In the beginning of things men were animals and animals men. ~ Algonquin saying
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons." ~ The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Sad and mysterious, unexplained deaths of dozens of sheep. Nearby animals such as pigs, etc. were not attacked. Little blood, sheep not ripped apart, so what caused it? Illness? One witness says he saw a winged being in the area:
When farmers in Mexico found 35 of their sheep slaughtered with significant claw and tooth marks around their necks, they had one creature to blame – the legendary chupacabra.
One man tending to the sheep overnight in the small Mexican town of Paracuaro said he saw animals with sharp fangs and wings kill the livestock.
In-depth, insightful, and very interesting, and goes way beyond the pop culture, pedestrian, and non-esoteric attempts by skeptic Benjamin Radford:Frontiers of Zoology: Chupacabras SOLVED, by Dale Drinnon.
There's much there, and this is just a little bit from Drinnon's post:
For the most part, the traditional creatures later being CALLED chupacabras in Mexico are referred to under the blanket terms of 'Nahual' or 'Nagual.' This was originally the name of an Aztec magical practitioner and healer but more usually means the same thing as witch or demon any more. The term 'Brujo' is also used. The idea behind Naguals originally was that they had certain animal totems, which granted them powers and allowed the practitioners to assume animal form - any of a number of different forms. I suppose even hairless coyote would count. So more recently the term includes shapeshifters in general AND the totem power animals as well. The name also has a more positive meaning of protective spirits in animal form. In the case of the reptilian chupacabras, I am not certain as to what the native name of the totem power animal supernatural lizard originally was, but different recent references call it the King Lizard or King Iguana, Dragon or Dragon Lizard, Cipactli and possibly Chan.
I chose the above because it resonated with me: totem animals, Naguals, shape-shifters. Note Dale's remark about shape-shifters: "...allowed the practitioners to assume animal form ... I suppose even hairless coyote would count." Interesting take, given the number of hairless canine creatures seen, and all too often killed, that fit this description. I've always looked at the two types of chupacabra from a more social-folkloric perspective concerning the way language (names and labels) change. But Drinnon's theories go further, and deeper, presenting us with a parallel esoteric, or living myth via symbolism in the shape of a chupacabra.
Another hairless, blue-gray hued creature that's become known as "chupacabra" has been captured. No one can say what the animal is, (at times it looked like a fox, or some kind of strange little fawn, etc.) Fortunately, no one took a shot at it and they let even let it go. Which annoyed the hell out of the highly irritating hostess on the clip, but typical MSM patter and trivializing of events. That aside, (what else can we expect) interesting to have film of one of these creatures: Chupacabra Captured? Recap - Yahoo! TV
I had an odd and creepy thing happen to me today. I parked in the large parking lot at the Goodwill. After checking out the Goodwill, I walked across the parking lot to go to the St. Vincent de Paul's, which is right next door. The Goodwill parking lot extends all the way to a little patch of grass, then the much smaller St. Vinnie's parking lot.
So I'm walking along, hot day, and see this skeleton just spread out on the blacktop, next to the patch of grass. You can see a bit of the grass in this photo:
The placement is very odd. What's it doing there, right off the sidewalk and close to the parking lot entrance by a heavily trafficked street? A decomposing body would very likely have been moved by any number of businesses around there. It takes a bit of time for a body to decompose, so I'd think it would have been noticed long before it got to the state I found it in. It looked staged, as if someone had brought it there. Maybe another animal dragged it there somehow. But, why? Overall, seems odd.
That parking lot gets a lot of traffic every day, lots of people going by in cars, and on bikes, as well as pedestrians. The area is an industrialized area with lots of stores around; right across the street from a large grocery and department store, fast food places, etc.
When I looked closer at the photo it looked like one of the legs had been cut off, or detached. Either intentionally cut or by natural process, hard to know. And its other back leg bent and sticking up, then the long tail, which you can see in the first photo. At first I thought the leg sticking up on the left was a tail, but I think it's a rear leg. I'm not sure what this animal was. At first I thought it was a cat, but what looks like a tail (on the left) is awfully long; too long for a cat. Then I thought possum, but the head doesn't seem the right shape.
This is the first picture I took; sun was bright but the image has a spooky artistic vibe, don't you think?
Say, maybe this is the skeleton of a chupacabra!
I don't mean to be flip, it's both creepy and sad, as well as a bit weird. A mundane explanation -- possum, say, -- but I can't figure out what it is. And it is strange how it got there.
Radford writes that it's possible the thirteen year old Carter Pope may face felony charges for killing the creature. We all know it's not a chupacabra, as Radford correctly points out (*my god, I'm agreeing with a skeptic! fancy that) this animal will turn out to be a canine. Why the boy, and others who've killed such animals misidentified with chupacabras feel the need to blast away when they see one is beyond me, except that some of us humans shoot first, ask later, when confronted with an unknown. Pope's shooting is considered animal cruelty under Texas law, as Radford comments:
Carter Pope may end up getting in trouble with animal rights advocates — or even the law. Pope, a minor, presumably had his parents' written permission to carry the rifle he used as required by Texas law. But just because a person sees an animal he or she doesn't recognize doesn't necessarily mean they have the right to shoot and kill it on a whim. The animal was not attacking anyone or anything, nor being a nuisance. And while the creature was probably a feral dog or coyote, it could be a neighbor's missing, sick pet. If the animal turns out to be a dog, Pope could potentially be charged with a felony. Texas Penal Code 42.09 on animal cruelty states a person who "kills, seriously injures, or administers poison to an animal, other than cattle, horses, sheep, swine, or goats, belonging to another without legal authority or the owner's effective consent," could be charged with a felony offense.
*Actually, I don't agree with him; Radford, while making good points about shooting an animal just because you don't know what it is, and that it is a canine, cannot resist going the skeptoid route and making snarky comments about UFOs, etc.
At Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman comments on Nick Redfern's recent Monsters and Proof article on elusive cryptids:Cryptids Are Not Totally Elusive, Actually. Coleman doesn't think much of what Redfern has to say, not surprisingly. Comments that follow are interesting --- Redfern's thoughts have generated controversy.
I think Nick's views have been misunderstood. Coleman comes from a place where cryptids -- all cryptids -- are "real" in a flesh and blood sense. Like nuts and bolts UFO researchers, the idea of an "other" is not to be entertained. I'm not sure I agree 100% with Redfern, but I do think that some high strangeness events involving weird creatures do have a paranormal component. It is possible these entities are of both worlds, manifesting as physical beings one moment, behaving as phantoms the next.
Colemanm in his response, offers the standard definitions of cryptozoology and cryptids; maybe a new term should be offered so as not to offend the flesh and blood types who are stuck in their assertion that only "real" animals exist. The belief is that, while so far elusive, they are not in any way preternatural.
One last point: some people (although certainly not you) seem at times to react with barely concealed hostility to my Tulpa-style views. But why? If Bigfoot exists, what does it matter if it’s some sort of ape, or something infinitely weirder that is connected to the human mind?
I think it's because (again making a connection to UFO studies)the idea there is more than just the concrete and tangible in our world conflicts with a worldview, a mindset, that doesn't allow for such "silliness." People are people, and our beliefs, including the pride some hold in stating they have no beliefs, color how we approach things. As to Bigfoot; those that think of Bigfoot as simply an animal (forgetting that we too are animals) places Bigfoot in the lesser than category. Bigfoot is a "giant ape," and so, still just a big dumb animal. Not as dumb as most, but still less than us. And since it's less than, we can do what we like with it. Bigfoot as a big old ape is familiar, we get it. It's something we can handle. Tulpas, shape shifters, aliens, fairies, Djinn, tricksters, are truly elusive and something we cannot get a hold of. It's gotten ahold of us, not the other way around. Much safer to deal with the flesh and blood thing we can grab onto, and possibly, control.
The meme has been released that the chupacabras mystery has been solved, thanks to skeptic Ben Radford's theory that a witness confused/overlaid imagery from a sci-fi movie onto some kind of creature she saw but was unfamiliar with. Of course, nothing has been "solved" instead, an interesting theory has been presented that may help explain part of a complex phenomena. But, for those who need to find closure to mysterious events, this theory will be held up as proof the chupacabras was only a case of misidentification.
No one will ever know what's really happening here; trickster afoot within the weird works that way. Still, there are those who persist in finding answers in order to close the door on intruding events from other realms.
What if the witness had indeed seen something that could be compared to the creature in the movie Species? It is possible the creature did look like the Species figure; because it was that weird. But, as I've pointed out, to my eye the two share as many disimilar features as they do similar ones. Plenty has been written about Hollywood and government working together to release information disinformation on covert topics, like UFOs, aliens, war crimes and so on. That wouldn't quite explain all of the characteristics of the Species creature; the chupacrabas descriptions are as alike as they are different. And I'm not seriously suggesting Species was an intentional Hollywood/government disinfo movie.
It could be that the witness Radford references did see something out of place and unknown -- Forteana is full of out of place creature events -- and the closet she could get to describing what she saw was to compare it to something accessible to most in pop culture. Because she saw Species, comparing the chupacabras with the movie image, doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't a cryptid running amok at the time.
In discussing this episode with my spouse, he made the observation that Radford was looking for something to "solve" the mystery, and found it by latching onto the fact the witness had seen the movie Species some weeks prior to her sighting. How much earlier did she see the movie? What other potential things could account for the chupie sighting? Did Radford go looking for this and pulled it out -- er, "lead" the witness in other words, akin to what UFO abduction researchers who use hypnosis are accused of doing? Asking the leading questions until you find yourself where you want to be in the explanation paradigm?
Interesting thoughts. But, as Radford commented on my first post on this topic, there are about "two chapters" worth of analysis that I am unaware of, not having read his book.
About fifteen years ago, I was working on my final folklore project in graduate school, focusing on cataloging the ways animals appear in paranormal, UFO, and Fortean narratives. Sometimes animals appeared as mundane entities as “witnesses”, other times, the animals were themselves supernatural or “others.” Here’s a small bit about the Chupacabra from the paper, tentatively titled My Alien Lizard Lover: Animal Motifs in UFO and Fortean Narratives:
The Chupacabra (goat sucker) is the creature of legend unto itself. Described as three to four feet tall, with large, “wrap around eyes (not unlike the eyes of the gray aliens) with a spiny ridge on its back, the Chupacabras has been a part of lore in the Latino community for a few years, originating from Puerto Rico, which has folkloric traditions of vampire type creatures who attack animal and humans alike. Chupacabra punctures its victims; rabbits, goats, chickens, and other small creatures, in the neck, draining the victim of all blood. Recently the stories have included attacks on humans. In the past two or three years, stories of Chupacabras have made their into Latino ethnic beliefs in the United States, as well as crossing over into non-Latino (Anglo, etc.) groups. Cooper’s Dictionary of Symbolic and Mythologic Animals gives this definition this definition of the goat sucker birds:
An evil and ill omened nocturnal, and therefore allied to the powers of darkness: said to drain milk from cows and goats.. Goatsuckers can embody the souls of people unable to account for crimes committed while in human form; their cries are said to be the wailing of the ghost expiating the sins.” (Cooper; 1992: 114) Cooper does not give any cultural reference for this however. But the parallels to the term Chupacabras and the concept of a creature draining an animal of fluid, as well as its avenging nature, are obvious.
Many personal experience narratives combine the presence of Chupacabras with UFOs and extraterrestrials. “A lot of Mexicans believe in extra extraterrestrials, so that’s what they think they are” (Arizona Daily Star, Sunday, May 11, 1996) “Others think the Goat Sucker may have come from outer space of is the mutant progeny of some mad gene-splicing scheme.” (Dudley Althaus, Register-Guard, May 14, 1996)
Tensions within the narratives of Chupacabra include the fear expressed by telling these stories, and the satiric songs and cartoons that have become an industry.
Elizabeth Casals, in her article “Chupacabra Weekend” (UFO Magazine) writes of her search for personal narratives in Mexico about the Chupacabras. No one would admit that they believed such lore, but Casals did find “souvenir stalls, their shelves pile high with plaster piggy bans and cowhide wallets. And racks of T-shirts. Several styles of Chupacabras shirts caught my eye: particularly the one that read “Beware - the Chupacabra will get you.” (Casals, 1996:30) Obviously tourism is good for the Chupacabras business, whether or not the lore is believed by locals. She did find a woodcarver who had carved an image of the Chupacabra.
People within this tradtion are usually reluctant to talk about the Chupacabras and are afraid of being ridiculed. A superstitious belief that they will invite the Chupacabras into their lives by discussing the creature may be the motivation for keeping silent on the Chupacabras, particularly towards outsiders. Yet, as happens so often in folklore, there are contradictions. Humor, satric songs, and cartoonish images often the fear an and unease about the unknown. The Chupacabra is an unknown, and is believed to be causing damage to people's pets as well as humans. By creating a story that this Chupacabra is, indeed a creature, and, that the creature is a “pet” of the aliens, some order has been made out of the chaos of harmful, unexplained events. The Chupacabra has been given a place and a definition.
The paper is over sixteen years old, and of course, I was writing within the context of approved-by-academia and the confines of my subject area, folklore. (I also notice in looking this over that a lot is lacking as to citations, style, and so on. ) Which, as I commented on the C-Influcence blog, required a particular mind-set regarding one’s philosophical treatment of paranormal-UFO events:
I loved the academic realm of folklore as a discipline, but, had a few major problems with it at the same time. I am not an academic, and , when in college, decided to not follow that path. I’m simply not wired that way; can’t deal with authorities, politics, 9 to 5 job milieu. . . but that aside, I found a huge problem in folklore studies -- as an academic pursuit - that seemed ironically contradictory. On the one hand, collecting stories while remaining nonjudgmental was encouraged. At the same time, it seemed to me folklore couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Professors wanted conclusions, they wanted a psychological analysis. Well, I’d say, I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a psychology student, I’m not even taking any psychology classes. While I could give a sort of every-woman’s, educated take on, say, UFO narratives using psychology (Jung, etc.) it wouldn’t really be worth much. If not psychology, sociology, if not that, science, they wanted something. Pointing out that folklore, while utilizing those areas in some ways, is not those things, -- well, we just went around.
To the above, I will add that the aknowledgement of these things as possible, let alone real, was simply not an option.
At the time, Chupacabras was big news in both the marginalized and fringe cultures of paranormal studies, as well as the mainstream news. Usual explanations from the latter group for Chupacabras included “cultural or sociological anxiety”, good old superstitions, and a sudden misunderstanding of predators and their affects on domestic and livestock, ranch and farm animals. As these stories do, Chupacabra faded away a bit, and for reasons I haven’t yet figured out, morphed into a new kind of Chupacabra: the canine type animal reported as a Chupacabra reported throughout the United States.
To me, that was the smoking gun," he said. "It can't be a coincidence that this Chupacabra that's now popping up around the world just happens to look exactly like the monster in this sci-fi film."
As usual with the kinder, gentler skeptic, the new tactic is not to accuse the witness of being mentally ill or a liar, just... “confused.”:
But Radford said he doesn't think Tolentino is a liar or hoaxer, just that she confused something she saw in a movie with something she saw in real life.
There are similarities; but there are also differences. Like breasts, numerous tendrils upon the head, and the height of the entity, which is quite tall.
This same explanation -- of imagined creatures from an entertainment venue -- was offered by skeptics when Barney and Betty Hill described their encounters. An Outer Limits episode: "The Bellero Shield" aired on February 10th, 1964, a couple of weeks before the HIlls experienced their UFO sighting and abduction. Again, there are similarities to the aliens in the television episode, but differences as well, including height. Contrast the Outer Limits creature with drawings of what the Hills saw made by both the Hills and other artists. Googling or otherwise searching out these images, and comparing and contrasting them for yourself will reveal that there are as many differences as there are similairites. (For a related article on imagery, see my Betty Hill's "The Supervisor": A Visceral Reaction, for UFO Digest.)
I’m not attempting to thoroughly analyze the merits of either case; but the point is, imagery within popular culture is often used to “explain” mysterious encounters. It’s silly to state images don’t influence us on many levels, every day, far more than we know. That is a whole other topic. At the same time, to throw about images from movies and television and use them to “solve” mysteries is just too simplistic.
I find it ironic that images and symbols are influencing us -- speaking to us --- every moment of every day and often in insidious and spooky ways, manipulated by the powers that be, and yet we remain ignorant of all that. At best, if we notice it at all, we label it “conspiracy theory” and move on. But the skeptics, and not a few UFO researchers, are quick to point to images as the cause for what’s perceived during paranormal or UFO encounters. This easy explanation takes care of everything in one fits all theory, and we no longer have to deal with the pesky supernatural, Fortean or UFO event.
Micah Hanks writes on the chupacabra: Startling Chupacabra Kill, or Merely Another Varmint Vanquished?I've posted here and on my Sasquatch blog Frame 352 about the trigger happy people in the U.S. who happily blast away at creatures they think might be the "chupacabra." Of course, as I and others have pointed out many times, the chupacabra is a spiny backed, red eyed, high jumping creature of the Fortean kind. Stories of the blood sucking cryptid came out of Puerto Rico, migrated to Mexico, Florida, elsewhere in the states and South and Central America, retaining its eerie high strangeness nature. No one spoke of mange ridden canines, or other mundane animals. Until, it seems, maybe three years ago or so, where reports of the latter creatures came in, mainly from the southwest but other states as well. People persisted in calling these poor creatures "chupacabra" and killed one as soon as they saw one.
So now the meme has been firmly planted: chupacabra of the true cryptid high strangeness variety, with all its conspiratorial theories -- government projects gone horribly awry, alien pets, inter-dimensional travelers, etc. -- are forgotten, and blue-gray skinned, hairless canine type creatures, probably foxes and or coyotes, etc. with mange or some type of disease have replaced the chupie of legend.
The fear persists however. Fear at seeing something unfamiliar. And so naming it with a handy pre-labeled moniker (chupacabra) and insisting the creature is unknown, a strange interloper, gives one justification for kill first, ask later.
As Micah correctly points out, the media that gladly reports on these stories, and the people that shoot away, are the same ones who laugh at the subject of cryptids, cryptozoology, and the like. Hanks quotes from a recent Fox "news" segment on a recent killing of a "chupacabra"
The legendary chupacabra has been spied, shot and killed — will bigfoot be next?
And rightfully points out the disgusting exploitative implications:
Wonderful to see that some odd-looking little creature (likely a possum, or perhaps a varmint of some sort, as we’ll get to in a moment) has been shot and killed, rather than the diminutive, lizard-like little monsters from the early Puerto Rican reports back in the 1990s. To be clear, this is not a “chupacabra” in the truest sense by any means. However, before we go any further with the report from today, is it too much to ask also that the word “Bigfoot” be capitalized? To quote Loren Coleman, author of Bigfoot: The True Story of Apes in America, since “words like Sea Serpent, Nessie, Bigfoot, Yeti, and related forms all have not been technically ‘accepted’ by systematic zoology, as of this date, the capitalized form (should) be employed.” (Curiously, the same does not typically apply to the use of the term chupacabra in Fortean literature, hence my use of the lower case… but I digress)
Mexican researchers said Wednesday they have identified jaw bones found in the pre-Hispanic ruins of Teotihuacan as those of wolf-dogs that were apparently crossbred as a symbol of the city's warriors.
In oral traditions and old chronicles, dog-like animals appear with symbols of power or divinity," said institute spokesman Francisco De Anda. "But we did not have skeletal evidence ... this is the first time we have proof."
Wolf- or dog-like creatures appear in paintings at Teotihuacan, but had long been thought to be depictions of coyotes, which also inhabit the region. But archaeologists are now re-evaluating that interpretation.
thanks to Lesley at The Debris Field for this item.
I would never know about this if it weren't for Forteans, like Lesley, who posted this link on her The Debris Field blog, for it appeared on the Buck Manager Deer Hunting and Management site, a site I would never visit. But it's interesting news, about black deer (melanistic deer) being seen in Texas. Black deer aren't unheard of, but according to the site are rare. The number of these black deer are increasing however, and why is a mystery. I can't help but see a connection between the increase in black deer and the "blue dogs" also called "chupacabras" in Texas (as well as other parts of the U.S.) There has to be, one would think, an environmental cause for these animals. A signal, that something is wrong, a signal us humans need to pay attention to.
It turns out Texas has more black deer in the area than other places:
Dr. John Baccus, director of the wildlife ecology program at Texas State University, has been studying melanistic deer for over 13 years now. And as it turns out, Texas is a good place to study the dark colored deer. That’s because there just happens to be more black deer in eight Texas counties than in the rest of the world combined!
Saw this link for a new website called UFO Pets on UFO Updates: a new website focusing on Fortean creatures, including of course Chupacabras, in Florida. I don't know much about the site, but from skimming it, it seems to be a collection of encounters and cases of cryptids in Florida, including Bigfoot sightings.
