Deep Archives: Manny, The Beast Of Onset

Not a lot of people know this, but we saw the Fake News trend coming back in 2011. 

OK, maybe "we" is stretching it, as the true answer is "Walter Brooks of Cape Cod TODAY saw it coming and decided to try out a Murdoch-style News of the World website applied to Cape Cod." He then handed the idea off to his star blogger, who- sadly- also wasn't me. "We," meaning "Stacey Monponsett by herself," thought up the idea of having a sea monster attack the 2011 Cape Verdean Festival.

Me? My job was to produce a picture of the sea monster. My efforts get dismissed pretty quickly in the article, and rightfully so. 

I get the last laugh, though. The site never gained momentum, and was abandoned. I am the first of us to even think of it since, and I'll see if I can make a few bucks off of the story in this new post-truth era of media. 

I should add here that I have been in media before, during and since 2011, and my ability to alter a picture of something normal into a convincing sea monster has not improved one iota.

So, without any further ado... 

Listen, children, and you'll never forget... Manny, the Beast of Onset.


SEA MONSTER DEVOURS 70 IN ONSET

The very foundation of Science was rocked today as a thirty meter sea monster emerged from Onset Bay and attacked the Cape Verdean Festival.

The monster was described by witnesses as looking "like a moron photoshopped a swan," while others said it looked like the famous sea serpent which attacked Cape Ann in 1639. It struck without warning and went straight for the Cape Verdean Festival, where thousands of revelers were enjoying an afternoon of heritage. It was described as over 30 meters long, with a generally Nessie-like appearance. It's head- at the end of a snakelike neck- was higher than the 40 foot high tower on the Inn At Onset Bay.

Ambling ashore, the creature immediately ate a family of 7 European tourists who were playing in the surf. It then attacked and sank an Onset Bay tour boat, which was hosting a fundraiser for the local Tea Party chapter. Tax reform advocates were gobbled like Pez as they swam for the perceived safety of the shore.

Not satisfied, the creature attacked the festival. Heading straight for the linguica stands, it paused only to snatch a few dozen of the slower people as the crowd ran for their lives. The people in the audience with concealed weapons began to fire upon the monster, with little effect.

The arrival of heavier armed police did little to slow the monster's rampage. Even the SWAT team was powerless against the beast. Swallowing a last resident, it jumped back into Onset Bay and swam towards New Bedford.

Experts are at a loss to explain the monster. It is unlike anything known to modern science, and would fit better in a Saint George legend. The Coast Guard and the US Navy were both eluded by the swift-swimming beast. The USS Kardashian had a sonar reading off Falmouth, but it turned out to be a rotund Connecticut tourist who was floating on a raft.

The possibility of a man-eating plesiosaur living off Cape Cod isn't expected to harm the region's tourist industry much. Onset is jammed with sightseers, and locals are selling them numerous t-shirts, bumper stickers, and trinkets modeled on the beast. Charter boats from Bourne to Brewster are booked for years in advance.

Locals have taken to calling the beast "Manny," in honor of Manny Monteiro, a linguica cart owner who tried to defend his business with a machete. He was bisected by the beast, who he swore to fry and consume. Wareham has named the high school sports teams the "Mannies" in his honor. Mark Anthony's Pizza now features a "Mannywich," which is a linguica/peppers/onion sub coated with Monster Blood (tomato sauce). Ben Affleck is rumored to be playing the valiant cartpusher in the movie.

Buzzards Bay has plenty of fish/whales/tourists to support a large colony of Mannysauruses. A Manny may very well be what attacked Provincetown in a 1719 legend, as well as the source of "globsters" like the one in Nantucket. It also explains a lot of whale beachings, and solves the questions associated with a right whale who washed up on Duxbury Beach with a 10 foot bite taken out of it. "The Beast of Onset could easily rape a blue whale if it wanted to," said one eyewitness.

A state of emergency was declared by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, and armed units of National Guardsmen are lining the shores of Massachusetts beaches. Machine guns, rocket launchers, and main battle tanks prowl the coastline. All of Cape Cod wonders where- and when- the Beast will strike again.


Posted by Monponsett at Tuesday, August 16, 2011

New England's Worst Sea Monster?

Massachusetts has several sea monsters in her history.

Daniel Webster saw a sea serpent off of Duxbury, and Gloucester had numerous modern serpentine sightings. Moby Dick is tied to us to a small extent, and Jaws is tied to us to a great extent. We are the new, hip place for Great White Sharks to go, and we even had a Killer Whale in town last week. Lovecraft knew what he was doing when he put Arkham in Massachusetts.

However, our nastiest, ickiest sea monster is larger than a Blue Whale, and the only thing on Earth larger than it is a distant cousin of it. 

There's no way to avoid it, as it goes where the ocean pushes it. We have no sensors to detect the presence of it, and we don't know if one is around until people start being injured by the hundreds. 

Bullets don't harm it, a missile would go right through it, it survived an asteroid strike and you can hack it to pieces without lessening the danger it poses. Oh yeah, it's positively dripping with poison. It may also be immortal.

It'd take a shipload of Hit Points to kill one of those, huh? Thankfully, Godzilla incinerated this monster with his nuclear fire-breath in that 1970s movie, right? Wait... what??

It's real???

No...

Yes.

This monster that we speak of is a Lion's Mane Jellyfish. The LJM is a species of Cnidarian, a phylum that encompasses the Jellyfish family.

It is prevalent in the northern Atlantic, as it prefers colder water. They can not tolerate warmer waters, and are rarely found below 42 degrees north latitude. They dine on zooplankton, just like other giant creatures do. They are pelagic (open ocean) for most of their lives, but they tend to drift into bays as the currents dictate.

It is the largest known jellyfish, and holds the World's Largest Thing title if you don't count stretched-out Bootlace Worms. Massachusetts holds the world record for LJM (and, thusly, everything else), a feat they performed when a LJM washed ashore in a town that I cant find the name of. If anyone knows, hit me up in the comments.

This Lion's Mane Jellyfish that washed up in Massachusetts was 7 feet across. The tentacles, when stretched out, were over 120 feet long. The largest Blue Whales are about 20 feet shorter. That's a lot of jelly! You'd have to slaughter every character that Charles Schultz ever drew to make a corresponding amount of Peanuts Butter to get a PB&J out of that sucker, and that's before we find a football field's worth of bread to house the whole sandwich.

Most of that length is Tentacle, and each of those tentacles is lined with poisonous barbs that would break off into human skin quite nicely. The barbs get fired off like harpoons any time something- like you- touches the tentacle. The poison, while generally not fatal to a healthy adult, can cause critical burns. A jellyfish has thousands of such tentacles.

Now, something like that floating around in the middle of the ocean isn't much of a problem for most of us, and is just a small part of the general Cowardice that keeps me from doing things like Carnival Cruises or joining the Navy. 

However, there is nothing to stop one of these creatures from washing ashore in Massachusetts. What beach it hit depends entirely on the currents.

from USGS

"Washes ashore in Massachusetts" doesn't mean "one washed up here, once, in 1870." We are well within the range of these things, and they have inflicted mass injury in New England before.

Rye, New Hampshire is a nice place to go beaching. However, it wasn't so nice in July of 2010. A LMJ the size of a trash can lid with 20-25 foot tentacles washed into a group of bathers. Officials attempted to remove it, which only broke it up into innumerable pieces.

This, plus the wave action that breaks jellyfish apart, loosed the barbs from the tentacles, and the sea around Rye was a puddle of pain. The barbs can sting long after the jellyfish is dead, and long after their removal from the host creature.

Thinking that the danger had passed, bathers in Rye went back into the water... water that was filled with microscopic, poisonous, floating barbs. Over 150 people were injured. 

Most of the injuries were minor, because, as bad as it was, swimming into a spread-out infestation of barbs is different than directly contacting a LJM and getting thousands of stings at once. Still, five people needed to be taken to the hospital. The rest were treated on-site with vinegar and baking soda. Old salts swear by meat tenderizer, as well.

As you can see from my handy map of the currents off Massachusetts, had that beast not become trapped in the surf off Rye, it very easily could have moved with the currents down the Massachusetts, visiting Boston, Plymouth, Cape Cod...

You won't know that it's here... until the screaming starts. If you see it, it's already too late.

photo by Dan Hershman