August 8, 2008
In the wake of this summer’s biggest crypto-blockbuster, doesn’t it make sense that someone might try to turn it into a gold mine of publicity for their project?
John Green and I were once talking about the Sasquatch mystery, and he said, there will always be people to rush in and say that they hoaxed this story or that one to get the attention and stake a claim to history.
The Montauk Monster is a mundane little body that’s become a weekend wonder. The rush is on now, with this wee Montauk marvel, to be the first to say “they told you so” that this thing was a hoax or that they actually are part of the hoax. It has been incredible to watch.
First widely seen image of the Montauk Monster.
One of the second series of photos to surface.
Two sides of the same carcass?
The Gotham News, the Gawker, Montauk Monster (which is engaged in trying to sell the domain for thousands of dollars) and other blogs seem to be falling all over each other to be the first to say that the Montauk Monster (the term, btw, first coined by me) is “a hoax.”
It almost feels as if it is the other end of the decomposing process of this carcass.
Anyway, in the realm of full disclosure, even though my Occam’s Razor take on this one is raccoon, I’ll try to sort out some of these elaborate hoax claims here.
The new claims supposedly first came to light that Rachel Goldberg, who said she was allegedly the woman who discovered the famed beastie (a doubtful fact), is allegedly the sister of small time movie producer Darren Goldberg (above), who is now conveniently reported to be making a movie about carnivals and monsters.
The blog Gotham News said the beast was most likely a prop used in Goldberg’s film Splinterheads. One person using the name “Tonya,” explained the stunt will be revealed when the flick comes out next year. “Tonya” says the original pictures of the Montauk Monster were a stage prop from the Splinterheads movie set.
I wonder. I am very skeptical of these after-the-fact “hoax” claims.
Now, today, Gawker has given forth with an even more elaborate hoax claim. There may have supposedly been two movie props, he speculates!! (Of course, flies don’t usually gather around props.)
To be fair, Gawker is also being reasonable too, saying: “There are enough untied loose ends in the hoax storyline to leave open the possibility that the hoax is itself a hoax, meaning the story has now entered a confusing phase where one must carefully sift the professed deceptions from the real deceptions and hard facts from intentional distortions.” Contoured, but well meaning.
As Gawker correctly points out, Rachel Goldberg is one of the three women interviewed on the Plum TV segment. That was long after the two sets of photographs surfaced and the Montauk Monster media circus was steaming along.
Of course, for viral marketing reasons, just as with the Venom Energy Drink bounty, people are going to step in and piggyback on a popular media phenomenon.
Gawker then writes, in what I see as the key to undermining these hoax claims, a bit about the timing:
The original supplier of the photo, Nevitski, told New York [magazine] that Goldberg and the other women on Plum TV were “full of sh*t” because Nevitski’s friend, still anonymous, took the original picture. If the monster was a hoax, Goldberg would have seen the interview as a golden opportunity to inflate the hoax further by lying about taking that specific picture. And recall that Nevitski did not explain how the group obtained an alternate picture of the monster.
Blogger Nicky Papers also thought the women were lying, and wrote on Montauk-Monster.com about their nervous ticks, like giggling and breaking eye contact. He also noticed that Goldberg talked first and her friends followed her lead.
The blogger was then contacted by a source who claimed Rachel Goldberg was related to Darren Goldberg. The source said Goldberg was making Splinterheads and that the monster will appear in the movie. This was the first time the movie was tied to the monster.
Gawker also notes: “The moviemakers never come out and say on their website or blog that they actually made the monster. They only imply it. Perhaps they are having a bit of fun. There is no proof that Darren and Rachel Goldberg are related, only a statement on Darren Goldberg’s blog, which could be a joke.”
Bottomline, while there perhaps there is no true cryptid here, no “monster,” per se, and nothing more than a dead raccoon that has become infamous as the Montauk Monster (glory after death in Gotham’s Media Colosseum, it appears), the hoax claims must be judged merely as a hoax themselves.
Click image for larger version.
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.
Filed under Artifacts, Breaking News, Cryptomundo Exclusive, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Eyewitness Accounts, Folklore, Media Appearances, Movie Monsters, Public Forum