In 1948, giant-looking three-toed animal prints surfaced in the sands of Clearwater Beach, Florida. The tracks, about 35 centimeters long and 28 centimeters wide, came out of the sea and took 1.2-1.8 meter steps along the beach for several kilometers before the creature that left these traces once again returned to the sea.
Before long, strange creatures were reported to have been sighted. Students at Dunedin Flight School claimed to have seen the boar-headed, furry log-like monster swimming in the water, while a couple strolling on the beach claimed to have seen a huge creature walking near the water before disappearing into the sea.
A giant penguin?
The tracks were investigated by the police for rather obscure reasons, who concluded that “if it’s a joke, it’s one of the most ingenious work ever done in this area.” British biologist Ivan Terence Sanderson, who later turned to pseudoscience and cryptozoology, conducted his own research over the next decade while traces continued to be found. At this point, he suggested that the source of the footprints was a giant penguin 4.5 meters tall.
“The tracks always follow the gentlest slopes, even at the expense of a considerable winding road, and secondly, meticulously avoiding all possible obstacles down to the smallest undergrowth,” Sanderson wrote in his research. “These are all typical animal features.”
Sanderson argued that any deception was unlikely, advocating the scenario in which a huge penguin wandered undetected on the beach. “It’s frankly incredible that any human or group of people knows enough about wildlife to make tracks exactly as they appear, but at the same time they can do it over and over again at night without anyone seeing or reporting them,” he wrote.
And the mystery of the “giant penguin” is solved
The footprints, which were seen for the first time in 1948, were not seen again after 10 years. Skipping the intervening years, and arriving in 1988, we encounter the fact that local citizen Tony Signorini posed in big metal penguin shoes and admitted it was a joke. This joke found its place in the newspapers of that time as follows:
Signorini and his friend (and boss) Al Williams, who died in 1969, saw a photo of dinosaur footprints in National Geographic, which inspired them for many years of great jokes. The two made huge three-toed metal feet and attached them to tennis shoes. The playful friends would leave the shore in a small rowing boat and then meet again at another point ahead, before one of them put on their 14-kilogram shoes and went to the beach.
Sigorini says he stands on one foot and swings the other to create momentum for a long jump to create a stride long enough for his fictional creatures. To ensure that their efforts were not in vain, their footprints were often reported by one of their friends the next day.
After Signorini’s family passed away in 2013, the obituary included the phrase, “Tony was famous for being the ‘Clearwater Monster,’ a hoax in the national news.”
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