A Duo of Chupacabras in Texas?

http://www.tonic.com/article/a-duo-of-chupacabras-in-texas/

A Duo of Chupacabras in Texas?
David Bois | Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Were they simply dogs too ugly to be believed, or something more dire and fearsome? A pair of animals mere miles apart has folks abuzz about the legendary chupacabra.

Folks in and around Hood County, Texas are scratching their heads and wondering: What in tarnation are these critters that have recently turned up? Are they simply a pair of seriously ugly dogs?

Or has something more sinister and fearful fallen upon their towns?

We learn by way of Yahoo's The Buzz Log that animal control officer Frank Hackett was recently called to an unusual duty. As News Provider reports, a local rancher spotted the ugly creature, and Hackett shot and killed the loose and reportedly menacing and potentially dangerous animal.

A close inspection of the animal's remains has locals wondering if what they have on hand is an honest-to-goodness chupacabra.

The word chupacabra, which translates to "goat sucker," was coined by Puerto Rican comedian-businessman Silverio Perez to describe a 1995 event involving eight sheep that were found dead, all of which were completely drained of blood and bearing similar puncture wounds in their chests.

A fearful creature of legendary status was born, and word of his mythic malevolence rapidly spread beyond Puerto Rico throughout the Americas. Reports of chupacabra sightings have come in from places as distant and different as Maine and Chile. Many have taken an interest in the beast and in gathering reports of strange sightings thought to be of the fearsome beast that is believed to feed on the blood of livestock.

Adding to the tension and heightened attention in Texas is the fact that the current example is just one of two very similar and very strange sightings. Just a few miles away, a second animal was shot and killed. It too is doglike, hairless and homely.

As Buzz Log writes, Hackett is holding off on judging the discovery as proof of the mythic creature, opting to wait until DNA analytical results make their way back from the laboratory. What he will say for now, though, is that whatever that thing is, or was, "it wasn't normal."

Chicken deaths spark talk of Chupacabras

Chicken deaths near Horizon City spark talk of Chupacabras
By Jay Koester / El Paso Times
01/13/2010

HORIZON CITY -- The legend may be back, just as mysterious and dark, to stalk the unsuspecting.

Until last weekend, Cesar Garcia and brother-in-law Juan Miranda saw their life near Horizon City as secluded and peaceful.

They moved to the area from Chicago three years ago, but have suddenly been beset by strange and unexplained occurrences.

Their rabbits went into hiding, their cat spent the weekend on the roof of their house, their roosters didn't crow, and their dogs didn't bark.

And at least 30 of their chickens were killed by an unknown interloper.

The brothers are hesitant to say what they think spooked their animals or killed their chickens.

But when pressed, they said it: El Chupacabras.

The legend of El Chupacabras has been part of border folklore since stories of the creature's existence in Puerto Rico emerged in the early '90s. The creature has rarely, if ever, been seen, but it leaves dead animals behind. Its name comes from the animal's reported habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats.

But El Chupacabras is very real to Cesar Garcia, who came out of his house Saturday morning and found 20 dead chickens.

"I saw the chickens were dead, but there was no blood around the sheet metal" in the coop, Garcia said. "All of them were just dead in one big pile. But, really, I don't know what it was because there was no blood.

"If it had been a dog, there would have been blood everywhere because a dog tears them apart."

Garcia was puzzled by the wounds on some of the chickens, which he described as "two pokes."

"We looked it up on the Internet -- the Chupacabras," he said.

On Sunday morning, Garcia's brother-in-law, Miranda, found 10 more dead chickens in a different coop. Sheriff's deputies responded both mornings to investigate, Miranda said. El Paso County sheriff's spokeswoman Chris Acosta confirmed that deputies went to the house in the 15600 block of Slippery Rock.

Miranda said he could not figure out why the family's three dogs did not bark either night. "Nobody heard anything. Nobody saw anything," he said.

Miranda said whatever got the chickens left tracks that included a paw and a heel, and looked like Chupacabras tracks they found on the Internet. "We followed them all the way past the trailer over there, then over the fence. We walked about four blocks and then the footprints vanished."

Henry Flores, director of the Paso Del Norte Paranormal Society, said his group in the past has searched for El Chupacabras in far Northeast El Paso and in Chaparral. The group may now expand the search to the Horizon City area.

"Chupacabras ranks right up there as one of the creatures that has supposedly been seen," Flores said. "It's something we want to try to hunt down when we get a chance."

On their past hunts, Flores said, the group has never glimpsed El Chupacabras, but has found fresh carcasses drained of blood.

"We do see some trails of remains that we think could be the Chupacabras, but we just don't know," he said.

Tony Zavaleta, a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas-Brownsville and an expert in border folklore, said the story of El Chupacabras is kept alive by Spanish-speaking media.

"The Chupacabra is a mythical creature," Zavaleta said. "I reserve the right to say that until someone produces one."

Zavaleta said belief in El Chupacabras has become something of a game to people. Belief is widespread in Latin America and the American Southwest because any mention of the creature quickly gets picked up in the Spanish-speaking media and feeds the craze.

"I don't like to use the word 'hysteria,' but I'll use it with a small 'h.' " Zavaleta said. "Usually, the stories start when a small mammal is killed by a possum, coyote, mountain lion or something. Suddenly, people create an association with the Chupacabras."

The Chupacabras craze was biggest in El Paso in 1995, when T-shirts with images of the goat-sucker, based on "witness accounts," were hot items.

Chupacabras stories made the rounds in El Paso-Juárez that year, but one story stood out. A woman in the Juárez area told reporters that she was bitten by the creature on her neck. Her claim was debunked later as a ploy to divert attention from a lover's hickey and her supposed marital infidelity.

El Chupacabras even stumped TV FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in a 1997 episode of the "X-Files" that starred Ruben Blades.

But Garcia was left to wonder whether his trouble is over and whether it could have been worse: Until three weeks ago, there was still a herd of goats -- allegedly El Chupacabras' favorite food -- on his property.

"Now I'm left with no chickens. Thirty chickens -- gone," Garcia said. "Imagine if we still had the goats."

Jay Koester may be reached at jkoester@elpasotimes.com; 546-6130.

Chupacabras details

"Chupacabras" literally means "goat sucker," but the creature is purported to attack much more than goats, including chickens, birds, dogs, horses and sheep. Some theories of what the Chupacabras may be include a prehistoric dinosaur animal, a top-secret genetic manipulation project gone awry, a demon or a UFO experiment.

Though reports of the Chupacabras' physiology vary, many say that the creature has glowing red eyes, is about 3 to 4 feet in stature, and has small, membrane-like wings.

Mutilated animals that are reported as victims of the Chupacabras are usually reported to be missing their blood and to have two puncture wounds to the neck.

The Chupacabras was first reported in Puerto Rico in the early 1990s.

Soon after the reports in Puerto Rico, strange animal deaths and Chupacabras sightings began to be reported in the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, the U.S. and Mexico.

A New Mexico man kicking through the dirt of the West Mesa found the small cadaver of what appeared to be a Chupacabras. He put the specimen in a box, and took it with him to his construction job sites to scare and amuse colleagues, until the creature was finally identified as a type of ocean skate.

The UNAN (National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, Leon) holds the skeletal remains of a supposed Chupacabras cadaver submitted for analysis. The UNAN determined that the cadaver was that of a common dog.

Source: National Geographic

Chupacabras? - Four Sheep Killed In Mexico

http://www.rense.com/general81/shp.htm

Chupacabras? - Four Sheep Killed In Mexico
From Scott Corrales
Inexplicata - The Journal of Hispanic Ufology
4-11-8

Source: Fundacion Cosmos A.C.
and www.yucatan.com.mx
April 11, 2008
Mexico: Hairy Creature Attacks Sheep in Pustunich

PUSTUNICH, Ticul -- The bizarre deaths of four sheep in a small ranch of this community has caused trepidation among local residents, as there are those who claim that the "Chupacabras" is to blame.

Some locals claim having seen "a hairy animal standing nearly 2 meters tall" in the dark of night.

This situation has caused the town's habitual repose to be interrupted, especially that of the ranch's owner, who has even decided not to breed any more animals to avoid attracting the strange entity.

According to the facts, the strange deaths of four sheep occurred only a few days ago on the property of Ligia Couoh, on Calle 27 between 16 and 18.
"The animals showed no signs of being tortured, they only had two deep holes in the neck. There wasn't even any blood spilled on the soil. On that day the animal attached the three sheep and must've filled itself with blood, as the [fourth sheep] only had a scratch on it. However, on the next day, that last animal turned up dead . That was my last sheep, and that creature came back in the night to kill it."

"I told the police and a veterinarian came to inspect the animal. She said that the holes were deep and made by fangs that are curved, rather than straight."

Mrs. Couoh says that the animal that killed her sheep must fly, as she saw blood spattered in different locations.

"Perhaps it's the Chupacabras, as my neighbors have heard the screams of strange animals at night -- and seen them -- since my sheep were killed. That day I was overcome with fear. I was even paralyzed by the way in which my animals were killed. I've been living here for 47 years and had never seen or heard of animals being slain like this."
Ligia Couoh says that the several families have seen a strange entity standing two meters tall in the night, and they say it's like a bear.

Other residents of the locality say that ducks and turkeys have also been drained of blood.

(Translation (c) 2008, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Leopoldo Zambrano, Fundacion Cosmos AC)

The Top Ten Cryptozoology Stories for 2007

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/top-cz-07/

November 27th, 2007
The Top Ten Cryptozoology Stories for 2007
by Loren Coleman, Cryptozoologist and Author, Mysterious America, Cryptozoology A to Z, and other books.

From Bigfoot to Yeren, and from dwarf killer whales to dwarf manatees, it was quite a year.

Welcome to this year’s top stories in cryptozoology. It wasn’t heaven during 2007 for the cryptids, but instead seemed to have been a year of reflection, mistakes, fakes, and a few new finds.

In the 1940s, the Scottish-born American zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson began using a word he coined, “cryptozoology,” to describe a new discipline of science that investigates hidden, yet-to-be-discovered large animals. In the late 1950s, after a decade of correspondence with Sanderson, Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans began formalizing “cryptozoology.”

Today, cryptozoology is to be found from academia to museum exhibitions, from new television series to tee-shirts.

My annual picks are cryptozoological events, which became newsworthy during 2007 (even though they may have happened in an earlier year).

Here is my top ten list of the cryptozoology accounts of most interest to the public, cryptozoologists, Bigfooters, fans, friends, foes, and the media during this year. They may not be the most remarkable but they are the ones that garnered the largest media reaction and greatest public discussions on our favorite topic for 2007:

1. Holmes Nessie Videotaped

Gordon Holmes, a 55-year-old lab technician, was at a lay-by about 70 feet above Loch Ness on May 26, 2007, when he captured digital video of what he said was “this jet black thing, about 4 to 5 feet (1.4 m) long, moving fairly fast in the water.” Adrian Shine, a Nessie skeptic, described the footage as among “the best footage ever seen.” The footage shows no points of reference to demonstrate scale.

At Cryptomundo, the film’s credibility was questioned early, due to Holmes’ past claims of filming black fairies. Many also wondered aloud if this video was nothing more than an otter swimming in the loch.

Nevertheless, media interest in Nessie and other lake monsters was extremely high in the wake of the Holmes video, which was broadcast on BBC Scotland on May 29, 2007, and on CNN on June 1, 2007.

In early September 2007, a brief Internet frenzy occurred regarding the 20-minute video of six Lake Tianchi Monsters in China. A closer look at the Chinese video seems to show probable waterfowl.

2. Shunka Warak’in Mount Found

After 121 years, the mysterious taxidermy mount of the Shunka Warak’in (a wolf-hynea-like cryptid), from 19th century Montana, was found. The wolf-like creature prowled the Madison Valley, Montana, destroying livestock and reportedly letting out ungodly screams.

After being killed and stuffed in 1886, the taxidermy mount disappeared. In 2007, the body was tracked to the Idaho Museum of Natural History in Pocatello. It will be on display at Montana’s Madison Valley History Museum in May 2008. Hopefully DNA testing will finally determine this mystery candid-like species’ identity.

3. Bigfoot Film’s 40th Anniversary Celebrated

At Bluff Creek, California, an apparent female Bigfoot was filmed on October 20, 1967, by Roger Patterson, with assistance on his search from Bob Gimlin. Because this was the 40th year since that event, Bigfooters talked a great deal about the film in the last few months, attempted one gathering in California that was cancelled due to people not wanting to pay the high ticket prices, and quickly organized a celebration at Willow Creek. No one has proven the footage was faked, and during 2007, the merits of the footage were discussed frequently.

4. Cuero Chupacabras Killed

In July 2007, the pictured animal was hit by a car and killed on Phylis Canion’s property, on Buenger Road off U.S. Highway 183 south of Cuero, Texas. Canion had said she saw this “animal” for two years roaming her property. The immediate cry heard throughout the media was “Chupacabras” (sometimes incorrectly spelled without the “s”). Before the frenzy was over, tee-shirts had appeared on the scene.

In early November, the DNA results from tests run on the so-called “Chupacabras” by biologists at the Texas State University found the dead animal was a coyote (Canis latrans). In the end, the “Cuero Chupacabras” was only a mangy canid.

5. Dwarf Killer Whale, Dwarf Manatee, Giant Peccary, and More Discovered

The year was filled with a number of new species being announced. In a paper entitled the “Dwarf Form of Killer Whale in Antarctica,” the first 2007 issue of the Journal of Mammalogy summarized findings that few paid any attention to. Meanwhile, media accounts of the six years ago reports of the giant peccary in Brazil, or the more recent discovery of a dwarf manatee in the Amazon spread widely.

At Cryptomundo, other new species findings, from a new monkey in Uganda to a new clouded leopard in Southeast Asia, from new limbless amphibians in India to walking sea anemomes off the Aleutians, projected hopes for more cryptozoological surprises for the future.

The list is a long one of the 2007 discoveries. Reports of these new species were shared often at Cryptomundo, and included news of bizarre octosquids, legless amphibians, ethnoknown vipers, beaked whales, flying foxes, eel-like catfishes, golden frogs, Thai geckos, Hawaiian sharks, Thai mountain frogs, Panama salamanders, sucker-footed bats, cloud-forest rats, Madagascar millipedes, chicken-eating tarantulas, and Steve Irwin’s new turtles.

Also, an extinct echidna was rediscovered, an extinct blind snake was found, the first Zanzibar coelacanth was caught, the first Sumatran striped rabbit photographed, and the first video footage of elusive Borneo rhinos was captured. It was a good year. (Compare that list to a couple missteps - a fake photo of the allegedly extinct-in-the-wild South China tiger and a hoax photo of a supposedly rediscovered parrot.)

6. Nguoi Rung Kidnap Victim Returned

Ro Cham H’pnhieng, 27, was discovered on the edge of the Cambodian jungle in January 2007, after she was caught trying to steal food left under a tree. She was seen with a hairy Wild Man, a Nguoi Rung. Reportedly, she had been kidnapped in 1989 by the wild people and taken into the jungle. Attempts to find the Nguoi Rung (below) were made, with no positive results.

In October 2007, after Ro Cham H’pnhieng’s family tried to have her live with them again, after several incidents of her running away into the forest, she escaped for the final time, apparently to return to the Forest People. She had made her choice, her family felt.

7. Cryptozoology TV Succeeded

During 2007, two down-to-earth field-oriented cryptozoology documentary series were broadcast on cable television. Both programs, each in their first seasons, received high ratings and good reviews.

The SciFi Channel’s “Destination Truth” was produced by the Mandt Brothers, and the History Channel’s “MonsterQuest” was produced by White Wolf Productions. “MonsterQuest’s” episode on “Sasquatch Attack” created quite a stir in the Bigfoot community. The program dealt with an apparent rock-throwing incident that occurred during the actual filming of the program. Furthermore, DNA tests were conducted on old blood and tissue samples left on screws said to have been stepped on by a Bigfoot.

8. Mapinguary and Yeren Reemerged

The Mapinguary (pronounced MA-ping-war-E), the huge unknown anthropoid ape or the giant sloth-like monster of the Amazon, was in the news again in June and July 2007. New attention from The New York Times, revisited the topic early in the year, and spread to the UPI and NBC’s “Today Show.”

“It is quite clear to me that the legend of the Mapinguary is based on human contact with the last of the ground sloths,” said David Oren, former director of research at the Goeldi institute in Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon River.

The South American focus continued with the Centre for Fortean Zoology’s end of November excursion to Guyana to look into reports of the Didi and the overlap with the accounts of the Mapinguary.

New sightings of Chinese “Wild People,” two Yeren in Shennongjia, were reported on November 18, 2007. According to the witnesses, the two Yeren were skinny and covered with black hair. The taller one was about 1.7 meters high and the other one was approximately 1.3 to 1.4 meters. On November 22, members of the China Association for Scientific Expedition took plaster casts identified as two footprints left along the Licha River where the two mysterious creatures had been spotted.

9. Jacobs Creature Photographed

With timing keyed to the 40th anniversary of the Patterson-Gimlin footage, a Pennsylvania trailcam photograph was released for maximum exposure labeled to indicate it might be a “juvenile Sasquatch.” The picture and accompanying photographs of bear cubs were reported to have been taken on September 16, 2007, by a Bushnell game camera by an individual named R. Jacobs.

The “Jacobs Creature,” or “Jacobs Photograph,” as it was called, resulted in several ridicule-filled media reports and much debate within the Bigfoot community on the worth of the photograph. Cryptomundo noted it appeared to be of a “mangy bear,” and anthropologist Jeff Meldrum agreed, as did the Pennsylvania wildlife department. A few saw in the photograph a youthful Bigfoot.

Were other frames of the trailcam sequence being hidden from the public? Why was the photographs withheld for a month? What is the entire story of the Jacobs cryptid? At year’s end, many questions remain unanswered about the events surrounding the mystery photo.

10. Heuvelmans Biography Published

The biography of one of the “Fathers of Cryptozoology,” Bernard Heuvelmans, was published for the first time in 2007, in French. Jean-Jacques Barloy, who wrote the biography, “Bernard Heuvelmans, un rebelle de la science” (1st volume of the “Bibliothèque Heuvelmansienne,” Editions de l’Oeil du Sphinx, juin 2007) - Bernard Heuvelmans: A Rebel of Science - would win an award for his writings, the “Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2008? (category essay). The announcement of the prize was made on November 3, 2007.

Plans are in place to have the Heuvelmans biography translated into English, and published in a forthcoming year.

As far as obituaries for 2007, the most prominent in cryptozoology was the death of Bigfoot researcher Archie Buckley, an early and significant member of hominology, a cornerstone founder of the Bay Area Group, the Sasquatch research collective of the San Francisco Bay area. Buckley died on June 18, 2007.

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Join Loren Coleman on Saturday, December 1, 2007, as he delivers his talk, “Introduction to Cryptozoology,” at 1:00 PM, at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, New York, in conjunction with their current exhibition, Mythic Creatures.

Loren Coleman has been involved in cryptozoology since 1960. He is the author of over 30 books and hundreds of articles, appears frequently in documentaries, and is the director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Coleman may be reached via email at lcoleman@maine.rr.com