In Episode 362 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore Rocky Hill, Connecticut, searching for a 200 million-year-old monster called Dilophosaurus. This monster left its mark—or rather—thousands of marks on this piece of land. Today, Dinosaur State Park offers two miles of hiking trails and a giant geodesic dome that covers one of the archeological finds of the century.
Visit: Dinosaur State Park
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
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Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Photo by Lauren Middleton.
The fossilized footprints of Dilophosaurus at Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Photo by Lauren Middleton.
The Dilophosaurus mural on the wall of Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Photo by Lauren Middleton.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[DRIVING]
JEFF: So we’re driving on West Street in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Just a bit south of the capital city of Hartford.
RAY: We are. We came down I-91 which mostly follows the Connecticut River.
JEFF: Right. And now we’re in Rocky Hill searching for something old.
RAY: There are tons of old, historic sites around Connecticut. I’m sure we’ll find plenty. Are we looking for a building?
JEFF: Sort of.
RAY: Oooo… an old and haunted building?
JEFF: No, we’re not looking for ghosts today. And the actual building isn’t very old, either. It only dates back to the late 1960s.
RAY: Okay…
JEFF: Okay, make a left up here.
[BLINKAH]
RAY: Got it.
JEFF: And we can park right over there near that huge dome.
RAY: Wait a minute… I’ve heard of this park!
JEFF: Ray, we’ve come to Rocky Hill, Connecticut, to search for monsters.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger and welcome to Episode 363 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time.
JEFF: Hey, I know it’s only September, but we’re thrilled to announce the brand-new 2025 Haunted New England calendar with stories by me and photography by Frank Grace. It’s now on sale! Supplies are limited just like the past ten years, and if you have last year’s calendar, there’s no repeated stories in this years. You can find a link to buy it in the episode description or on our Web site.
RAY: We’ll go searching for monsters in Rocky Hill right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
JEFF: Ray, our inner children are going to be downright giddy with this adventure.
RAY: Oh man! They are! We’re in Dinosaur State Park! I‘ve heard of this place!
JEFF: Yeah, this is going to be very cool!
RAY: Today, Dinosaur State Park is designated a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Department of Interior. It’s a landmark you can’t miss considering there’s a huge geodesic dome which protects the archeological find inside. Plus, there are two miles of nature trails around the park.
JEFF: It’s a popular Connecticut destination for sure. To find out how this all got here, let’s head back to the year 200,000,074 B.C..
[TRANSITION]
[JUNGLE SOUNDS]
[DINOSAUR ROAR IN THE DISTANCE]
RAY: It’s Thursday, September 12th 200 million, 74 B.C. and we’re making our way through Rocky Hill, Connecticut. The song [DINOSAUR ROAR] by [ANOTHER DINOSAUR ROAR] is number one in the valley.
JEFF: We’re in the Triassic Period. It’s a time of monsters. There are large trees. It looks almost jungle-like where we are. There are some hills in the distance too.
[DINOSAUR ROAR]
JEFF: We need to be extra careful on this trip, Ray.
RAY: Yeah, we’ve never traveled this far back in time, and never been in a situation where we’re near the bottom of the local food chain.
[WALKING THROUGH JUNGLE]
JEFF: Up ahead I can see there’s a clearing….
[WALKING THROUGH JUNGLE]
JEFF/RAY: Wow! Look at that!
JEFF: There are a bunch of large dinosaurs trekking through a muddy flat at the bottom of the valley below us.
RAY: Those are Dilophosaurus. The larger ones are about 20 feet long from head to the end of the tail, and they stand about six feet tall. They weigh more than 800 pounds each. These dinosaurs have large hind legs, and much shorter front legs that don’t touch the ground. On their heads are two fin-like ridges.
JEFF: These things are predators. Though not the largest of the dinosaurs, they’re big enough. And because they can move quick with those powerful hind legs, they can hunt larger animals and take them out. If we’re near the bottom of the food chain, the Dilophosaurus is much closer to the top. An apex predator.
[DINOSAUR ROAR]
RAY: We’re watching a large group of them moving through the muddy valley. They’re looking for something.
JEFF: I’m glad we’re far enough away. I’m not sure if they can see us.
RAY: Uhhhmmm… some of them are looking this way and sniffing at the air. They may not be able to see us, but they might be able to smell us.
JEFF: Ray… are they… ahhh…
RAY: They’re heading right for us!
[DINOSAUR ROAR]
[STAMPEDE SOUNDS]
JEFF: Run! Hurry up! Get us out of here…
RAY: I’m trying! I’m trying!
[TRANSITION]
[CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT SOUNDS FADE IN]
JEFF: Where are we?!
RAY: More like WHEN are we. We’re back in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.
JEFF: Okay… WHEN are we?
RAY: Checking the time machine, it’s Tuesday, August 23, 1966. We seem to have landed in a construction site.
JEFF: The crew has just cleared the land and are breaking ground on the site that will be a new State of Connecticut official building.
[TRACTOR SOUNDS]
JEFF: I can see a bulldozer has just flipped over a large piece of gray sandstone as he’s clearing the land.
RAY: This is a big construction site. There’s a lot of equipment and people working to make room for this buil…
JEFF: Wait? What is it?
RAY: The guy driving the bulldozer looks confused. He’s stepping out of the machine and walking over to the stone slab he just flipped over.
JEFF: Check that out!
RAY: I see it! There’s a large fossil of a footprint with three toes. It’s perfectly preserved.
JEFF: Pretty soon other workers discover more footprints. And that’s when construction stops and archeologists move in. Bulldozers, dump trucks, and backhoes make way for people with small, hand-held shovels and brushes. As archeologists clear the site, they find hundreds of these tracks. It doesn’t take long for the state of Connecticut to scrap the building project and preserve the site.
RAY: More than 2000 dinosaur tracks are found by the time the archeologists finish, making this one of the largest collections of fossilized prints in the world. The museum officially opens in 1968. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: Let’s head inside the dome and see the preserved footprints.
[DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES]
RAY: It’s amazing in here! Around the walls there are paintings depicting the Dilophosaurus that made these tracks. There’s a lot of information on the dinosaurs from this era, there’s a discovery room, but then there’s a wide-open area where you can clearly see dozens of footprints all over a giant slab of rock.
JEFF: Do you see our footprints anywhere?
RAY: I don’t see our Chuck Taylor prints anywhere. We must have been just far enough away before we time traveled out of there.
JEFF: That makes sense. Plus, 200 million years ago, all of the land was one super-continent called Pangea. New England was pressed against old England and Europe. All of us just one big happy landmass. So who knows exactly where Rocky Hill Connecticut was on a globe all of those years ago.
RAY: I’m sure someone smart could figure it out.
JEFF: Someone smarter than us for sure.
RAY: That’s not saying much.
JEFF: Ray, what do you call a blind dinosaur?
RAY: What?
JEFF: Do-you-think-he-saur-us. What do you call a dinosaur that sits on a nail?
RAY: What?
JEFF: A mega-saur-ass. Do you know why a Dilophosaurus can’t clap his hands?
RAY: Why?
JEFF: Because it’s extinct.
RAY: These are terrible.
JEFF: They are. But ten year-old Jeff and Ray would have laughed our butts off at those gems.
RAY: Probably.
JEFF: There’s something about dinosaurs. Almost every kid loves them. And I love that there were monsters right here where we’re standing. Giant monsters who left a mark that we’re still talking about 200 million years later.
[DINOSAUR ROAR]
[OUTTRO]
RAY: And We love that you’re still with us for After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
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To see some pictures from the Dinosaur Park, you can also click on the link in our episode description or go to our Web site and look for Episode 363.
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Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
