ABSTRACT
Legends about alligators in the sewers of cities all over the world (but especially New York) are one of the most enduring contemporary legends. They have featured in works as diverse as studies of the New York sewer system and books about giant reptiles (see Robert Daley’s The World Beneath the City. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1959; Sherman Minton and Madge Rutherford Minton’s Giant Reptiles. New York: Scribner, 1973). They have appeared in compilations of popular fallacies and photocopylore (see, for example, Paul Dickson and Joseph C. Goulden’s There Are Alligators in Our Sewers and Other American Credos. New York: Delacorte, 1983; Alan Dundes and Carl R. Pagter’s, When You’re up to Your Ass in Alligators: More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987). Many folklorists have studied them from many angles (see, for example, Michael P. Carroll, “Alligators in the Sewer, Dragons in the Well and Freud in the Toilet: Some Contributions to the Psychoanalytic Study of Urban Legends.” Sociological Review 32 [19841:57–74; Kenneth A. Thigpen, “Folklore in Contemporary American Literature: Thomas Pynchon’s V and the Alligators-in-the-Sewers Legend. “ Southern Folklore Quarterly 43 [1979]:93–105). Stories about alligators in the sewers have been of particular interest, however, to Forteans (followers of Charles Fort). Forteans contend that many happenings derided by the official science of the Western world (falls of frogs from clear skies, the appearance of lake monsters, mystery beasts and so on) are genuine occurrences. Whereas folklorists judge that a multiplicity of reported occurrences of some bizarre phenomenon indicates that it is “just” folklore and without a basis in fact, Forteans accept that the multiplicity of reports indicates a genuine happening which should be documented and/or investigated. In the extracts below, a leading Fortean investigator looks at documented instances of the appearance of alligators in unexpected places in North America. The extracts are taken from Chapter 7 of Coleman’s book Mysterious America, which updates his earlier “Alligators-in-the-Sewers: A Journalistic Origin” (Journal of American Folklore 92 [19791:335–38) and from Appendix 2. Mysterious America was published 154in London and Boston by Faber and Faber, 1983. The extracts may be found on pp. 64–70 and 264–70.
