to start a business yeah wanted to work in media they wanted to get into real estate lots of options how did babe end up in the big city that's a great point wasn't he chasing his mama or something? Yeah, I think it was a kind of home alone situation. He was left on his own.

He had to get to someone. Yeah, maybe this alligator's mama was going to be turned into a belt or a shoe. And he chased it into the big city to try and stop whatever was going to happen. I don't remember alligators being very family oriented, but they might be. Yeah. I don't remember alligators being very family oriented, but they might be. Yeah. Well, also, you know, a circus animal could have got loose.

An exotic pet or zoo creature could have escaped. It's 1907. There's no laws. There's no rules for these kinds of things. People were probably commuting on lions, getting their Deliveroo orders delivered by cheetahs and grizzly bears. It is one of the discrepancies we notice living here in the UK is that, I don't know if Americans fully understand that in the UK, like a wild pet to have is like a f***ing bird. Yeah, that's crazy.

That's like, you're eccentric. Like, I probably don't want to know you if you have a bird for a pet. If you have a bird, you're now a jailbird. Because you are weird and you're going to get locked up. That's right. That's just how we think over here. Whereas we always hear these stories about how there's all these tigers in Texas. Yeah.

Now you're telling me there's crocs in New York City? I thought those people were like us. Lenny, these explanations would have made sense if this was the one and only report of alligators in the city. However, it was only the beginning. Year after year, more reports and stories of New Yorkers spotting alligators in the city poured into the news. This is f***ed. And in 1935 came the arrival of the harlem gator the harlem so it's one famous gator very famous actually i'm surprised you haven't heard of them and yeah just one gate ever heard of harlem it's a pretty rough and tough neighborhood so even the alligators have to scrape

and scrounge to get by they become pretty tough too yeah you think the the alligators have to scrape and scrounge to get by. They become pretty tough too. Yeah, you think the alligators in Florida are dangerous? Imagine alligators not only born and raised in the big city, but in the hood, on the mean street. In the f***ing projects. Obviously, the alligators down in Sunshine County are pretty chill. Yeah. If an alligator is stressed out by his commute,

if an alligator is stressed out by the grind of the nine to five. It was February 9th, 1935 at the end of the great depression. And a group of teens were shoveling snow from the streets down into the New York sewers to clear the roads. But as they tossed the piles and piles of snow down into the darkness, they heard a thrashing sound. They could see something moving down there. The boys decided to form a makeshift lasso from a clothesline and toss it down into the sewers. After some trial and error, it seemed like the wire was hooked on something.

So with one big pull, the boys yanked the cable and up shot an enormous eight foot alligator. Oh, eight feet. Snapping and snarling. Eight feet? Do you know how heavy that would be? That would be insane. That's because it's the motherfucking Harlem Gator, bitch. This guy's bigger than your babies.

He's a basketball player he's got that harlem eight foot tall stature he eats other gators he's enormous the boys panicked and using their shovels beat it to death on the road what so you keep calling them boys but they fished a eight-foot gator out of the sewer i assume there was a gang of them and then boys in new york city in 1935 were men that's so true all right so we don't have to worry about these kids they probably had six packs it's like a scorsese movie these guys are probably hired killers exactly back in these days we didn't know how good we had it. All the gator meat you could eat straight from the sewers.

We didn't have guns or nothing back then. You had to beat the damn thing to death. I lost a digit every time I ate. Damn, I miss those good old days. The New York Daily News speculated that it had escaped from the East River and had possibly swum into a sewer outflow pipe. I thought they didn't have... So there are gators in this river?

In the East River, I guess they've seen them before. I don't know where that is. Probably somewhere outside of the New York City. I guess they're thinking that this guy has gone basically upstream. Right. All the way to the heart of the city. Okay, so it's like a fish swimming up your toilet or something yeah like those trout that go or is it it's trout right to go up or

salmon yeah they go up the up the stream yeah i don't know what these kids expected really i mean if you if you're hauling anything any clump out of the new york city sewers it's gonna be it's gonna be human shit it's gonna be bad it's gonna be a ball of rats or a human corpse there's nothing good that you're gonna get from especially if you hear it snarling and snapping in the darkness like it wasn't like you heard the the the jingling. Yeah, or like the shine of a gold doubloon down there. And you were like, yeah, let's put a magnet on a rope and see what it attaches to, some precious metal. No, they were like, I don't care what's down there, we're getting it. I don't care what's down there, it's dinner tonight.

I'm hungry and I don't have a job. How the F is this happening? Yeah. At this point, the New York City sewer gators weren't just a myth or a legend. All right. This is real. So how is this happening? Well, it turns out that in the 1930s, baby alligators were all the rage.

Oh? Parents would get them for their children. Vacationers to Florida could bring them back as souvenirs Bad parents and vacationers You could even order them by mail by filling out adverts in the back of magazines Jesus Christ Then the grim reality is that when the creatures got too big they were dumped What do you mean too big? There are gators! six inch Water is too big you got a week or two it

Oh, you got a fortnight at max before this thing is starting to think you look pretty tasty It a gator the size of your hand will still kill your dog It's too big. It's like saying like we got up We got a pet panther, but it got a little too big so we had to get rid of it it's a born killer it's like you know how they say oh you know dogs aren't just for christmas it's a it's a lifetime of looking after it gators are just for christmas boxing day they're a little too big and it's whack or get whacked get the shovels ready kids because uh-oh there's no leftovers on boxing day because the gator ate them all of course

and by boxing day it's hungry for more in fact it's hungry for flesh these baby alligators were either thrown out into the wild killed killed, or, as the rumors go, blushed down the toilets where they'd end up in the city's sewer system. Can we Google pictures of baby gators? I want to understand. I want to put myself in the mindset of someone who would want one.

Well, first off, I just realized I never even showed you. I have the actual clipping of the newspaper report from the discovery of the harlem gator let's see it the eight foot gator lassoed from a harlem sewer uh this is an actual photocopy of the newspaper article okay so right off the bat you said it was eight foot tall this thing just about held up by two men reaches their chest they're tall men and they don't look tall man can you please read the headline for the article james matrino a six-year-old boy from the harlem oh you're right okay it uh james matrino 19 with salvatore concolucci gotta love those italian american names 16 with alligator dragged from rope from storm sewer

in harlem prize weighed 125 pounds and no one seemed to know how it got in the sewer youths were shoveling snow into the sewer when they discovered it i mean it's enormous it i'll give it to you it's not eight foot but it is it is it's too big it's way way too big to be in harlem that is terrifying dude imagine imagine you were queuing for the tube in london and like you were just like on your phone and then just scuttling across the tracks before the train comes down you just see an eight foot gator stomping snarling and thrashing that's terrifying you know in london the only thing that you really have to look out for is pigeons we're pretty safe here yeah we got nothing really that can hurt us. Too cold. But as you said, what is a gator this big doing in Harlem, let alone New York City?

This is where things get paranormal. While some people believe that gators have gone down into the sewers and merely just survived down there, others believe that they've thrived. People believe that the conditions of the sewers have led to, quote, special breeds of alligator. Uh-oh. Ones that after feeding on sewage and toxic waste are now blind, giant, albino monsters.

No! I guess if there was any creature that has now adapted on the fly evolved to basically eat human shit and live in the pure dark that's going to be as close to a demon as we'll ever get i mean alligators and crocodiles are always touted as living dinosaurs these are the creatures that have been alive for hundreds of we're newbies we're we're the fresh kids on the block we've only been around for 200 000 years give or take these have been here for 100 200 300 million years pretty much unchanged they nailed it first time it's like god was designing a machine for robot wars it was like give it four legs and massive teeth and actually while we're at it armor

it's like nothing's gonna take it down alligators are the black box of planet earth when this whole ship goes down the alligators are gonna be there to be like here's what i saw go down all right nuclear wars global warming the whole thing was alligators will be able to tell these stories because they're indestructible so true the oceans dry up they go above land the land goes on fire they go underwater no more food they can eat human shit apparently but what i'm trying to say is that they've been the same for hundreds of millions of years yeah uh they are overdue an upgrade a little evolutionary kind of chop shop style pimp my ride thing yeah yeah what happens if you just nail it first try if an animal is just created perfect born perfect that's hard to

improve they're basically a weapon with eyes yeah a suit of armor with knives on their face so whilst evolution itself wasn't mixing up the formula too much adding in just a hint of toxic waste has turned these things into even more deadly criminals. That'll speed things up for sure. At this point in the story, the only thing paranormal about these gators is their location. But the legend of the sewer gators is only beginning. Teddy May was the superintendent of the New York City sewer system in the 1930s. His years of service and dedication to his job earned him the nickname, King of the Sewers. Bad

nickname. Terrible nickname. That's like being like, the city wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the dedication and hard work you've put in, Rat King. Like, just call me, my name is Teddy, that's quite a cute name. Okay, Teddy Toilet Master Teddyson. Alright,

please. Look, my profession has nothing to do with my personality shite muncher ted all right that's enough one time i ate that shit and you guys won't let it go now teddy may met with his team of inspectors responsible for surveying the sewers and making sure everything's running smooth but everything was not running smooth. Everything was rough and jagged like an alligator's back. The men seemed disheveled and anxious. They said, look, Teddy, sewer king, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but you got a whole city full of fucking alligators down there, bro. Now, Teddy, knowing the sewers well, obviously didn't believe them and assumed the men were boozing on the job.

So he hired another team of inspectors to watch the inspectors to find out if they were drinking down in the sewers. Pretty smart. I'm starting to see how he rose up through the ranks like that. When the team returned, they said, well, the good news is your boys aren't drinking on the job. The bad news is you got a f***ing ton of alligators down there.

So there was nothing left for Teddy to do but head down himself. So he dragged open the manhole cover and descended down into the darkness of the sewers. Hello, darkness, my old friend. My only true home. He trudged through the sewage, flashlight in hand, looking out for this colony of alligators, but came up empty-handed. Then, hearing a gentle splash in the waters behind him,

It wasn't gentle. There's no way it was gentle. turned with his flashlight to illuminate a congregation of alligators hiding by the small pipes in the backwash of the city that it was true there were alligators living down there in the sewers in the following months teddy assembled a dad squad a squad of sewer dwellers to completely eradicate the alligator infestation by any means necessary. Sewer knight, sewer jester, sewer queen, we must descend and fight. And they did try a few different ways. So first off, they allegedly baited some of the creatures with rat poison. Wow. they allegedly baited some of the creatures with rat poison wow try to get them out of their little crocodile alligator holes and chow down on some some poison yeah cruel but necessary i mean that's

already a pretty brave assumption that rat poison is going to kill a creature that's been eating raw sewage presumably for the last 10 years there's already a lot of rat poison down there you don't need to add any that might make them stronger at this point that's like the appetizer for eating you other alligators were herded into main trunk lines where they drowned wow i don't know a lot about how the sewers work i'm assuming augustus gloop style that they were pushed into skinny pipes probably not filled with chocolate where they died Willy Wonka style, just jammed in the pipes. He didn't die, though. He just he was fine. And finally, the surviving alligators were flushed through the pipes into areas where Teddy and his squad.

Okay, don't flush them because that's how we got in this mess. I will remind you. Yeah. Flushing gators. You can't just flush away your problems, people. You got to bag up the gator, bury it very, very deep. Or like we said in previous episodes, like Megatron, bottom of the Mariana Trench. The surviving alligators were flushed through the pipes.

Hear me out. I know you're against flushing. They were flushed into areas where Teddy and his squad were waiting with loaded guns to blast them on sight. Whenever you signed up as like, I don't know, whatever they call that job, like metropolitan refuse. Yeah. You know, executive. You didn't know you'd be getting a piece. Yeah.

A machine gun. It'd be really worrying about day one. It's just like, all right, so we're going to head down into the sewers. Here you go, kid. I need to toss you like an AK. You're like, what the hell? All right, everyone move in formation. Don't shoot without authorization.

Remember, gators are haters. Gators are haters. And they just like, don't even use the ladder at this point. They just like nosedive into the manholes. Yo, between you and me, other than the gators, there's a lot of mutants too. You can kind of picture this as an action film, you know, that they all get ready at the precinct to go down into the sewers. And the newbie on his first day like hops into the back of the Jeep. And they're bumping down the New York City roads going under the manhole.

And he's looking across at the other soldiers. One of them's like missing an eye. He's got a scar all down. One of them's got like a robot arm. And then there's a guy with a cigar in his mouth. And he's like, first tour kid. Where are we going? What is this job this is insane now all of teddy's accounts of these

events are actually all documented in robert daly's book the world beneath the city that tells all the stories of similar incidents in new york interesting, while these are very dramatic stories, the way that it's told by the sewer king himself is that none of these alligators really exceeded three feet. Okay. We're not looking at a Harlem gator situation here, folks. These are maybe not baby alligators, but certainly not mutant albino alligators i don't actually know what the scale is is is three feet normal is i don't know i think no they're pretty big right i thought so how big is then i thought they could survive underwater but then you just told me they drowned them so i they can probably survive underwater maybe not in raw human shit and feces.

Drowned is a strong word. American alligators are three to four meters long. Okay, that's a lot bigger than three feet right there. Yeah. That's three to four times the amount of feet we thought they were. If anything, this alligator extinction is not really heroic. this alligator extinction is not really heroic it's more just shooting malnourished lost animals in the in the darkness of the sewers so while this is certainly an interesting case it's not necessarily a paranormal case but website disclosure.pw tells the story of an alligator that may possess paranormal qualities.

The website states that deep in the stagnant swamps along the border between Alabama and Florida, a story began circulating among the locals in the 1920s of a vicious alligator measuring 4.5 meters nearly 15 feet long Which had emerged from the swamps to wreak havoc on the community But in addition to his unusual size, this was no ordinary alligator kit It was said that the creature possessed fiery red glowing eyes and was immensely powerful Able to easily rip large prey to pieces with his jaws. And its tail, its f***ing tail.

Another 18 feet. That's right. I wasn't cunting the tail before. Its tail was claimed to be able to flip over a fully grown horse with one lash. What? How do you flip a horse what does that mean it literally means nothing did you push it over or did it land back on its feet did you yeah did it flip back onto its hooves i have no idea that maybe that's like a southern saying. Yeah, flip a horse.

Like, damn, Franklin, you've been going to the gym. You look like you can flip a horse. You know, maybe something like that. I guess, like, eat a horse. Yeah, I don't know. But you get the idea. This son of a bitch is strong. Big and strong.

One of the beastly alligator's feet had allegedly been partially taken off by a steel trap, giving it a distinctive two-toed track and leading to its nickname, Two-Toe Tong. Rumors said that this was not an ordinary animal at all but rather a demon from hell a local farmer named pap haynes who had recently purchased land nearby was assured that the tales of the monster alligator were just folklore you got nothing to worry about haynes yeah oh alec yeah of course there's some alligators you You know how to deal with them. Shovel them to death. Oh, those bones just lying around the yard? They're chicken bones.

Yeah. We got big chicken down here in Alabama. Yeah, they're like prehistoric bones coming out of the ground 10 feet high. This was until one day he found one of his mules ripped apart. Uh-oh. And in the dirt, two toed tracks trailing blood to a nearby pond speculating that the beast was probably still wallowing in the pond digesting its meal Haynes filled up 15 syrup buckets with dynamite he doesn't mess

around at all literally the first thing that it's done he went from being convinced it doesn't exist to nuking a pond i thought he was gonna like maybe call the people who sold him the house be like hey i'm starting to think you weren't forthcoming about the whole two-toed tom thing but he went straight to nuke the bitch if he had had chemical weapons he would have used them i'm starting to think he purchased the land knowing full well that tom was gonna show up because no one goes from like yeah i guess you're right and then being crossed once and saying that's the final straw i've been living here for all of 30 minutes to to tom and i'm not gonna like you f**k up my life you just know as well like he's

telling people that the mule was ripped apart but it like it just got a scratch on his knee and he's like that's the last f**king straw this gator this beast will die it's like you need to chill out i don't think anyone's even seen an alligator around these parts in over a hundred years. Haven't you seen the two-toed footprints? Isn't your donkey two-toed? What do you think, he ate himself? Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah, my donkey, two-toed Timmy, of course. When he detonated the dynamite, it resulted in a spectacular explosion that completely devastated the pond, leaving very little chance for anything to have survived. But then, just moments after the massive eruption, there were screams accompanied by

riotous thrashing of water coming from a nearby pond. Knowing what this undoubtedly meant, Haynes went to go finish what he'd started. He hadn't started anything. He's not even finishing anything. You can't finish something if nothing happened. If you just tried to detonate a pond. You blew up a pond. The crocodile was nowhere near. It's time for the years of suffering to come to an end. All your shit is still in boxes.

You could just leave. He hasn't even opened the front door yet. Moving can wait. I need to take care of something. So along with his sons and a posse of eight armed local men, he headed to where the noise was coming from. When the men arrived, they were greeted by the glinting red eyes of two-toed Tom sinking under the bloodied water. it soon became apparent where all the

blood had come from as the body of haynes's 12 year old granddaughter what laying nearby no this son of a was in another pond eating his granddaughter. That is awful. Yeah, it's demon activity. I love that this alligator, in the aftermath of the huge dynamite explosion, two-toed Tom is just there laughing like an anime villain. Just like, ha ha ha, you thought you could kill me. Hings would allegedly spend the rest of his days caught up in an obsessive quest to kill the beast. And it is said that even when hard times hit the community and his friends and family were moving away, Haynes refused to budge. Instead, intent on remaining where he was in order to

complete his vendetta to slay two-toed Tom. Wow wow that's got to be kind of like an awkward family reunion you know we're the whole family's around the table at thanksgiving and it's like uh so jacob here has actually uh moved to new jersey started up that that new company how's that going jacob well you know it's just uh it's just getting off the ground we still got a couple overheads to to work out um but you don't think things are going good oh great yeah how's everything with you haynes haynes is like playing with his food he's made like an alligator out of mashed potatoes he's like fun for some who get to enjoy life take things so lightly not old hainesy and they're like still uh still at the still looking for a two-toed tom huh

someone's gotta take care of the beast otherwise it will multiply and suddenly it would eat your little new jersey all right all right you think it doesn't like businesses it loves small businesses it loves to eat them for breakfast hains we're look, we all know what you're doing is important work. We're just trying to have dinner here, man. We're just trying to chill out and be a little family. You don't think that if I walked away from my property for five minutes, two-toed Tom wouldn't go straight to Manhattan and start nibbling at the Empire State Building itself?

You just know that would exactly be what would happen, you know. Everyone's calling him crazy. Everyone's making fun of him. They heckle him out of town. He's like, all right, you've had enough of me? Fine, I'll leave you all be. And he moves down like out into the woods or something. And then, boom, in the news next day,

a local body was found behind a bar with alligator bite marks all over its neck. A family of five were found dead in their home with an alligator-shaped hole in the wall. It's like a whole pandemic. People are dropping off one by one. At the White House, the Stars and Stripes is conspicuously absent, and a new alligator- alligator themed flag has been raised as of this afternoon and then they gotta go out to the woods you know tail between their legs they gotta find this old cabin and they're like knocking on the door they creak their way in they're like haynes haynes we need you we're sorry he's like sleeping in his cot you know with a loaded shotgun of course like

haynes we need you to come back it's it's not gonna and they step on like a board that makes a creak and he's like it's tom blows their heads clean off with one shot it's just me and you at the end of the world blood brothers tom it's just us your family what was that you said about blood brothers one of the reasons haynes may not have ever been able to ultimately kill the enormous alligator could be because it's said that shortly after the dynamite attack two-toed tom apparently went on the move crossing the state line into florida to continue its slaughter of cattle That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I guess if you hear about this alligator that is constantly roaming around this one part, haunting the residents, you never assume he's just going to up shop and go.

That doesn't happen. Yeah, but I mean, from everything I've heard in the popular media, Florida is a kind of paradise for old people and alligators. So I can understand why it would be attractive. It's kind of disappointing because old people and alligators. So I can understand why it would be attractive. It's kind of disappointing because when I was reading this story, I was kind of hoping that it would result in a Revenge of the Sith style showdown where Hanes and Two-Toe Tom are fighting on a lava planet. And, you know, Hanes is like,

It's over, Two-Toee tom i've got the high ground and the two-toe tom is like lashing about in the lava because he thinks it's water he's got red eyes he sees in red he doesn't know what's hot and what's not and uh you know he tries to do like a gator barrel roll and flip right over and haynes has got i don't know what's the redneck equivalent of a lightsaber whiskey bottle i guess he just smashes it over the gator's head as it soars over him and it just rolls down into the into the puddles of the floor i mean that's what it's gotta become well it's gotta become one toed Tom after that scene, obviously. And then, of course, Haynes leaves.

He didn't realize that two toed Tom was just picked up by Chancellor Palpatine and turned into Darth Tom. Oh, your problems have just multiplied. That's one of the most popular stories I could find of a actual, essentially a super gator. So thank you for that great bit of info there from www.disclosure.pw. Not exactly a cryptid, but I guess so. A kind of mythical super animal. Yeah. I mean, that's a great discussion.

At what point does an animal just get so abnormally large that it's a cryptid yeah i mean if because you do see that in the you always see those pictures on the internet where it's like oh yeah you think you think kangaroos are a joke look at this son of a bitch and it's like an abnormally jacked kangaroo it's a mike tyson kangaroo it's a heavyweight champion of the world. That for some reason is insanely stronger and faster than a kangaroo should be. Yeah. Does that make him paranormal?

I always think this when I see albino, funnily you mentioned it, but like albino animals. Yeah. Bizarrely seems to be in a number of different animal species. There's tendency for one in a million to be colored entirely white yeah and i always think wow imagine being like some hunter-gatherer living 10 000 years ago if you saw that one in a million white elephant or like white giraffe or white horse in the in the wilderness you would a hundred percent assume that it was a paranormal message or sign from the gods yeah it's only just like today science has told us like it's it's pretty strange but it's we can explain it guys so boring oh sons of bitches take a magic there of everything there's only one place on earth

untouched by science and that's disneyland and that's why it's the happiest place on earth because magic and joy and love is real exactly and that little cryptid mickey mouse is one day gonna get what's coming that's right as soon as i can get a net and a tranquilizing dart through the i try to bring a piece every time yeah you you should as you should um but unfortunately we can't bring our weapons in so i'm just forced to take photos with the guy and pose like i'm having a good time ask a few questions try and learn a little about his patterns yeah he doesn't even realize that it's me because i got the ears on my head blending in he thinks i'm one of them this just demonstrates the the fine line between cryptid and

a freak of nature it's so true um i've actually seen an albino alligator before in a zoo i don't remember i think it was a zoo in america good lord surprisingly really cute oh yeah i actually think alligators are quite cute where is this going that's it they're not going anywhere you're in the alligator where's it going i'm not gonna it well you just spent an entire episode saying that they're murderous bastards and then now you're telling me they're cute so i'm starting to question your alliances they got a cheeky little smile what you can't help but love them they killed a granddaughter look that's in their instinct you know it's like when a cat kills a bird you don't go like i will now make it my mission

to hunt and kill that cat you go hey come on now little cat i've been campaigning for years for cat prisons and no one will listen but the little furry assholes need to be locked up just for a week or two at a time to teach him a lesson that's what i'm saying i think one of the weirdest things that we should talk about in this entire case because it's a huge case and there's so many levels to it you know not even talking about you got the street level sewer level sub sewer level three i guess are the levels yeah that's kind of it alligators aren't typically violent by nature you're telling me they're cute you're telling me they're not violent you just listed for 45 minutes the murders that they've done i meant in terms of i mean first off the murders was by a demon you said it was a weapon that could walk yeah but the weapons don't kill people yes they do the people

kill people so if i would like if they're starting to sound like an nra narc if you were in a if you were in a swamp and an alligator was swimming by if you're sitting there he's not gonna shimmy up to you and and eat you he's gonna swim on by is that true it doesn't i think so i think they only well you gotta base it on something jesus christ scientists have said there you go i'll start the sentence like that how about that okay that's not how it works though you don't just say jesus christ said and google it are alligators violent are alligators violent don't just say science is sad. Jesus Christ, fucking Google it. Are alligators violent? Are alligators violent? Don't you, like, pick out a convenient, like, piece of information? I'm going to scroll a bit here.

How to survive an alligator attack. Is it rare for an alligator to kill a person? That's a good question. But it implies that it has happened. Absolutely not. Have you seen them absolute weapons they are it says american alligators are often less aggressive towards human than larger crocodiles okay but that's like saying and crocodiles like saying a nuke is a bit more

destructive than dynamite there's no point in arguing this because my next point is going to be that actually they're pretty violent what what is the point of this setup you couldn't convince me that they weren't violent only to then try and contradict that and say they are that was the point of the sentence the point of the sentence was gonna be imagine that didn't happen all right scientists will tell you that alligators are typically not very violent towards humans okay however this man in florida would tell you that yes they are michael diaz was swimming in a stream just a few blocks from his home outside of Apopka, Florida. And then, without a word of a lie, something came up my back. I thought something punched me in the back of the head. And so I was pushed underwater by this thing. I assumed it was a person. While underwater,

I turned around underwater and looked up, I saw bubbles splashing a white belly of a gator. And then I just panicked. I freaked out. And being way steep water, I just stripped the water, whipped up my back and started swinging and punching at the gator trying to defend my life and make sure I wasn't bitten anymore. What? He's smiling. He's laughing.

Diaz managed to fight off the six foot alligator, but the damage was done. They gave me 33 staples for all the different bites and stabbing wounds I got. Why is he smiling? Ladies and gentlemen,

let it be known that whenever he described his retaliation on the gator he just he he started swinging wildly with his fists yeah while smirking it's very hard to kind of get across in audio how like animated and excited this man is about his fight with a gator it seems like even before he knew what was happening he had ripped off his mask and was like violently punching the water that interview was like someone talking about their first skydiving experience or something. Yeah. It was really weird and excitable and happy. I think at the end he said he got stabbed by the gator. He said 33 staples and multiple stab wounds from the gator. What?

I don't understand. Donkey punched him on the back of the head and then stabbed him. You thought the New York gators were rough. Yeah. They don't f*** around. That video is incredible. It's so good, isn't it? He's absolutely lying.

None of it happened. Yeah, no one who actually went through that is that excited to retell the story. It's kind of like, it felt like at any point he was going to be like, so I'm like swimming in the waters you know top off six-pack biceps all glistening in the sun you know i just said i kissed goodbye to my supermodel wife you wouldn't know what she lives in another town and i'm just coming there and i start swimming i get knocked on the back of the head i turn around eight nine twenty gators all lined up ready to take me on i said ready to die you scaly bastards and i start taking them

down one by one i got one in a choke hold i'm giving one a noogie it sounds like he's just making it up as he goes along he's i'm a borderline swamp hero now before we kind of round up our story for this evening it's interesting to note that while a lot of scientists do agree that it is almost near impossible for an alligator to survive for extended periods of time in in the sewers drinking sewage and and poop as we did state earlier in the episode alligators are hard as they have survived several extinctions and even the last ice age that's why scientists describe them as living fossils yeah other interesting notes kind of linked to how they're a little bit cute they also like to hang out in groups and are actually pretty chatty yeah they're not so what could you possibly mean by

that because they don't talk uh they make hisses growls and roars to communicate with each other while they're in a group so they're actually super intelligent yeah you know what else likes to hang out in a group lions and murderous animals because they hunt in packs yeah but they're also lions you know kind of cute kind of chatty when you think about them little chatty kathy as i like to call them that just about rounds up our episode for this week all right with the new york city gators wow i feel like i've been through the sewer systems i feel like the start of this episode was us being flushed and we're coming out the other side only now kit what are your thoughts i feel like i'm about to be shot

in the head by the sewer king whatever his name was um my thoughts are uh thank you for this um primo investigative journalism thank you took a lot a lot of credit to, as I said, the New York Times for an incredible article detailing the records of alligator sightings in the city. I will say thank you to them. I will say maybe get back to doing the news because I feel like if someone should be doing that, they should. Sure. Maybe like cool off the kind of alligator stuff. Unless, of course course it is all real and then there should be way more written about this everyone should be about this you will be

talking about this it's just at the top of all their articles it's like uh the 2020 nominations for both parties are looking very very tight but um what none of them have spoken about as of yet is the looming Gatorgate in New York City. Climate change this year is on the rise. Of course, that means very little to our inevitable Gator overlords who will be ruling us any day now. We are, after all, just stewards of this planet until they feel they want to take the

power back till they decide to flush us this is a pretty wild story and one that is clearly grounded in a lot of fact we've got right off the bat you showed me a photo of a giant harlem gator back in the day the difficulty here the question is is any of this paranormal and we do have some inklings for this like you demonstrated with the bloody eyed sort of paranormal alabama gator but do we have enough to go on the line and say that that's real yeah yeah this kind of this case reminds me a lot of the time that we investigated vampires because it poses an interesting dilemma when we're coming down to conclusions you know i think in that episode the question was are vampires real

yes not necessarily is what we're dealing with paranormal yeah if we look at this case and say have there been alligators living in the new york city sewers i guess the answer probably would be yes maybe not for extended periods of time certainly not in giant mutated form right but yeah i mean it's fact that alligators were pulled up and discovered in the sewers of new york city i guess it depends if we want to come down on whether or not these stories are real or whether or not these alligators are genuinely mutated and enormous similar to two-toed tom okay well i know what my personal bar for this is if we can prove that the alligators we've seen are out of the ordinary,

if they have truly, like you say, been mutated, then maybe we can go online and say this is real, that this is paranormal. But what I got to know is, what's like the biggest American gators found? Okay, that's a good thing to look up. We need a frame of reference. Okay. So the largest American alligator scientifically verified was in Florida somewhere between, it says between 1977 to 1993.

Is that when it was alive? I don't know. It was 4.2 meters long, almost exactly 14 feet long. Okay. And there is a skull that exists which seems to be even bigger they estimate about 4.5 meters four so almost 15 feet long wow so for that reason the sizes we've seen the descriptions we've seen alligators have definitely killed people throughout history i don't think the behavior we've seen today is so wildly different or unbelievable or unexplainable and for that reason for me it's

gonna be a no today that's fair enough i mean even the harlem sewer gator uh the biggest and most popular one that was ever documented was pushing eight foot you know we're not that's big for a alligator in new york city yes but as we discovered you know in the wild they get a lot bigger these if anything the sewage water probably hasn't done a lot of good to these gators they were probably 10 foot when they got in there and they're being tumble dried through the sewer system coming out. Shrinky dinky. It's going to be, you know, God, it's tough. I wanted this one to. And is this paranormal? No, no. There's a logical explanation for it. None of these alligators spawned through a hell gate.

They're there because they were flushed. And two-toe Tom probably doesn't exist. If he does, he's just an alligator. Well, that's this week's episode of this paranormal life guys thank you so much for tuning in i had a blast as i said i feel like this was a whirlwind a toilet bowl whirlwind of information that just washed over us and we have come out gators on the other side cute little gators i hope you enjoyed this week's episode of this paranormal life if you did and you want to get a little bit more maybe you've caught up with all the episodes weekly maybe you've listened to the backlog maybe you've gone back and listened to every episode five times ten times there's more guys there's a secret a sewer sub level yeah you went down listening to this

paranormal life is going down into the sewers with a flashlight and finding spooky shit what you don't realize is there's a sub sewer of even spookier classified information all right and you can find that on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life where you can get access to the bonus episodes from five bucks a month that's how we keep the show going guys we don't run ads we don't make any money any other way it's purely just by creating bonus content and having support from you guys our awesome audience that keeps the show running and if you do support us on patreon we like to end the show by giving you a special shout out so thank you to matt well if it isn't matt in the hat an eccentric billionaire

who built a mansion that looks like a baseball cap. Wow. Incredibly impractical. It leaks rainwater almost every night. Feral dogs have managed to sneak in the back. But it's a cool house, so fair play to you. Is he the first billionaire bro to build a snapback mansion? He was. Thanks also to Shan Keddie. Shan Keddie is always ready it doesn't matter what for just always ready it's like if you if you text them being like hey i was thinking of going to

they just before you've even texted it they text back being like yes i'm there let's go i love it i love that kind of attitude it's like hey it's four in the morning i don't i don't sleep i'll be there and if there's ever a surprise wedding they've got the confetti that's right see what i did there confetti or cat shank yeah thanks also to emma c emma is in a bit of a dilemma because emma c is see-through oh yeah not even a ghost just weirdly transparent like invisible like a kind of harry potter invisibility cloak yeah but everyone can still see her oh and you can like you can bump into her and stuff so she can't just pretend to be a ghost because you someone would hit oh she's more like shrimp, kind of like see-through skin. Yeah, yeah, more like a shrimp.

She's a human shrimp. That's awful. I'm sorry to hear that. I know, it's a tough life, but I hope you find something to do with it. Thanks also to Rowan Frawan. Rowan, it's a pretty interesting family history there in that family.

All of their ancestors died tragically in rowing accidents. Whoa. But it's just, that's their family business, rowing. How do you die in a rowing accident? Off a waterfall, off the edge of the earth, if you believe it to be flat, for example, into the mouth of a hippopotamus.

They just can't stop. They can't stop. It's a family business. So Rowan, I respect that kind of commitment to the family business. Brave. Thanks also to Roxy Hampton. Well, if it isn't Doxy Roxy, master identity thief.

What, she just steals other people's identities? Doxys people from morning to night. That's sneaky. Sneaky like a foxy, Roxy. Oh! Thanks also to Gabriel Kornberger. We don't need to tell you what this person's famous for. Inventor of the Kornberger. We don't need to tell you what this person's famous for. Inventor of the Kornberger.

That's right. Yeah, instead of a beef patty, some corn. Instead of a bun, corn on the cob. It's a very kind of middle America treat. Very much so. If you're from either coasts or indeed if you're from Europe, you'll never have heard of this. But the Kornberger is delicious.

It's blowing up right now. Yeah. Delicacy. Thank you to Kelly Gardner. Kelly Gardner, inventor of the jelly hardener. What? Until Kelly came along. Why would anyone need that?

Jelly pretty much didn't exist. Jelly was just pretty much water, like a thick water. Right. Oh, okay. It was quite a sad treat that kids had on birthday parties, but it pretty much always ruined the birthday. It's like drinking slime. Until Kelly came along and hardened it up and now it's the kind of jolly little birthday snack we've all come to love. Yeah, it's a delicate- you don't want to make it too hard though.

Because once that thing reaches a solid state, you're gonna lose a couple teeth. Oh, Kelly lost some teeth during the trialing and r and d on this one thanks also to jared jared the jelly softener he's ruined many a birthday party he just comes around with his magic little fingers turning perfect jelly into puddles they're very much nemesis kelly and jared exactly you know you can't have one without the other you know because if all the jelly was water then you wouldn't have the hardener and if it was all salt you wouldn't have the softener that's beautiful yeah it's a beautiful dance and yet at every birthday party at some point a parent screams why are these grown men and women at this birthday child's

birthday party you weren't invited. You brought the jelly. Little Fabian doesn't like jelly. Thanks also to Ghostly Grimoire. Ghostly Grimoire at this point is mocking us. I've been trying to catch this ghost for years. Really? It's an elusive little bastard and here it is sending me money on the internet. As if it has flesh and bones.

Yeah. Oh, you know what would really piss me off? If you just friggin' doubled those donations. Yeah. Tripled them, you know? Really rubbed it in. Yeah. That shit would drive me crazy.

I f***ing dare you, ghostly. Thank you too, Casey. Just saying the name Casey gets my heart all racy. Yeah? That's how much love I have for Casey. And when I feel love, I want a Casey of ice cold beer. To celebrate this Casey's Day parade. Beautiful.

Thank you for all your support, Casey. Thanks also to Alan Clarkson. Alan Clarkson is an excellent marksman. With any weapon you want. mean throwing knives throwing knives axes axes what even weapons that aren't supposed to be thrown like a shield you'll still throw that thing like a boomerang on some chris evans shit i like it yeah absolutely just the most perfect marksman whatever it it is, he won't miss. He could throw a frickin' corn burger 200 yards into the mouth of a hungry man. But he wouldn't because it's too delicious. Of course.

Thanks to Emily Bashek. They say to keep your friends close and your Emilys closer. Whoa. Yeah. So she ain't a friend? She's absolutely not a friend. She's actually a pretty big enemy. Whoa. Yeah. So she ain't a friend? She's absolutely not a friend. She's actually a pretty big enemy. Oh.

I don't know why she's doing this, flaunting her wealth in front of us on the podcast. Well. She dropped 100 grand this month. Wow. That doesn't even get you anything. You only get one shout out. It doesn't get louder or anything. But she put our enemy's name in our mods.

And that's worth six figures. It is. It is. So thank you, Emily. I say begrudgingly. Thank you to Rico Suave. Rico Suave. The kind of guy that lives in Miami.

You know, Hawaiian shirts, sunglasses on. Oh, yeah. But he is a huge nerd as well. this son of a bitch is going to anime conventions he's painting warhammers you know everyone's like rico suave oh my god who is this guy he's importing dance dance revolution uh arcade cabinets all the way from nihon uh it is is crazy he's pulling up to the D&D meet in a Lamborghini. Yeah. That's what this guy's up to. And they turn him away

because they're like, even you're too nerdy for us. It's a weird balance. Thank you to ThistleNot23. ThistleNot23? You think this is some kind of sick joke? You're not going to tell us what you did to ThistleNot1 through 22? I see what this is

to you you're some sort of clone mother exactly and the audacity to come on this podcast you've been in our inbox complaining about the tears on our patreon and you're not happy about it well you're getting your shout out so this will make you happy hey not oh because he's never happy thank you to adam flensborg you've heard of a cyborg adam's a flensborg what is a flensborg from the planet flan not flen no it's a planet of a delicious, creamy, kind of dessert-based type people. Right. You said he's a flan-borg. Well, he's not a flan. He's a borg.

So he's like an imitation of one of the flan people. Okay. He's a flan-borg. Okay. Fair. Yeah. Sure. Why not?

What do you mean, why not? This is science fact. I want to move past this. I'm confused. Thanks also to Kylie Martin. Kylie Martin, the kindly Martian even though they're from another planet they're always just like super appreciative of your time when they come and visit you know which a lot of

Martians come down and they're like we're gonna kill you or dissect you Akai is just like what are you guys up to? This planet seems pretty chill. You guys want some space weapons? You can go, yeah. Here, giving them out. We appreciate your generosity. Thank you to Anthony Roberts. Anthony Roberts has

a sick pastime. He likes to rob ants. Okay. Which is bizarre, because they don't really have much. Picnic food, I guess. Picnic food, tiny little crumbs, maybe it leaves, maybe the odd berry. Wait until Anthony hears about bees because they have shit worth robbing. Honey.

And honey is money, Anthony. You've been saying that for months. Thanks, lastly, but not leastly, to Seki A. Similar to Plan B, this is Seki A. That's right. The first of all the Sekis. You got Seki B, Seki C, but we're dealing with Seki A. The original.

The original and best, folks. Exactly. It's like the Cool Ranch flavor. Right. Was that the original? No, the original was cheese. Wait, are we talking about Doritos? It was cheese. I think Isn't it cool original? That's way too cool

To be the original I think I'm having a meltdown here. What the original of course was cheese Alexa The original, of course, was cheese. Alexa. Wait. Rory's staring at his iPhone, yelling, Alexa, confused as to why it's not responding. My brain. Listen to me, you robot. Seki-A, respond. I'm just going to go ahead and assume no one knows what the first flavor of Doritos was. Presumably it's some sort of ancient Egyptian secret. Yeah.

The Doritos Corporation merely unearthed it and just started mass manufacturing it. We have no idea, but it doesn't matter because it's not paranormal. Thank you to everyone who listened to this week's episode. As always, we'll be back next week with a brand new paranormal tale.