Montauk Monster

The "Montauk Monster"

The "Montauk Monster" is an unidentified creature which allegedly washed ashore dead at the Ditch Plains beach two miles east of the Montauk, New York business district in July 2008. It has generated some speculation on National news channels such as CNN, as well as Internet discussion, but has not been identified as the body is not available for examination. An unidentified woman told the same reporter that the animal was only the size of a cat, and had decomposed to a skeleton by the time of the press coverage. She would not identify its location for inspection.

History

The story began after Jenna Hewitt, 26, of Montauk and three friends said they found the creature on July 12 at the beach which is a popular surfing spot at Rheinstein Estate Park owned by East Hampton, New York. She was quoted:

We were looking for a place to sit when we saw some people looking at something...We didn't know what it was...We joked that maybe it was something from Plum Island.

Her color photograph ran in black and white on July 23 on page 10 in The Independent, under the headline of "The Hound of Bonacville" (a take off on the name Bonackers which refers to the natives of East Hampton). The light hearted article speculated that the creature might be a turtle or some mutant experiment from Plum Island before noting that the East Hampton Natural Resources Director Larry Penny had concluded it was a raccoon with its upper jaw missing. The article concluded that "someone took it away... to be buried... we hope."

Hewitt and her friends were interviewed on Plum-TV, a local cable television show. Alanna Navitski, an employee of Evolutionary Media Group in Los Angeles, California, passed a photo of the creature to Anna Holmes at Jezebel, claiming that a friend's sister saw the monster in Montauk. Holmes then passed it along to fellow Gawker Media website Gawker.com which gave it wide attention on July 29 under the headline "Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk". Gawker later said that Evolutionary Media has been promoting the Cartoon Network television show Cryptids Are Real and that the monsters on the website resembled the Montauk Monster and the website could have been the victim of a viral marketing campaign. It was also stated that it could also be a viral marketing campaign for the upcoming sequel Cloverfield 2. Photographs were widely circulated via email and weblogs, and the national media picked up on it raising speculation about the creature. The potential urban legend stature of the Montauk Monster was noted by Snopes.

The carcass of Montauk Monster has not been made available to the public. Several people have claimed to possess the carcass, including the photographer, who claims the carcass is in her possession in a secret location known only to her, whilst other witnesses report that a man took the carcass home saying he was going to "mount (it) on his wall".

Expert opinions have generally tended toward the explanation that the carcass was that of a raccoon.

Possible identifications

Speculation in published reports included theories that the Montauk Monster might have been a turtle without its shell—even though the shell of a turtle cannot be removed without damaging the turtle—a dog, a raccoon, or perhaps a science experiment from the nearby government animal testing facility, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. The creature's appearance was believed to have been altered through immersion in water for an extended period before coming to rest on the shore, making it difficult to identify.

Interest in the creature has been fed by the beach's close proximity to the former U.S. Air Force Base Camp Hero. The base has the focus of the long-running Montauk Project conspiracy theory, which describes alien creatures being transported through a "portal" at the site.

The father of the woman who took the photo told a reporter that reports that his daughter was holding out to the highest bidder to make some cash were "nonsense."

On July 31st, William Wise, director of Stony Brook University's Living Marine Resources Institute, interpreted the photo along with a colleague, and suggested it was a hoax after discounting the following possibilities:

• Raccoon. ("The legs appear to be too long in proportion to the body.")
• Sea turtle. ("Sea turtles do not have teeth.")
• Rodent. ("Rodents have two huge, curved incisor teeth in front of their mouths.")
• Dog or other canine such as a coyote. ("Prominent eye ridge and the feet" don't match.)
• Sheep. (Sheep don't have sharp teeth).

On August 1st, Gawker published pictures and x-rays of a Rakali (or Water Rat, Hydromys chrysogaster) showing several convincing similarities with the Montauk Monster: the "beak", tail, feet, size, and general appearance are similar. The Rakali originates from Australia.

Also on August 1st, Jeff Corwin appeared on Fox News and claimed that upon close inspection of the photograph, he feels sure the "monster" is merely a raccoon or dog that has decomposed slightly. This was backed up by Darren Naish, a British paleontologist, who examined the images and agreed that, if real, the creature was a raccoon, dismissing previous opinions that the legs were too long.

On August 5, Fox Channel's Morning Show news host Megyn Kelly revealed that the most recent theory is that the beast is a decayed corpse of a capybara, an animal indigenous to South America. However, capybaras do not have tails. The next day, the same program reported that an unnamed man claimed that the animal's carcass had been stolen from his back yard.

See also

• Zuiyō Maru
• Globster
• Stronsay beast
• Cryptid