Comments on: Mystery Beast Thrice on Top Ten

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:01:16 +0000

Of course, what Mark LaFlamme did was take an old-fashioned mystery, used shoe leather to track down all the details, talked to all those involved about those angles, and revealed some deeper truths, tales, and terrors still out in the woods. He also combined it with the new technology of DNA analysis.

Mark wasn’t afraid to be open to discovering the “mystery” was less about the animal found on the road and more about how people reacted and the “tip of the iceberg” hints it pointed to of the real “mystery animal” that remains roaming in central Maine.

I fully appreciate being pulled into the story, meeting Mark, and being able to share from the beginning what many of us, including Mark, thought - this thing was a feral dog. He did not stop there, however, and never neglected the backstory it revealed. (”Feral” stories, as we are seeing from Asia this week, can have more behind them than meets the eye.)

Obviously the fine people of Lewiston-Auburn would be interested in this melodrama unfolding on their doorsteps, which became an international story, and luckily the Sun Journal was there to cover it so fully and honestly. There never was any hiding the true nature of what was found, but instead, it was a gateway for the other wonders linked to the story.

Thank you Mark LaFlamme for being a very good reporter.

By: LaFlamme

LaFlamme — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:50:40 +0000

Listen, 98 percent of what I report is hard news, with no fancy and no absurdity. But on occasion, absurdity itself is news. If it didn’t happen now and then, we wouldn’t need blogs, discussion forums or an imagination. To the unimaginative, this was nothing more than a low dog at the side of the road. The more inspired sorts, it was a chance to rally around and examine several issues on the periphery. The animal had more to say in death than it did in life. This was the Jim Morrison of dead dogs.

By: BadState

BadState — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 07:49:17 +0000

More press for the world’s most famous rotting dog carcass. Great.

By: LaFlamme

LaFlamme — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 05:58:50 +0000

Justice is served. The top ten, year in review list we ran on New Year’s day was compiled through voting within the newsroom. I didn’t vote. But if I had, it would have been for His Beastliness.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 04:14:30 +0000

That first photo that I saw of the Maine “Mutt”ant, the foreshortened closeup that sort of made it look like a werewolf, was what led me to post a comment on the Lewiston Sun Journal’s website and eventually led me to discover Cryptomundo.

For that reason, that little mashed mutt will always have a place in my heart!