I don't really see it, but then again, I haven't had a few beers this morning......

SALEM, Wis. -- Michael Wilk was tossing back a few beers with friends when he saw God on the side of his 4-foot-long pet alligator.

Without even squinting, Wilk noticed white markings pop out against a backdrop of black scales to form the letters G-O-D.

"When I first saw it, my jaw dropped," said Wilk, 25. "It's just sort of like a phenomenon on it."

Wilk, a home remodeler with hopes of one day starting up an alligator farm, did not notice the gator's unusual markings when it was given to him in December by another Wisconsin man who could no longer care for it.

"I was thinking when the guy gave him to us that he was trying to hoax us," Wilk said. "But it's not Wite-Out or anything--it's real."

Alligators have naturally occurring, unique striping patterns that help camouflage them in the wild, said Harry Dutton, an alligator biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The markings appear to be legitimate and not done with a marker or by scratching the hide, Dutton said after reviewing pictures of Wilk's alligator.

Kent Vliet, an alligator biologist at the University of Florida, agreed. "That looks natural to me," Vliet said after looking at the photos. "I would suspect that's not been altered."

Rev. Philip Wilde, a pastor at Zion Lutheran Church in nearby Bristol, said he views the markings as a coincidence of nature.

"Obviously it's there because God wanted it to be that way," said Wilde, who has not seen the gator. "But I don't see any special message in that."

Wilk, who was raised Roman Catholic but does not attend a church, said the creature hasn't affected him spiritually:

"We don't sit around with candles worshiping this animal, if that's what you mean."

http://www.southflorida.com/news/chi-0607190265jul19,0,330718.story?coll=sfla-news-fringe