It Was in the Sewer

As we’re fond of pointing out here, the neologism “urban myth” is is misleading on two counts: Not only is it used to handwave away reports of the extraordinary, it contains a stealth denial that myths can transmit truth.

Today I’m pleased to chalk up another win for so-called urban myths.

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.

Why is it always Florida?

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.

This supposed revelation is nothing new.

Sewer gators have been documented since the early 20th – and even the late 19th – century.

Yes, even in New York.

But the persistent false belief that sewer-dwelling large reptiles are fanciful fiction goes to show how hard it is to break stubborn zombie memes’ hold on the public consciousness.

You can be sure that people will still dismiss sewer gators as big fish stories despite ironclad video proof.

See it for yourself:

The same selective amnesia applies to well-evidenced phenomena like Bigfoot.

Objections bandied about by smug skeptics like:

“Why are all the photos so blurry?”

“Where’s the physical evidence?”

and

“How could something that big survive this long in North America?”

have all been answered. But the skeptics just ignore the answers.

I won’t even dignify the smoothbrain line “If there is a Bigfoot, wouldn’t we have heard about it by now?” with a response.

Absent overwhelming – in this age, almost always video – evidence, most people believe what they want to believe.

Even then, some will manage the mental gymnastics to cling to dubious opinions. That’s why to this day, you’ll still find flat earthers and moon landing hoax believers.

To say nothing of the novel cults popping up and spreading like weeds.

Because contra the confessional skeptics, empirical evidence is neither self-evident nor self-interpreting.

In that regard, the High Church Skeptics crying “Reason and evidence!” get into the same jam as fundamentalist Christians embracing sola scriptura.

Yes, reality is accessible to reason. And yes, we can be sure of that fact due to divine revelation.

But as the evidence-based experts’ dismal track record has shown of late, who interprets the evidence affects our daily lives much more than the raw data itself.

If only God had instituted an infallible authority qualified to guide human reason in interpreting divine revelation.

Because if He had, we’d see intellectual rigor and societal bonds dissolving more and more the farther civilization strayed from that divine safeguard of reason.

Yeah, right. And alligators live in the sewer.

Space pirates OD on the spice from Dune and wake up on Cthulhu’s couch

Read it now: