Montauk monster?

[Dr. Winston O'Boogie]

Originally Posted by Linnea

'Montauk Monster' witnesses emerge

Article with another view

From the article,

Elizabeth Barbeiri said her family saw it about a mile east of Gurney's Inn in Montauk, July 14. And Ryan Kelso, via iPhone, said he spotted it -- alive! -- in the Montauk dunes. "It looked about the size of an average fox, gray in color, eyes like a mole, hairless and was breathing quite heavily," he wrote, "needless to say we were freaked out by this discovery and fled the area quickly."

(emphasis mine)

I realize the joke is old, been done to death, but someone has to be the boor and say

Fox with mange?

[ElectricBarbarella]

Forgetting that it doesn't even look the same (to me) as the original photo (sorry, it just doesn't--the light, color, decomp are all in different places than the original photo--I'm not saying it is not the same, only that it doesn't look the same)...

But the second photo appears to look like some kind of pig/boar to me. Which would explain why the upper jaw appears like a beak and the lower one has the massive protruding fangs. The ears definitely look pig like as does the back hind legs.

For reference, here is a dead raccoon: Dead and decomped, good veiw of jaw

Dead Pig

Google Link with various skulls of boars


I'm sorry. I cannot buy the "raccoon" bit. Boar/pig, or some other type hooved mammal, maybe. I doubt it's a dog too.

(and for Barns, a disclaimer: No, I'm not mammalogist, or any other type animal specialist. I am simply comparing images that I see and making my supremely uneducated guess as to what this is. And it appears, so is everyone else. No one has done DNA testing on the thing to determine exactly what it is and until then, I'm just playing the game and having fun doing it.)

[Lawgiver]

Originally Posted by Barns & No Bull

I am speculating that it is a raccoon.

The teeth are more like a raccoon than any other mammal found in North America. Teeth are commonly used to identify animal species (living and extinct). This is sometimes done with a single tooth.

Maybe you should just chill out and research mammalian dentition and morphology. Put aside that thing draped across the leg. It won't tell you what kind of animal this is.

Jeff Corwin concurs that it is a raccoon. It is on the Comcast fan today, of course it show up in a window without a link so I couldn't post it.

ETA: I know Jeff Corwin isn't the end-all be-all authority on strange critters.

[ElectricBarbarella]

I'm not clear on this: is the body available?

If so, why not just do DNA testing? That would solve the problem.

Jeff Corwin is a Herpetologist--his specialty is snakes and such. Not raccoons. I wouldn't believe Steve Irwin () either because his specialty is crocodiles. Not that Corwin doesn't know about raccoons, but I'd be more inclined to believe the Kratt Brothers over him.

[LizzyBean]

No one except the people who "found" it know where the body is. They claim that they haulded to a friend's backyard and it's just sitting there rotting.

It's not a monster. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is is a real animal that got swished around in the sea and tossed up on land.

I like how in the second article sited that all of a sudden a bunch of other people are claiming to have seen it, alive or dead, before this photo came out. Including a group who said they photographed it first, but haven't turned the pictures over.

Uh huh.

[ElectricBarbarella]

I don't believe it to be a real monster (though it does look an awful lot like a griffin or something similar) at all, but lacking the body to test it, all anyone can do is speculate.

And like the "Hogzilla" bit, we are lacking the body (how odd :eyeroll to test it for positive identification(and I know they found Hogzilla, I just meant we were lacking the proof for this one).

I just find this one to be a bit odd, it's just tweaking with my senses.

[greyhound]

Here is a picture of what a turtle looks like without a shell.

Originally Posted by Linnea

'Montauk Monster' witnesses emerge

Article with another view

In this set of pictures, it looks to me like a hog/boar/pig possibly a warthog? I'm no proffessional when it comes to this type of stuff, but that's the first thing I thought when I saw the pics. Also, did anyone notice the second or new set of photographs looks like a totally different thing than the original photo? The new pictures, whatever it is is all bluish greenish...not all burnt. Or maybe I'm just crazy...

[ElectricBarbarella]

:::sigh:: I said this already too.

And I went to the poll--it's sad that 22% of the people think it's a turtle without shell. At least the other options are plausible.

[Barns & No Bull]

Animachina

The sharpness holds up well to enlargement. Stinky dead raccoon.

[ElectricBarbarella]

Originally Posted by Barns & No Bull

Animachina

The sharpness holds up well to enlargement. Stinky dead raccoon.

Nice site, too bad I was looking for a program that actually did that as opposed to someone's handy work (even if their art is kewl). Now I am curious what program he/she used to get it that clear, crisp and near perfection. And it appears he's made some changes to the skull/design--the teeth are not pink in the original photo. There is no clear mucus type substance over the snout area, in the original and the head has changed position (bottom picture, where it points to the "missing teeth").

Nice job still, but until I see DNA testing proof, I'm not going to fully believe Jeff Corwin or some animator's site. You can believe what you wish, that's cool. I'm not knocking you for it.

I've tried enlarging it in Photoshop X2 and I don't get that, nowhere near.

[Barns & No Bull]

EB, we should not be arguing, but I will say a few things.

I would suggest that the artist got their hands on a copy of the original digital photo. This is almost certainly much larger and sharper than what the media has been posting.

The different photos of this beast were taken by two different people using different cameras. That alone could explain why colors don't match. The surf was rolling the body around and that's why we get to see both sides. We can see that the "thing" tying the legs together was a strip of skin that had draped over the legs.

The head is in a different position because the artist rotated the image of it.

No authority should ask for DNA testing because this is quite clearly a dead raccoon.

[ElectricBarbarella]

Originally Posted by Barns & No Bull

EB, we should not be arguing, but I will say a few things.

I would suggest that the artist got their hands on a copy of the original digital photo. This is almost certainly much larger and sharper than what the media has been posting.

The different photos of this beast were taken by two different people using different cameras. That alone could explain why colors don't match. The surf was rolling the body around and that's why we get to see both sides. We can see that the "thing" tying the legs together was a strip of skin that had draped over the legs.

The head is in a different position because the artist rotated the image of it.

No authority should ask for DNA testing because this is quite clearly a dead raccoon.

If you say so Barns. But I can tell you no authority would ever say something is quite clearly one thing, without proof of it being that.

DNA testing. Prove it. Otherwise, it's just heresay, circumstancial, and "because I said so" doesn't hold up in a court of (public opinion) law.

[Flagg]

I have been giving this some thought, and am pretty sure I know what this thing is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeksis

It's just a baby.

[SmallTownKid]

"Flies cavorted upon the naked corpse," (The Independant's Kitty) Merrill wrote.

I can't quite say why, but I love this sentence. I think it's the use of the word "cavorted."

[SatansHobbit]

Originally Posted by Dr. Winston O'Boogie

I realize the joke is old, been done to death, but someone has to be the boor and say

Fox with mange?

Nah, Naked mole rat.

The thing on its forearm is most probably a half rolled back piece of pelt. The original colour is anybody's guess.

[kitap]

Originally Posted by ElectricBarbarella

I'm not clear on this: is the body available?

If so, why not just do DNA testing? That would solve the problem.

Jeff Corwin is a Herpetologist--his specialty is snakes and such. Not raccoons. I wouldn't believe Steve Irwin () either because his specialty is crocodiles. Not that Corwin doesn't know about raccoons, but I'd be more inclined to believe the Kratt Brothers over him.

My father got his PhD in herpetology, and he knows quite a bit about mammalian anatomy.

The withering look I got when I couldn't tell that the mouse the cats had caught was a field mouse just by looking at it and asked him how he knew....

It's just a dog.



Steve S

[bthyb]

Originally Posted by ElectricBarbarella

If you say so Barns. But I can tell you no authority would ever say something is quite clearly one thing, without proof of it being that.

DNA testing. Prove it. Otherwise, it's just heresay, circumstancial, and "because I said so" doesn't hold up in a court of (public opinion) law.

I'm no animal expert, but I do know that people have conclusively identified animals and whatnot for centuries before DNA testing was available.

And Barns has proven himself knowledgable about animals on here over a long period of time - if he says raccoon and backs it up, that's good enough for me.

I see no way this could be a raccoon...i've seen raccoons up close and they definitely have a completely different head shape...

Oh well. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of what it is. I'd like to see some DNA testing done so we all know for sure what it is.