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Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo coined the name "Montauk Monster" to describe the strange creature that washed up on an east-end Long Island beach in the summer of 2008, and provoked serious debate. Many are convinced that it is most likely some sort of creature from the clandestine animal experiment lab located on lonely Plum Island just off the coast of Orient Point...
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Nicky Papers, 24, proprietor of the montauk-monster.com website posted pictures and a video on the Internet of another mysterious four-legged carcass that appears to have a beak and bears a strong resemblance to the original Montauk Monster that was found last summer on a beach near Montauk. Officials from Plum Island have backed off their line that the original Montauk Monster might be a cat carcass, and instead say that it is more likely to be a raccoon.
Original Montauk Monster
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The Plum Island Animal Disease Center is a U.S. federal research facility dedicated to the study of foreign animal diseases. In operation since 1954, the center has had the mandate of protecting American livestock from foreign animal diseases. During the Cold War a secret biological weapons program was started on the site targeting livestock. This program has been the subject of controversies, and this facility has gained an Area 51 like cult status. In the news again recently, Plum Island is suspected of being the origin of the "Montauk Monster", an unidentified creature that allegedly washed ashore dead on a beach near Montauk Long Island. Believed by many to be some sort of mutant originating from Plum Island, today, the monster remains a mystery.
Plum Island
During the Spanish-American War, Plum island was purchased by the U.S. government for the construction of Fort Terry, which was later deactivated after World War II, and then reactivated in 1952 for use by the Army Chemical Corps. The center has 70 buildings sitting on 840 acres of land. Plum Island has its own fire department, power plant, and water treatment plant. As far as we know, no wildlife exists on the island. However, Plum Island was named as an important bird sanctuary area by the New York Audubon Society, as it has successfully attracted many different birds.
Because U.S. Congressional law stipulated that live foot-and-mouth disease virus studies cannot be done on the mainland, the center serves as the only laboratory in the United States equipped with research facilities that permit the study of foot-and-mouth disease. Foot-and-mouth disease is an extremely contagious disease of cloven-hoofed animals.
Accidental outbreaks of the disease have caused catastrophic livestock and economic losses in several countries throughout the world, most notably and most recently in the United Kingdom in 2001. Although foot-and-mouth disease was fully eradicated from the U.S. in 1929, it is currently an endemic, and a serious danger in many parts of the world.
The United States agriculture and food systems are always vulnerable to disease, pest and poisonous agents that occur natually, which are unintentionally introduced, or intentionally delivered by acts of terrorism. America's agriculture and food system is an extensive, open, interconnected, diverse and complex structure providing rich potential targets for terrorist organizations. Plum Island officials state that the best protection possible against a successful attack on the United States' agriculture and food system are facilities like Plum Island.
Building 257 Controversy
An interesting and disturbing book that raises questions about why biological testing was conducted on Plum Island has been written. Author Michael Christopher Carroll, has visited the island several times and has devoted years of his life to uncovering happenings at the secret facility. He explains how at one time our government hired ex-Nazi bioweapons experts to work there shortly after World War II. In his book "Lab257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory" Carroll details how breaches in safety and security could have lead to the release of some of the diseases studied there, including Lyme disease and West Nile Virus. It is true that the outbreak of Lyme disease was so oddly and coincidently close to the Plum Island.
It is also true that Pakistani nuclear scientist Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood who met twice with Osama Bin Laden possessed information about Plum Island when he was arrested in 2001. The testing facility at Plum Island is also the subject of a novel, "The Poison Plum", written by author Les Roberts. Another one entitled "Plum Island" by Nelson DeMille raises the question "How could anthrax not be studied there? Every animal has it." This novel portrays the island as the scene of an incubator for germ warfare. Plum Island was also
mentioned in the movie "Silence of the Lambs".
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