“ El chupacabra” Bigfoot

With Teeth?
A mix of vampire and marauding, furry lizard,
the Chupacabra has become one of the most
common beasts studied under the general
heading of cryptozoology, the study of
animals that may or may not be real. No one
has ever caught a Chupacabra, though plenty
of eyewitnesses claim to have seen one.
Descriptions vary. Eyewitness accounts
during a rash of alleged attacks in 1995,
many in Puerto Rico, described the animal as having a "reptilian body,
oval head, bulging red eyes, fanged teeth and long, darting tongue,"
according to a report at the time in the daily San Juan Star.

That same description has weathered decades of scrutiny. First

appearing in the late 1960s, alleged Chupacabra attacks picked up
markedly in the mid-'90s, moving America's leading cryptozoologist,
Loren Coleman, to term the animal "the single most notable
cryptozoological phenomenon of the past decade." Coleman is the
author of Cryptozoology A to Z.
"What's unique about the Chupacabra is that it's crossing languages,
which I think shows how small our world is getting," says Coleman,
reached by phone from his home in Portland, Maine. "It's sort of like
Jennifer Lopez, kind of cross-cultural."

Indeed, in Latin America, the animal's reputation has spread south on a

wave of Internet and newspaper publicity, with the Chupacabra
behaving as a sort of celebrity monster. As recently as October of
1999, Brazil's Corriero Braziliense newspaper reported eight goats and
three sheep dying of single wounds to the neck. Other Brazilian
eyewitnesses claimed to have seen an animal that may fly or leap with
powerful, monkey-like hind legs, attacking animals and humans both.
Most witnesses also claim to have seen fangs. In every case, a
predator appeared to wantonly kill livestock (usually goats or
chickens), then mysteriously disappeared. No meat was taken, and
only a small bite to the neck was apparent. And though no
photographs of the assailant itself exist, hundreds of photos of the
dead animals are on record, eerily similar — drained of blood, but
otherwise intact. And there are those eyewitnesses, from dozens of
incidents in far-flung regions, all telling strikingly similar stories.

No such eyewitnesses came forward in Chile, but Calama's incident fits

the profile. One fact in particular stands out: Whatever killed the
livestock hadn't eaten them, but inexplicably drained the animals of
blood and left the meat behind.

Vampirism ... in paddocks ... of goats — classic Chupacabra behavior,

never before seen so far south as Chile.