It was fun while it lasted, but the monstrous creature that washed up in Montauk, Long Island appears to have been nothing more than a prop from an independent movie about carnies. In other words, it was viral marketing just as everyone initially suspected, until they became convinced it was a dead sea turtle, then the corpse of a dog, then a raccoon, then a pig, and so on. There are just enough untied loose ends in the hoax storyline to leave open the possibility that the hoax is itself a hoax, but that's how viral marketing works — string along the media as long as possible. Here's how the hoax probably went down:
The producer of the film, Darren Goldberg (pictured above), and/or his associates would have left two distinct props from his movie on beaches near Montauk. Some honest people came across these props and were fooled into thinking they were corpses. The first to surface was, as has been reported, photographed by the sister of a friend of publicist Alanna Nevitski, who forwarded the picture to Jezebel, which forwarded the picture to Gawker, which published it to mass hysteria.
Another picture, appearing less decomposed, was taken earlier in the day by Ryan O'Shea and Christina Pampalone and appeared in Newsday, which also reported tips from readers who had see the monster all over Long Island. It was later noted that, given the timing reported by Newsday, the body seemed to decompose awfully quickly over the course of one day. The paper also reported a sighting of a live version of the monster, which would have, under the hoax scenario, either been mistaken or made as part of the prank.
A group of three women later appeared on Plum TV to talk about discovering the monster and taking the photo that appeared on Gawker. One of the women was Rachel Goldberg, not identified at the time as the sister of Darren Goldberg, who is making the carnie movie, Splinterheads. The women insisted the creature "exists" and was not a Photoshop creation, and claimed they were looking for a scientist to study what remained of it. This seemed to jibe with what Colin Davis and their other male friends said on CNN. Both groups of friends would have been working in conjunction with the movie producer at this point to keep the hoax going. They claimed the body had already decomponsed to a bones and "goo," which they were keeping in a bag. One of the group later said the remains had been stolen.
The original supplier of the photo, Nevitski, told New York that Goldberg and the other women on Plum TV were "full of shit" because Nevitski's friend, still anonymous, took the original picture. This was probably true, but Nevitski's friend wasn't talking to the press and Goldberg probably saw a golden opportunity to inflate the hoax further, so she lied about taking that specific picture. And recall that Nevitski did not explain how the group obtained an alternate picture of the monster.
Blogger Nicky Papers also thought the women were lying, and wrote on Montauk-Monster.com about their nervous ticks, like giggling and breaking eye contact. He also noticed that Goldberg talked first and her friends followed her lead.
The blogger was then contacted by a source who claimed Rachel Goldberg was related to Darren Goldberg. The source said Goldberg was making Splinterheads and that the monster will appear in the movie. This was the first time the movie was tied to the monster.
The website for the movie seemed to admit to the whole thing yesterday, posting, "We have the Montauk Monster." The blog for the movie also made an admission, linking to Papers' story and another hoax report and adding, "Thanks Darren's sister."
It remains possible that the Montauk Monster was a real creature, and that Rachel and Darren Goldberg are trying to ride its fame. Notice that the moviemakers have not yet come out and actually said they staged the whole thing as a hoax — they have only implied it.
Also possible: The Goldbergs are not related, and Darren Goldberg was so tickled by the conspiracy theory floated on montauk-monster.com that he implied a hoax as a kind of meta-hoaxing prank.
But Occam's razor would seem to apply. It's probably just viral marketing. The body is missing, supposedly stolen. No scientist ever examined the bones despite a widely-publicized plea. And now, just as the phenomenon was receding into history, comes a leak that makes it TV news material again.
It would be natural to scoff at the likely hoax as corroding trust that may be needed when a real freak event of this sort occurs. But, come on — we all kind of knew, no?
[Montauk-Monster.com, Montauk-Monster.com, Gotham News]
(Darren Goldberg picture via Sersen Park)
