El Chupacabra: An ex-cryptid?
In the pantheon of legendary creatures, there’s Big Foot, Loch Ness, the West Virginia Mothman.
But in Spanish-speaking parts of the world, one beast looms large and mythical: El Chupacabra. That would be “the goat sucker,” an allegedly spiny, heavy, big-eyed animal killer who drains the blood of his victims.
But a paranormal investigator says he’s solved the roots of the mystery, ABCnews reported Tuesday. The station interviewed Benjamin Radford, the managing editor of the magazine “Skeptical Inquirer,” who said he tracked down the Puerto Rican woman believed to have made the first spotting of the monster in 1995.
(But what of the chupacabra reference in the 1960s TV show “Bonanza,” you say? Well, that was actually to a super-strong whippoorwill bird that sucked milk, not blood, from goats, Radford said.)
Through Facebook, Radford said he found the woman, Madelyne Tolentino, who had described the chupacabra for reporters at time when a lot of dead farm animals and pets were popping up in her village. Here’s her hilarious description, as described by Radford to ABCnews:
Radford said the creature reportedly spotted by Tolentino was about four feet high with oddly-wide, dark eyes, thin arms, three fingers and stood on two legs. She also said it lacked ears, had small air holes instead of a noise and feathery spikes on its back.
“She said she only saw it for a minute or two, it wasn’t for very long,” he said. “But she gave a whole description of the number of toes, eyes, an alien appearance, the teeth and she even noticed that it had no genitals.”
Like all good paranormal investigators, Radford found the description “suspiciously detailed.” He soon discovered why. Weeks before the monster sighting, Tolentino had seen the sci-fi horror movie “Species,” which features a scary killer alien that looked a lot like the chupacabra description, Radford said.
But what of later reports of hairless, four-legged chupacabras?
Mangy dogs, foxes and coyotes afflicted with a skin disease, Radford said.
We refuse to believe that El Chupacabra does not exist. He is most likely to strike once we let our guard down!
Besides, the police rendering featured at the start of the article is a far cry from the El Chupacabra that was shot in Kentucky and the El Chupacabra embodied by comedian Nick Kroll - much more convincing and menacing foes.
