Montauk Monster: The Stuff of Legends

The story of what has come to be known as the Montauk Monster, or "Monty" as gawker.com commenters call him, is an unfolding montage of speculation, scoffing, and intrigue. His photo has appeared on Fox News and CNN. The Montauk Monster has been entered onto museumofhoaxes.com which registers its hoax status as undetermined. You can already find information about the Montauk Monster in a wikipedia article. Contradictions in the story abound. In less than a month, the Montauk Monster has taken on the mantle of legend.

A Montauk Monster Timeline
July 13, 2008
Beachcombers visiting Ditch Plains Beach find a gruesome creature washed ashore near Montauk, New York. At least two different groups of onlookers see the body and take photos. Some reports indicate an older man takes it away. He is not associated with the Animal Control or any governmental body. He says he is going to mount it on his wall.

Eric Olsen, a real estate agent in the Hamptons, takes the bloated remains of the Montauk Monster from Ditch Plains Beach and puts it into friend Noel Arikian's backyard for safekeeping. Their plans are to let the flesh decompose and hire artist Rafael Mazzucco to utilize the bones to create a work of art.

July 23
The Independent, a newspaper published in East Hampton, prints a black-and-white photo of the Montauk Monster to accompany the article "The Hound of Bonacville" by reporter Kitty Merrill.

July 29
Gawker.com releases Jenna Hewitt's original photo of the Montauk Monster. The remains take on the moniker of the Montauk Monster. The photo is released to gawker by Alanna Navitsky, an employee for a viral-marketing company. (Ms. Navitsky is later cleared of trying to use the Monster photo to promote a company campaign.) The photo shows what seems to be a creature with a beaked nose and floppy pig-like ears. It has a full set of lower teeth including two large lower canines, back legs resembling those of a pig and a whip-like tail. Patches of fur cling to the Monster's sun-baked reddened hide. Around the Monster's clawed front legs seems to be a black strap or band but this could be the hide of the animal peeled back. Nothing appears beside the Montauk Monster to offer a size comparison. Later, someone magnifies a black dot that appears in the shoulder area of the Monster and reveals the dot is a black fly.

July 30
New York magazine's Daily Intel runs the photo. Their news story seems to disprove the accusation the Montauk Monster is a viral marketing scheme for an upcoming movie or cartoon production. Officials with East Hampton Animal Control and the Department of Environmental Analysis deny having done anything with the Montauk Monster.

July 31
Fox News airs a three minute segment on the Montauk Monster in their Science section. In it, Jeff Corwin from Animal Planet states his reasons for believing the Montauk Monster is either a badly decomposed raccoon or dog. He speculates the body may have been buffeted by the waves of Long Island Sound for up to six days before washing ashore.

Joye Brown of Newsday asks an expert what the Monster is or is not. William Wise, who directs the Living Marine Resources Institute of Stony Brook Laboratory says the Montauk Monster is either an excellent fake or a canine of some sort. He explains why it can not be a rodent, sea turtle, raccoon, or sheep. Various people commenting on the Montauk Monster claim they have seen live versions of it in places like Roe Avenue in Patchogue and East Quogue beach.

In a promotional campaign called "Capture the Beast", the makers of Venom Energy Drink offer a lifetime supply and a corporate sponsorship to the first person to capture a live Montauk Monster. They also produce Dr. Pepper and Snapple.

August 1
Plum TV, an East Hampton-based cable channel, sends reporter Nick Leighton to interview Jenna Hewitt and her two friends about the Montauk Monster, the photo, and where the Monster is.

A blogger calling himself Nicky Papers begins a website dedicated to the legend of the Montauk Monster. He says he was on vacation in Montauk and claims to have seen the Monster for himself.

Gawker.com, who ran the first photo, displays an X-ray of a water rat, a species endemic to Australia, and compares it to characteristics of the Montauk Monster.

Scientific American, in its online 60-Second Science site, weighs in on the Monster.

August 2
The Chicago Tribune runs a story about the Montauk Monster, using Tribune wire reports.

August 3
The Montauk Monster gets its own Wikipedia entry.

In a Newsday report by Nia-Malika Henderson, an anonymous area resident says the Monster was about as big as a housecat and is reduced to a skull and skeleton.

August 4
Christina Pampalone, who, with three friends, saw the monster on July 12th and took photos of it releases three photos to cryptomundo.com. The photos reveal a corpse that has been turned onto its other side and is definitely a male animal. The body has even more fur clinging to it and the hide is bleached.

August 5
Stephen Colbert in the Colbert Report features the original photo in a satirical commentary on Presidential candidates McCain and Obama.

Russell Drumm's story in the East Hampton Star reports the Montauk Monster has disappeared.

Nicky Papers says an anonymous tipster calling herself Tonya claims the original Montauk Monster photos "taken" by Jenna Hewitt were actually movie props for a movie production called Splinterheads. Papers asks the question: Then were the Pampalone photos the real thing?

Joye Brown proclaims in a Newsday article that "The Monster Should and Will Remain a Mystery."

August 6
Olsen reports to Fox News his Monster is missing.

Any possibility of identifying what the creature or creatures in the photos were has disappeared with the skeleton. Perhaps now the Montauk Monster should be allowed to rest as one of the more ghastly legends of the East Hampton area.

Resources:
http://www.newsday.com/ny-lijoye0731,0,5442174.column
http://gawker.com/5030531/dead-monster-washes-ashore-in-montauk
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/07/east_hampton_officials_deny_mo.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,396182,00.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lijoy315783175jul31,0,7319518.column?page=1
http://officialvenompressrelease.blogspot.com/
http://www.montauk-monster.com/
http://hamptons.plumtv.com/blog/whats_going/paging_darwin_montauk_%E2%80%9Csea_monster%E2%80%9D_real_or_photoshop_phantasy
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=mystery-of-the-montauk-monster-2008-08-01
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-limont5787623aug03,0,6128341.story
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/mm-newpic/
http://gawker.com/5033101/stephen-colbert-solves-montauk-monster-mystery?autoplay=true
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,398322,00.html