Ah, the Montauk Monster, and how we determined the scale.

The following two paragraphs are straight from Wikipedia:

The “Montauk Monster” was an unidentified creature that washed ashore dead, on a beach near the business district of Montauk, New York in July 2008. The identity of the creature, and the veracity of stories surrounding it, have been the subject of unresolved controversy and speculation. It is unknown what happened to the carcass.

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo first coined the name the “Montauk Monster” on July 29, 2008. The moniker was disseminated globally on the Internet in the following days. Photographs were widely circulated via email and weblogs, and the national media picked up on it raising speculation about the creature. 

Next week, the Montauk Monster will be highlighted on “Wild Case Files” on NatGeo.