MONTAUK MONSTER REVEALED

It all started with a mealy mouthed story from Fox News, who probably have not forgiven me for my social faux pas in making a Charles Manson joke to one of their reporters whilst on camera and (I think) live TV. In a typically mealy mouthed way they reported that the blog of some dude called Drew Grant's, "which has a not-safe-for-work name we won't repeat", has just solved the mystery of the Montauk Monster.

Being a juvenile cove, I was intrigued. Was the blog called C*****F*****erx or Po****%^&* Merchants, or even N******Scum***H****? Nope it was called "AssMe.org" which was obviously the person in charge comparing himself to the domesticated subspecies of an equid called Equus africanus (or possibly a related species).

I really don't know what the fuss is.


I don't know who Drew Grant is either, but he tells a very convincing story of how the Montauk Monster, with strange bandage like ties around the extremities of its limbs, ended up on Montauk Beach.

It was surfer dudes with a peculiar sense of humour.

Cowabunga!!

Last summer, apparently three unnamed surfers were "goofing off 15 miles west of Montauk, on a beach on shelter island. It was the weekend before July 4th, and the trio were making a raft and putting all sorts of debris on it, just for fun: watermelons, scraps of cloth, plastic swimmie duck, etc. When suddenly one of the guys finds a dead raccoon half-buried in the sand.


Now, my friend isn’t the type to take dead animals and set them on fire and float them off in the sea (he’s vegan), but, in his words, “this creature was honored with a Viking funeral, not merely exploited for crass entertainment.” Basically, though, they were just being dumb. “In the interest of full disclosure,” he admits, “this did happen shortly after a waterboarding endurance competition, and just before a clothespins-on-your-genitals challenge."

If we are to believe this account, which does - admittedly - have a ring of truth about it, then there is also pictorial evidence. Drew published these "photos which clearly show the scraps tied to the dead raccoon’s feet that were seen in the later photographs of the heinous beast", and concludes that "It wasn’t a viral marketing stunt at all, but just some kids setting fire to a dead animal and then pushing it off to sea with a watermelon and some floatie wings."

Seems fair enough to me. It also seems like the sort of dumb thing I would have done at that age, and probably when I was considerably older. I don't think I would ever have done the clothespegs thing tho...