Tuttle Bottoms Monster article in Cryptid Culture #3

Issue #3 of Cryptid Culture magazine is out. Featuring my article about the Tuttle Bottoms beastie.

Get it here.

Tuttle Bottoms Monster- Illinois

Here's an illustration I did of an unusual hairy cryptid from around Harrisburg, IL.for an article I wrote in Cryptid Culture magazine.

The Tuttle Bottoms Monster is unique among hairy cryptids because of its long, anteater-like snout.

For my interpretation of the beast, I imagined it as a chalicothere- a species of extinct, sloth-like animals distantly related to horses- that had evolved a long, gharial-like snouth for catching fish.

The Montauk Monster-- New York

In July of 2008, a strange carcass washed ashore in the district of Montauk on the South Shore of Long Island.  The creature was hairless and squat, with a mammalian body, but a beak like a bird.
Lots of speculation ensued.  Some thought that it might be a  genetic experiment from the nearby Plum Island Animal Disease Center. Others thought perhaps it was a turtle without it's shell-- a rumor quickly proven false since a turtle's spine is attached to its shells, thus the animal cannot be removed from it. Many concluded that it was simply a raccoon that had lost its fur and part of its face due to long immersion in water.

As often happens with stories of mysterious carcasses washing up on shores, the Montauk Monster was eventually taken by a local resident and soon disappeared before too many people had a chance to examine it.

The original picture of the Monster.  Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

So what was this bizarre creature? The dead raccoon hypothesis seems most likely.  The overall squat body closely resembles a raccoon's, as do the long, fine fingers.  The apparent "beak" is likely the exposed  front part of the skull.  The effects of prolonged exposure to sun and salt water, and the natural processes of decay, can make even the most common animal nearly unrecognizable.

Witness, for example, the Zuiyo-maru carcass, an apparent plesiosaur carcass hauled up by a Japanese fishing trawler in 1977:

Image taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Though this carcass was thrown overboard before it could be examined by scientists, it was most likely the badly-decayed remains of a basking shark rather than a prehistoric reptile.  The lower jaw and gills of these sharks often fall away soon after death, leaving behind a smaller head (actually just the brain case) and apparent "neck" created by the spinal column.

For my rendition of the Montauk Monster, I tried to imagine how it would live if it had been a genuine unknown animal.  I like the idea of it using its beak to pry up the tough bark of pine trees like a porcupine using its incisors or an extinct "shovel-tusker" elephant like Amebelodon.

The Dover Demon-- Massachusetts

Welcome to the first entry for Cryptids State-by-State.

States have plenty of official things-- rocks, flowers, mammals, fish, trees, mottos, fossils.  Even state soils.  Yet there are no state cryptids-- a grievous oversight that I aim to fix. 

I've been thinking about doing this blog off and on for a while now.  With Halloween approaching, I figured this would be an opportune time to finally get things rolling.

There's a ton of cryptid artwork out there, especially for famous critters like the Mothman, Sasquatch, Lake Monsters, Flatwoods Monster, etc.  So I've tried my best to make my little doodles stand out a bit.  You can judge how well I succeeded.

For my first entry, I originally wanted to start off with the unofficial cryptid of my current home, Connecticut.  The Nutmeg State's creatures are the Melonheads, whose mythology I have a bit of a problem with.  I'll explain more when I get to their entry soon.

So instead, this week's entry is the State Cryptid of Massachusetts:

THE DOVER DEMON

On the night of April 21, 1977, three teenagers were driving in their hometown of Dover, Massachusetts.  One of the boys, Bill Bartlett, spotted a strange creature with a massive, hourglass-shaped head crawling on all fours along a rock wall.  As the car passed by the being, it turned its head and its eyes flashed with orange light.  Bartlett later described the Demon as having pale, peach-colored skin that appeared rough like sandpaper, and toes that curled around the rocks as it moved.

Later that night another teenager, John Baxter, saw a figure approaching him in the shadows as he walked home from his girlfriend's house.  Thinking it was a friend of his, he called out.  The being did not respond, and as Baxter drew closer, it ran off.  He followed it halfway across a roadside gully, before stopping to observe it at a distance.  Like Bartlett, Baxter described the Demon as having a figure-eight shaped head and toes that curled around the contours of rocks and a tree it leaned against.  Before he could get a better look, the Demon ran off.

The creature's description initially resembles a classic "Gray" alien-- with its large eyes, enormous head and spindly body.  But there were no reports of UFO activity at the time.  Additionally, other features stray from the usual alien myth, such as its quadrapedal stance, it's glowing orange eyes and it's odd toes.

Some skeptics think the "Demon" was nothing more than a baby moose distorted by the darkness and by the brief glimpses the witnesses had.  It's glowing eyes could merely have been the light reflecting back from the headlights of the car or another bright light source-- a phenomenon called eyeshine.

I tried to make my Dover Demon reflect a bit of the "baby moose" explanation, at least in the face.  But I wanted it to still have an otherworldly look, with its spindly neck and egg-shaped body.  I ran with the idea of its toes curling around the rocks and made them more like boneless tentacles.

So there you go, Massachusetts-- you're the first state to get your very own wicked awesome unofficial Official State Cryptid.  

Sources:

http://www.theawl.com/2012/10/a-spooky-scary-secret-monster-in-every-state

http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/lost-tapes/creatures/dover-demon.htm

http://cryptidz.wikia.com/wiki/Dover_Demon