In Search of the Clearwater Monster...and some Racing on the Side

[Bobcat]

75 Years ago, something scary happened on the Beach in Clearwater...A Monster emerged from the Gulf of Mexico...and left lots of tracks on the Beach. Today, just racing and wondering!



The tracks looked like nothing anyone had ever seen. They weren’t the kind of tracks left by dinosaurs, but they were large, about 14 inches long and 11 inches wide.


They featured a narrow heel and 3 long toes. The tracks were more birdlike than reptilian, though not entirely birdlike. They were a dispatch from an unknown world.



“Plaster casts were made of some of the tracks,’' Bothwell wrote, “and it was estimated by some that the beast - if beast it was - might have weighed some 2,000 pounds.’'


It was left to Ivan Sanderson, a self-taught zoologist, author and WNBC radio commentator, to render an intelligent opinion. As the flash bulbs popped he studied the tracks, furrowed his brow, did some measuring. He was photogenic, a Douglas Fairbanks for the beach set, with slicked-back hair, a pencil-thin mustache and wardrobe that all but announced “Adventure!’' Only an ascot could have improved his look.

Florida had a real monster on its hands!

“Definitely not a hoax,’' Sanderson announced. The tracks were so deep and wide, he opined, that only something heavy and tall could have made them.

“A giant penguin,’' was his theory.