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Lair of the Beasts: Alligators on the Rampage
Monsters of the Waters By Nick Redfern
March 05, 2010
Lair of the Beasts' Nick Redfern has his own Lake Placid stories to tell.
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Most people reading this will, I’m sure, have heard of the old and enduring legends of marauding alligators roaming the sewers of New York, and feasting upon the occasional hobo and vagrant. True or not, the tales certainly make for fascinating and engaging reading.
And then, of course, there was Lake Placid; the 1999 movie starring Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda and Oliver Platt that saw the trio pit its wits against two monstrously-huge alligators that dwell deep within the lake of the movie’s title.
Of course, such stories are fine for the world of on-screen entertainment and camp-fire tales; but they couldn’t have any actual basis in reality, could they?
Well, just maybe.
For the past decade I have made Dallas, Texas my home; and I have to admit to coming across several stories suggesting that the city might possibly be home to more than a few vicious alligators that have skillfully survived for decades and which lurk within some of the darker and deeper bodies of water that surround Dallas.
Constructed in 1911 as Dallas’s very first reservoir, and only a few minutes’ drive from downtown, White Rock Lake has nearly ten miles of shoreline, dense trees and a winding path for cyclists, joggers and walkers, and is home to a large variety of animals that includes squirrels, rabbits, skunks, raccoons, possums, bobcats, red foxes, and minks, and no less than fifty-four varieties of reptiles, among which are rattlesnakes, turtles, a whole variety of lizards, and horned toads. Salamanders and frogs also abound, along with an incredible 217 species of bird, including swans, pelicans, sea gulls, loons, and all manner of ducks, and perhaps even an alligator or several, too.
In early 2005, I drove down to Austin, Texas to meet with Rob Riggs – author of the Bigfoot book, In the Big Thicket - and a friend and colleague of his named Mike. The purpose: to discuss some potential television work. As we sat and ate a pleasant Mexican lunch, Mike happened to comment that he had a friend who had heard tales of a juvenile alligator having been clandestinely released into the waters of White Rock Lake some years earlier – possibly when its presumed owner could no longer look after it.
Certainly White Rock Lake has a lot of strange legends attached to it: one of a ghostly girl who supposedly died in a car accident in decades-past and whose spirit haunts the lake to this day; another of giant catfish swimming the waters of the lake; and a third concerning the sighting of a small UFO seen hovering over the water late one night in the early 1970s.
Rather ironically, my wife, Dana, and I lived on the shores of White Rock Lake between January 2004 and July 2008; but sadly, if an alligator was hiding out in the lake, I never found it. Was it merely a friend-of-a-friend tale or possibly something more? Even today, I cannot say for sure.
Likewise, my attempts to try and verify a great tale suggesting that there had been a large-scale cover-up of the death of a sewer-worker in Dallas in 1978 - after his body had been found in one of the older parts of the city’s sewer-system in a horribly mutilated fashion – also led absolutely nowhere.
But, that doesn’t mean such tales have no basis in reality. In fact, one such story, at least, has been verified. And where there’s one, there may very well be more.
On August 30, 1891, the Dallas Morning News reported the following: “A monster alligator may be seen at Oak Cliff. The reptile is ten feet in length and possesses a set of teeth that is very suggestive. The monster was caught about ten days ago at Bois d’arc Island in the Trinity, twenty-five miles from Dallas, by S.D. Mathersoon and John Cranch, who brought it to Oak Cliff in a wagon. The alligator was first discovered in a hole or cave on the island, and after persuading him to thrust his head forth, the two men lassoed him and drew him out. It is pronounced among the largest that have ever been caught in the Trinity.”
The animal was still alive when it was brought to Dallas; so we might reasonably ask: what happened to it? Was it, perhaps, given its freedom somewhere on the fringes of the city? Certainly, such a scenario cannot be ruled out.
And, perhaps, similar beasts still continue to exist in the larger bodies of waters that can be found in and around the city of Dallas. Maybe they are even thriving. After all, it is indeed a fact that more than a few Dallas residents disappear every year, never to be seen again…
If you enjoyed Nick, check out more Lair of the Beasts
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Nick Redfern is the author of many books on the world of the unexplained, including the forthcoming Monsters of Texas and Final Events.
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Can anyone come up with a list of best Alligator movies????