When this grim snap of an odd-looking but decidedly dead creature was posted on the Manhattan news and gossip website Gawker on Tuesday 29 July, few could have predicted the typhoon of media attention it would trigger. Gawker described the hairless and bloated animal as “some sort of rodent-like creature with a dinosaur beak” which had been found by the photographer washed up on the beach at Montauk at the eastern end of New York’s Long Island. Within minutes, FT contributor Loren Coleman had it covered on his Cryptomundo blog site and baptised it the ‘Montauk Monster’.

Other blogs and media outlets picked it up in Loren’s wake as the topic spread out from the Hamptons into the greater audience of the Internet. By the following day, it featured on New York Magazine’s ‘Daily Intel’ page, public access and cable TV, and CNN News. For a while, it even topped Yahoo’s searches. Predictably excitable and alarmist – given the paucity of details – suggestions for its identity proliferated, supported by photoshopped images showing how it might have been a raccoon, a turtle, dog, cat … or, as Gawker put it, “viral marketing for something”. Some blamed it on the government-owned Animal Disease Center (ADC) on Plum Island, not far from Montauk – a suggestion that played to the believers in a niche conspiracy involving aliens, time-travel and the ‘Philadelphia Experiment’ mythology.

Long Island cable station PlumTV interviewed Jenna Hewitt and her friends Rachel Goldberg, and Courtney Frewin, all resident in Montauk, discussing who had taken the photograph first published. While Jenna’s image is undoubtedly of a real animal carcase, it is closely cropped so there are few visual references to indicate the spec­ies, the scale or even the actual locat­ion. The same day, the makers of Venom, an energy drink, published a spoof bounty and merchand­ising prizes for capture of a live specimen, quoting Loren’s advice that would-be Montauk Monster hunters should “use great caution getting close to this crypt­id, and wear thick gloves”.

Despite their light-hearted approach, the next day PlumTV contacted the director of the island’s ADC research centre, Dr Larry Barrett, who categorically denied any connection between the beast and the Center’s work. He said it was impossible to identify the creature from the photos alone, but he thought the teeth hinted at a cat-like or raccoon-like origin. He added that decomposition and prolonged exposure to water would distort a body considerably, a view endorsed by another scientist to whom PlumTV sent a query. Steven Papa, of the US Fish and Wildlife Service thought its proportions approximated those of a raccoon, albeit one bloated by the gases of decomposition.

On Friday 1 August, Newsday columnist Joey Brown revealed the identity of another photographer – Christina Pampalone, of East Northport – who came across the carcase before Hewitt. Pampalone’s photos – shown in full on Crypto­mundo for that day – are more detailed and from different angles. Brown was able to put the animal’s length at about 3ft (90cm), roughly the size of a small dog. These images also show that the “crazy-looking” “eagle-like beak” (two different quotes) was the result of the soft tissue dropping away (or eaten) from the muzzle.

Any hope that DNA analysis would settle the matter was dashed when, with almost comic inevitability, it was learned the same day that someone had made off with the remains. While some said “an old guy came and carted it away,” Jenna Hewitt told PlumTV that the carcase was dragged off by a friend of theirs who has it “in a back yard”. Meanwhile, someone called “Colin Davis”, claiming to be Hewitt’s unidentified friend, appeared on CNN to say they refuse to give up the remains until “scientists contact us”.

As we go to press, the remains still have not been handed over to any authority and the creature’s identity is still indeterminate. Loren Coleman, who also runs the international Cryptozoology Museum, favours the raccoon hypothesis. “The skull structure and the extremely distinctive feet told me this was a raccoon from day one!” Another FT columnist, Dr Karl Shuker, remains cautious: “There aren’t many clues as to its size, but comparison with the distinct grains of sand sugg­ests the creature is not very large. It could be a domestic animal whose body has been bloated and distended and part of whose face has come away.” However, he thinks the dentit­ion suits a carnivore, “rather than, say, a raccoon”.

Has this rampant zaniness tarnished cryptozoology? Loren doesn’t believe so. “Crypto­zoology is all about getting to the reality behind legends and/or media hype, so, in the case of the Montauk Monster, I think this was exactly what was done.”

http://gawker.com, 29 July; www.cryptomundo.com, 29 July, 1 Aug; New York Magazine, www.cnn.news, 30 July;  www.plumtv.com, 30+31 July; Newsday, 1 Aug 2008; pers.comm.

MORE WASHED UP MONSTERS

The list of carcases of unidentified animals washed up on the world’s beaches is a long one. Whales and dolphins, which too frequently die on beaches, seem to be disorientated before becoming stranded. Most other remains are quickly identified as domestic or wild animals which drowned elsewhere to be carried by tides or currents before being beached.

The biggest obstacle to identification is decomposition, exacerbated by prolonged immersion in sea-water and nibbling by predators. Remains in this condition are often quickly disposed of before they can be properly identified because of their overpowering stench. Mostly, these remains are of some kind of marine creature, and the few that have been identified by tissue sampling were revealed as basking sharks or squids.

Concerning the remains of more exotic creatures we have little data, although there are references to elephant, pig and even lion carcases being washed ashore, most probably from sinking ships.

THE MARGATE MONSTER

Found in November 1922, on a beach near this South African seaside town after witnesses saw a “sea monster” being attacked by two whales. It had “snowy white hair like a polar bear’s” and its 5ft (1.5m)-long trunk ended in a pig-like snout. Remains unidentified.

THE MACHRIHANISH MYSTERY

Washed up on the Mull of Kintyre in October 1944, had “the bulk of an elephant but was headless”. It had “long white fur”. Possible basking shark.

THE HOBART GLOBSTER

Washed up on a Tasmanian beach after a storm in August 1960, the news took so long to reach scientists that identification was impossible. Locals said it was not a giant ray or whale.