Hey, strangers, this tale does touch on some rather unfortunate ends for a few alligators.

Nothing too grotesque, but listener discretion might be advised.

I'm Lauren Orton, and this is one strange thing, the show where we search the nation's news archives for stories that can't quite be explained.

Strangers, we must say, we're fond of a good urban legend.

These stories are the folklore and fairy tales of our modern age,

the bloody woman who appears after we chant her name,

the deep-fried rats that are served up in buckets of fast-food-fried chicken,

or spider bites that hide a thousand pulsing eggs,

just waiting to burst forth. Honestly, we'd give you more examples, but we kind of grossed

ourselves out too much with that last one. Anyway, not all urban legends are based on nightmare

scenarios. There are plenty that have floated around about, say, celebrities,

like that 1990s-era belief that a child star from the TV show The Wonder Years

grew up to be shock rock singer Marilyn Manson.

But the best ones are, we think, scary,

and just outlandish enough to push the boundaries of belief.

One of our very favorite urban legends, perhaps because it just butts up against that boundary,

is the rumor that big old alligators are swimming around in the sewers of major American cities, feasting on rats

and splashing around in the dank waters. The idea is that major metropolis is everywhere

might have a reptilian menace, roiling just underneath the surface. A nasty kind of secret,

you might say. And the city with the biggest alligator legend of all? Well, it must be somewhere in Florida, right? Or maybe even Louisiana.

According to official stats from the latter state, each is home to at least a million wild

alligators.

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