An automobile travels the sparsely used Route 4 through the Turner, Maine, area, little knowing what it will meet around the next corner. It wasn’t a Stephen King novel, but a real-life incident that captured the media, first in Maine, then more globally last summer, into early fall.

Lewiston, Maine’s Sun Journal published their 2006 year-in-review on the first day of the new year. Route 4′s “Mystery Animal” (a/k/a “Maine Mutant”) was on their list.

Monday, January 1, 2007

Top stories of 2006

Tragedies dominated the tri-county news in 2006, with young people dying in car accidents, plane crashes, the war in Iraq and a hunting accident. Western Maine had the worst car crash, the worst homicide and the worst plane crash of 2006, according to state Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland.

The shooting deaths of four people in Newry garnered interest from far beyond Maine’s border. So did the discovery of a strange-looking animal found at the roadside in Turner. The Maine creature caused a media frenzy all across the country and in Europe before laboratory tests revealed it was, in fact, a dog.

(Out of a list of the top ten stories in the greater Lewiston-Auburn, Maine area or L/A as it is called locally, the Maine Mutant flap was number six. Reporter Mark LaFlamme wrote me, after he finished filling in the details of the soon-to-be published list, that its order was a newspaper-wide editorial decision: “I argued that if we were to go by newspaper sales and web hits, the beast would be number one. Easily.”)

The three widely published Michelle O’Donnell photographs; merely click on them for larger versions.

Here the Sun Journal’s picks for top local news of the year:

(Following stories of murder and mayhem, the sixth summary captures our attention.)

Mystery mutant sparks frenzy

It was a dog. It was a mutant. It was an extraterrestrial creature.

For days in August, the media and others debated the nature of a strange animal found dead off Route 4 in Turner. It seemed half the population believed the beast was a mere dog while others were convinced it was the mystery creature that had spooked the area for decades.

Michelle O’Donnell, who found and photographed the dead beast, solicited the help of a Sun Journal news reporter, who wrote a story about the find. What followed was a media frenzy that drew interest from around the country and as far away as Germany.

Famed cryptozoologist Loren Coleman went to Turner to collect specimens from the carcass. Maine’s mystery mutant was featured on Fox News, CNN and a host of television and Internet news organizations.

A California artist designed T-shirts in honor of the mystery creature while others created cartoons and quilts.

DNA testing eventually proved the dead creature that so galvanized the world was a common dog, with possible traces of wolf.

Many people were resigned to believe that Maine’s true mystery beast is still out there.

Compiled by Mark LaFlamme

Loren Coleman (above) examines the carcass of the Beast or more correctly, what is left of it. In the background are, from left to right, Michelle O’Donnell and Debi Bodwell. He takes samples, one of which is then passed on to the DNA team (below). Click on the photograph by Douglas Van Reeth, to enlarge it.

One of the remaining samples was of the paw with dew claws, photographed in situ by the Sun Journal’s Douglas Van Reeth.

In the wake of Maine’s Mystery Beast, popular culture and art were also created, from roadside signs to a banner, from cartoons and tee-shirts to a carving:

Found along Rt. 4, near Turner, Maine, rapidly photographed by Mark LaFlamme.

The Mount Desert Island Marathon® banner by sideshow artist Paul Szauter, acquired by Rogier van Bakel and donated to the International Cryptozoology Museum.

Goofy as the Maine Mutant by Peter Loh.

The illustration, then his tee-shirts’ logo, by Mike Lemos. A sample tee-shirt is in the International Cryptozoology Museum.

The carving by artist Roland LaVallee of Crow Track Gallery. Also aquired for the International Cryptozoology Museum.

All photographs on the page used by permission.