You probably can't look at the picture because it makes you wretch in your mouth a little and not want to go in the water, kind of like a hideously decomposing Jaws. Turns out the truth behind the Monster is that it wasn't a prank, or a viral marketing stunt for a Guillermo del Toro movie -- and, of course, it's also not a monster. The truth is, and there are pictures to prove it on ASSME.org, that it was just an accident.
ASSME writer Drew Grant got the full story -- and this is the most surpising part given the foul imagery conjured -- over lunch with a friend. The friend let slip that he, in fact, was behind the hysteria created last summer in Montauk. And, being a god-fearing vegan, he also had no desire to be associated with a dead (and, as it turns out, partially burned) animal that washed up the beach.
As Grant recounts it, the story goes that Mr. Vegan and some friends were piling things on top of a raft off Shelter Island when they came across a very dead, but also furry and quite small and a kind of cute, raccoon half-buried in the sand. Of course, they wanted to honor this animal with a proper send off. “This creature was honored with a viking funeral,” he told Grant.
This involves lighting the ceremonial raft on fire and pushing it out the sea. Out toward Montauk it turns out. You know the rest.
