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UFO Digest publisher Dirk Vander Ploeg has a new site dedicated to cryptos, cryptids, monsters and beasties at MonsterTracker.com. 

Chupacabra: (Un)Solved Mysteries and Imagery

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.

Skeptic Benjamin Radford, in his recent and supposed solving of the chupacabras mystery, writes that one of the early Chupacabra witnesses, Madelyne Tolentino, had seen the movie Species a few weeks before her sighting of the Chupacabras, which Radford found “suspicious.”:

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.

Mothman, Puppet Wolves and the Nunahee (UFO Digest 1/09)

 This article first appeared on UFO Digest, January 2009.

 Mothman, Puppet Wolves and the Nunahee

In Andrew Colvin’s The Mothman's Photographer III, he mentions entities that visited him when he was a child:

All I had ever been able to remember was some scurrying activity in the room while I was asleep, perhaps by some small, furry creatures akin to the Cherokee “Nunahee” or Hawaiians “Menehune” (note similarity in names.) But it all seemed so dream-like I never thought it was real.

Colvin goes on to say he had done a regression and recovered a memory of interacting with the beings:

“I could remember telling the entities -- whether they were real or from the dream state -- to leave me alone.” (Mothman’s Photographer III, page 96)

When I read this I felt that familiar jolt of synchronous memory, a tugging at things within. It was Colvin’s comment about “scurrying activity “ in his bedroom and “small, furry creatures” that got me. I have memories of being visited by small, furry creatures. I call them the “puppet wolves” because they reminded me of hand puppets, gray, and looking something like wolves. They would gather all around my bed, and were very active. They’d come right up to me and talk to me. They both scared me and delighted me. They weren’t vicious or harmful, but they I had the feeling they weren’t all sweetness and light either. I knew I had to be careful around them. As it turns out, my husband had these same kinds of memories from his childhood. We both have had a lifetime of UFO and paranormal experiences; separately and together. I wrote about this in my Trickster’s Realm column I write for Tim Binnall’s Binnall of America site:

Another event that happened frequently was the “puppet wolves,” visitations, as I called them. These events were connected somehow with the above, but also different. They weren’t the same creatures, for example. It wasn’t quite as pleasant either. And I remember some events happening during the day; still in bed, but daytime.

The fuzzy puppet wolves were very small, not more than about twenty-four inches tall. They were fuzzy/furry, gray, and reminded me of puppets. They weren’t exactly malevolent, but they were quick to be extremely mischievous, pushy, and just not as “nice” as the others. I could see these guys, and remember to this day what they looked like. The other guys, I don’t remember at all, except that they were small. The puppet wolves would gather around my bed, several of them, and they were insistent. They didn’t take no for an answer, and I’d have to go with them. I don’t remember anything other than that.

Not long ago, my husband “Joe” and I were talking about our childhood “weird” experiences; memories of the paranormal, or whatever word you want to use. Before I said anything, he began to tell me of something that happened to him sometimes when he was a kid. While he was in bed, furry gray “things” would gather around the edges of the bed, and tug at him, taking him away. (Neither of us remember where we went.) I asked him if they reminded him in a way, of wolves; he said yes. Small nasty little wolf puppet, or stuffed animal-toy beings. He had never heard my story before.
The Synchronicity of Fuzzy Puppet Wolves Binnall of America, July 2007)

An online search revealed a little something about the Nunahee. I found this on an MSN message board: Native American Stories Library, where a poster describes the Nunahee:

the nunahee were the protectors of the cherokee people
and one day the chief of the nunahee came to the people and said
you have to come with us
there is great danger coming
and you will all die

In this example, the Nunahee are protectors, as well as messengers of something bad to come. Like Mothman, as many believe, who is a protector in a way, a messenger, something -- or someone -- who sees and arrives to warn.

The Cherokee connection is interesting too; it’s almost cliché to say that many UFO and paranormal experiencers are of Native descent. My grandfather was part Native; Cherokee and Lenape. (By the way, I don’t mean to say my small, furry animal creatures were Nunahee, Menehune, or Mothman, just noting Colvin’s comparing of word origins.)

I’m not sure what the “puppet wolves” my husband and I experienced in our childhoods purpose was: to protect us, warn us or maybe both? Were they guides to a liminal experience?
The point is, as we go deeper into the esoteric realm, as say, with Mothman, (or Bigfoot, or UFOs, or any number of high strangeness, anomalous experiences ) we realize there is much more to just any one specific aspect; and it’s all connected. It may seem that these “gray basket” events, as researcher Stanton Friedman calls them, has nothing to do with UFOs. And maybe they don’t, at some level. Not directly. Yet it’s possible they do on another level. I realize these seemingly contradictory, yes/no/maybe connections -- often fuzzy connections-- frustrate some researchers, particularly some UFO researchers. It’s helpful, and encouraging, to remember what UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek said:

"The part we ignore…may contain the clue to the whole subject."

Notes:
• Andrew Colvin, Mothman’s Photographer III, Metadisc, 2009
• Native American Library
• J. Allen Hynek, The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry 1972
• Regan Lee, Trickster’s Realm: Fuzzy Puppet Wolves, Binnall of America, 2007