By Tim Binnall
A woman paddleboarding at a lagoon on Detroit's Belle Isle did something of a double-take when she spotted an alligator lounging in the sun. According to a local media report, the unusual sighting occurred on Friday afternoon as Lynn Blasey was visiting the island that sits within the Detroit River. To the paddleboarder's profound surprise, as she made her way along the water, she noticed something puzzling on the shore. "I thought it was a statue or something," she recalled, before getting a closer look at the curious sight that turned out to be an approximately three-foot-long alligator.
Likely suspecting that no one would believe her, Blasey captured several photos and a video of the creature with her cell phone. To her credit, she also documented the specific coordinates where the sighting occurred on Belle Isle and promptly reported the situation to authorities. Thanks to Blasey's thoroughness and the quality of her visual evidence, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources quickly deemed her account "credible and consistent" and asked residents to report any encounters with the out-of-place creature that has seemingly somehow wound up calling the Detroit island home.