Montauk Monster Again – 2009
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 12th, 2009
For more on this carcass found a few days ago located near Southold, New York, see here.
These folks seem to consider this new one a candidate for the old one, but I can’t see it. Nor can I get my brain around all the “germ warfare” talk. But here it is. You can read it on your own and make up your mind.
These are all turning out to be common animals decaying on the shorelines of the Atlantic, and I’m not spending too much time here on this one.
At Wikipedia, it notes:
“Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo first coined the name the ‘Montauk Monster’ on July 29, 2008.”
True enough. Okay, I can’t hide. Blame the name but not the “thing” or “things” on me.
I coined the term “Montauk Monster,” which now appears to be a genre, and that should be enough.
It will be up to others to create websites and find this year’s new mundane animal carcasses that will be labeled the most recent Montauk wonder. These things happen.
🙂
Thanks for the “body down” notice from Jason Pritchett. I would have said a “heads up,” but in this case, I’m not sure anyone can see that part of the anatomy too well.
Consider a contribution today to the International Cryptozoology Museum, for your support is needed to forestall foreclosure (May 30, 2009). Merely click to…
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About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
racoon
1st: Hold the camera steady!! Stop this “blair witch” bit!
2nd: Get some better pictures for people to look at. I can see that there are “feet” and what appears to be claws, but we are too far away to know for sure.
3rd: If raccoon, give us something for size comparison, please. Just sitting there on its own that thing could be huge.
4th: I believe the whole snout is wrong for a raccoon, almost looks like a dolphin’s snout. Although there is a tail.
Quick question, Why do we only have night pics? Isn’t that area open during the day time? Could someone please get better pictures, please? Thank you.
It’s a decaying otter!!! 😉
Regarding the use of “raccoon” vs. “racoon” =
Raccoon
Dictionary: rac·coon (American) ra·coon (British) (ră-kūn’)
also n., pl. rac·coons or raccoon also ra·coons or racoon.
1. A carnivorous North American mammal (Procyon lotor) having grayish-brown fur, black masklike facial markings, and a black-ringed bushy tail.
2. The fur of this mammal.
3. Any of various similar or related animals.
Therefore, I assume that “racoon” might also be used in Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand?
Thanks to SuWalker for pointing this out.
Raccoon vs racoon. I’ve seen it both ways, but didn’t know why. Thanks looking into it, Loren. I would’ve spelled raccoon but typed too fast.
Still think it’s a raccoon. I have one as a pet. Raccoons can get quite large. Over 30lbs. Fat coons have a body shaped like Jabba the Hut. If you shaved off the fur they would look a blob with arms and legs!
This is obviously bloated from decomposition and the soft facial tissues have been lost. The skull fits. The fur that remains is consistent in length and color (or colour). The legs are jointed in all the right ways. I can make out the elongated rear foot below the ankle and the fingers of the “hand” in front. The tail is there too.
At this angle, that is not a raccoon! That is a bull dog. Look at the muzzle right next to the tip of the skull
Yawn…boring….
Has anyone ever thought that there’s probably a very sick individual out there skinning these animals….
these are dead pitbull dogs that lost.
their faces are damaged in the fight and sea critters feed on these wounds until there’s nothing left.
someone is dumping dead dogs in the drink.
Raccoon, just this spring I saw two decomposing animals on the lake shore that looked virtually identical and most obviously were raccoons. I am very familiar with raccoon skulls, having several in my own collection.
Bloated dessicated raccoon. Floating in the water a few days does that. We had our own little dead mystery monster locally. I retrieved it and it was a road kill badger. This makes me see two possible scenarios here:
1) The average person is becoming so disconnected from nature, they can’t recognize wild animals therefore, any decomposing carcass MUST be a mystery monster.
2) Thanks to the internet and all the video gadgets out there, this is a quick way to get fifteen minutes of fame.
Personally, I think # 2 is the motivation for these really lame reports. That and journalists are getting too lazy to do real investigative and analytical reporting, so they run these bloated carcass stories and pictures of butt-ugly dead dogs as “monster” stories. Sheesh.
bloated english bull dog. poor guy 🙁
The longish “snout” (and its “Roman” curve), the lack of a tail, the look of the “fur” around the neck, and the comments on the video about “human-looking teeth” and “teeth in the back” all suggests to me that it’s a sheep or a goat.
The “feet” are obviously not the feet, but the protruding tendons and bones of the lower leg.
Alligator- I actually think it is a bit of both of the scenarios you mention.
Of course there is always the hoax element when dealing with these things, but in my opinion it cannot really be underestimated just how bizarre a bloated, deteriorating carcass can look to the average person. Under the right conditions, a carcass that has decomposed, bloated, worked over by scavengers can look entirely alien and nothing like the original animal. As I’m sure you are well aware, all of these factors work to do strange things to a body. Different parts bloat out, hair falls out, skin pulls back over teeth, claws, or bone, scavengers eat away soft tissues. These things all conspire to create a carcass that may easily be mistaken for something more mysterious than it really is, simply due to a lack of awareness of what the effects of these natural processes can have. I just don’t think a lot of people are aware of just how profoundly different a carcass can look from the animal in its living state.
I don’t even really think it necessarily has anything to do with how connected to nature a person is. Even a person who is very familiar with animals could be taken off guard by the bizarre appearance of a decomposing carcass. People who were biologists or experts in whales were baffled for years by globsters before new techniques conclusively proved that most were decomposed whale carcasses. Sometimes a DNA test is needed to figure out just what the heck a decomposed carcass could be. I mean, look at the original Montauk Monster. Most people are fairly familiar with raccons (I’m American, U.S. spelling 🙂 ), yet the speculation ran the gamut from dead seals to pug dogs, and very few people at first could accept that the carcass could possibly be that of a raccoon. Yet it has been pretty conclusively shown that that is exactly what it was.
I definitely think that the media hypes things, and that hoaxers abound. But I also believe that people can make an honest mistake with regards to carcasses. Bear carcasses can look a lot like human or Bigfoot bodies, basking sharks turn into sea serpents, dead dogs become chupacabras, and so on, it is hard to tell sometimes. I don’t think that people are always necessarily intentionally hoaxing in all of these cases. They just simply don’t know any better and are grasping at fantastic explanations without accepting that a decomposing carcass could be something more mundane.
I think the problem is not that people are being caught off guard or dumfounded by bizarre corpses. The problem as I see it is that people are jumping to conclusions before rationally subjecting the body to scientific analysis or looking at mundane explanations first. Perhaps if people were more aware of the natural processes that go to work on a carcass, they might be more willing to logically deduce just what it could be without crying “No way that could be a raccoon! It must be a monster!!”
The people who make these claims may be sincere in their beliefs, however a rational, scientific mindset and analysis is important, and all angles must be considered before jumping to fantastic conclusions or creating a media circus.
I agree with those that say these are deceased dogs. This is very sad. 🙁 I really, really hate humans sometimes (for all the horrible things we inflict upon the animal kingdom).