Photographs of a mystery beast washed up on a UK beach have gone viral and attracted tens of thousands of people to a local weekly’s website.

The bloated and misshapen carcass of the so-called ‘beast from the east’ was discovered by a dog-walker on a Welsh seafront and pictures were sent in to his local paper, the Western Telegraph in Pembrokeshire.

Within just two days of the pictures appearing online, almost 100,000 people had viewed the story, with around 1,000 comments being made on the paper’s Facebook page.

News editor Lee Day said he had not anticipated how much interest there would be in the snaps.

“I have an app on my phone which tells me every time someone comments on our Facebook page – it has been lighting up every 10 to 15 seconds,” he told HTFP.

“I was surprised by the reaction to it. It’s gone absolutely mad – I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of response on social media.

“Both our Facebook and Twitter accounts link back to the paper’s website so it has driven up our visitor figures as well. It has been the ‘most read’ story on the site ever since and I imagine it will stay there for some time.”

This picture of a mystery creature found in Wales has gone viral after being published in the Western Telegraph

Comments on the paper’s website suggest it could be a badger or a dog which has bloated in the water and decomposed, rendering it unrecognisable.

Others have made more exotic guesses, suggesting that it could have washed into the Bristol Channel from the Atlantic and could be a capybara or even a chupacabras – Spanish for blood sucking goat – a legendary creature which has never been formally identified.

The photographs were taken by 27 year-old Peter Bailey who was walking his dog along Tenby’s South Beach on Friday evening.

He told the Telegraph: “I was taking my dog for her evening walk across the south beach when she started acting out of character by howling and running round in circles.

“I ran up to her to see if she was ok and then I came across this hideous looking carcass. I could see it had little hair left on it’s decomposing body.

“Immediately I thought it was a horse but it had claws like a bear and a body of a pig. Surprisingly it didn’t smell.”

The beast, which has since disappeared from the beach, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Montauk Monster – a creature which washed up on the shores of New York in 2008.

The creature was removed and never officially identified, but many experts agree it was probably a raccoon with its upper jaw torn off.

The 'Montauk Monster', discovered in the US in 2008