'If this could be certified as the Suffolk version of the Loch Ness monster," County Executive Steve Levy said Wednesday, "we'd sell tickets and get a lot of revenue."
Levy was talking about the Montauk Monster, a fresh fable of a beast with the hue of a boiled lobster, the beak of a dinosaur and jaw crammed with pointy, white teeth.
Is it real? Or suburban legend?
Two locals swear it's real
And swear that they saw -- and photographed -- the beast sometime after rough surf pitched it up to Ditch Plains beach on July 12.
"We were looking for a place to sit when we saw some people looking at something," Jenna Hewitt, 26, of Montauk, said Wednesday.
She and three friends, including Rachel Goldberg, 29, also of Montauk, walked over to see what was going on.
"We were kind of amazed," Hewitt said, "shocked and amazed."
She said she borrowed Goldberg's digital camera, aimed and fired off two shots.
"We didn't know what it was," she said. "We joked that maybe it was something from Plum Island."
It didn't take long for East Hampton to start buzzing about the reported find. Quickly, skeptics and believers alike offered up -- and continue to offer up -- myriad theories.
"We kept hearing it from everywhere," said Rick Murphy, editor of The Independent, an East Hampton newspaper.
"I'd pick up the phone and somebody would say, "It's a sea turtle without its shell," he said. "It's a dog; it's Satan; people can't stop talking about it."
On July 23, The Independent published a story by Kitty Merrill under the headline, "The Hound of Bonacville."
And a photograph, that editors decided to run in black and white, because the one in color is -- well, you look and decide.
"Flies cavorted upon the naked corpse," Merrill wrote.
"The once-robust figure, covered with soft and pettable fur, was, witnesses noted with dread, utterly absent its coat, save the occasional individual strand sticking out, as if it had been skinned by an evil tormentor."
By Tuesday, the beast -- now morphed into to full-fledged Internet viral monster, lumbered onto Gawker.com, under a headline bidding locals: GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR HELL DEMONS.
Hell demons?
In the Hamptons?
Larry Penny, the town's resource director, doesn't think so. (At least about the Montauk Monster.)
"It could be a dog," he said. "Or, looking at the picture, we thought it could be a raccoon that was skinned and has its upper jaw missing."
The elongated paws -- and the presence of trappers in the town -- led him to the conclusion, he said.
But William Wise, director of Stony Brook University's Living Marine Resources Institute, after looking at the photo and consulting with a fellow biologist (who knows land creatures), disagrees.
He knows what it isn't.
A raccoon. ("The legs appear to be too long in proportion to the body.")
A sea turtle. ("Sea turtles do not have teeth.")
A rodent. ("Rodents have two huge, curved incisor teeth in front of their mouths.")
He said the general body shape looks like a dog or other canine ("Coyote?"). But that the "prominent eye ridge and the feet" don't match.
He said the feet and face look "somewhat ovine" -- that would be like a sheep -- but sheep don't have sharp teeth.
Wise's best, educated guess: "A talented someone who got very creative with latex."
In other words, a fake -- which would place Wise with the skeptics. (Many of whom believe the image could have been manipulated with computer software.)
But Wise also offered what he called a next-best guess: "A dog or coyote that was diseased and has been in the sea for a while."
So which is it?
Something real? Something imagined? Without the body, no body can say.
And where's the Montauk Monster now?
Hewitt said she knows.
"A guy took it and put it in the woods in his backyard; he has a big backyard," she said. "The thing is rotting there."
But she wouldn't say who; wouldn't say where.
No matter.
The beastie's a legend now. Fodder for campfire tales, T-shirts and stuffed animals.
May 10th, 2009 | RSS
Since I started this blog last summer, I’ve dedicated quite a bit of time to debunking all theories presented regarding the Montauk Monster. Was it a dog? Was it a pig? A viral marketing ploy? Honestly, it really doesn’t matter at this point as the original carcass was stolen and later disintegrated into a “ball of goo”.
On Wednesday May 5th 2009, I was contacted by a couple that sent a message to the general e-mail box on this website claiming they think they’ve found what appears to be the Montauk Monster. Naturally, I questioned it thinking it was BS, but they seemed credible enough (after a phone conversation of course) to take an hour drive to Southold and see it for myself up close and personal.
Upon discovery, it resembled what everyone saw last summer. This monster was located in Southold, NY on the Bay Area. For those who are unfamiliar with the area, this is the North Fork of Long Island. The beast smelled like a mix of low-tide and rotten garbage. It really smelled horrific. I couldn’t help but take numerous pictures of it and video clips.
The couple who tipped me off loaded the carcass into a garbage bag and took it home with them. We’ve been in correspondence numerous times and have agreed that for the remainder of the week, we’d keep this matter to ourselves. The remains are currently located in Southold in a cooler full of ice.
I wanted to think about the best way to expose this to the public. Since I own this medium, and have a genuine interest in the subject matter, I’d like to be the first to share this you. We did not contact any authorities as from previous experiences; the carcass has been taken from the finders or mysteriously “stolen”. If this is a genetic mishap from Plum Island, we’d like to sell the remains to an independent lab for study. It has become a race against the clock as the couple who originally found “Beastie” are diligently putting more ice into the cooler to keep the carcass fresh.
Also, I’ve thought about the possibilities that this carcass may be carrying H1N1 influenza. (The Swine Flu) Sorry, my mind is racing now, but I haven’t ruled out biological warfare on this yet. A diseased carcass floating in waterways around Long Island could be infecting the water, fish, etc. We still need to remember that Plum Island is where Lyme Disease originated, it’s really not too far fetched to believe that this carcass (if from Plum Island) could be carrying bacteria or disease. Here is a video clip of our discovery:
After viewing this video above, please keep in mind that my intentions are not waste your time with a recreation of the Blair Witch Project. This video was taken at night on the beach where the monster was found. (Founder’s Landing Park, Southold NY)
I would like your honest opinion even you tell me “it’s a dog!” My intentions from the beginning have been to inform my readers of “The Truth, The Legend, and The Mystery” behind The Montauk Monster, a 2008 phenomenon. Additionally, I’m not interested in going on the Geraldo Rivera show like my buddy Mike did last summer as an eyewitness. It’s a tempting offer taking a limousine full of champagne sent by Geraldo to a TV studio, but I’ll take this time now to politely decline.
It could be a turtle, or it's an elaborate hoax. Below is a picture of a dead washed up turtle, and a reference to a forum where they discuss it with some good points made.
"I am watching it right now and they are doing a show on
monsters,creatures that were hybridized and the outcome is a strange
animal.
in particular is the montauk monster,evidently some of the reasearchers
for the show got hold of the pix that flooded the internet and they
tracked down someone that took the carcass and then the trail went
cold.apparently they have a bounty out for it to do some DNA scanning to
find out more about it. "