Woman claims she filmed 12 ft monster crocs swimming off UK coast, Internet says they are 'rockodiles'
YORKSHIRE, UK: A stunned mother claims to have footage that "proves" she saw two "extremely massive" crocodiles swimming off the UK coast. One of Sarah Craven's boys yelled "crocodiles!" while looking for dolphins off a cliff on the Yorkshire coast, startling her and her family.
But were they crocodiles or "rockodiles," a moniker that the Internet rapidly came up with in reaction to the footage to imply the more plausible explanation. However, the tenacious mother is adamant that she could make out two enormous crocodiles with rough, reptile-like skin, front and rear legs, and long, sharp tails.
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Miss Craven told The Scarborough News: “We moved further along the cliff to get a closer look and I started to take pictures and videos. They were absolutely huge. The biggest we could see might be 12 feet. There was a mother and father one, and then there looked to be a smaller one in the middle. “I’m 100 per cent sure they were crocodiles, and my partner and both children feel the same."
People flocked to the comments as soon as she hastily released her film on TikTok. One person commented: "Try dolphins all down east coast... Think you need to go to spec savers mate." The words "rocodiles" and "crocorocks" started to trend in the comments area as most people thought the clip was a fake.
Another person joked and said: "Crocodiles! Where did they get their visas from?!" Expert Angela Julian, co-ordinator at Amphibian and Reptile Groups UK, said: “It’s vanishingly unlikely. There are no crocodiles in European waters. Why would they be swimming in the North Sea? It’s something inexplicable, but I don’t know what. Lots of crocodiles turn out to be logs. It’s a running joke as a crocodile spotter. People send me all sorts of photos, showing strange-looking creatures, but most turn out to be bits of plastic."
However, leaving it open to speculation, she did say: “It’s possible for the crocodiles to be there because somebody put them there." In response to experts who debunked her theory, Miss Craven said: "Experts would say it’s not possible, but they would say that because they wouldn’t want to put the fear factor on tourists."
Another Yorkshire lady saw a "crocodile" last year, but this time it was in a neighbor's backyard. Photographed by a scared nurse Sarah Jayne Ellis, the 4 foot "croc" was lurking next door. The nurse said: "I was shutting the blinds in the bedroom when I saw it on the grass. I looked a couple of hours later and it was gone."
The mystery "Castleford Croc," however, turned out to be nothing else but the neighbor's son's toy in the end. When Nigel Holroyd was astonished to find his garden all over the news, he clarified the mistake. He explained: "It’s just a plastic toy crocodile. I left it in the grass to scare off my neighbour’s cat from my garden ... It certainly got out of hand," he said. "I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’ve even spoken to (Sarah) yet. She never came round and said, 'Oh, there’s a crocodile in your back garden'."