Gators? In the gulf?

 It's the slightly-out-of-focus nature of the photos that makes the mystery, right? You've never seen a sharp-as-a-tack image of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, now have you?

And so it is with photos sent to us last week from a Longboat Key beachgoer who swears they show a pair of alligators swimming along in the surf near the 4600 block of GMD, miles from either Longboat Pass or New Pass. We can't argue the point.

Wildlife experts say the freshwater beasts do, from time to time, visit saltwater but can't really thrive there. It is, after all 2020, and there was a monster truck driving around in Sarasota Bay last weekend, so pretty much anything goes.