The headlines read “Mysterious Beast” and “Like horns of the devil.” Pictures of a strange animal, appearing to look like a mutated do lying dead on the side of Rt 4, shocked everybody.

News of the story quickly surfaced, and even the next day, the website of our local paper, The Sun Journal, as down from so many visits to see the picture of the aptly named “Turner Beast.”

From August 16 through September 2, this creature was on anybody and everybody’s mind.

Since 1991, sightings of the “Chupracabra of Maine” have been reported all around Androscoggin County, and as the years go on and the reports increase, more and more people actually start to wonder if it really is a dog or something else.

Now, more than a decade later and with the world’s every growing curiosity of the unknown and weird, people jumped at the chance to possibly discover this ‘new’ species of animal.

While the news spread as far as California, people in Southern Maine could not get enough of this story.

You either believed it was a dog, or something else – some people shrugged off the notion, others went as far as to create “The Creature Burger” at a local restaurant. This half-pound burger had onion rings coming out the sides representing the beast’s claws and olives to nestled on the bun to represent the blue eyes.

Over the next couple of weeks, while waiting for the DNA test, the hype did not die down.

With each day came even more theories and even more skepticism. On September 2, the verdict was in. It was a dog.

There were no traces of any other species, except dog.

Thoughts of “I told you so” and of disappointment and a little shame were apparent.

Almost as fast as the news of the Turner Beast came, it disappeared. Even the next day, it seemed as if nothing had happened.

Turner, 15 minutes (well, more like two and a half weeks) of fame were up, and it was back to good old Vacationland.