When a state has newspaper headlines that read, “Avoid reptiles as a holiday gift,” then you know there’s a problem. Florida has a reputation as the number-one state in the US for invasive species. Over the past decade or so, more than 260 exotic animals (that we know of) have escaped their cages and fled into the Florida wilderness. We’re not only talking about lions and tigers and bears (oh my) but also rhinos, jaguars, wolves, orangutans, and just about any exotic creature you can imagine. Many of these escaped convicts remain at large.^[1] However, this list is concerned with the species that, as exotic pets set free in the wild, were able to stick around and multiply. As the wise Jeff Goldblum predicted in Jurassic Park, life will always find a way . . .

Many of us dream of having an exotic pet, like Frida Kahlo with her monkeys or Tippi Hedren’s pet lion. Well, in Florida, you don’t need any special license or certificate to own many types of exotic pets. At the University of Florida, researchers confirm that the pet trade is the main reason for the introduction of invasive species. Exotic animals often begin as innocent pets but are released or escape into the Florida wilderness, for one reason or another, where they can wreak some serious havoc. Kenneth Krysko, manager of the Florida Museum of Natural History, says, “It’s like some mad scientist has thrown these species together from all around the world and said, ‘hey, let’s put them all together and see what happens.’ ” He warns that if the trends continue, Florida may have more invasive species than native. A wildlife ecology professor at the University of Florida likened the situation to “a slow-burning fuse lit to an ecological bomb.” Meanwhile, the exotic pet industry in the US makes $15 billion annually, and people continue to buy that flashy, unique pet that sounds alluring but is severely dangerous to both them and society at large.

10 Burmese Python

The largest Burmese python discovered in the Florida wild was 5.4 meters (18 ft) long and weighed 58 kilograms (128 lb). The man who found it in the brush, being a run-of-the-mill Floridian, grabbed it by the neck and held it up to his friends to see how big it was. The python quickly wrapped its muscled body twice around the man’s legs and then reached his waist. The man’s quick-thinking friend handed him a 23-centimeter (9 in) blade, which the soon-to-be victim used to decapitate the python.^[2]

Now, it is illegal to buy a Burmese python in Florida and for good reason. People used to buy these tiny snakes, which would grow to be about 1.8 meters (6 ft) long in a year’s time. That’s either too much work or slightly horrifying, so the owners would release their beloved pets into the Everglades. This happened enough that the pythons started to breed and thrive in the wet, subtropical climate. In no time, the snakes, who can produce up to 100 hatchlings at once, became the apex predator in the region.

There was a glimmer of hope that native alligators would be able to control the rapid rise of Burmese pythons, but instead, the gators are actually being eaten themselves. In one famous case in 2005, a python tried to consume a 1.8-meter (6 ft) alligator whole, but the snake exploded in the attempt. These battles are becoming a common occurrence. Since the pythons have mostly killed all of the marsh rabbits, bobcats, and other small mammals, the Everglades now call upon hunters to eliminate as many pythons as they possibly can. The hunters are paid minimum wage by the state, plus $50 for every 1.2-meter (4 ft) snake and $25 for each additional foot. In about a year’s time, hunters have bagged 1,000 pythons.

9 Rhesus Macaque

Most people don’t know that you can ride an inner tube down the Silver River in Ocala, Florida, and likely see wild monkeys swinging from the trees as you float by. In the 1930s, the owner of a privately owned park had the harebrained idea to release an entire colony of rhesus macaques as a tourist attraction. The park staff, being the clever humans that they were, put the monkeys on an island in the Silver River for safekeeping. Surprise! They can swim. Now there are hundreds that are spreading like wildfire through Central Florida.

These feral troublemakers travel in large gangs, and they can be aggressive when they feel threatened. They have been terrorizing people in their own backyards, but that’s not even the worst part.^[3] Recently, it was discovered that these macaques carry a herpes virus that spreads to humans through excrement and other bodily fluids. Having feces flung at you from a primate is horrifying enough without the fear of contracting herpes, thank you very much.

On that note, above is a hilarious video of the rhesus macaques chasing down a terrified family. Enjoy.

8 Green Iguana

Iguanas are Florida’s most invasive species. This green menace creates mayhem in suburbia, from leaving gifts in swimming pools and gobbling up gardens to disrupting electrical grids and causing power outages. People discard iguanas as pets because they are more work than expected, as they grow up to 1.8 meters (6 ft) long and require a ton of food. During mating season, they become increasingly hostile and lash out at their owners by biting them. On top of that, they may just try to escape through the doggie door.

Sadly, Floridians have resorted to combating this pest problem they created by using blunt-force trauma. In other words, people are paid to sneak up on them in the dead of night while they sleep and bash in their skulls. Jenny Ketterlin, a wildlife biologist who works for this $63,000 project commissioned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, ensures the public that swiftly smashing their brains open is actually the most humane way to kill them.^[4] Well, it’s good practice for the zombie apocalypse, I suppose.

7 Nile Monitor: Largest Lizard In Africa

The Nile monitor is yet another escapee from the pet trade that is now calling Florida home, sweet home. Instead of soaking in the sun along the Nile Delta, where they belong, they have wormed their way through Cape Coral’s extensive canal system since the 1990s. These skilled swimmers can reach a gruesome 2.1 meters (7 ft) long. They consume whatever they can get, whether that’s a wasp nest, poisonous cane toad, or venomous rattlesnake. Like wolves, they hunt in packs. Occasionally, they pop up from the canals to make a surprise appearance in someone’s backyard. Hopefully they aren’t hungry because they’ve been known to snack on cats and dogs.

It is incredibly difficult to eradicate them, as nobody has ever found a single monitor lizard nest. There are estimated to be at least 1,000 of these giant beasts currently roaming the Florida canals, tidal creeks, and mangroves. These giant lizards may also be seen if you happen to look up, as they are expert tree-climbers, so beware.^[5]

6 Capybara

Do you know what doesn’t sound like an ideal pet? The largest rodent in the world. A capybara is basically like a 45-kilogram (100 lb) guinea pig that’s semiaquatic. It turns out, that’s not as cute as some pet owners thought it would be. Go figure! As of 2016, there were about 50 capybaras running amok in Florida. In its South American home, it has predators like the puma and jaguar, but in Florida, there are no coyotes or dogs big enough to take down a capybara.

It doesn’t help matters that they are social animals, traveling in groups through thick forest.^[6] As if Florida hunters didn’t have enough game to contend with, let’s throw a giant guinea pig in the mix.

5 ‘Testicle-Eating’ Pacu Fish

The South American pacu fish has an unusual bite because of its eerie, humanlike set of teeth. They are a cousin to the flesh-eating piranha, but instead of the razor-sharp teeth of their cousins, they have teeth that are blunt like our molars. The pacu also grows to be much, much larger. They typically reach about 22.7 kilograms (50 lb) throughout South-Central Florida.

Even though the pacu is normally not an imminent threat to men’s genitalia, it did receive the moniker of “testicle-eating” fish for a good reason. According to Henrik Carl, a fish expert at the National History Museum of Denmark, “There have been incidents in other countries, such as Papua New Guinea, where some men have had their testicles bitten off. They bite because they’re hungry, and testicles sit nicely in their mouth.”^[7] It’s no wonder why owners released these exotic fish! Suddenly, the bizarre allure of a human smile on a fish feels a bit more sinister.

4 Giant African Land Snails

The giant African land snail is not to be confused with any meager snail of small proportions. It is, in fact, the world’s largest terrestrial mollusk. We’re talking a 20-centimeter-long (8 in) snail that’s 10 centimeters (4 in) in diameter. This destructive little creature carries a parasitic worm that burrows into humans and spreads meningitis. It consumes at least 500 types of plants and causes permanent damage to the plaster and stucco of buildings. An adult lays up to 1,200 eggs in a single year, and with no natural predators in Florida, there’s no end in sight for its infestation.

It’s a bit of a mystery why giant African land snails populate South Florida. They are illegal to import into the United States without a permit, and no permits have ever been issued. While no one is positive, it seems the pet trade is to blame for the giant snail takeover. The last known invasion was in 1966, when a young boy smuggled three snails into the country as his secret pets. When his grandma found out, she made him set them free in the garden. It cost more than $1 million to eradicate the 18,000 snails that this incident created.

Another suspicion is that the current infestation of hundreds of thousands of giant African land snails in South Florida has been the result of religious ritual. Santeria is an Afro-Caribbean religion steeped in traditions that developed from the Cuban slave trade. Some of the religious rituals put emphasis on the juice of these snails. It’s suspected that they are smuggled into the country for this purpose.^[8]

3 Wild Boars

Wild boars have been roaming free throughout the Sunshine State since the 1500s, when Hernando de Soto brought them to Florida, not as a beloved pet but as a food source. Now, it has been over 500 years, and these feral pigs are nowhere near domesticated. Four million wild boars have spread across the United States, but in Florida alone, there are half a million.

They are an aggressive, tusked, 91-kilogram (200 pound) Old World swine that carry up to 24 diseases, from tuberculosis to cholera, and constantly consume farmers’ feed and even livestock. They are difficult to control, to say the least, as they are basically one giant muscle. There are also all the usual unpleasantries of invasive species, like damaging native plants and competing with native species. It basically messes up the proper chain of events that lets an ecosystem flourish.

As a result of their continued population growth, Florida hunters have trained bloodhounds to track them down at night. There are no rules that limit hunting to a certain season. There are no size, bag, or gender restrictions. Behind the white-tailed deer, the wild boar is the second most popular animal to hunt in Florida. Some inventive entrepreneurs are even flipping the boar problem on its head, making profit by serving them up on a platter and calling them prime pork.^[9] Bacon anyone?

2 African Clawed Frog

Before modern-day pregnancy tests were invented, doctors used an African clawed frog to assess the situation. The procedure involved exposing the frog to a woman’s urine, commonly via injection, and waiting for hours to see what would happen. If the frog laid eggs, it meant the woman was having a baby. This method of pregnancy detection remained popular until the 1970s, when modern pregnancy kits went on the market.

Needless to say, there was a high demand for African clawed frogs until this time. Thousands of these little critters were shipped from South Africa to labs and hospitals, not only in the US but all over the world. To supply the high demand, they were bred in captivity. They were easy to care for, so a pet trade developed around them in the 1950s and 1960s. From unwanted pets and escapees to doctors releasing them from their labs due to technology advancements, they multiplied fast. These frogs with clawed toes live for up to 15 years in the wild, and females create 27,000 eggs per reproductive cycle.^[10] Their growing numbers are alarming, to say the least.

1 ‘Man-Eater’ Nile Crocodile

The Nile crocodile can grow over 6 meters (20 ft) long and weigh as much as a small car. They eat whatever they can get hold of, including the occasional human (hence its description of “man-eater”). From sub-Saharan Africa, they were introduced to South Florida, presumably via the pet trade, even though whoever thought that a crocodile would make a great pet clearly didn’t have a permit.

Nile crocodiles are much more dangerous than the native alligator population in Florida. In six years, American alligators and crocodiles were the cause of 33 human fatalities, but in the same time period, the Nile crocodile killed 268 people. As far as we know, they have been surviving and breeding for at least six years in the Florida swamps.^[11] As if Floridians didn’t have enough monsters lurking in the water.

“Florida man” is a meme. It refers to every déclassé and dumb (especially dumb criminals) person that has ever crawled out of the Everglades. For those addicted to the Internet, the Sunshine State is the magical place where robbers use Sharpie goatees as disguises and eight-foot-long alligators carry out impromptu home invasions.

See Also: 10 Exotic Pets That Escaped And Multiplied In The Florida Wilderness

There is more to Florida than just Florida man. The oldest city in America is St. Augustine, Florida, which was founded by Spanish settlers in September 1565. Florida, like its close historical cousin Louisiana, is also a cultural melting pot where Spanish Catholicism with African and Caribbean accents dominate in the south and center, while Anglo and Scots-Irish Protestant culture rules the north and panhandle. Ever since the real estate boom of the 1920s, Florida has also become a Yankee colony in the South, with New Englanders and Mid-Atlantic natives deciding to spend their golden years in Florida’s endless warm weather. The final element in this stew is provided by the Quebecois, who run their own trailer parks. Florida is also the state where the musical sub-genre of death metal was born, with Floridian bands like Death, Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Deicide pioneering the heavy sound in the late 1980s.

Another unique aspect of Florida is its abundance of weirdness. Florida is rife with urban legends, creepy stories, and real-life horrors. The following ten entries should convince you that Florida is one of, if not the scariest American state.

10 Interstate 4’s “Dead Zone”

Florida is a state full of highways. No highway may be more infamous than Interstate 4. Interstate 4 runs across central Florida and links the metropolitan areas of Tampa and Daytona Beach. At the halfway point of this highway is an area known as the “Dead Zone.” The location, which is in Seminole County and at the southern end of the St. Johns River, earned its ghastly nickname because of the high number of traffic accidents that have occurred there. Few sources are in total agreement, but a ballpark figure suggests that between 1,048 and 1,740 car accidents have happened at or near the spot between 1963 and the late 1990s. More worrisome still is the fact that many of these accidents ended in fatalities.

Even before the Interstate 4 first opened its asphalt to American drivers, the area had a dark history. The Dead Zone is close to Sanford, Florida. During the Spanish conquest, the Mayaca tribe that lived in the region died out due to diseases caused by European contact. Swedish indentured servants (and some who the historical record labels as slaves) were brought in to cultivate oranges and were practically worked to death. (It is important to point out that during the 17th and 18th century, most Europeans in the South were either indentured servants or the descendants of indentured servants.) A fire eventually burnt away the entire Swedish settlement of Sanford in the mid-19th century. Sanford’s next migration wave came courtesy of Henry Sanford, who wanted Sanford to become a Catholic colony settled by German immigrants. That attempt failed thanks to an outbreak of yellow fever.

Ghost hunters and paranormal enthusiasts alike believe that all of this dark history has commingled to form a dark nexus at the Dead Zone. As such, numerous ghost sightings have been reported at the Dead Zone for decades. Many people have claimed over the years that the Dead Zone is a place where cell phones, radios, and even CBs abruptly stop working. When these electronics do work, they are often interrupted by static and the sounds of children laughing.

Other paranormal phenomena include ghost cars that are seen briefly before disappearing, fogs that appear without warning, phantom hitchhikers, and hurricanes that either upset local graveyards or follow the exact same path of destruction as previous hurricanes.

9 Koreshan State Historic Site

Cyrus Teed was an odd duck. Born in 1839 in Trout Creek, New York, Teed began studying medicine, alchemy, and the supernatural at an early age. After serving in the Union army during the Civil War, Teed became a medical doctor while simultaneously studying electromagnetism. At some point in the 1870s, Dr. Teed began having visions of a beautiful woman. The dream woman told Dr. Teed that humanity was in trouble, and that Teed was the man to save it. The woman also told Dr. Teed that the earth is hollow and full of electricity.

In 1878, Teed not only changed his name to Koresh (a name lifted from the Book of Isaiah), but he led a group of Shakers down to Florida in order to start his own religious community. Teed’s oddball community would not last. However, according to more than a few Floridians and tourists, Teed’s ghost and the ghosts of his followers can still be found at the Koreshan State Historic Site near Estero, Florida.

Strange winds supposedly blow through the site, with some campers claiming that the winds intentionally destroyed their tents. Other campers have said that disembodied voices and strange shadows are common inside the park or near the site (formerly the Koreshan Unity house). Ever since the death of a little girl in the 1990s, many female visitors to the park have experienced bouts of sore throat. The little girl, it is said, died after eating poison. Freakiest of all, Teed died at the Koreshan Unity commune in 1908. For days his followers sat by his bedside and waited for him to resurrect. He didn’t, and after three weeks state health officials forced the community to burn Teed’s decayed body. Teed was placed in a mausoleum by the sea. The mausoleum is gone as it was washed away by a hurricane.

8 The Deering Estate

Miami is a lively place. Miami is a city synonymous with music, neon-filled night clubs, and beautiful people having fun on the beach. During the 1980s, Miami was also synonymous with murder, turf wars between Cuban and Colombian drug gangs, and race riots.

The Miami of the 1920s was not known for much besides oranges and nice weather. It was during that decade that wealthy Chicago businessman Charles Deering completed his dream mansion at the point where the Everglades and Biscayne Bay meet. Long before Deering’s arrival, the area known as Miami Rock Ridge had seen thousands of years of Native American settlement, including Paleo-Indian homes, Seminole hunting grounds, and Tequesta homes. The current haunting of the estate supposedly began when construction crews began disturbing several Native American burial grounds.

The Deering Estate is today one of the most popular destinations for professional and amateur ghost hunters alike. In 2009, Colleen Kelley and her team of paranormal researches told NPR that they had recorded some 60 different ghost voices during several tours of the mansion. P.R.I.S.M. Paranormal Research South Florida believes so much in the haunting of the Deering Estate that they, along with the estate itself, host an annual ghost hunt on the property. Given the sheer amount of ghost-themed publicity involving the Deering Estate, one should be more than a little skeptical about reports of paranormal activity.

7 The Grave of Elizabeth Budd-Graham

Tallahassee’s Old State Cemetery was opened in 1829. People were dying to get in, it seems. The cemetery’s most infamous occupant is Elizabeth Budd-Graham, who may be dead but, if the stories are to be believed, she is far from resting.

Contrary to Christian burial customs and unlike most of the graves in the cemetery, Elizabeth’s gravestone faces west. Its epitaph is fittingly creepy: “Ah! Broken is the golden bowl. The spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll! A saintly soul Floats on the Stygian River; Come let the burial rite be read The funeral song be sung; An anthem for the queenliest dead That died so young A dirge for her the doubly dead In that she died so young.” For those not English majors or fans of American Gothic lit, this epitaph comes directly from Edgar Allan Poe’s “Lenore”.

Local legends claim that “Bessie” was a witch who used her magic powers to make her husband fall in love with her. Besides being born during the positively supernatural month of October, Bessie, reportedly a good, or “white witch,” is also believed to have left behind several disturbing artifacts, some of which wound up around her gravestone (few sources say what these objects were). Stories have also circulated that the witches and warlocks of Tallahassee regularly perform ceremonies and rituals at Bessie’s grave.

Although most of the claims surrounding Bessie and her resting place have been refuted (for instance, plenty of other gravestones in the cemetery face westwards, and there’s nothing in Christian burial customs about western-facing gravestones being “abnormal” or “evil”), people continue to report ghostly sounds and sightings, along with the remains of real ceremonies that supposedly take place regularly near the gravestone.

6 Bloody Bucket Bridge

Wauchula. Bet you can’t say it right. Anyway, Wauchula, Florida is the home of the Bloody Bucket Bridge which spans across the Bloody Bucket Road. These of course are not the official names for these landmarks, but for decades, the locals of Wauchula have preferred to use “Bloody Bucket.”

Legends say that the haunting of Bloody Bucket Bridge began when a freed slave woman began working as a mid-wife after the Civil War. Different stories claim that the woman either went insane or was filled with rage because her own children had been taken away during her slave days, but either way the stories all agree that the mid-wife began murdering the children entrusted to her care. The mid-wife would suffocate the children immediately after they came into the world, and then would bury them near a local stream. The blood from the deliveries, which the mid-wife had collected in buckets, would be poured into the stream from atop the bridge, hence Bloody Bucket Bridge.

Since the 19th century, locals have passed down stories about the water under the Bloody Bucket Bridge turning red. Others claim that the wail of dying babies can be heard if one stands on the bridge. As with most legends, all of these stories cannot be verified, and the historical record says nothing about a murderous mid-wife who lived in Wauchula. Indeed, some argue that the bridge got its gruesome moniker thanks to a bar called the Bloody Bucket, which existed in Wauchula back in the 1930s and 1940s.

5 The Devil’s Chair

Cassadaga, Florida is far from normal. The town fancies itself the psychic capital of the world, and plenty of Spiritualists, mesmerists, and paranormal enthusiasts live in the town. Cassadaga was intended to be a ghostly location, as its founder, George Colby, was a Spiritualist medium originally from Pike, New York. Colby decided to form the town after meeting the spirit of a Native American man named Seneca during a séance in Iowa.

Even in Cassadaga, the Devil’s Chair stands out as unsettling. Located on Kicklighter Road inside of the Cassadaga-Lake Helen Cemetery, the Devil’s Chair is a small brick bench nestled between two gravestones. There are other such “chairs” throughout the United States, as cemeteries in the 19th century began erecting them in order to make visitors more comfortable. Cassadaga’s Devil’s Chair is known to be popular with Old Scratch, who will appear next to you if you sit in the chair long enough. Another story says that if you leave a full can of beer on the bench at dusk, it will be empty the next morning.

Since the 1970s, “legend trippers,” otherwise known as bored teenagers, have regularly dared each other to sit in the Devil’s Chair. Legend tripping activity is so high in Cassadaga that the cemetery is regularly locked up at night, with dire warnings posted all around its perimeter. All of this security has not stopped Floridians and others from hanging out by the Devil’s Chair and scaring themselves silly.

4 The Devil’s Tree

The devil loves Florida. In the balmy and beautiful coastal town of Port St. Lucie, Florida, there is a place called Oak Hammock Park. Inside of the park is a stout, but evil-looking tree that is supposedly owned by Lucifer. The greedy Lucifer likes his tree in Port St. Lucie, and therefore it is said that the tree is impossible to chop down.

A more down-to-earth, but far more horrifying backstory about the tree involves one of Florida’s many serial killers. On January 8, 1971, two teenagers were picked up by a Martin County sheriff’s deputy named Gerard John Schaefer. The teens initially trusted Schaefer because of his badge, but they shouldn’t have. Schaefer quickly took the girl’s to the wicked tree in Port St. Lucie, tied them to it, and began torturing them. Schaefer wanted them to die. He also wanted to watch them die, for the tree sat right next to Schaefer’s home. When the two hitchhikers from Iowa, Collette Goodenough and Barbara Ann Wilcox, did die, Schaefer decapitated them and had sex with their corpses.

The brilliant Schaefer (his IQ was once recorded at 130) was eventually caught in 1973, when police investigators searched his mother’s home and found personal items belonging to his victims. By January 1977, long after Schaefer had been found guilty and given two life sentences, the bones of Goodenough and Wilcox were found near the Devil’s Tree in Oak Hammock Park. Since that time, urban legends have sprung up about the Devil’s Tree in Port St. Lucie being haunted by the spirits of the dead girls, as well as the spirit of Schaefer.

3Gatorman

One of the most famous Floridian “cryptids” is Gatorman, a horrific monster with a man’s upper body and the lower half of a scaly fish. Like a lot of Florida’s weirdness, the story of Gatorman began in the mysterious Everglades.

According to author Greg Jenkins, when American and European settlers began moving to the Everglades in the 1840s, they were shocked by bizarre local legends about strange, bloodthirsty creatures who prowled the wetlands and swamps at night. Some of these Native American legends may or have included yarns about Gatorman, but plenty of people today believe that the Everglades could be home to several unknown species.

In Linda S. Godfrey’s “American Monsters,” a college student living near St. Johns River reported seeing the Gatorman twice between 2010 and 2011. According to this eyewitness, she first noticed huge bite marks on a manatee in 2010. The marks could not be correlated with any known animal in the Everglades. A year later, the woman saw a “blackish figure standing under some cypress trees” that emitted odd sounds and moved in such a way that the eyewitness was scared for her life.

Jenkins reports that Florida’s Gatorman is not all that unique. Besides other half-human cryptids in America like Maryland’s Goatman and West Virginia’s Mothman, he reports that New Jersey has its own Gatorman. Jenkins argues that the Florida and New Jersey cryptids are “intelligent” and operate as part of hidden communities that hunt together.

If you are wondering what Florida’s Gatorman might look like, then you you’re going to want to travel to Long Beach, Washington and check out the mummified corpse of Wellington Marsh, Jr.’s “gatorman”.

2 The Skunk Ape

Bigfoot is known to haunt the rainy mountains of Washington and Oregon. However, Bigfoot has a Southern cousin in Florida known as the Skunk Ape. Sightings of the Skunk Ape are so common that, inside the Big Cypress National Preserve near Naples, Florida, stands the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters. The center is run by Dave Shealy, the man who has dedicated his life to proving the existence of the Skunk Ape.

The Skunk Ape reportedly makes his (or her?) home in the Everglades. The name comes from the fact that the creature exudes a noxious smell that makes any eyewitnesses gag. Shealy and other enthusiasts have compared the Skunk Ape’s terrible aroma to an alligator den “filled with swamp gas and animal cadavers”. Besides smelling awful, the Skunk Ape is also a big dude, with Shealy saying that the typical Skunk Ape stands somewhere between six and seven feet tall and weighs in excess of 450 pounds.

Like Bigfoot on the West Coast, Florida’s Skunk Ape apparently has his roots in Native American folklore. However, the modern fascination with the Skunk Ape began in 1959, when three Boy Scouts came screaming out of the Ocala National Forest. They told everyone that they had been chased out of the woods by a big, hairy, and foul-smelling ape. Later, in January 1974, the Hialeah Gardens Police Department used a helicopter to search along US Highway 27 after an eyewitness claimed to have seen a seven-foot-tall hairy ape walking near the highway. The incident earned plenty of local coverage, especially since one of the responding officers claimed that he saw the creature too.

There is very little hard evidence of the Skunk Ape’s existence. The most famous piece of evidence is a blurry and disturbing picture of some ugly simian stalking through the Florida nighttime.

1 The Chi Omega House

What happened at Florida State University’s Chi Omega House on the night of January 15, 1978 was a horror movie come to life. Tallahassee has never been the same.

During the early morning hours, an intruder used a faulty lock located at the rear of the house. At approximately 2:45 am, the killer entered the sorority house. His first move was to pick up a piece firewood and use it to bludgeon 21-year-old Margaret Bowman until she was unconscious. The killer ended Bowman’s life by using nylon stockings to strangle her.

The unseen and unheard intruder next entered a room belonging to 20-year-old Lisa Levy. Levy was attacked, and the killer amped up the molestation and mutilation. He bit off Levy’s nipples, bit her buttocks, and raped her with a hair spray bottle. Like Bowman, Levy died after being strangled by the killer.

There were other coeds in the house that night. None of them heard a thing. FSU student Kathy Kleiner slept through the two attacks, despite the fact that her next door neighbor was Lisa Levy. When the killer entered Kleiner’s room, he broke her jaw and left scars across her torso, but Kleiner managed to survive. Another girl, Karen Chandler, also suffered a broken jaw, broken teeth, and broken fingers after the man assaulted her. Again, despite these injuries, Chandler lived through it all. Homicide investigators later determine that all four of these attacks occurred in a span of about fifteen minutes.

After leaving the Chi Omega House and escaping into the night, the killer traveled eight blocks and broke into the basement apartment belonging to FSU coed Cheryl Thomas. The sleeping Thomas ultimately suffered a jaw fracture and skull fractures that caused permanent deafness. At the scene, the killer left behind a semen stain and a makeshift mask made out of women’s pantyhose. Inside the mask police found several male hair samples. The hairs belonged to escaped convict from Colorado named Ted Bundy.

Visitors and former students claim that the ghosts of the murdered girls are still present at the Chi Omega House. The survivors of Bundy’s night attack have also claimed that they felt inexplicable forces telling them to stay in their rooms.

Florida gets a bad wrap, and no more so than the Florida man, known on an international level as an entertaining party game. You type “Florida Man” and your birth date, and voila! You laugh at the idiot in the article who attacked his daughter with pizza, the man who mistook the bank for a Taco Bell drive-thru, or even the guy who drove a Ferrari into a lake after Jesus told him to.

Like most places, Florida is not all bad, and the majority of its inhabitants are not idiots. So to counter the negativity, here are examples of ten “Florida Men” breaking through the stereotype and being the good guys for a change.

Related: 10 Most Thrilling Adventures Of Florida Man

10 Florida Man Mowed for Charity

Cutting the lawn on a Saturday morning is quite a tedious affair—the back and forth, the exertion, the time wasted—simply to be repeated week after week. The average American can spend anywhere from seven to forty-seven days of their life mowing their lawn. Imagine spending more than a quarter of that time in one spine-breaking sitting.

But that is what one Florida Man did. Chip Hawthorne drove his lawnmower from Titusville to Spring Hill, a trip of 130 Miles, clocking an estimated 15 hours on his garden automobile, all in the name of charity. The idea behind this “Mowathon” was to raise half a million dollars to support the West Orange Habitat for Humanity. Although he fell short of his financial mark, he definitely made a dent in the Florida Man landscape.^[1]

9 Florida Man Saves Bear

Does a bear crap in the woods? Sometimes. Other times, it meanders into a neighborhood where it’s either shot by one of the locals or takes the head off an old lady heading to Walmart. Either way, the result isn’t ideal. When a adult male black bear entered a residential area called Alligator Point, the local animal control was called out. They responded by darting the animal with a sleep-inducing concoction.

In a panic, the bear dove headfirst into the Gulf of Mexico and started swimming. Adam Warwick, a wildlife conservationist, did what any God-fearing Florida Man would have done. He dove after it, risking his own neck by intercepting its path and trying to turn him around toward land, thereby preventing it from drowning once the good stuff kicked in. He eventually had to help the bear keep its head above water and helped to float the bear back to the shore. A national treasure.^[2]

8 Florida Man Gives Up Riches

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

I’m sure you’d all agree—$20,000 dollars is a lot of money. Whether you are living under a bridge or managing a carwash and waxing business, making your way through life and saving for retirement, $20,000 can go far. James Stratford, who manages just such an enterprise, saved a local businessman a ton in damages and possibly his business.

Russell Mir arrived at the carwash to have his truck cleaned. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to deposit three bags of money in the bank and had further instructed the employees at the carwash that everything in the truck was to be discarded. After realizing his mistake, Mir notified Stratford and returned to the scene of the mistake. After an initial search with Stratford, a father of five, they found only one bag of cash in a dumpster. Stratford continued the search, managing to find the other two bags. For his efforts, he was awarded unlimited Slurpees for a year or anything else he desired at Mir’s service stations. He should have kept the dosh.^[3]

7 Florida Man Saves Manatee

When the attention of Florida Man Don Swartz was drawn by something floating on the surface of the water that resembled the last person left standing after a big night at the bar, he immediately sprang into action. The manatee, which was suspected of being poisoned by the red tide, was followed around the harbor until it flipped onto its back.

Knowing well that the turn meant likely drowning, Don jumped into the water and held the animal up, keeping its nostrils out of the water like an alligator in waiting. Now that is a man-to-a-tee. For forty minutes, Don held the distressed creature until the professionals took over. Apparently, the large aquatic bovine got into a generous helping of toxic red tide seagrass. Ha, is that what they are calling it these days?^[4]

6 Florida Man Saves Kids from Fire

If you have ever seen Zoolander, you know two things: (1) you can cheer someone up with Orange Mocha Frappucinos and (2) the devastating aftermath of a fire at a gas station. Tragedy struck when a fire erupted at the service station in Palm Harbor, leaving a woman in mortal danger and her two children to witness the tragedy.

Without a second thought and with nothing to gain, Jared Pierson, a local homeless Florida Man, dashed into the smoke and flames and pulled the two children to safety, risking his own life in the process. He later mentioned that had he known their mother was in danger, he would have likely done even more.^[5]

5 Florida Man Helps the Turtle Cross the Road

We all know the story of the rabbit and tortoise. The rabbit got cocky and took a nap while the slow and steady tortoise went home with the spoils. In the city of Naples, the scaly little guy was still running at full tilt. The problem was that he had a busy road to cross and no speedy legs to carry him across.

An anonymous Florida Man had other plans, hopping out of his truck and carrying Leonardo to safety on the other side of the road. Real heroes don’t have names. They simply live in the imagination and minds of others. This man will live on in the memories of all who witnessed him stop traffic simply to preserve nature. Send our regards to Master Splinter.^[6]

4 Florida Man Saves Person Having Seizure

Heroes don’t always have broad chests and legendary attire. They come in all shapes and sizes, and when the stars align, they wear steel-toed boots for protection from their day jobs. While mowing his lawn one morning, Tony Neil noticed a neighbor having a seizure while in his car.

With the car still in motion, Tony sprung to action as if taken straight from the pages of a comic book and attempted to stop the car, the vehicle almost crushing his foot if not for the steel boots of glory. Eventually, the car came to a halt against a tree, and with no way to get inside, Tony had someone call 911, who arrived and pulled the man to safety. The victim survived the ordeal and thanked Tony for saving his life. I imagine them sitting in the back of an ambulance, tying all loose ends before the credits start rolling. ^[7]

3 Florida Man Saves Drowning Child

Delray Beach, FL. Mother’s day almost turned into a nightmare for a mother of twins as one of her daughters was swept out to sea in a rip current. Working at a local resort, Logan Gaynor heard the screaming and went to see what was happening. Without hesitation, he broke into some Logan’s Run-style action and dashed right into the water to provide help.

Logan was able to pull the girl to safety without anybody getting hurt and was later commended by the local fire department with a lifesaving award, leaving the family with nothing but “what-ifs.” What if Logan wasn’t there? What if he also got caught in the rip current and was dragged out to see? What if they never ever enter the ocean again for any reason for the rest of their lives?^[8]

2 Florida Man Rescues People from Afghanistan

The U.S. Armed Forces have been fighting and working to maintain peace in the Middle East for as long as we can remember. A recent controversial exit from the country had left many Americans stranded in the process. In August of 2021, before the U.S. officially ended its campaign and the Taliban took back power, the U.S. began a mass evacuation of personnel and people on the ground.

A total of 120,000 people were evacuated from the country, with many being aided by private organizations. In their efforts, the U.S. government found one sure way to do it: enter Florida Man. Zach Van Meter, a private equity investor from Naples, was roped in to assist after Uncle Sam—well, okay, it was a former U.S. commando—came knocking. His group, known as the Commercial Task Force, was directly responsible for evacuating at least 15,000 people. Talk about making a difference from afar.^[9

1 Florida Man Saves Puppy

If film and documentaries have taught us anything, it’s that the number one unforgivable sin is to let the dog (or cat) die—the biggest no-no in the civilized world. The mom can fall from a cliff, the dad shot, but if Rufus dies, then that’s that. One Florida Man lives and dies by that mantra.

Richard Willbanks, a Florida retiree, was walking his doggo, Gunner, when a gator attacked, dragging the little guy to the water. Alligators are well known for drowning their prey, and Gunner was no exception. Richard flew after the hungry gator and went looking for it underwater before lifting the reptile with the dog still in its jaws out of the lake. Eventually, Willbanks managed to wrestle the dog free only with minor scratches. And get this—he didn’t drop his cigar. All the commotion, the struggle for life and death, and his cigar remained in his mouth throughout the entire ordeal. We all hope that Richard lives forever. A true Florida Man.^[10]

When it comes to headlines, Florida men are a breed all their own. And we’re not just talking about the fact that they have more guns than any other state in America—though it’s true that they do. We’re talking about their weird, wild headlines. So we thought: What better way to celebrate the year 2022 than with a list of 10 crazy headlines that prove Florida men are a different breed. Are you ready to be shocked?

Ever since the dawn of time, there have been men who are just different. Whether it’s the way they dress, how they talk, or even their hairstyles, these Florida men know how to stand out in a crowd. You’ve heard it before, and you know it’s true. Florida men are a breed apart—they’re the kind of men who will do anything to get what they want, even if it means running through a drive-thru with their clothes off or putting a live alligator in their pants.

Here are just some of the occurrences that prove how these Florida men are just different:

10 Florida Man Busted After Tantrum About Bacon

Have you ever seen someone get arrested because he threw a tantrum over bacon? Yup, that’s probably not an uncommon scenario when you go to Florida. When the Cape Coral police received calls claiming that there was some “disturbance,” they quickly responded. Upon arriving at the Waffle House (where else would it be?), they saw a shirtless man yelling at the employees for the way his bacon was cooked.

Currently, the man is in jail and is charged with intoxication as well as resisting arrest. Though it’s a bit bizarre to be arrested because of bacon, it surely is also a lesson learned: do not let bacon get on your nerves!^[1]

9 The Crossbow Fiasco

It’s not all the time you hear about stolen crossbows—they’re hard to hide, and they might even potentially hurt you as you run away from authorities. However, that’s not entirely the case with Darren Durrant from Florida. Though he was able to walk out of the store undetected, they were able to trace back that he was the one who stole the crossbow.

The crazy part? He actually stored it inside his pants. Yup, you didn’t read that part wrong. A crossbow inside his pants—talk about a fiasco indeed. Even if he was in danger of injury with how he hid such an item, Durrant and his antics have definitely proven to us that you can actually hide a crossbow inside your pants! He left undetected (the crutch was a nice touch) but was spotted in a restaurant’s parking lot, where he even tried to run away from the police. The attempt was unsuccessful, though, as he was arrested and jailed. ^[2]

8 The Naked Man with a Barbell

Imagine waking up to your 62-year-old neighbor as he’s banging a barbell on the door… while naked. That is actually not unlikely if you find yourself living in Florida, so be prepared. Larry Gardner was confronted by a neighbor as he was hitting a sliding glass door to another person’s home. The neighbor confronted Gardner, who threatened to kill him.

Gardner eventually dropped the barbell but picked up a metal pipe near the home and continued threatening his neighbor. After finally being tackled by two good Samaritans, the police arrived, and Gardner was arrested for assault and armed burglary. Definitely not something you’d expect on a Monday evening.^[3]

7 Florida Man Watched Spider-Man 292 Times

If you claim to be Spiderman’s number one fan, you definitely have to think again after reading about Ramila Alanis and the world record that he broke. In honor of his late grandmother, who he also saw as his number-one supporter, he wanted to be the record holder after losing the title in 2021. With that, this man spent over $3,400 watching Spider-Man: No Way Home 292 times. Yup, 292 times.

Not only that, but because the requirements for the record state you have to watch this movie without doing anything else like using your phone, going to the restroom, or even sleeping, it is safe to say that Alanis may have already memorized the dialogue and the screenplay. That’s a lot, just to have that title.

Though it took him approximately 720 hours (that’s 30 days) to watch the movie 292 times while juggling his personal life and work commitments, he was actually very successful in achieving this groundbreaking and amazing world record! Would you do something like this, too?^[4]

6 Unfamiliar with the Stick Shift, Driver Crashes Supercar

Wouldn’t it be heartbreaking to purchase a supercar only for it to be crashed just a week later? That was actually what happened with Robert Guarini. What seemed to be a normal day for him definitely turned into something else when he crashed his 2006 Heritage Edition Ford GT. While not a new car, he had just gotten it at an auction, paying a whopping $704,000 for it.

When asked by the authorities why this happened, apparently, he was unfamiliar with how the stick shift worked. However, authorities found out later on that Guarini actually had a suspended license and didn’t even have the registration or insurance for the car that he bought. Not only was his car damaged and crashed, but he also got cited for driving with a suspended license and not having the car registered or insurance!^[5]

5 Florida Man Uploads Bomb-Making Videos

Florida isn’t just home to weird cases of theft and robbery, but it is also popular because of how interesting its people can be. When living in Florida, it surely should not come as a surprise to you when someone just decides to upload a bomb-making video out of the blue. Yes, it actually happened. Romeo Xavier Langhorne, a 32-year-old, was caught doing just that.

According to the prosecutors, he even pledged his allegiance to ISIS. That prompted him to upload a video on how to make bombs, hoping it would be helpful to the group with whatever they wanted to do. An FBI agent—undercover as an ISIS representative—was actually the one who caught him. Because of this, Langhorne was sentenced to 20 years in prison.^[6]

4 Naked Man in Florida Attempts to Rob a Man with a Machete

When in Florida, naked men that want to rob you are a common thing. So if you find yourself visiting the state or even have plans of living there, definitely take this bizarre occurrence into consideration because you might just find yourself in such a situation! What seemed a normal day for this surveyor turned into something else when a naked man ran after him with a machete as he demanded clothes and other stuff like his wallet and even his phone.

This naked man actually came out of nowhere, taking everyone by surprise with what he did. After throwing a machete at the worker who handed over what he was asking for, the naked man then jumped into a vehicle and drove to a nearby gas station. Though the surveyor was struck with a machete, he, fortunately, didn’t receive any serious injuries.

After yelling at people driving by and a comical push-up display, the Florida authorities were able to take the nude assailant into custody. With that, he was charged with attempted robbery with a deadly weapon. However, it was later discovered that this man also had mental health issues. Definitely an interesting case!^[7]

3 Florida Man Wakeboards Behind a Truck After Hurricane Ian

Yup, you read that correctly. Time and time again, it’s been proven that the men in Florida never disappoint with their many adventures. They seem to live keeping everyone entertained—like this guy right here!

Right after the disastrous Hurricane Ian hit the central west coast of Florida this past summer, many witnesses saw a man wakeboarding on the streets behind a truck. His surfing escapade garnered much attention on social media, with spectators cheering the man on. The comments were almost as comical, with one user citing, “Nothing is more American than this.” Another user topped the comments, though, with his observation about the sprinklers being on at the golf course in the background.

Would you ever do such a crazy thing? If we’re being honest, wakeboarding in the streets doesn’t sound like a very bad thing either, as long as you’re careful!^[8]

2 Naked Man Wearing a Cowboy Hat Attacks Woman Using a Machete

At this point, every time you hear about a machete and a naked man, you might instantly think about Florida and how incidents like this seem like a common thing to happen to the residents living there. Imagine riding a bicycle when suddenly a naked man pops out of nowhere and attacks you with a machete? It sounds unlikely, right? However, nothing here in Florida seems to be impossible because this actually happened!

Roberto Hercules, 45, attacked a woman while she was riding a bicycle around town. After being rejected and turned down after asking her for a crack pipe that she didn’t even have, Hercules hit and chased her with a machete. Even as the woman tried to run away from Hercules and jump off her bicycle, she was still struck with the weapon multiple times. Fortunately, she survived. Later, the police found the assailant sleeping, still naked, with a cowboy hat. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder, attempted armed robbery, and aggravated battery with a weapon.^[9]

1 Man in Florida Pays Rent to a Fake House Owner

Nothing beats the frustration of having to pay your rent monthly, especially if you’re the cost comes at a big price, right? However, what if you find out that you’ve been paying your rent to someone that’s not even your landlord? This is what happened to Isaac Aviles, a 19-year-old who got conned by what seemed to be a fake owner of the house!

It was only three months later when he found out that the man he had been paying $1200 a month to was a rental scammer! He never met the supposed landlord and only spoke to him on the phone. The 3-bedroom home in Orlando seemed like a good deal–too good, it seemed—as the true rent for the home is double what Aviles was paying. Because real estate scams are a common occurrence in Florida and elsewhere, you definitely have to watch out because you might be the next victim.^[10]