A Monster By Any Other Name
September 21st, 2009 2:53 pm by Jonathan
It's been over a week since I've written for this site, but it is not for a dearth of topics or news. So let me kick off this article with something that's probably been burning in everyone's mind.
Last week, in Panama, the body of a creature only identifiable as a “Montauk Monster” was discovered. The article (posted at the hard-hitting UK Telegraph), goes on to state that the creature (and even the original Montauk Monster) has yet to be identified, but there is speculation that it may be a dog, a sloth that lost its hair, to a discarded prop used in a marketing stunt.
This particular specimen, according to those who happened upon it, was crawling out of a cave. Rather than try and route or capture the creature, the witnesses did the natural human thing and attacked it and then took pictures. This is why we can't have nice things.
My problems with how this has played out are many, but for the sake of not going on a tirade about destroying that which we do not understand, I will limit this to why we know so little about this living anomaly when it makes itself apparent.
First and foremost, regardless of if this creature was beaten to death by a pair of youngsters who balanced the fight or flight equation in their own special way, they had a corpse. The boys could have brought this into town or somewhere to have it studied. Rubber props don't move of their own volition, so if this thing is an animal, we could better understand it from examining its remains than we can from a couple of pictures posted on the internet. Anyone can have her/his version of the Patterson-Gimlin expedition these days.
Secondly, if we look at these photographs, this Montauk Monster (I'll address the name in a little bit) has hair tufts on the lower torso. I am willing to speculate that this creature probably had a coat of some sort, and lost it to disease, chemicals, or someone who though how weird certain animals look if shaved (my neighbor's cat, for example). I know this was touched upon by scientists the first time people were trying to resolve what this type of creature was, and (unlike what The Telegraph stated) with results.
Lastly, and this has nothing to do with skepticism, can we give this a different name? I understood calling it The Montauk Monster, when it washed up on the shores of Long Island, NY. This one, however, was found in Panama. It needs a new label. We all know what a Frankenstein's Monster is and looks like (or simply “A Frankenstein” if you want to be pedantic about it), but this thing is far from that iconography or allegory. I'm toying around with the idea and rationale behind a temporary endangered species list for cryptozoological creatures. If we come across an anomaly, let it live, document it through pictures, and let people know where you saw what you saw. If you find a body, or accidentally kill or injure one (I saw Harry and the Hendersons once, so I consider myself pretty damned qualified in this field), bring it somewhere to be studied. If it turns out to be a variant of a common animal (raccoon without hair, I'm looking at you), or in abundance but well hidden, then great! Open season! We'll see Sasquatches and Montauk Monsters replacing the turkey in Rockwell paintings.
If you have a crypto experience you would like to share, or if you want to offer a new and better name for The Montauk Monster, I encourage you to leave your stories and comments.
September 24th, 2009
And that is why, if there is an oncoming galactic war, it would be a war. To quote a famous movie, “It was in his nature.”