Punk’d by the Monster of Montauk! ‘Beastie’ was a movie prop
The so-called Monster of Montauk has been exposed as an imaginative publicity stunt dreamed up by the makers of a new movie. Apparently, Rachel Goldberg, the woman who discovered the famed beastie, is the sister of none other than producer Darren Goldberg (pictured above), who is making a movie about, you guessed it, …monsters.
Rather than being a scary sea monster, the creature was in fact just a cheap prop used in Goldberg’s film Splinterheads. You can read all about the making of the movie here.
Meanwhile, with the ‘riddle’ solved, Nicky Papers, the owner of Montauk-Monster.com – a site set up to investigate the sightings – has now put his domain name up for sale. Somehow we doubt he’ll be getting monster-sized offers for it!
Explains Papers: “Maintaining this website has become too much work for me and it’s been hard finding time because I have a full-time job. Additionally, I need to spend more time with family.” Yeah, right – that’s the reason!
GOTHAM NEWS 
[…] curio-blog Gotham News has just revealed the creature was most likely a prop used in Goldberg’s film Splinterheads. […]
Monster of Montauk? More like a monstrous movie hoax! « MANHATTAN NEWS
August 7, 2008 at 7:21 pm
[…] curio-blog Gotham News has just revealed the creature was most likely a prop used in Goldberg’s film Splinterheads. […]
MONSTER? NO JUST A MONSTOUSLY AMUSING MOVIE HOAX! « Top Dollar News
August 7, 2008 at 7:25 pm
[…] It’s been fun while it’s lasted, but the monstrous creature that washed up in Montauk, Long Island may have been nothing more than a prop from an independent movie about carnies, and a viral marketing […]
Montauk monster!!!! Wtf is it?!?!?!? - Zilvia.net Forums
August 8, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Darren Golderg is the smartest man in American… my hats off to you brotha. He just put Ashton Kutcher to shame… SLICK!
Pimp C.
August 8, 2008 at 3:45 pm
But will you watch the movie?
Jim McMillan
August 8, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I think what’s really happened here is that some amateur film director has realized that a sneaky way to get word out about his film is to pretend that the Montauk Monster is something to do with it. He’s just piggybacking on the media excitement – nobody’s been punk’d.
Perhaps he’d like to give us some more photos of this “cheap prop”? I can’t actually see anything on his site that backs this up – just a lot of photos of the crew.
Billy
August 8, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Well, Billy, if that’s the case, a lot of us have been punk’d – by him …and not the dear old beastie.
You could be right. It won’t encourage me to see his movie anyway so no harm done.
Jim McMillan
August 8, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Darn. Can’t wait for the movie then… I guess…
Katie
August 8, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Are you all crazy… this is like the craziest thing since the Blair Witch project in 1999. This movie will be the highest grossing independent film of all time.
Pimp C.
August 8, 2008 at 6:34 pm
[…] Monster.” The blog for the movie also made an admission, linking to Papers’ story and another hoax report and adding, “Thanks Darren’s sister.” The blog, especially, has enough content […]
The Montauk Monster is looking more like a hoax « LI Biz Blog
August 8, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Why has no one pointed out that until after these articles accused that film of being the ones to put the monster there an image didn’t appear on the movies website until after? if your shooting an indy movie and someone is accusing you of making and putting this creature there that fooled like millions of people, wouldn’t you want to keep people guessing if you didnt? I also don’t see anything about this movie having anything to do with any kind of monsters.
Josh
August 8, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Isn’t the movie about Carnies?
Monster looks like the sort of thing you might have in a carnival sideshow.
Jim McMillan
August 9, 2008 at 9:39 pm
[…] mystery are now apparently trying to cash in by selling their websites on eBay. As curio-blog Gotham News revealed last week, the whole story was just a silly marketing trick to promote interest in next year’s B-movie […]
Montauk Monster for sale on eBay … well, sort of « MANHATTAN NEWS
August 14, 2008 at 7:12 pm
[…] mysteryare now apparently trying to cash in by selling their websites on eBay. As curio-blog Gotham News revealed last week, the whole story was just a silly marketing trick to promote interest in next year’s B-movie […]
Montauk Monster goes up for sale on eBay …well, sort of « Top Dollar News
August 14, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Official statement from Splinterheads director.
http://www.sersenpark.com
Tim
August 17, 2008 at 11:11 pm
LIES LIES LIES! THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN TO DE-BUNK THE TRUTH!!
The animal shown in the picture most likely came from Plum Island Animal Disease Center, which is yards off the coast from where the animal was found.
Plum Island is a federally owned facility that does testing on animals, they claim to only do testing on livestock, but the facility has been shrouded in secrecy since it operated as biological weapons program during the Cold War. It is now mysteriously owned by Home Land Security and photography is not allowed on the island under any circumstances.
There were two sets of photos taken of the animal. A woman who took pictures while at the beach did not release her photos until she saw an article in the news paper with pictures of the creature that someone else had taken. She then realized the pictures she had were of value and they were released.
There were several eye-witnesses state they saw the carcass, there is no doubt that it is real. Eye-witnesses state that a man carried away the body of the dead animal, he stated that he “was going to mount it on his wall”. Other reports state that the local Animal Control picked up the body. Either way it is very mysterious why with all the media attention the situation got, why the person or agency that took the animal’s body would not come forth. I suspect that it is because the animal did in fact either escape or it’s body was disposed of and washed ashore from the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.
An interview with Dr. Larry Barrett, who runs the Plum Island Animal Disease Center was broadcasted on the History Channel. In the interview he claims that the animal was “a Boxer” and goes as far as comparing the skull of a boxer to that of the animal shown in the pictures. The skulls look nothing alike, and the animal in the picture had a long tail, boxers have stubs for tails. If you have any doubt, find a picture of a boxer skull and compare it!
STOP TRYING TO COVER UP THE TRUTH. THE PLUM ISLAND ANIMAL DISEASE CENTER IS A DANGEROUS FACILITY SUBJECTING THE WATER AND PEOPLE NEARBY TO DANGEROUS CHEMICALS!!!!!!!
BIOLOGICTESTING
February 26, 2009 at 7:35 am
This one is actually pretty easy…. I’ll agree for the most part here with “BIOLOGICTESTING” besides that boxers have stubs for tails. They get them docked for looks, just as some crop their ears. Otherwise they are born with long tail but not as long as the Montauk Monster. Now getting back to this so called moster… it surely not no turtle, caninine of any kind, and surely isn’t a raccoon. I’m very disapointed in Jeff Corwin for someone who suppose to have see some of the most ecotic he must forgot how the most common animals look like. Not to mention a beak? Come on people, are you that stupid just to look and say at first glance. There are whole showing there used to be teeth and fangs there to the end and look closer the other portion of it’s head is in the sand. It didn’t take too long to find a very close match to this animal carcuse. Just by looking up the local animals in the area and the animal can be found to be no more then…….(Drum roll please…)…… Our everyday American Opossum! Yupe the skull matches, the tail, the paws, and even the fur that is remaining. It was most liking a experiment animal that got lost or exposed from something on Plum Island. This is the reason why no one took the time really to investigate. Almost everyone has seen a dead opossum on the road or some where. This is more proff on how stupid the human race is becoming. Thank you Americans you make yourselfs feel proude about yourselves and each other don’t you?
Simple research
August 3, 2009 at 12:53 am
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Montauk Real Estate
April 14, 2012 at 2:45 pm