I lived for a year in central FL in a little house on a big lake that had a lagoon in the back yard where a momma gator raised her broods, so I would often come home to find 50 or so little alligators sunning themselves. For fun I would try to sneak up on them; my strategy was to stand stock-still and only move towards them a little bit whenever the wind blew. This actually worked and I could usually get right up next to one of them and then I would reach down and tap it between the eyes, at which point it take off into the lagoon which prompted all the other little gators to take off too.

Great fun, until one day I happened to glance down while doing this and thought "huh, I don't remember there being a huge log right there." It was of course the momma gator, about 10' long not counting the tail. That was the last time I ever tried the sneaking-up shit. FWIW alligators really don't ever attack adult humans and they never do on land - but that might just be because nobody (but me) is stupid enough to poke their children in the head.