A woman snapped a picture of what appears to be either a very big alligator or just a lonely stick floating through a flooded street in Charleston, South Carolina on Monday morning.
People who've seen the photo are split, but even the Pulitzer Prize-winning local paper, The Post and Courier, thinks it looks like a gator.
A #Charleston resident driving through #Shadowmoss took this photo of what looks like a gator swimming in the street. pic.twitter.com/6MnUcY9PVe— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) August 31, 2015
The photo was taken by Charleston resident Allison McCutcheon, who first shared it on Facebook.
She told Mashable on Monday that "it is what you see" -- meaning it is a real picture and not photoshopped. "Is it really a gator? I don't know it just looked like one. I surely didn't get out and verify or take a closer look," McCutcheon said. "I was just scared of trying to get through the streets -- you couldn't distinguish the ponds from the street and it was scary."
I ran down this road Saturday...now my friend snapped a pic of a gator swimming there. #chswx #charleston #floods pic.twitter.com/PpjHrFBr28— Leah Rhyne (@leah_beth) August 31, 2015
"While people have said it looks like a log, I can personally vouch for the fact that we do have tons of gators around here," added Leah Rhyne, who is friends with McCutcheon and first posted it to Twitter.
"I live less than two miles from where that pic was taken, and I run that road regularly. There are often gators in the local ponds, sunning or swimming, and we once had a gator walk down our street carrying a big fish. He hid under a neighbor's car. So yeah. Maybe it was a log? But probably it was a gator."
Karen Rourk, who answered a phone call at the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources's alligator complaint line, told Mashable she's gotten calls about several alligators this morning.
"It's not unusual," she said. "If you have flood waters they're going to come out of the marshes and the creeks and wander around."
When shown the photo, Dean Harrigal, Regional Coordinator at the SC Department of Natural Resources said simply: "Not a gator. Looks like a roll of filter cloth or a log."
The region was slammed with record-setting rains on Sunday, leaving much of the area's lower-lying regions under water. Residents of Shadowmoss Plantation in particular were left navigating the streets in kayaks and paddle boards and police checked on residents left stranded by boats.
Flooding in Shadow Moss. Motorists and residents are asked to exercise extreme caution entering or leaving the neighborhood— Charleston P.D. (@CharlestonPD) August 31, 2015
A flood advisory was to be in effect there until noon. Thankfully, there have been no reports of any alligator attacks.