Kid Stardust

August 18, 2008

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Geoff Brady, Melissa Brown, and I, drove out Monday to the Northeastern tip of Long Island.

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A few weeks ago, this picture appeared on gawker.com with the headline
“Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk”. It flew around the internet prompting wild speculation for days.

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The journalists at Gawker.com offered the theory that the creature was a mutant created at a government animal disease testing facility on Plum Island.

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Geoff had called his friend Stewart Swerdlow, an author and former secret government mentalist who participated in mind control experiments in Montauk in the 70’s. If anyone knew about the Montauk Monster, Stewart would.

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“Don’t come out to Montauk,” he said. “Can’t you tell that thing is a hoax?” He wished everyone would please stop emailing him about the Montauk Monster.

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Whether or not the monster was a hoax, Plum Island seemed like an interesting story.

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In the 50’s it was a chemical warfare research facility. Now the island is under the supervision of the Homeland Security Department and Department of Agriculture. Many people believe that Lyme Disease was created on the island and that the things being studied there are still being researched for use in chemical warfare.

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The PIADC’s website cheerfully announces “We’re proud of our safety record. Not once in our nearly 50 years of operation has an animal pathogen escaped from the island.”

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There was a mile wide channel between us and Plum Island. I read later that this channel -the Plum Gut – is famous for its tidal currents and treacherous waves.

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It wasn’t going to be easy to land on the Island.

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It wasn’t just the current and wakes in ‘Plum Gut’,

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the water was teaming with jelly fish.

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On every side of the boat, there were large pockets of them.

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Cyanea capillata or ‘The Lion’s Mane’.

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Their sting is not known to be fatal, but it can leave huge burning welts, and there were just so many.

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“If we fall in the water here, we’ll be toast.” I thought.

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We headed for a lighthouse midway between the North Fork and Plum Island.

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We pulled up in a calm eddy on the leeward side,

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and climbed up to see what we could see.

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There were fishing boats and ferries moving in the channel.

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We could see low structures and buildings hidden in the trees.

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There seemed to be an airstrip on the Southern side.

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Large silver SUV’s drove along paroling the perimeter, and through Jeff’s binoculars we could make out huge signs posted on the beach facing the water.

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We debated heading out across the channel to get a closer look at the island.

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I seemed to be the only one worried about getting apprehended.

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We were getting hungry and I finally convinced Melissa and Geoff to head back to Long Island.

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The tide had turned to the East and I said it might be hard to paddle back if we crossed the ‘Plum Gut’.

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It was a perfectly clear day, around 85 degrees with a cool breeze coming up the Sound.

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Geoff said that there wouldn’t be much activity visible in the sky today.

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He was talking about Aerosol spraying from airplanes.

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Geoff is part of an investigative group called New York Skywatch.

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He researches government sponsored weather control technology and operates a website where he collects data about chemical spraying.

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We landed back on the North fork of Long Island,

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and decided to take the ferry over to Montauk.

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It was the first time my boat had ridden in a boat before.

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We drove out to the tip,

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and went for a swim.

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Melissa took some pictures of naturally occurring geometric patterns in the seaweed and moss.

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We had not found the Montauk Monster,

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but all the biological diversity that we did come across gave Melissa an idea:

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Why not photograph some pieces of things we found on the beach,

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and make a photoshop collage of our own ‘monster’ later.

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This, in turn, gave Geoff an idea.

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“Take a picture while I throw this rock in the air,” said Geoff.

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“I swear, I have never done this before!” He assured us.

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In Geoff’s skywatching, he has taken (and published) many pictures of UFO’s; some that he has seen with his naked eye and also some that he could only see after the film was processed.

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It is uncanny how much the flying rocks looked like flying saucers on camera.

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Later that day, we took a walk in the dunes around Montauk.

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“You should just use the fake pictures on your website,” said Melissa. “I mean, if it makes people wonder about the evidence, that is basically what you want, right?”

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Geoff was steadfastly opposed to the idea. He said he would feel uncomfortable introducing fake evidence into an equation that clearly supports what he has been saying for years: The US government is experimenting in weather control techniques like aerosol spraying from planes, and it might have some relationship to UFOs. “Plus,” he said, “people can tell.”

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Here is a photograph that Geoff took of a real UFO.

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Here is Melissa’s photo collage of her own Montauk Monster.

-Marie Lorenz

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