Why do we love monsters? Why are we obsessed with vampires, zombies, werewolves, yetis and dragons? It's because no matter how frightening they are, they still symbolize the last bit of mystery and wonder in the world. Well, we here at Cracked would like to murder a few of these mysteries right in front of your eyes, hopefully crushing your sense of wonder into a creamy pulp that tastes good on toast and buffs out scratches on linoleum.

5 The Montauk Monster Carcass

Pictured: The Kappa, an ancient Japanese water-demon.

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The Mystery:

A pretty young girl in the prime of her life is frolicking with her female friends on a local beach, when a monster appears! It's a setup good enough kickoff half of the Friday the 13th movies, but these young sex-vixens weren't murdered in alphabetical order while the survivors grieve by stripping off their tops and offering to split up, because the so-called âmonsterâ was already dead. The Montauk Monster washed up on Ditch Plains Beach in July of 2008, where the aforementioned girls found it, photographed it and sold the pictures to the local paper. Then the Internet got a hold of it and, as usual, shit got all blown out of proportion

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One of the most intriguing aspects of the Montauk Monster was its relative proximity to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, located just a few miles away. It wasn't exactly a leap to believe that the corpse was some sort of freak experiment gone horribly awry that heartless executives dumped into the ocean rather than burned, because apparently they skipped Biohazard and Covert Experiment Disposal Day at the Evil Workshop. Some argued that it was a genetic abnormality, some stuck by the aforementioned lab experiment theory, while still others (read: us) suggested that it was simply Jabba's pet jerk-monster fromReturn of the Jedi.

Hey, being comedic relief for a mob boss food-monster probably has a high turnover rate--all those long hours, angry Jedi and notoriously poor health insurance plans offered by the Hutts probably take a toll on the little guys--it's not that bizarre to find a corpse or two. Various reasonable theories were lobbed up, and promptly knocked down by animal experts. Lacking an immediate concrete solution, the world assumed it must be a new and undiscovered species. After all, wasn't it Sherlock Holmes who said, âWhen you eliminate the impossible, the remainder, no matter how improbable, is definitely a monster or at least some kind of magic.â?