New Maine Mystery Photos: Minot Beast

The woman in Minot, Maine, was out walking her mutt, which I will call a “mutt” instead of a “dog” for the stake of alliteration and to not overuse the word “dog.” But never mind. The animal walker saw the “thing” in the distance, and couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Thank goodness it was dead, she mumbled to herself.

But amazingly, she had her camera along, and snapped some photos of the “Minot Beast” (above and below, click on them to make them larger, if you dare).

With whom should she share these photos, she wondered. Ah, that crime beat news reporter Mark LaFlamme of the Lewiston Sun Journal, perhaps? And who should he show them to, he pondered. Ah, yes, LaFlamme decided to turn to Loren Coleman, intrepid cryptozoologist, “International Man of Mystery,” as Jess Kilby of the Phoenix called him.

Mark sent the images to me, and, well, my verdict was not too surprising to LaFlamme and even had a familiar ring to it. Another dead Maine canid, probably a domestic dog, had been found on the road, I told him.

Minot is a small rural town of a little over 2000 souls in western Androscoggin County, Maine, USA, only half as large as Turner, Maine, the site of last summer’s big “Maine Mutant” flap*. Minot is one of those slowly growing “bedroom communities” near Lewiston and Auburn, Maine, but still very much “out in the country.”

As far as looking at the photographs, to see the link to a dog, compare the dentition between the found animal to the teeth of a dog, shown here with the bone of the mandible removed to reveal the roots of the teeth. Pay attention to the form, spacing, number, and appearance between the Minot Beast’s jaw and teeth and the mandible/dentition of the verified dog skull shown here. It’s a match, no doubt about it.

While the local legend of the real cryptid “Mystery Beast” lives on out in the forests of central Maine, near Turner, Minot, Greene, and other towns, this “Minot Beast” find is interesting, zoologically, but this dead find, again, is not “it.”

Please click on the above photograph by Michelle O’Donnell for a full-size version. Used by permission.

Loren Coleman 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.

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