CLEVELAND, Ohio – 

The Ohio river is known for its vast selection of weird fish and creatures in the water. People have reported seen everything from small, fresh-water sharks to barracuda. It seems that you can now officially add alligators to that list.

On September 20th, Ben Shoemaker and his family were swimming in the Ohio river when they noticed something in the water.

“It was an abnormally hot and humid day so we decided to take a dip,” said Shoemaker. “At first I thought it was a log floating along the fiver. The sucker must have been at least 9ft long, he was huge.”

The same day, Cleveland local Lauri Dukes was picnicking in River Park when she spotted the behemoth ‘gator sunning on the park’s shore.

“The only weapon I had was a plastic butter knife from my lunch,” said Dukes, 38. “I was was using it to spread mayonnaise on a sandwich, but I realized this ‘gator was a threat to the community, so I killed it with a swift stab through the eye.”

The Ohio Parks Service noted that people should not approach dangerous animals when they see them, and that Duke is lucky that she wasn’t injured or killed.

“Oh, hogwash, total hogwash,” said Ms. Duke. “That thing wasn’t going to hurt me, but it could have hurt some young child or a family. No way, you have to act and act face when you see danger. Now my family will be receiving Gator skin boots for Christmas this year, too.”