A man was arrested in Florida after he attempted to “baptize” an alligator inside a Waffle House.
Rumors that a man in the state of Florida was arrested after trying to “baptize” an alligator in a Waffle House restaurant circulated online in mid-February 2026.
Users on social media platforms like Facebook (archived), Threads (archived) and Instagram (archived) were eager to share the outrageous claim, spreading a purported mugshot of the man in question and an alleged post from Florida news outlet WFOR that said he attempted to use a “pitcher of iced tea” to perform the ritual.
(The Dude Humor Report on Instagram)
There was no evidence that the claim was true or that the mugshot included in the social media posts was authentic. Instead, the rumor originated as a satirical post from an account that identified itself as “comedy.”
A search of Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo returned no results for credible news outlets reporting on such a story.
A Google reverse image search of the purported social media post from WFOR’s account returned only other social media accounts posting the same alleged screenshot, all from mid-February.
(Google)
WFOR is a broadcast channel in Miami, Florida, officially branded as CBS Miami.
The social media accounts for the station are labeled as “CBS Miami” and not “WFOR4NEWS” as of this writing. A search of CBS Miami’s social accounts for a post matching the screenshot shared in the claim returned no relevant results.
A search of newspaper archive Newspapers.com and the CBS Miami website also returned no results for such a story.
The image appeared to originate from a Facebook account that shared a multitude of alleged stories accompanied by fake imagery similar to the one shown in the claim. The account posted (archived) the claim about a Florida man baptizing an alligator on Feb. 12, 2026.
However, the same account posted similar claims around the same time as the post in question, all allegedly from the same purported WFOR4NEWS account. Other purported headlines included a Florida woman arrested for starting a brush fire after “using a flamethrower to clear a spider web from her porch” and a man attempting to trade an alligator for beer at a store.
Like the “baptizing” claim, these posts included alleged mugshots, but there was no evidence the reports or images were authentic. The mugshots appeared to be created using generative artificial intelligence, although Snopes has been unable to independently verify that.
All of the above mentioned posts from the Facebook account in question were labeled with the hashtags “comedy,” “satire” and “for entertainment only,” indicating they were intended as a joke.
Further, the page from which these posts originated featured a disclaimer that read, “This page features satire and parody stories that are exaggerated, developing fictional — created for entertainment purposes only.”
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources calling their output humorous or satirical.