Chupacabra

Chupacabra has been credited with the vampirelike deaths of thousands of animals, ranging from goats, rabbits, and birds to horses, cattle, and deer. While some argue that the creature is a new monster, others point out that such entities have always existed and been reported by farmers and villagers in Puerto Rico and Central and South America. The beast has been observed by numerous eyewitnesses as it attacked their livestock, and they have described it as nightmarish in appearance. Standing erect on powerful goatlike legs with three-clawed feet, the monster is generally described as slightly over five feet in height, though some reports list it as over six and a half feet. Its head is oval in shape and it has an elongated jaw with a small, slit mouth and fangs that protrude both upward and downward. A few witnesses have claimed to have seen small, pointed ears on its reptilianlike head, but all who have seen the Chupacabra after dark state that they will never forget its red eyes that glow menacingly in the shadows.

Although its arms are thin, they are extremely powerful, ending in three-clawed paws. A most unusual attribute of the Chupacabra is its chameleonlike ability to change colors even though it appears to have a strong, coarse black hair that covers its torso. Somehow, the creature is able to alter its coloration from green to grayish and from light brown to black, depending upon the vegetation that surrounds it. Another peculiarity of the beast is the row of quill-like appendages that runs down its spine and the fleshly membrane that extends between these projections, which can flare or contract and also change color from blue to green or from red to purple. Some witnesses have claimed that the Chupacabra can fly, but others state that it is the beast’s powerful hindlegs that merely catapult it over walls, small trees, and one-story barns or outbuildings. It is those same strong legs that enable the creature to run at extremely fast speeds to escape its pursuers.

In Moca, Puerto Rico, in March 1975, something was killing cows, goats, pigs, and geese and draining all their blood. Deep stab or puncture wounds were found on the carcasses, causing the perpetrator to be christened the Moca vampire. Killer snakes and birds were blamed, and the Puerto Rico Agricultural Commission called on the police for a full investigation. On March 25, Juan Muñiz became the first human to be attacked by what he described as a “horrible creature covered in feathers,” forcing him to hide behind some bushes. In April, other towns on the island reported animal killings and attacks by a weird bird or doglike animal or unidentified flying object (UFO) aliens, but reports died out after a few more weeks.

In March 1991, another rash of pig, goose, and chicken killings erupted in Lares, Puerto Rico. Residents reported an apelike creature, while officials blamed feral dogs. In June 1991, livestock predation at Aguada was accompanied by reports of banana trees being ripped apart by something the island press dubbed Comecogollos, a hairy Bigfoo twith glowing eyes. Eight sheep were found dead with three puncture wounds and drained of blood in Orocovis.

In the second week of August 1995, Madelyne Tolentino of Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, was one of the first to see the Chupacabras responsible for a series of about 150 animal deaths in the area. It was about 4 feet tall, dark gray, with skinny arms and legs and apparent burn marks on its abdomen. It seemed to have feathers along its spine. Mrs. Bernardo Gómez of Caguas, Puerto Rico, on November 15, 1995, saw a hairy, redeyed beast rip open a bedroom window, destroy a stuffed teddy bear, and leave a puddle of slime and rancid meat on the windowsill. Residents of San Germán, Puerto Rico, chased a Chupacabras away November 16, 1995, just as it was about to kill three fighting roosters. It had large, almond-shaped eyes, an oval face, and small hands protruding from its shoulders. On November 28, 1995, a hand- or footprint was found after an attack at Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. It showed 6 fingers or toes Osvaldo Rosado of Guánica, Puerto Rico, claimed that on December 23, 1995, he was grabbed from behind by a gorilla-like animal that gave him a bear hug so tight that wounds appeared on his abdomen.

A Chupacabras killed a pair of sheep at Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, on January 8, 1996. José Febo saw it sitting in a tamarind tree; when it saw him, it jumped down and ran off like a gazelle. On March 9, 1996, Ovidio Méndez of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, was burying a dead and mutilated chicken when he saw a creature 4 feet tall and walking on two legs. It had large fangs, red eyes, pointed ears, and clawlike hands.

It wasn’t long after the night terrors began in Puerto Rico before reports of Chupacabra began appearing in Florida, Texas, Mexico, and among the ranchers in Brazil’s southern states of Sao Paulo and Parana. In Brazil, the ranchers called the monster “O Bicho,” the Beast, but there was no mistaking the brutal signature of the Chupacabra on the mutilated corpses of sheep and other livestock. And the description provided by frightened eyewitnesses was also the same—a reptilian creature with thin arms, long claws, powerful hind legs, and dark gray in color.

About sixty-nine animals—goats and fowl— were killed in Sweetwater, Florida, in March 1996. Teide Carballo saw a dark-brown, monkeylike creature walking on two legs like a hunchback. Dade County officials attributed the attacks to wild dogs. From March through May 1996, numerous Chupacabras reports were made in Mexico. Teodora Ayala Reyes in a village in Sinaloa State and José Angel Pulido in Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, Jalisco State, both claimed to be cut or bitten by a Chupacabras. By late May, there were forty-six attacks on 300 animals and four people. Mexican Chupacabras were said to be more rodentlike and only 3 feet tall. Violeta Colorado’s dogs cornered a strange animal in Zapotal, Mexico, on May 9, 1996. It hissed weirdly and escaped. The same night, nine sheep were killed nearby and their blood drained.

On May 11, 1997, the newspaper Folha de Londrina in Parana State, Brazil, published the account of a slaughter that had occurred at a ranch near Campina Grande do Sul when in a single corral 12 sheep were found dead and another 11 were horribly mutilated. While some authorities attributed the attacks to wild dogs or cougars, those who had been eyewitnesses to the appearance of the beast argued that the creature that they had seen walking on its hind legs and seizing livestock by the throat had most certainly not been any kind of known canine or cat. Rumors concerning Chupacabra’s origin began to circulate at a furious pace. Fifty animals were found drained of blood on a farm near Utuando, Puerto Rico, on November 20, 1997. Twin triangular perforations appeared on their stomachs.

From April to September 2000, the bloodsucker in Chile slaughtered more than 800 animals, and both the people and the authorities were becoming concerned about what kind of monster was running amuck in their country. On May 3, 2000, in Concepción, Chile, Liliana Romero Castillo was awakened by barking dogs and looked out to see a 7-foot, winged humanoid in her garden. At 6 p.m. the next day, her children found a dead, bloodless dog with two puncture marks at its throat. The Chilean military police removed it shortly afterward. Some 200 sheep were killed in the area around Calama, Antofagasta Region, Chile, in the first twenty days in May 2000. A halfhuman, half-animal shape had been seen.

On August 30, 2000, Jorge Luis Talavera, a farmer in the jurisdiction of Malpaisillo, Nicaragua, had enough of the nocturnal depredations of Chupacabra. The beast had sucked the life from 25 of his sheep and 35 of his neighbor’s flock, and he lay in wait with rifle in hand for its return. That night it seemed that Talavera accomplished what no other irate farmer or rancher had been able to do. He shot and killed a Chupacabra. Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology, reported that a specialist of veterinary medicine examined the carcass and acknowledged that it was an uncommon creature with great eye cavities, smooth batlike skin, big claws, large teeth, and a crest sticking out from the main vertebra. The specialist said that the specimen could have been a hybrid animal made up of several species, created through genetic engineering.

However, on September 5, 2000, the official analysis of the corpse by the university medical college was that Talavera had shot a dog. A furious Luis Talavera declared that the officials had switched carcasses. “This isn’t my goatsucker,” he groused as the college returned the skeleton of a dog for his disposal. The events were blamed on National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) genetic experiments that got out of control.

On the night of August 28, 2001, a couple were returning home from a church meeting in Calama, Chile, when they saw a small, hairy, gray-and-white figure by the side of the road coming out of the bushes. It was apparently suspended a few inches off the ground. It sped across the road in an oddly rigid manner.

On January 12, 2002, two teenagers near Calama, Chile, reported a 6-foot-tall, dogheaded, football-shaped monster that hopped menacingly toward them. It had three fingers and toes and a tail 2 inches thick. Some witnesses to the bloody rampages of the creature described it as a large rodent, others as a mutant kangaroo; still others perceived it as a winged, apelike vampire. A number of authorities began to speculate that the Chupacabra- type creatures had been manufactured by some secret government agency, a bizarre hybrid of various animals, created for whom knew what purpose. A number of clergymen issued pronouncements stating that the creatures were heralding the end of the world. UFO enthusiasts theorized that aliens brought the monsters to test the planet’s atmosphere, in order to prepare a mass invasion of Earth.

Anthropologists reminded people that tales of such mysterious, vampirelike monsters that sucked the blood out of livestock had been common in Central America for centuries. A widely popular story spread throughout Chile that Chilean soldiers had captured a Chupacabra male, female, and cub that had been living in a mine north of Calama. Then, according to the account, a team of NASA scientists arrived in a black helicopter and reclaimed the Chupacabra family. The creatures, so the story claimed, had escaped from a secret NASA facility in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile where the U.S. space agency was attempting to create some kind of hybrid beings that could survive on Mars.

Today, Chupacabra reports continued unabated from nearly all the South American countries. While the creature remains controversial and arguments ensue whether it is some kind of vampire, extraterrestrial alien, or a creation of some secret branch of the U.S. government, frightened and angry people complain that whatever Chupacabra is, it continues to suck the blood from their livestock.

(Sources : Encyclopedia of Unusual and Unexplained Things; Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology by George M Eberhart)

(Pic source : Encyclopedia of Unusual and Unexplained Things Vol.3 page 71)