Episode 152: The Clearwater Monster

Criminal

Vox Media Podcast Network

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.7 • 38.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Early one morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small town of Clearwater, Florida. The caller said he’d seen something strange at the beach. Residents woke up that morning to find an odd set of footprints in the sand, and a rumor began circulating that Clearwater Beach had a sea monster. The rumor spread so wide, it caught the attention of a biologist in New York named Ivan Sanderson. Ivan Sanderson coined the term cryptozoology in the 1930s, meaning the search for creatures that haven’t been found and aren’t recognized by science—like the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. But even Ivan Sanderson couldn’t figure out where, or what, the footprints were coming from. We speak with Jeff Klinkenberg, Richard Grigonis, Jeff Signorini, and Alyssa Shimko about Tony Signorini, Al Williams, and the Clearwater monster. Listen to other episodes of This is Love at https://thisislovepodcast.com/. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here's an episode of This Is Love we thought criminal fans might enjoy.
0:08.0	One morning in 1948, a phone call woke up the police chief in the small beach town of
0:13.8	Clearwater, Florida.
0:16.0	It was 3 a.m.
0:18.0	The man on the phone said he'd seen something strange at Clearwater Beach.
0:23.6	He told the police chief that he'd seen something in the water and that it was big.
0:28.6	It was, quote, blowing and spouting in about 10 feet high.
0:34.3	The caller asked Barra a high-powered rifle from the police to go shoot the thing.
0:39.9	The police chief said no.
0:42.5	The man wouldn't give his name because he had, quote, been parked at the beach with a girl
0:47.3	when the thing rose out of the water.
0:49.9	The police chief told the man to go home and sleep it off.
0:54.6	With that morning, residents of Clearwater woke up to find the strange set of footprints
1:00.7	that appeared in the sand at Clearwater Beach overnight.
1:05.8	And they were big.
1:06.8	They were like 14 inches long, 11 inches wide, narrow heel, big toes, kind of like big bird
1:15.8	in Sesame Street.
1:18.7	Jeff Klingenberg was a reporter in this part of Florida for almost four decades.
1:24.4	Being primarily for what was then known as the St. Petersburg Times.
1:28.7	It was like something that didn't exist, like some kind of dinosaur from the Jurassic
1:35.1	Age.
1:37.0	And it was something that no one had seen before.
	...

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