New York might not have those infamous “alligators in the sewer” — but Florida has the real thing.
A work crew in Oviedo, Florida proved the NYC urban legend was a Sunshine State reality after discovering an 5-foot gator residing in a sludge-filled pipe.
Footage of the scaly subterranean terror is currently stirring up a crapstorm on the City of Oviedo City Administration Facebook page.
“Just another reason not to go wandering down into the stormwater pipes!” a spokesperson said of the new underground sensation, which was spotted Friday during a routine pothole inspection.
A public works team had dispatched a robot equipped with a camera to get to the root of why a cluster of craters kept appearing on the road above, according to a Jam Press report.
The workers soon found something far more terrifying lurking beneath the surface.
“On Friday’s inspection, as you’ll see in the video, they came across a five-foot alligator!” the city organization exclaimed in the now-viral post.
The mortifying moment was captured in video footage that recalled the enduring big-city myth that inspired the 1980 B-movie “Alligator,” and was further popularized by scene-stealer Drew Barrymore in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 sci-fi classic “E.T.” (But is it really a metropolitan myth? Some New Yorkers might disagree after witnessing a gator crawl out of a drain in Queens back in 2010.)
They said they initially mistook the cold-blooded underdweller for a toad, until they saw “two little glowing eyes.”
At first, it feels like the Sunshine State is poaching a longstanding Big Apple hoax — perhaps some of the 10,000 exiles took their myths with them — until one sees the spine-tingling video and realizes the story’s not a “croc.”
In the freaky POV footage, the camera can be seen approaching a pair of what appear to be shining lights at the end of the tunnel, in a scene straight out of a found footage horror flick.
When the droid gets within snapping distance, the beast rears up with its mouth open, revealing itself to be an American alligator.
The perturbed predator continues to back away with its maw agape, before turning tail and ambling down the tunnel with the droid in hot pursuit.
The underground gator golf session ends with the robot getting stuck in an indentation as Al disappears back into its subterranean lair.
Social media was flabbergasted by the runoff-residing reptile, which evoked the sewer-squatting baddie “Killer Croc” from the Batman franchise.
“You ever see something like that,” wondered one aghast viewer, while another wrote, “Oh wow scary.”
Others wondered how the gator managed to infiltrate the labyrinthine drainage system, which comprises 75 miles of underground pipes beneath the city.
The Oviedo City Admin to speculate that it entered through “one of the storm water ponds” used to prevent flooding during storms.
The maintenance boss said they were just glad that it wasn’t a human that encountered the beast.
“Thank goodness our crews have a robot,” wrote officials, who didn’t specify if this particular specimen was under the influence of meth.
Interestingly, alligators — which are the US’ largest reptile, regularly growing up to 15 feet long and weighing over 1,000 pounds — are not an uncommon sight in the Florida storm runoff network, residents claimed in the comments.
In fact, this phenomenon rings similar to a plot point in the 2019 sci-fi thriller “Crawl,” in which a father and daughter discover that killer gators have made their nest in a storm drain following a hurricane.
And, in line with the classic Big Apple hoax, alligators are apparently rearing their heads in Gotham as well.
In 2010, cops apprehended an 18-inch reptile of unknown provenance that emerged from an overflowing Astoria storm drain and hunkered down beneath a parked car.
This past February, meanwhile, officials hauled a lethargic, possibly cold-shocked 4-foot-long alligator from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Lake near an area popular with kids.
Park officials suspected that the gator — which had a bathroom stopper in its stomach — was an unwanted pet whose owner had decided to release it into public waters
Despite getting tended to at the Bronx zoo, the reptilian refugee succumbed last month to various injuries in what officials are calling a “tragic case of animal abuse.”
Of course, city parks and deluge chutes aren’t the only unlikely places that alligators are rearing their scaly heads.
Over the weekend, an Alabama tourist’s seaside getaway resembled a scene from “Godzilla” when he spotted an enormous alligator swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.