Residents wonder if dead animal is legendary mystery beast

[Rick]

http://seacoastonline.com/news/special/8_16special4.htm

TURNER, Maine --Residents are wondering if an animal found dead over the weekend may be the mysterious creature that has mauled dogs, frightened residents and been the subject of local legend for half a generation.

The animal was found near power lines along Route 4 on Saturday, apparently struck by a car while chasing a cat. The carcass was photographed and inspected by several people who live in the area, but nobody is sure exactly what it is.

Michelle O'Donnell of Turner spotted the animal near her yard about a week before it was killed. She called it a "hybrid mutant of something."

PHOTO
"It was evil, evil looking. And it had a horrible stench I will never forget," she told the Sun Journal of Lewiston. "We locked eyes for a few seconds and then it took off. I've lived in Maine my whole life and I've never seen anything like it."

For the past 15 years, residents across Androscoggin County have reported seeing and hearing a mysterious animal with chilling monstrous cries and eyes that glow in the night. The animal has been blamed for attacking and killing a Doberman pinscher and a Rottweiler the past couple of years.
discuss Have any Maine residents encountered this beast before? Post your comments here!
Mystery Beast of Maine Found Dead!?

People from Litchfield, Sabattus, Greene, Turner, Lewiston and Auburn have come forward to speak of a mystery monster that roams the woods. Nobody knows for sure what it is, and theories have ranged from a hyena or dingo to a fisher or coydog, an offspring of a coyote and a wild dog.

Now, people are asking if the mystery beast and the animal killed over the weekend are one and the same.

Wildlife officials and animal control officers declined to go to Turner to examine the remains. By Tuesday, the carcass had been picked clean by vultures and there was not much left of the dead animal.

Loren Coleman, a Portland author and cryptozoologist, said it's unlikely that the animal was anybody's pet.

After reviewing photos of the carcass, Coleman said he was bothered by the animal's ears and snout. It reminded him of a case years ago in northern Maine in which an animal shot by a hunter could not be identified. In the end, wildlife officials got a DNA analysis that showed the animal was a rare wolf-dog hybrid, he said.

Mike O'Donnell, who is married to Michelle O'Donnell, said the animal looked "half-rodent, half-dog" to him.

It was charcoal gray, weighed between 40 and 50 pounds and had a bushy tail, a short snout, short ears and curled fangs hanging over its lips, he said. It looked like "something out of a Stephen King story."

"This is something I've never seen before. It's an evil-looking thing," he said.

 

[Russ]

"evil looking" :(
Thats a sad story.

 

[Appollynon]

The description of the beast seems to fit with some of the observations made on the Elmendorf beast that was shot in recent years due to the curled fangs hanging over its lips. However the elmendorf beast had skin that was said to be necrotic/nercotising after being shot and killed just half an hour earlier, and also had thick black blood. I wonder if we'll get anymore of these sighting in the US as it seems to be a hotbed for these windowfallers.

Im not sure if that is a pic from the actual beast in question, as it doesn't seem to fit the description in regards to the protruding curled fangs which are supposed to protrude over the lips. It also seems to have more fur than previous beasts such as the one shot in Elmendorf.

It would also be interesting to see if there are any underground bases nearby the area which could be blurring the lines between 4D and 3D to make it easier for these windofallers to come through.

Here's another picture of the whole beast that I found after a lil digging. Sure seems more likea regular dog species than any chupacabara or mystery beast shot to date. In fact the whole story could be used as somewhat of a cover to put off people who were distrubed by the images of the last "beast" that was shot.

 

[Cyre2067]

I dunno, i can't see anything other then a dog from both images.

I'm a huge animal fan, been around lots of dogs, and the pic on the website

and the one above both could easily be dogs. We need further photographic evidence....

 

[ellie mae]

Any indication as to the size of the animal?

I don't know how 'rare' wolf/dog crosses are but where I live wolves are moving closer and closer (the Fish and Wildlife people saw them at the local dump one mile from town). Lots of marginal farms in my area have been abandoned, reverting to moose pasture, and the wolves follow the moose. We already have a population explosion of coyotes, so the definite possiblility of hybridisation is there.

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Just curious, does "black blood" exist in any animal on our planet?

 

[Appollynon]

Just curious, does "black blood" exist in any animal on our planet?

Maybe someone who has more experience in the field of Animal Biology could set us straight on this point. However from a very young age, I myself have done a great deal of research into the animal kingdom (read through numerous encyclopedias, books on the animal kingdom and there life cycles and watched many nuture programs) and as yet I have heard no mention of any animal with black blood, but that is not to say it is not possible.

Not only did the animal have black blood, but also a distinct lack of blood. The animal was shot while hiding underneath a house, and the report states that there was only a very small amount of blood which had came form the bullet puncture wound.

I also don't ever recall hearing about an animal whose skin would decay as fast as the elmendorf bests nercotic tissue did, and almost seem to fly in the face of accepted theories on decay in animals. If I remember rightly, I think there was a female relation of the family who had been a practising vet for many years, and had never witnessed the level of decay she found with this animal which had been shot the same day ( she said it looked like it had been dead for a few months already). So either it decayed faster than anything I've ever heard of before in science, or maybe the "beast" was decaying like it was dying whilst still alive, kinda like a "Living dead/zombie beast".

Just found a news article that I had missed about a similar "Beast" to the one shot and pictured in Elmendorf, which was captured in a farmers trap in Texas. The story was posted 7:33 am PDT August 25, 2005

Link Here http://www.nbc4.tv/news/4895053/detail.html

COLEMAN, Texas -- A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats.

Reggie Lagow set a trap last week after a number of his chickens and turkeys were killed.

What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo.

The mystery animal has been sent to Texas Parks and Wildlife in hopes of determining what it is.

Here are some pics of the "Texas Beast".

Here's some pics of the Elmendorf beast.

Notice the lack black blood

The story says the beast was shot in the eye, yet no blood can be seen from the wound?

And here's all I could find of the original story as WOIA news have taken it down form the site.

Link here http://www.professorfringe.com/news_stories/Chupa_in_TX.htm

LUFKIN, Texas -- Local animal experts are having a hard time identifying a strange looking animal killed in Angelina County on Friday -- an animal that looks eerily similar to the as yet unidentified "Elmendorf Beast" killed near San Antonio earlier this year.

"What is that?" are the first words out of anyone's mouth when shown photos of the animal, according to Stacy Womack. Womack -- who has more than 20 years experience working at Ellen Trout Zoo and for a local veterinarian -- said she's seen and handled a lot of different animals, but that she's never seen anything like this one.

"It's not a dog," she said. "I'd bet my lottery ticket on that."

The animal's blue-grey skin is almost hairless and appears to be covered with mange. A closer look at the animal's jaw line reveals a serious overbite and four huge canine teeth, and a long, rat-like tail curls behind the animal's emaciated frame.

The animal was shot and killed shortly before noon Friday after crawling under her mother's house in Pollok. Womack said large dogs in the yard "went nuts" and alerted the family, but would only whine and wouldn't go under the house with the animal. Her brother shot the animal, tied a rope around it and dragged it out from under the house for a closer look, she said.

Womack was called to take a photograph of the animal, and possibly help identify it, as well. A live animal, just like the one in the picture, darted across the road in front of her car while she was driving to the scene.

When she arrived with her camera and expertise in tow, Womack said she almost couldn't believe what she was looking at.

"It was so necrotic, its tissue was just rotted," Womack said. "It had no hair, a severe overbite and its claws were entirely too long for a dog."

She said the animal's front legs were much smaller than its hind legs, and that despite its overall ghoulish appearance, it's extremely long canine teeth were in excellent condition. Also, despite having been shot, there was virtually no blood seeping from the animal's carcass. The animal's ear also "broke like a cookie" when it's head was held up for a photograph, she said

"It's body looked like something that has been dead for a month or so," Womack said. "Like I said, I've worked in the veterinary field for more than 20 years and I've never seen anything that bad."

The animal was male and weighed between 15 and 20 pounds, she said. The identical animal that sprinted across the road ran with it's head down and it's tail between it's legs, according to Womack, but wasn't tall enough to be a coyote or a wolf. She said the live animal is probably the dead one's mate.

"I would just like to see somebody go out there and try to trap the other one," Womack said. "Because it's in misery, too, and what if it gets into the population?"

Womack showed pictures of the animal to a Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden, who "totally freaked out" and called for a department biologist, she said. The biologist told her it was likely a coyote with mange, but wasn't able to match the animal's skull shape -- and overbite -- with pictures of coyotes in reference books, according to Womack.

Pictures were also dropped off at the Texas Animal Health Commission, where the veterinarian was out of the office and hadn't contacted Womack as of Tuesday afternoon. She said a biologist was on the way to Pollok to collect a tissue sample of the animal, for DNA testing.

"I just want people to be aware that things like this happen," Womack said. "If it's not the mange, it's something that doesn't need to be in the environment."

C.R. Shilling, of the West Loop Animal Clinic in Lufkin said that after seeing pictures of the animal -- and stressing that his determination is "pure speculation" -- he believes the animal is probably a coyote. The animal likely suffers from demodex mange, he said, and possibly a secondary skin infection or even a congenital skin defect, as well.

"That's just a congenital defect," Shilling said when asked about the animal's unusual jaw configuration. "We'll even get dogs like that in here."

Shilling said that without seeing the animal itself, it's hard to make an exact determination of what the animal might be. The possibility of it being a dog/coyote mix would be "unusual, but possible," he said.

"It appears to be an extremely undernourished dog," Ellen Trout Zoo Director Gordon Henley said after being e-mailed several photos of the animal. "Wild animals don't typically wind up like that, but undernourished, neglected, domestic animals do."

After enlarging one of the photos and conferring with the zoo's veterinarian, Henley said he feels the animal's mangy, crusty skin could be a result of either neglect or living in the wild. Undernourishment or a congenital deformity could have caused the animal's gross overbite, he said.

"I think what we've got here is a poor, suffering, undernourished and possibly abused canid," Henley said. "Possibly a coyote, but more likely a dog."

The rancher from Elmendorf, located southeast of San Antonio, killed the animal after 35 of his chickens disappeared in one day. The animal was also almost hairless, with blue-grey coloring and four large "fangs." The station reported that tissue from the animal has been sent for DNA testing, and that it will be several more weeks before the tests are completed.

Speculation in the area as to what type of the animal the rancher killed has varied from simple to mystical. Some say it's a wild Mexican hairless dog, and other than the skin condition and jaw, pictures of the breed do bear a resemblance. Others believe it's the mythical chupacabra -- or "goat sucker" -- an animal Mexican folklorists say stalks rural areas killing livestock.

One area hunting guide even believed the animal might be a muntjac, a small antelope-type animal imported into the state by ranchers, according to the station's online reports. Muntjac are herbivores, but do have upper canine teeth that are elongated into "tusks" that curve outward from the lips. Muntjac are also called "barking deer" for a sound they'll emit to warn others of predators.

Like most deer, however, the Muntjac have split hoofs instead of paws, and certainly don't have long, rat-like tails.

A San Antonio Zoo mammal expert told WOAI-TV the animal is clearly a member of the canine family, and could possibly be a mix between a dog and a coyote. The expert also said the animal was clearly suffering from some sort of skin ailment, and may also have a congenital deformity of some sort.