By BILL MARDIS and KEN SHMIDHEISER
Somerset — Crikey! That’s a big tale.
Maybe “tail” is the better word when referring to the latest urban folklore legend that’s been circulating on the Internet about a gargantuan alligator swimming in Lake Cumberland and later killed by a game warden.
According to e-mail messages the alligator allegedly was spotted by a KTBS-TV helicopter crew.
“We don’t even own a helicopter,” Nellie Johnson, assignment desk manager for KTBS, assured a reporter for the Commonwealth Journal. She said the Shreveport, La., television station had nothing to do with the story and photographs.
“It’s bogus,” said Johnson. “That story has been circulating for years,” she added.
A spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources agreed.
“It’s a hoax,” she said. “We don’t even have a ‘Joe Goff.’”
“Goff”, a lanky conservation officer identified in the fake story, was credited with killing the giant alligator in a yard in the Beaver Creek section of Lake Cumberland near Monticello.
The photograph of “Goff” and his alligator obviously is doctored:
• The game warden’s shadow, on the ground to and beyond the alligator, does not cross the back of the beast as physics would demand.
• A close look reveals Spanish moss in some of the pictures, a southern plant that’s hardly a match for Lake Cumberland area’s mistletoe.
• The alleged 23 feet, 1- inch length of Lake Cumberland’s version of “Nessie,” the Loch Ness Monster, would be a world record. The largest alligator ever recorded measured 19 feet, 2 inches and was found on Marsh Island, La.
• The hoax mentions the “Kentucky Parks and Wildlife Department” an agency which does not exist.
Somebody—we have no idea who—apparently modified the already circulated alligator hoax to put the southern creature in Lake Cumberland, complete with photographs and fake names.
Following is the bogus e-mail message that has been circulating on Lake Cumberland area computers:
“This picture was taken by a KTBS helicopter flying over Lake Cumberland! (For those of you who are not local, Lake Cumberland is about 50 miles South of Lexington).
“That has to be a HUGE gator to have a whole deer in its mouth! Are you ready to go skiing on Lake Cumberland? If you ski at the west end of the lake—try not to fall.
“This alligator was near Monticello and Beaver Creek, Kentucky near a house. Game wardens were forced to shoot the alligator—guess he wouldn't cooperate .
“Anita and Charlie Rogers could hear the bellowing in the night. Their neighbors had been telling them that they had seen a mammoth alligator in the waterway that runs behind their house, but they dismissed the stories as exaggerations . ‘I didn't believe it,’ Charles Rogers said. Friday they realized the stories were, if anything, understated.
“Kentucky Parks and Wildlife game wardens had to shoot the beast. (In a photograph) Joe Goff, 6'5' tall, a game warden with the Kentucky Parks and Wildlife Department, walks past a 23-foot, 1-inch alligator that he shot and killed in the Rogers’ backyard.”
In actuality, “Anita” and “Charles Rogers” are not listed in any local telephone directory. It is not certain if these names are real or fake.
The alligator story took a life of its own. It is being circulated, not by the Underground, but is being swapped by some of the highest moguls of local society. The Commonwealth Journal was swamped by queries: “Why don’t you people print the story?”
Honestly, we’re trying, using reporters who by their own admission never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.
We even sought assistance from a former reporter for the Commonwealth Journal. Dave Baker, now a spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, with tongue firmly in cheek, responded:
“I hate to say that there are no alligators in Lake Cumberland. In addition, there are no black panthers in Kentucky, we do not drop rattlesnakes from helicopters into Kentucky forests, and the season is closed on Sasquash (legendary Big Foot).”
Frankly, that didn’t seem much help, but Baker probably was amused that we would even ask about an alligator in the first place. He apparently believes, as we do, that anyone who THINKS he has seen an alligator around here is story material.
As a footnote, Baker, with tongue still in cheek, asked if we were doing a story on the 12-foot-long catfish being stocked in Lake Cumberland.
Some of the photographs circulated with the bogus alligator Internet hoax were authentic, taken in 2004 by the Terri Jenkins, district fire management officer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She was on a helicopter preparing to ignite a prescribed fire at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, about 40 miles south of Savannah, Georgia, on March 4, 2004, when she caught a photo of a 12- to 14-foot-long alligator swimming off with a full-grown deer between its teeth. However, the text accompanying the photos was false.
Frankly, it’s a shame that the alligator story is not true. Lake Cumberland, with its still-beautiful 30,000 acres of water, could use the publicity.
“Alley the Alligator” at more than 23 feet long, would put “Nessie” to shame.
For posterity, we’ll add our own little embellishment to the tale:
“After Goff shot the beast, he strenuously flipped the lifeless carcass onto it’s back and was last heard muttering:
“‘Dang, this one doesn’t have any shoes either.’”
