The small French town of Xertigny, in the Vosges Mountains, thinks it may have its own Loch Ness Monster. Though instead of being a sea serpent, it's a crocodile, and it's in a pond instead of a loch.
The village of Xertigny, which has 3,000 inhabitants, has been stunned by the unexplained sightings and sightseers have gathered by the water to follow the hunt. A chicken has been left by the water to attract the animal but has so far remained unscathed and local authorities are considering draining the pool.
"We have been around the pond several times and you can't really say if anything is there," said Bruno Aime, whose anglers' association had used a sonar device to investigate the pool.
[
Clitheroe Advertiser]
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Apparently there was a suspicious vehicle parked there a couple weeks ago, and after it left one of the local farmers saw the crocodile. But he didn't tell anybody, because he thought it was too weird.
Then several other people, including firemen and local gendarmes, saw it. So now they've got a special group of animal handlers from Metz to trap the thing, and are trying to see if they can lower the water level and find what's there, if anything.
And here is that website's journal of the enterprise. According to the latest on that, they finished draining the pond and found nothing but a bunch of giant carp, some pike, and some crayfish. But then somebody suggested that the crocodile could have crawled out and gone to one of the other even larger ponds nearby. . .
From looking at Google Maps, this is the pond in question.