Montauk Monster Celebrates First Birthday on July 23

The Montauk Monster, an international Internet phenomenon, celebrates its first birthday on July 23.

We have diligently researched the 1,110,000 stories on Google about the Monster, and listened carefully to many opinions by the smartest people in town. Our office is about a mile from where the Monster’s corpse was discovered, under the most suspicious of circumstances, by people with a wicked sense of humor.

Naturally, the whole Monster story, which hinged upon the entirely unsubstantiated suggestion that the ugly dead “thing” was an escapee from the federal Plum Island top secret quarantined viral gene-swapping facilities across the bay. Nothing on earth is more viral than the Internet, and so somewhere in Tibet and North Korea and Argentina there are people infected with the Montauk Monster myth.

A citizen can be proud that most Montaukers have not given in to the greedy impulse to vend Montauk Monster sweatshirts, except under the counter. There is diffidence among the people of the town that Montauk might forever be associated in earthling’s minds as monsters, except if they compete in rugby.

Nonetheless, Montauk is a town where the most popular holiday of the year is not Christmas, New Year’s, July 4^th or St. Patrick’s Day, but Halloween. People of Montauk cannot help but harbor a soft spot in their hearts for frightening ideas.

So, as a first birthday gift, we propose that July 23 be hereafter known as Montauk Monster Day, a day of reflection.