The "Montauk Monster" was an animal carcass that washed ashore on a beach near the business district of
Montauk,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, in July 2008. The identity of the creature and the veracity of stories surrounding it have been the subject of controversy and speculation. The corpse was eventually decided by experts to be that of a water-degraded
raccoon.
History
The story began on July 23, 2008, with an article in the newspaper "''The F-22 Raptor"''. Jenna Hewitt, 26, of Montauk, and three friends said that they found the creature on July 12 at the Ditch Plains beach, two miles east of the district. The beach is a popular surfing spot at Rheinstein Estate Park owned by the
town of East Hampton. Jenna Hewitt was quoted:
Her color photograph of the creature ran in black and white under the headline "The Hound of Bonacville," a
pun on the name
Bonackers, which refers to the natives of East Hampton, and ''
The Hound of the Baskervilles
''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set i ...
'' by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The light-hearted article speculated that the creature might be a
turtle
Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...
or some
mutant
In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It ...
experiment from the
Plum Island Animal Disease Center
Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) is a United States federal research facility dedicated to the study of foreign animal diseases of livestock. It is part of the Department of Homeland Security Directorate for Science and Technology, an ...
. It then noted that Larry Penny, the East Hampton Natural Resources Director, had concluded that it was a
raccoon with its
upper jaw missing. There were rumors that the carcass had been taken away from the site. A local newspaper quoted an anonymous resident who claimed that the animal was only the size of a
cat, and that it had decomposed to a
skeleton
A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...
by the time of the press coverage. She would not identify its location for inspection.
Hewitt claimed that "a guy took it and put it in the woods in his backyard", but would not say who or where.
Her father denied that his daughter was keeping the body's location a secret.
[
Hewitt and her friends were interviewed on Plum-TV, a local public-access television show. Alanna Navitski, an employee of Evolutionary Media Group in ]Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, 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 the website Gawker.com
''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in ...
which gave it wide attention on July 29 under the headline "Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk".
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
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
stature of the Montauk Monster was noted by Snopes.
The monster has been discussed on ''Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
''Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura'' is an American television series hosted by Jesse Ventura and broadcast on truTV. It ran for three seasons from 2009 to 2012 and was canceled in 2013.
Format
Former Navy Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) ...
''. On August 4, 2011, the Montauk Monster was featured on the second episode of the third season of ''Ancient Aliens
''Ancient Aliens'' is an American television series that explores the pseudohistorical and pseudoarchaeological ancient astronauts hypothesis, past human- extraterrestrial contact, UFOs, government conspiracies and related pseudoscientific top ...
'', titled "Aliens and Monsters".
Identifications
Initial media reports included speculation that the Montauk Monster might have been a turtle
Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...
without its shell—although turtles' shells are fused with the spine and cannot be removed in this way— a dog
The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...
, a large rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...
, or a science experiment from the nearby government animal testing facility, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center
Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) is a United States federal research facility dedicated to the study of foreign animal diseases of livestock. It is part of the Department of Homeland Security Directorate for Science and Technology, an ...
.
William Wise, director of Stony Brook University's Living Marine Resources Institute, inspected the photo along with a colleague; they deemed the creature a fake, although Wise's "next-best guess" was that the creature could be a diseased dog or coyote which had "been in the sea for a while". Wise discounted the following general possibilities:
* Raccoon – the legs appear to be too long in proportion to the body.
*Sea turtle
Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, ...
– sea turtles do not have fur
Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket t ...
or teeth
A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tear ...
.
*Rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...
– rodents have two large, distinctive incisor teeth in front of their mouths.
*Dog
The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...
or other canine such as a coyote
The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...
– the corpse is doglike, but the eye ridge and feet do not match.
*Sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...
or other ovine – although the face looks "somewhat ovine", sheep do not have sharp teeth.
Palaeozoologist
Palaeozoology, also spelled as Paleozoology (Greek language, Greek: wikt:παλαιός, παλαιόν, ''palaeon'' "old" and wikt:ζῷον, ζῷον, ''zoon'' "animal"), is the branch of paleontology, paleobiology, or zoology dealing with the ...
Darren Naish studied the photograph and concluded from the corpse's visible dentition
Dentition pertains to the development of teeth and their arrangement in the mouth. In particular, it is the characteristic arrangement, kind, and number of teeth in a given species at a given age. That is, the number, type, and morpho-physiolo ...
, skull shape, and front paws that the creature was a raccoon, with its extremely odd appearance merely a byproduct of decomposition and water action removing most of the animal's hair and some of its flesh. Naish disagreed with the idea that the legs were disproportionately long for a raccoon, providing an illustration of a raccoon's body superimposed over the corpse in the photograph. Jeff Corwin
Jeffrey Corwin (born July 11, 1967) is an American biologist and wildlife conservation movement, conservationist, known for hosting Disney Channel's ''Going Wild with Jeff Corwin'', ''The Jeff Corwin Experience'' on Animal Planet, American Broa ...
also identified the carcass as that of a raccoon in a Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
interview.
See also
* Globster
References
*{{Skeptoid , id= 4178 , number= 178 , title=Student Questions: The Montauk Monster and Bee Sting Therapy, date= November 3, 2009
East Hampton (town), New York
2008 in New York (state)
Individual animals in the United States
Individual mammals
Individual animal corpses