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Discoblog
« Weekly Science Blog Roundup
Enslaved Ants Revolt, Slaughter Their Captors’ Children »

We Call Bullsh*t on the Montauk Monster, the Goat-Sucker, Bigfoot, etc.

cmonsterMaybe the new X-Files movie awakened all the hibernating conspiracy theorists. Maybe the cycles of the moon are making people crazy. Maybe everybody just wants to get an early start on Halloween this year. In any case, monster season is in full swing.

First came the “Montauk Monster,” the demonic-looking carcass that washed up on Long Island. We’ve been over this one before: It’s a raccoon, not a monster.

Then came the chupacabras—a deputy sheriff in Texas took video of what he believes to be the mythical goat-sucker. At the end of its excitement over the “vampire dog,” The Telegraph finally mentions that “Texan scientists who investigated the case said the animal was likely to be a coyote, potentially crossed with a grey fox.”

Not content with just one old monster myth revival, two guys from Georgia say they have the carcass of Bigfoot in their freezer. They’re holding a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., this afternoon to unveil their “DNA evidence.” Hopefully the men will allow scientists to actually investigate “Bigfoot,” rather than just releasing photographs and promising it’s the real deal.

While it’s been entertaining to see button-downed news sources like The New York Times and CNN covering monsters and goblins, we at DISCOVER have to wonder: When is it going to end? Will there soon be swell of Internet excitement over a fuzzy picture of Mothra, or an abominable snowman sighting in the Rockies when the weather turns cold?

If your monster fix has yet to be satisfied, though, check out the world map of “sightings.”

Image: flickr/jscatty

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August 15th, 2008 3:02 PM by Andrew Moseman in Uncategorized | 9 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

  • Adam

    I agree, this probably is bullsh*t. First of all, it’s 2008, most everyone has a decent digital camera. If you discovered a bigfoot carcass, don’t you think you’d manage to take some high resolution photos of it, and more than just one? Maybe even some footage, get some different angles on the thing! Second, they didn’t bring the carcass to the press conference, I can understand they want this thing in their custody and protected, but why not bring a bit of it’s flesh? It doesn’t take much flesh for a real scientist to examine it’s DNA.

    Is it plausible? Sure, but if it’s real then these guys aren’t very interested proving it. I think it’s BS.

    -Adam

  • NIck

    A racoon and a fox are good explanations…………if i was 7

  • http://www.agentshawnee.com Shawnee

    HOAX! The press conference just proved to be more “we’ve got the body here’s two more pics!”

    They say they will invite Fox News to the autopsy on Monday and all us skeptics will be eating our words.

    This is too much! LOL

  • xian

    it’s hard to deny the existence of species yet discovered by humans, but there are a few out there, it’s a big world and some of it still unexplored, you know like deep woods and the very depths of the oceans. At the same time there are several species, elated to dogs and wovles that are rare, and sometimes quite odd…a far cry from what usually pops into mind in the canine family. This could be one of those rareties or even better an undiscovered species, either way this could proved to be interesting.

  • xian

    p.s forgive the errors in that prevoius statement…elated=related and proved should be prove

  • http://www.chimpout.com Chimpout

    It’s possible that bigfoot could be real and surviving in upopulated centers, but I’d need factual proof to believe.

    http://www.chimpout.com has some interesting facts that the media hasn’t reported

  • http://ian.sundermedia.com Ian Muir

    Fellow commenters, please put on your thinking caps. While there are likely thousands of species that remain undiscovered, some of the cryptids that keep coming up are just ridiculous.

    There’s a better chance of me growing horns than finding bigfoot in North America. How many native primate species are there on the continent? It’s not like we’re looking for a variant of an existing animal. The chances of sasquatch evolving here or migrating along with humans without leaving any evidence is pretty slim.

    The Montuak Racoon isn’t even worth researching. If this thing was at all real, why is there is so much resistance to letting and actual scientist take a look at it.

  • http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/08/20/surprise-surprise-bigfoot-finding-is-yet-another-hoax/ Surprise, Surprise: Bigfoot Finding is Yet Another Hoax | Discoblog | Discover Magazine

    [...] as it was, DISCOVER called this one last week, and we were even correct that the monster hysteria was just Halloween coming early. This story [...]

  • http://billy240z.wetpaint.com/ Bill

    It is a shame we have silly dummys running around making false claims.
    It sure make it hard for the real people who are out doing real field research.
    With results How can these kind of fools even talk the reporter to believing there crap .
    I my self show fact’s not fantasy.
    The main stream Bigfoot researcher are a joke them self’s think about it They get all army up and think there going to fool something that is a master at hiding . The crypts must have a good laugh like I do.
    For thos who Don’t think there real will let me tell you I thought the same way until I got off my ass and started my own research so unless your willing to get out and see mother nature at her purest then you will always wonder if they are real or not seeing one on film or photo is one thing…… seeing them for your self is a other…… I challenge any one to try to proof my work as fake …in turn you will learn how to look for a hairy creature in the woods. any takers find my email and write me a email.





    • About the Blog

      Discoblog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. Email tips and suggestions to vgreenwood [at] discovermagazine [dot] com.

      Discoblog also includes the daily feature NCBI ROFL, in which two prone-to-distraction grad students post real scientific articles with funny subjects. Email your tips to ncbirofl [at] gmail.com. Follow the ROFL feed here.

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