Jan 18 2007
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Chupacabras Thoughts
Yesterday, I received an email from a contact on Puerto Rico who I had met when Jon Downes of Britain’s Center for Fortean Zoology and I visited the island in 2004 (see above photo taken during our trip) in search of the vampire-like Chupacabras. While there, we uncovered details of some highly intriguing reports – sightings of the beast, farm animals found drained of blood, strange lights in the sky associated with alleged Chupacabras attacks, and much more.
My late 2005 expedition to Puerto Rico with Paul Kimball of Red Star Films took the story to even stranger levels – with rumors suggesting that at least part of the legend of the Chupacabras might have been the result of U.S. Government psychological warfare planners planting tales to determine how superstitions and rumors can spread in a closed environment, and how a population can be psychologically affected and manipulated by the introduction of such rumors.
But yesterday’s email suggested yet another avenue of investigation worth exploring. According to the story, in the summer of 1967, a strange beast was observed late one evening “struggling on the ground” on farmland in the Moca area of the island.
The beast appeared injured and the farmer, terrified that it was something demonic, fled the scene to the safety of his home. The next day, the creature was gone. Several years later, however, he confided in his son the details. And it’s the son’s story – via an intermediary – that has now surfaced.
The son does not hold to the “demonic” angle, however: he believes that what his father had seen was some form of giant bat – and he bases this on the description of the creature having “a face like a little monkey – but much bigger,” a dark colored body, and distinctly bat-like wings. Now we are not talking about something the size of a large bird of prey here. No: the witness told his son that the animal appeared to be “near human in size.”
Now, of course, some will merely scoff at this report and relegate it to misidentification, legend, or the rumor-mill. However, reports of giant bats are surprisingly common. Since this is more akin to the field of cryptozoology, I won’t go into reams of detail. But several such cases are worth mentioning, at least.
Cameroon has the Olitiau – an immense bat-like beast, with large wings, a monkey-like face, and black fur. A similar creature is said to exist on Madagascar: the Fangalabolo. From Java, come reports of the Ahool: a giant bat with a 12-foot wingspan. The Guiafairo (whose name translates to “The fear that flies by night”) of Senegal falls into the same category; while the mythology of Indonesia tells of the Orang-Bati, once again a large bat-like entity, that lurks within an extinct volcano on the island and abducts children.
Of course, many of these reports (and particularly the story of the Orang-Bati) are the stuff of legend. But, behind many legends, there is often a semblance of truth. Is it possible that the Chupacabras of Puerto Rico is not an alien entity, a straightforward superstition, or the work of U.S. psychological warfare planners; but may indeed be some form of very large bat?
Such suggestions have been postulated before. However, the problem with the Chupacabras is that the tales of the beast have reached near-mythical status, and as a result it is the idea that the animal is one of high-strangeness which has led to its worldwide fame – and infamy. Indeed, I know from my now-several firsthand visits to the island that, in the eyes of many people there, the Chupacabras can only be an unknown entity – alien, demonic, monstrous, or (most absurdly) the nefarious work of “secret, government genetic engineering.”
Now, if the beast does turn out to be merely a large type of bat, that should not diminish the importance of the discovery. Indeed, whatever the answer turns out to be, we should embrace it. Something is afoot on Puerto Rico; of that I am absolutely certain. But I find it intriguing that for the most part, there broadly appears to be two schools of thought: one that suggests the beast has truly exotic origins (aliens, demons, the paranormal, “the government”), and one that points in the direction of fakery, superstition, misidentification, and the rumor-mill. Neither camp (or at least very rarely) touches upon the idea of an indigenous, yet undiscovered animal of far more down-to-earth origins.
It must be said that if the creature has less sensational origins than has been perceived, then in some quarters this is bound to cause major disappointment. And, on the other hand, if the tales are found to have a basis in reality, then those that dismiss the subject completely out of hand will definitely have egg on their faces. But that says more about the “I want to believe” factor (or indeed, the “I don’t want to believe” factor) of the subject than anything else.
Perhaps it’s time that both camps broadened their horizons.
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January 18th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Sounds a lot like Mothman. I’m reading the book now and all these cases seem to point to it.
January 18th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
From my understanding of the original eyewitness accounts linked to the name “Chupacabras” in 1995 by Scott Corrales and his Hispanic contact, none of these cryptids were reported to have wings. Instead, they were said to be primarily bipedal, covered with fur or hair, and having spikes or spiky-looking hair on the back of the head.
What I have seen occurring is a folkloric process, involving the “blood-sucking” testimony being turned into reports of “vampires” and wings being added. Then when anything – and I mean anything strange occurs, when any livestock or animal is killed, when anything unknown is seen – it is labeled Chupacabras. This is very similar to the process that has happened with the “Jersey Devil,” a creature that people today visualize as winged – and which has become a catch-all term for anything bizarre seen in New Jersey.
But where are the winged Chupacabras sightings, as opposed to the sightings of bats or other weird, at-the-time unidentified creatures that are labeled Chupacabras after the fact?
This then causes people to write or think about cryptid bats and other winged weirdies around the world, when, indeed, the Chupacabras – in its precise state – is not winged at all.
January 18th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
When the subject of the chupacabras comes up it reminds me two experiences that were told to me by two different people. One was by a young boy that seen this creature while visiting his fathers home. He awoke early and proceeded out to leave his room opening the door to see this tall creature with a insect type face. The creature was standing behind a cupboard unit. His father had many hats on the top of this unit, to which this creature appeared to be checking them out. He said he seen two sets of arms. He thought it might of had another set below where he couldn’t see. He wasn’t sure but thought it was about 6′ tall. Scared he ran back into his room to hide. The other experience was told to me much earlier by a old friend. The creature sounded to be the same as the previous; except, it was about 3.5′ tall and it appeared to move like a tumble weed. The thing traveled up a slight hill before stopping about 8′ from him. This is when he seen the insect looking face and it’s 3 sets of arms/legs. Scared to death this fellow stood his ground saying to himself “If you want a piece of me I’ll die fighting.” The possible baby creature took off quite quickly. Neither could remember what the hands or feet looked like. It would be interesting to find out who else may have possible witnessed something similar. There is a possible under ground base and hoards of mines here so I find it possible to be secret a government project, not a alien from space thing.
January 18th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Loren:
Granted, the report in question has only just surfaced. But it is not alone.
For example, when me and Jon (Downes) went to Puerto Rico for a week in 2004 with a team from the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Proof Positive” series, one of the people we interviewed was a woman named Norka, who lived high in the El Yunque rain-forest.
She told us of a Chupacabras sighting she had in 1975 – or she presumed it was a Chupacabras based on the 1990s hysteria (which, I’ll grant is an important point that needs noting).
She openly described it as having wings that seemed fixed in part, at least, as flaps of skin under the arms.
I can’t remember how many of her comments and observations made it on-screen (I don’t have it on tape anymore – thrown away by mistake, I think, in one of our many house moves!), but she did appear on the show.
Incidentally, I do recall that although her sighting was more than 30 years ago, Norka’s case was incorrectly displayed via graphics on screen as having occurred in the 1990s (that’s TV for you!). However, the complete, taped interview does say in her own words 1975, or possibly 1976 – but no later.
Interestingly, 1976 was the year that the Olwman surfaced in the UK.
But the important thing is that Norka was recalling from memory her recollections of a winged creature she saw decades ago.
January 18th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Smylex:
Strange, winged, humanoids are a staple part of this planet’s collective weirdness – Mothman, Owlman, a creature seen near Wolverhapmton, England in 2004, the list goes on and on.
January 18th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Sasdave:
That sounds very much like the so-called “Mantis” type of report that features in “alien abduction” reports.
January 18th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
GETCHA CHUPACABRAS – TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!
Nick, Loren’s seem irritated by the fusion he sees going on between two quite distinct categories of critter, one, winged and capable of flight, the other, the chupacabras, unwinged and incapable of flight, the only thing common to both being an association with vampirism.
If I’ve understood him right, he sees this as merely a latter day embroiderization; and he may be right.
The thing giving me pause to wonder, though, is there are innumerable accounts of monstrous ’supernatural’ chimerical critters equipped with a variety of wings stretching far back into antiquity, the obvious ones springing to mind being the harpies.
Then there are the ancient to modern day accounts of monstrous – but more obviously human like – supernaturally airborne females, ‘witches’, often described as being possessed in some way of an unnatural abundance of hair; and it doesn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to perceive the similarity between outstretched wings and unnaturally long flowing hair.
Even the likes of the Victorian era Spring Heeled Jack, (last reported sighting, LIII-ver-POOOLLL!!!), while not associated with a capacity for actual flight, supposedly made prodigious, roof vaulting leaps, and while he wasn’t possessed of wings, or long hair, the wearing of a type of cloak was attributed to him.
But even if it should prove the case the aforementioned critters have absolutely nothing to do with the chupacabras, what they should alert us to is that even in the officially approved animal kingdom there’s a third category of critter lying between the winged and the unwinged ones, a notable example being the so-called flying squirrel.
And THAT’S where the controversy over whether the chupacabras’s winged or not comes in, because if its evolutions equipped it with a proto wing setup something like the flying squirrel’s, then that’d explain all the confusion.
It might even be the case there are two related but differently equipped species, or even the ‘winged’ and unwinged’ difference is down to some sort of gender specialization.
January 19th, 2007 at 5:20 am
If the UFO phenomenon is manipulating us as some believe it may be that the initial reports were of a cryptic bat species. But as the population began to apply supernatural attributes to it the phenomenon seized upon it and began to provide sightings of whatever the current version of the creature was thought to be. This would explain why the eyewitness descriptions have changed.
January 19th, 2007 at 6:44 am
Alan:
You’re right: “winged things” have been reported for centuries – longer even, and from numerous cultures.
Seeinisbeeeleevin:
I don’t doubt that there are several things going on that have led to the creation of the Chupacabras imagery/stories.
For example, on my last trip there, we learned of drug smugglers on the island who were spreading tales of the Chupacabras to keep people away from certain areas of El Yunque – where they were making their drug drops by aircraft late at night.
January 19th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I’ve always been a believer in the chupacabra, but I’ve never heard about one having wings. But perhaps maybe that was something like the mothman, but at the same time I don’t really quite think it sounds similiar. Could it be possible that they are all chupacabras, but just different breeds? It might be a stretch, but who knows.
January 19th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Mr. Redfern,
Very good research! I normally scan posts to see if I ever find anything that communicates me with my beloved Puerto Rico. And almost always find mysterious tidbits of information.
Your report about the 1967 sighting brought me back to my childhood. What you are describing is what we used to call “El Vampiro de Moca”. I believe this was the original Chupacabras. Many people actually saw it (according to the news) and one driver actually hit it by accident (as I recall). There were plenty of animal deaths around the area. All of them similar to what the Chupacabras leaves behind.
But one thing we need to remember is that around that time in the USA animal mutilations were also flourishing. “El Vampiro de Moca” (or “The Moca Vampire”) stayed around for about a year before the deaths stopped, until recently in the 90’s when it all started again. I believe that last year I posted on the subject also here on these columns about Chupacabras.
I also see that almost everyone that comments about Chupacabras compares it to the Mothman. Did the mothman kill cattle and fowl? Chupacabras doesn’t fly as far as I remember. The few farmers that I have heard talk always say that it glides after jumping. They never see wings but they do see the almost stretchy under arm part that helps it glide. Chupacabras? Not a myth. Do you think that as empoverished as they are the puertorican farmers are willing to kill their assets just to have 15 minutes on TV? By the way, no one ever, to my recollection, reported that the “Vampiro” flew either. All they ever reported were the killings, how they always found the victims without blood in their bodies.
As part of my military duties I too worked at el Yunque. I also understood why the Indians used to consider it the home of their Gods. You only need to spend one night up there to understand what it is all about. Anyway, I hope that your experience at Puerto Rico was good (aside from the driving). “Go west young man” next time you go to Puerto Rico visit the Mayaguez and Cabo Rojo area if you are really interested in finding out or seeing for yourself the UFO’s, and USO’s, as they cross the Mona Passage. I used to live up in the mountains and one of my favorite hobbies was to climb on the roof of our house and watch the “stars dance” as I played the flute. Yes, the farther from San Juan the closer you get to this things. And usually no one has to point them out, they just happen. I could keep on ranting but I must get back to work…Peace
January 19th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I think what Loren’s point is here is the same thing Linda Godfrey, myself, and some other “Bio-Forteans” keep grousing about; which is, that in much of Latin America (and even the SW United States), any and every peculiar critter seen out and about anywhere…including malnourished foxes and coyotes with advanced cases of the mange…gets immediately labeled “Chupacabras” by a panicky citizenry and a sensationalist media.
Not to beat a dead horse (ah, hell, why not!), but this “everything is a chupacabra” craziness is about like “everything is owls” for Joe Nickell & company. The chupacabra creature was/is a Puerto Rico “spawned” anomaly originally and it had a specific, agreed-upon description…gleaned from witnesses in the region where it appeared and “did it’s thing”. It was from three to five feet tall, tail-less, had a pear-shaped body, thick-thighed, kangaroo-type legs with three toes/claws, a “UFO -Grey” type head with wrap-around dark eyes, narrow chin, only-nostril “nose”, slit mouth with hint of fangs, and a strange arrangement of flexible spikes or spines that emerged from the back of the head and ran down the backbone. These “spines” could rise and wavingly move and even change colors (some said). The creature was short furred, of a mottled grey color (and some thought there were scales). The arms were short and unimpressive compared to the legs, again three fingered/clawed, and with what looked like a thin membrane extending from the torso out to the arms to at least the elbows. Witnesses claimed the “chupa” did more “levitation” than actual flying and did not seem to really use these membraneous arms as wings as they seemed underdeveloped to support the perceived body mass and weight.
Thus appeared the creature called “chupacabras” that captured the imagination of the world beginning in the 1980s and continuing onward. This appearance was documented by the indefatigable Scott Corrales and his “Inexplicata” cohorts.
Other weirdo creatures of differing description have been seen in both Puerto Rico and on the American continents since then, and, as I’ve mentioned above, have somehow been branded, way too readily, I believe, “Cupacabras”, by shoot-from-the-lip would-be-”identifiers”. This “everything is a chupacabra” mania seems to me, I reiterate, as out-of-control as Joe Nickell’s owls.
There have been sightings in various parts of the world of giant bats, batlike creatures, and even, seemingly, creatures resembling part man and part bat…and even things that smack of gargoyles. But there nothing in any of those descriptions that says “chupacabras’ to me.
Many of us Bio-Forteans have been terming these things “manbats” and there was an incident involving one in the U.S. this past summer…and this one had a tail (a very UN-batlike and UN-chupacabras characteristic).
This researcher tends to think more in terms of “The Goblin Universe”, Cormons, Tulpas, etc., for this sort of thing rather than extensive psy-ops components, although the latter could conceivably factor into it.
January 20th, 2007 at 9:24 am
[...] In my post from several weeks ago entitled The Chupacabras: A Psychological Test Come To Life?, I mentioned the Moca Vampire of Puerto Rico. Again, in my more recent post Chupacabras Thoughts the Moca Vampire was mentioned by UFOmystic reader MindEcdysiast in regards to the eyewitness description of a giant bat. [...]
January 20th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Bill:
As you know, I too adhere to the Tulpa angle. But I do wonder if – as per the Bat angle – there are several components at work on Puerto Rico that have led to the manifestation of an archetypal thought-form – and perhaps a large bat is one of them, along with a psy-op, drug smugglers telling faked stories, even black magic and animal sacrifices (which is present on the island – as we found out on one of my trips there). So, put them into the pot and mix it all around, and I think it’s very likely it could all lead to the creation of a very weird Tulpa indeed!
Loren’s comment about how none of the weird things out there got labelled as the Chupacabras until the media picked up on it, is quite right. But one thing that I forgot to mention in a previous comment was that when we interviewed Norka (the woman who had a 1975/6 encounter) on Puerto Rico, she said that the creatures’ wings folded flat down its back – and it was as if it raised them in a threatening fashion.
Is it therefore possible that people who have described seeing the Chupa without wings (perhaps briefly and late at night) may have not realized it had wings even if they were folded down.
Granted, it would be hard to hide a pair of large wings, but it’s worth considering – maybe!
January 20th, 2007 at 9:42 am
MindEcysiast:
Many thanks for the comments and observations. You’ll be pleased to see that today we have posted to the site the first part of a series of articles on the Moca Vampire from Scott Corrales, who has dug very deep into the mystery.
January 20th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Annie
The “breed” angle is an interesting one. I can’t obviously say it’s correct; but I do know that having been to Puerto Rico several times and spoke extensively with people about the sightings, it’s clear that there have been a number of weird things seen there: the Chupa, the Moca Vampire, something not unlike the “Raptors” off Jurassic Park, a Bigfoot-style entity, and even the ubiquitous “big cat-zoo escapees” that seem to be here, there, and everywhere.
January 20th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Borky writes: “Loren’s seem irritated by the fusion….”
Not irritated. Hasn’t your therapist mentioned it isn’t good to project assumed feelings on people and say they have such and such an emotion?
Anyway, I think Bill Hancock stated it nicely. It is not about “fusion.” More to the point, it is about mislabeling and trying to paint everything with one brush when there are distinctive differences. This even occurs with “back labeling” of the Moca Vampire and other encounters as a Chupacabras.
Sure there are unknown animals, some winged even, some unidentified new bats perhaps, cryptids all, but none have been called “Chupacabras,” except after the Chupacabras mania got the media and the masses to term almost every unexplainable creature in Hispania and Hispanic America with the “Chupacabras” moniker.