A holidaymaker has gone viral after sharing footage of what she believes to be three crocodiles swimming off the UK coast.
Sarah Craven, 40, said she spotted the "suspicious creatures" in the sea while on a walk with her family in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
One of her step sons shouted "crocodiles!" as they trekked along the cliffs near Blue Dolphin Caravan Park between Cayton Bay and Filey.
Initially they had been watching dolphins jumping above the water's surface before the supposed crocs appeared.
Sarah, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, took some snaps of the creatures as they moved along the clifftop trying to get a better look.
The special effects make-up artist said the reptiles, comprising two adults and a baby, were “massive”, with the largest measuring 12ft (3.6m) in length.
She told the Scarborough News : “If a closer look is taken you can see the back legs swimming.
"I saw both front legs and back legs with long pointy tails swishing behind, the skin looked bumpy like crocodile or alligator skin.
“We then noticed a smaller one in between the large ones.”
After posting the video on Facebook, commenters began debating as to what they might have been.
One person said it was just 'rocks' while another joked it was the Loch Ness Monster on holiday.
A third pointed out: “Water temperature far too low, before anything else is taken into consideration. They are cold blooded animals.”
Expert Angela Julian, co-ordinator at Amphibian and Reptile Groups UK, said it was "extremely unlikely" that what Sarah and her family saw were live crocodiles.
She said the reptiles are "tropical riverine or lake taxa" and not native to the country.
She said: “It’s vanishingly unlikely. There are no crocodiles in European waters. Why would they be swimming in the North Sea?
“People send me all sorts of photos, showing strange-looking creatures, but most turn out to be bits of plastic.
“It’s something inexplicable, but I don’t know what. Lots of crocodiles turn out to be logs. It’s a running joke as a crocodile spotter.”
Sarah said that she and her family were “100 per cent sure” that they had seen three crocodiles, and said experts would likely dismiss her claims so as not to scare people.
She said: “I’m 100 per cent sure they were crocodiles, and my partner and both children feel the same.
“Experts would say it’s not possible, but they would say that because they wouldn’t want to put the fear factor on tourists."
Dr Julian agreed that it was possible that the crocodiles could have been “put” in the water, but she said most sightings of strange creatures turned out to be false.
She said: “It’s possible for the crocodiles to be there because somebody put them there.
“Often with sightings, there is something, but it usually turns out to be something completely different.”
Crocodiles are normally native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia, along with Australia and the Americas.
They live in a range of wetlands and some salt water regions, but need warm climates to survive because they are cold-blooded.
