Montauk Monster Has Curious Americans Wondering, "WTF *is* that Thing?!"

Four-dollar gas. Recession. An endless war overseas. But the thing that's preoccupying Americans these days is a butt-ugly, bird-beaked, nekkid-as-a-jaybird rotting animal corpse that's washed up on the northeast end of New York's Long Island. So what the hell is this "Montauk Monster," as it's being called?

[BREAKING NEWS: John McCain has named the Montauk Monster his running mate!]

Here are some possible explanations of what the Montauk Monster is, ranging from the practical to the absurd (you can decide for yourself which is which). [UPDATE: A blog called Amnesia Blog has a good collection of Montauk Monster pictures, so you can get a better look at The Thing.]

* Lab experiment gone wrong, escaped from a nearby agricultural research facility, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center
* A turtle without a shell (never mind the fact that turtles can't just detach from their shells, like in those TV cartoons)
* A shaved raccoon
* An alien creature from outer space, come to warn us about the end of the world (or to go on a tour of one of the North Fork's many wineries)
* A new undiscovered species of animal, just out looking to check out some of the North Fork's wineries
* A pretty snazzy creation of someone's imagination and a lot of time spent on Photoshop
* An escaped pet (notice the cloth wrapped around it's right front arm... leg... whatever it is)
* A very large rat, escaped from the NYC subway or maybe the Long Island Rail Road (it got injured after not Minding the Gap)
* A Department of Defense experiment - a successor to the attack badgers the British were supposedly using in Iraq
* A very lifelike synthetic creature made by an unemployed movie prop maker with a lot of free time and even more spare latex
* A viral marketing stunt for a sci-fi TV show
* Joan Rivers fell off a cruise boat... this is how she looks without her wig

What do you think the Montauk Monster is? Let us know!