Monsters
Monsters can be anything; they come from our fear of the unknown and uncontrollable, which just so happens to be all around us all of the time. Because of free will and autonomy, we could really make anything out to be a monster, but with scientific research we can shine more of a light on the things we don’t know, and we can figure out why things do what they do. Understanding seems to make things just a little less scary.
I think monster can exist in any form, as long as we are frightened of them. They scariest ones seem to live in our minds; they are the worst because we cannot understand them or really get rid of them. They live with us, unable to harm us, but causing distress. Real life monsters can be anything that inspires fear or unrest within us. They can be inanimate like the 11.5 ton fishing net off of the coast of Hawaii that was removed from coral beds in four days by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and was described as "a dark wall of destruction," they can be alive like the Ebola virus that has caused over 10,000 deaths since March of 2014, or they can be folklore that has spread through the ages and has trusty followers propagating the idea of that being, like bigfoot. Some of these "monsters" are tangible; we can see them, study them, and somewhat come to know them, but others have no real evidence, just hearsay. If we hear enough of it though, we start to question our own beliefs and may even take in the information that has no actual evidence or proof, spreading this belief in a certain "monster" even farther.
The world is a big place full of things we don’t know and can't ever really ever understand. It leaves a lot of room for mystery. That mystery in combination with our minds can create some really scary things that may no be entirely fiction. We have giant squids, and black holes, and maybe even chupacabras, so why shouldn’t we be scared? With science and research, we can make these terrifying phenomena and creatures combatable and understandable. In the case of the chupacabra, folklore had been spreading that a bloodsucking bipedal had been terrorizing livestock population for years. Now scientists have been studying the animals they believe to be the culprit, coyotes, and have suggested that a disease, mange a type of skin disease similar to scabes, has caused their decrepit and unusual appearance. Fatigue from the disease causes the coyotes to hunt more accessible prey like livestock, and because of the mange, when the bodies are found they often do not appear to be coyotes unless an expert is looking. Science made this monster into something a lot less scary, but then now we face the monster of disease and the transfer of disease across species, which is a new challenge, and could be considered a monster itself.
Proving something exists is hard; proving something doesn’t exist is almost impossible, that’s why there are "monsters" everywhere. Little by little though, through science, we are kind of making the world a bit of a less scary place to be by arming ourselves with knowledge and understanding.
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