The following information was taken from the newsletter "Beyond Boundaries"
published by Joyce Murphy of Rainbow, Texas.  

>From Issue #5, May/June 1997

One interesting feature of the way the chupacabras kills its victims is
that a long telescopic device seems to protrude from one of its fangs and
this makes the perfectly round puncture would in the victim through which a
type of euthanasia technique is used.  Whatever the chupa does in the
instant before sucking the body totally devoid of blood prevents the victim
from suffering.  Something is apparently injected into the victim's body
and possibly this unknown substance prevents rigor mortis which the lack of
is a characteristic of the victim's dead body.

The chupa does not exert any pressure or crushing force on its victims as
happens with other predators.  There is the perfectly round hole wound
penetrating into any area of the victim necessary - through bone, muscle,
tissue and whatever necessary to penetrate at least 3 to 4 inches
cauterizing the wound as it goes into the victim's body.  Even sections of
organs are then sucked out through this penetration leaving no natural
inflammatory process in the dead animal.  The perfectly round wounds have
been found in different areas of the animal's body - not all in the nect
area.

Many residents of Puerto Rico have actually seen this creature and give a
fairly consistent description.  It is reportedly a cross between the Grey
alien humanoid - because of the shape of its head and eyes - with the body
of a bipedal, erect dinosaur, but with no tail.  Two elongated red eyes
have been reported, together with small holes in the nostril area, a small
slit like mouth with fang type teeth protruding upwards and downwards from
the jaw.

Some witnesses have seen small pointed ears and most report that it has
strong coarse hair all over its body.  The hair seems to have the
capability to change colors at will - almost like a chameleon.  The
creature has two small arms with a three fingered clawed hand and two
strong hind legs, again with three claws.  The thigh muscles are very large
and appear to be very strong appearing to enable it to run quickly and
"leap" over trees.  It has quill like appendages running down from its back
with what seem to be fleshy membranes that change color from blue to green,
red to purple, etc.  Some people report that the creature can actually fly
with no means of guidance or propulsion - only the breeze!  At least one
witness has reported to us during interrogation that she saw the creature
levitating slightly above the ground while traveling down a village street
rather than actually walking to make its way.

It has been reported by reliable sources that at least two of these vampire
like creatures have been captured by Government officials - by both Puerto
Rican officials and U.S. Government.  One of the creatures supposedly was
captured in the town of San Lorenzo in the east center of the island and
another was captured in the El Yunque rainforest on the northeast side.
Both were seen and were reported to be alive at the time of capture.
Witnesses believe these chupas were taken to the United States.

MORE CHUPACABRAS ACTIVITY?  by Jose Valdez

The elusive Chupacabras staged a return to the community of Dorado on March
22, 1997.  Eighteen hens, four geese and ten cock fighting roosters were
the latest victims of the unknown predator, which visited the La Poza
sector of Dorado's Barrio Higuillar after having reportedly perpetrated a
series of mutilations in distant Venezuela.



CHUPACABRA SIGHTINGS IN CALIFORNIA
Advocate Herald
June 30, 1996


San Diego - A monster has been terrorizing the local town of Poway, just a
few miles north and San Diego and the Mexican border. Recent sightings and a
reported attack have put the entire community on alert. City officials,
however, claim to know nothing about the events that have the local residents
locking their doors and closing their windows at night.

The source of this terror is a creature called the Chupacabra. It is
described as three feet tall with bat like wings, fangs and large claws.
Somewhat resembling a gargoyle, it is said to be nocturnal and very
aggressive. It has been reported to have attacked both humans and livestock
and is said to be carnivorous.

Various witnesses have reported seeing Chupacabras all the way from Puerto
Rico to Texas to Tijuana. This wave of sightings has raised many questions
about the origins of this new animal. Scientists with various research groups
have been speculating that this is a lab experiment in genetic engineering
which got loose, similar to the genetic experiments with killer bees that
were released in South America and have now reached the United States
[HUH?--Bruce W.]. While the experiments with killer bees were trying to
increase honey production, the reason someone would genetically engineer such
a creature as the Chupacabra is still unknown.

Anyone encountering one of these animals should immediately contact local
authorities. Do not approach it and move indoors as quickly and quietly as
possible.




Date: Mon, 03 Jun 96 10:07:00 cst
From: "Wright, Bruce" <32000BKT@macnet.cpa.state.tx.us>

This missive found on that unfailingly reliable source of news,
alt.conspiracy.  Bruce W.
________________________________________________________
GREETINGS, FELLOW CORRESPONDENTS,

I will point out that there is a vast difference in the way that
the Goat-Vampire occurrences are being reported in the Latin press as
opposed to the United States Press.  Channels 34, 22, and 52, the Spanish
Language UHF channels, have all had stories about the Goat-Vampire, and aired
photographs of the bled victims.  The story is treated in a factual and
newsworthy fashion, with interviews with witnesses and with scientific
experts who have examined the evidence.  One veterinarian from Mexico City
described how the puncture wounds in the neck led to the brain and the
cerebral contents of the goat were partially evacuated.  [Shades of "Fiend
Without a Face"!!--Bruce W.]

The suffering of the campesinos is evident also, as the killed animals
were their sustenance.  The American press has taken a cartoonish and
slanted view of the very real and tragic events, denying Americans of the
facts of the situation.  [As always. --Bruce W.]

Furthermore, last evening there was a fine interview of Anthony
J. Hilder, an author and video producer, which touched on these issues,
which interview aired on the End of THe Line radio show, hosted by Jeff
Rense, out of Santa Barbara.  Mr. Hilder stated that the Goat-Vampire is
indeed real, and is a genetic monster created by the Black Budget
projects in the underground bases, like Dulce.    He referred to the
creature by the following acronym:

                         CRAVES

This acronym stands for:

Created Reptilian-Alien-Vampire-Engineered Specie.  CRAVES

Mr. Hilder characterizes the monster as a bat-human hybrid which
is designed to be used as a terror-inducing force to confuse, panic,
destablize, and neutralize a population.

So you see, "Chupacabramania" as it is being called, may have
some basis in reality, after all.

                                BEST REGARDS TO ALL READERS

                                       your friend, juan




From: "Wright, Bruce" <32000BKT@macnet.cpa.state.tx.us>
Subject: Chupacabras couture!
Date: Tue, 14 May 96 15:13:00 cst


This last weekend I was in Laredo, Texas, checking out a haunted hotel (and
some interesting stories resulted); being in the neighborhood, we plunged
across the border into the hideous, reeking, yet curiously vibrant disaster
area called Nuevo Laredo, a nightmare vision of the wonderful future
doubtless awaiting all of us (and reserve *your* packing crate now).  At any
rate, after having run the gauntlet of heartbreaking Chiclet kids, I found
myself whiling away some time in the public market, waiting for a decent hour
to begin imbibing mescal at
Victoria's, more or less bored as the "primitive" look does not appeal to me
and I have quite enough switchblades as it is; when suddenly, I looked up and
saw...them.....

A selection of CHUPACABRAS T-SHIRTS, rendered with all the taste, refinement
and restraint for which Mexican pop art is justly famed (the blood dripping
from the goat's neck in one is a particularly nice touch).  I carried away
three different styles and am only sorry I didn't buy a gross.  You may now
envy me.

Alas, one pottery establishment told me they had just sold out of a large
shipment of Chupacabras figurines.  I plan to look for these again the
next time I'm down there.

Bruce W.
"I've got the pistol, so I'll keep the pesos; that seems fair to me"






*The Arizona Daily Star*; Tucson, Arizona; Sunday/12 May 1996:
1996 Cox News Service - "Goatsucker fears cause nationwide panic"
     MEXICO CITY -- Officials say "goatsuckers" are just the product of
fertile imaginations, but tales of the bloodthirsty monsters are terror-
izing Mexico and gaining global fame.
     Anxiety has swept Mexico as newspapers report dozens of sightings
and attacks by goatsuckers, which reportedly look like 3-foot rats with
wings and enormous teeth and suck the blood of livestock and humans.
     "A lot of Mexicans believe in extraterrestrials, so that's what
they think they are," said Cristina Fernandez, a Mexico City resident.
     So severe has panic become that Mexican officials warned last week
that important ecosystems are being threatened as rural farmers set fires
in caves to kill off goatsuckers, which they think are related to vampires.
     So international has the goatsucker become that American humorist
Dave Barry put the creature in a recent column.
     "It was first reported in Puerto Rico, where it is known as
'chupacabras,' which is Spanish for 'attorney,'" Barry quipped.
     The Internet includes several goatsucker sites on the World Wide Web,
which detail factoids and sightings, one of the first being in Puerto Rico
in 1994.
     But while many humans take goatsuckers seriously, Mexican officials
say they're a fantasy.
     Environment Secretary Julia Carabias said this week that she rejects
the idea that a stalker of livestock and people "has anything to do with
strange organisms, much less vampires."
     The Mexican scare started in April, when a teary-eyed Jauna Tizoc, a
21-year-old from the corn-farming village of Alfonso Calderon in northern
Sinaloa state, said she was attacked by a horrifying winged creature.
     She showed tooth marks on her neck, and the interview was publicized
by Televisa, Mexico's major television network.  "She said a beast with
horns attacked her, but that could be anything, like a bull," said
Desiderio Aguilar, director of Sinaloa's municipal police forces.
     After the interview, anxiety set in.  Peasants from all over Sinaloa,
and farmers from more than 10 Mexican states, reported that livestock,
especially goats, but also sheep and chickens, were attacked by other-
worldly animals that suck blood.  "We have goatsucker psychosis," Aguilar
said.  "People won't send their kids to school, farmers won't work at
night.  It's a social and economic problem."
     Indeed, so many Mexicans have reported seeing the goatsucker that two
Mexico City dailies this week published drawings of a winged rodent that
they said were based on multiple sightings of the animal.
     Sinaloa state, at least, has lurched into action.  The state government
put together a 15-person team of scientists and technicians, including a bat
specialist.  They went out to the village where the goatsucker was sighted
by Tizoc.  "We sent 50 police as protection because this kind of thing, as
you can imagine, is very scary," Aguilar said.  Protected by officers, the
team staked out a farmyard where the goatsucker was believed to have attacked.
But in the dark hours before dawn it was dogs who came to prey on the live-
stock.  The scientific team set the same trap a second time, just to be sure,
and once again dogs were caught.  "I don't know about the rest of Mexico or
the rest of the world, but here the goatsuckers are just dogs," Aguilar said.
     The Sinaloa snare wasn't widely publicized, so the Mexican media still
abound with goatsucker stories.  The creature was sighted in eight Mexican
states, according to the Mexico City daily Reforma.  The Mexico City Times,
an English-language daily, reported this week that a nurse from the outskirts
of Mexico City was hospitalized with a severed arm and neighbors said she was
attacked by a goatsucker.
PHOTO CAPTION:  A goatsucker stalker in Mexico City, armored with chain-link
fencing, hopes to capture the first photo of the elusive creature.





*San Juan (Puerto Rico) Star*, 6 May 1996,
"The chupacabra becomes a recurring legend" by Robert Friedman

     WASHINGTON -- The goatsucker is on the go -- with new alleged victims
reported in other Caribbean countries, Mexico, Central America and Dade
County, Florida.  Once strictly del pais, the chupacabras, as the supposed
vampire-like killer of barnyard animals is known in Spanish, has recently
been spotted in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Miami.
     The monster -- reptilian body, oval head, bulging red eyes, fanged
teeth and long, darting tongue -- has allegedly pulled off one of the more
grisly animal slaughters of late: the one-night massacre of 69 goats,
chickens, geese and ducks in the heavily Hispanic Sweetwater neighborhood
of South Miami.  Miami police and the local zoologist say that the killer
was a large dog -- but Sweetwater residents insist that the deed was done
by the blood-sucking beast first spotted in the central mountains of
Puerto Rico [1994].
     Whatever, the chupacabras phenomenon seems quick becoming part of
Hispanic -- and possibly international -- bestial lore.  The goatsucker
already has been tagged the Bigfoot of the Caribbean by stateside journalists.
The monster made its network TV debut last week via "Unsolved Mysteries."
It was the talk of the popular Miami-based gabfest, "El Show de Cristina,"
which is transmitted throughout Latin America.  That show featured
Canovanas Mayor Jose "Chemo" Soto, known to townsfolk as "Chemo Jones"
for his weekly chupacabra hunts through the surrounding hills, using a
caged goat for bait.  Soto offered this grim warning:  "Whatever it is,
it's highly intelligent.  Today it is attacking animals, tomorrow it may
be attacking people."
     Tee shirt sales are said to be booming, a video game reportedly is in
the works, songs are sung to Ol' Red Eyes over South Florida radio stations
(such as "Chupacabra-fragalisticexpialidotious," as in the song of a similar
name from "Mary Poppins.")  The beast is on the Internet, courtesy of some
Puerto Rican students at Princeton University, who give tongue-in-cheek
updates daily on the goatsucker's doings.
***** (http://www.princeton.edu/(tilde)accion/chupa2.html) *****
     So, what have we here?  Among other things, a recurring legend,
especially prevalent in Latin America, according to anthropologists,
Hispanic historians, and others.  "There are a certain number of these
legends of bloodsucking animals in South and Latin America," said Richard
Grinker, an anthropology professor at George Washington University.  "They
are usually analyzed as anti-capitalist, an unconscious means of rebellion
by country people who believe that capitalism is sucking dry the earth and
their entire being.  Fellow anthropologist Paul Brodwin acknowledged that
blood-sucking legends pre-date quasi-Marxist analyses, but said the legends
often get reinterpreted "according to social circumstances."
     Take, for instance, the legend of the Loup Garou, which Brodwin has
studied in the Haitian countryside.  This sometime human-sometime animal
being is related to the French werewolf legend, said Brodwin.  But with a
difference.  The Loup Garou sucks the blood of its human victims.[???]
The Haitian legend has been analyzed as a "collective fantasy," said the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor, of an unconscious suspicion
and fear the poorer-than-poor have of their neighbors.  Marvette Perez,
curator of Hispanic history at the Smithsonian Institution's American
History Museum, sees deja vu once more in the chupacabras tales.  Perez,
a native of Arecibo, recalled the similarities between the chupacabras
and both the Moca vampire and the garadiablo of island lore.  A couple
of decade ago, the Moca monster was sucking blood of assorted animals
around that small mountain town, while the garadiablo was a devilish
looking creepy crawly from the lagoon seen in local swamplands.  "This
seems to be a very Caribbean phenomenon, especially of the Spanish-
speaking islands," said Perez.  "It's part of our folklore.  It's inter-
esting that the chupacabras has not been found on the English-speaking
islands, but has migrated only in places where people speak Spanish.
     Pedro Vidal, professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at
American University, remembers hearing childhood tales in his native
Venezuela of a beast sucking the blood not only of animals, but also of
little children.  Vidal, who has done research on vampires, noted that
the hemispheric roots of such entities go way back, to the Mayans, who
worshipped a "vampire figure deity long before the idea of Dracula."
     Bram Stoker's novel of the blood-thirsty count became a big hit in
Victorian England in an age of anxiety over a syphilis epidemic, said
Vidal.  Now, another sexually transmitted epidemic has unsettled the
populace.  Puerto Rico, he noted, is among the areas in the hemisphere
hardest hit by AIDS.  It is entirely possible, he said, that the
commotion over the chupacabras could be linked to the AIDS fear.
     Unbeknownst to many, there is a real live goatsucker in captivity
in the Washington, D.C. zoo.  In fact, ornithologists know all about
goatsuckers -- which is the name given to a family of nocturnal birds.
They are described as soft-feathered with long, pointed wings, short,
weak legs and feet, a very small bill, but a wide, gaping mouth, and
whose eyes reflect light at night.  Some goatsuckers of note are night
jars, whippoorwills and the Australian frog mouth, which is on display
at the D.C. zoo.  Could they be...?  Most unlikely, said Bob Hoage of
National Zoo.  The winged Goatsuckers feed almost exclusively on
insects, he noted.
     The Goatsucker tag comes from the Latin word, Caprimulgus.  The
birds are often found in the Mediterranean in places where goats graze.
In a strange twist, bird-watcher-columnist Don Wilson reports in the
Orlando Sun Sentinel that "the harmless whippoorwill was once viewed
as a sinister creature.  Superstitious country folk once believed the
birds sucked the milk from goats' udders, causing them to dry up."





_
From: Terry Colvin on Fri, May 10, 1996 1:13 PM
Subject: Chupacabras - Tucson, Arizona


Evening news report by Norma Cancio and Sal Quijada on KGUN-TV (Channel 9)
described the early morning experiences of the Espinoza family on 9 May.
Either the father or older brother opened an entrance door around 2:00 a.m.
and saw a bipedal creature 3 to 4 foot, scaly skin, clawed hands, red eyes,
and a row of spines from the skullcap and down the back.  The older Espinoza
stated the creature "mumbled and gestured".  At dawn (approx. between 5:00 a.m.
and 5:30 a.m.) a seven year old boy in the same house said the creature stood
on his bed and briefly on his chest.  Both the older and younger Espinoza family
members described a smell "like a wet dog."  The key element in this story is
that 911 was used, and the metropolitan Tucson police did respond.  A search
of the immediate neighborhood and questioning of residents turned up nothing.

Terry

Terry W. Colvin 
Fort Huachuca (Cochise County), Arizona USA
"No editor ever likes the way a story tastes unless he pees
in it first." -Mark Twain
* Ask me about Fortean, the paranormal, and UFOs.





From: "Wright, Bruce" <32000BKT@macnet.cpa.state.tx.us>
Subject: Chupacabras Timeline
Date: Mon, 13 May 96 10:59:00 cst


CHUPAS TIMELINE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

mid-1970s
Rio Grande Valley  South Texas
        Sightings of what may have been a condor linked to a rash of
        mutilated cattle. Blood was removed to the last drop.

Early 1970s.
Brownsville Texas
        Rancher finds a bull dead - no blood around it, no tracks.

1994
Puerto Rico
4 or 6 "little greys" found under a bed and chased out of the
house with a broom. (reported by Joyce Murphy.)

March 11 1995
Orocovis
        Eight sheep found dead. The animals had three strange marks or
        puncture holes in the chest and were described as "completely
        drained of blood."

August 1995
Canvanas, Puerto Rico
        Chupacabra blamed for the death of about 150 animals.

Sun Nov 19 1995
Puerto Rico
        The chupas is blamed in the deaths of dozens of turkeys,
        rabbits, goats, cats, dogs and even horses and cows...

        Said to have ripped open the bedroom window of a house in
        the north-central city of Caguas, destroyed a stuffed teddy
        bear, and left a puddle of slime and a piece of rancid white
        meat on the windowsill. It had hairy arms and huge red eyes.
        In another attack it came at about 7 a.m. "It just showed up
        and -- poof -- it vanished."

Nov 19 1995  - 35 times in three months.
Canovanas Puerto Rico
        Resident saw it one afternoon in his back yard when it came
        out of the brush and bit the family dog. "I think it belongs
        to the monkey family, but it isn't a monkey exactly," he
        said. ``It ran like a monkey and was about four feet tall,
        but it didn't have a tail.''

c. Dec 7
near Guanica, Puerto Rico
       Unusual bloodless deaths of chickens and cows.

Dec 14
Naguabo on the east coast
        Several caged rabbits were "found dead with holes in the neck
        area, without a drop of blood." Other rabbits had disappeared.
        Near rabbit cage was a track with a three-toed claw.

Fri 15 Dec 1995
Puerto Rico
        In one year is thought responsible for at least 1OOO killings-
        goats, sheep, cattle, chickens and other animals. There are
        many eye witness accounts. The creature is 4 - 6 feet tall,
        walks upright, is not humanoid, has large oval alien type
        eyes.

18 Dec 1995
Puerto Rico
        Animals died as the result of a single puncture mark found on
        some part of the body which apparently drained them of blood.
        One photo shows a Siamese cat with a puncture mark through its
        skull.

Dec 18 1995
Puerto Rico
        Local tabloid Vocero echoed the possibility that giant vampire
        bats had infiltrated the island in cargo shipments proceeding
        from South America. Normal sized bats are fairly common in
        the Caribbean.

Thurs Dec 21  3 am
near Guanica, Puerto Rivo
        44-year-old Osvaldo Claudio Rosado was washing a car. He was
        grabbed from behind. He tried to fight off the intruder and
        saw a black-haired "gorilla" about five feet tall which ran
        off. Rosado had cuts in his abdomen, possibly torn by
        fingernails or claws.

Thurs Dec 21 1995
Klamath Falls
        Pregnant heifer dead with her right ear gone, hide cut from
        her face, the tongue cut lengthwise along the top of the teeth,
        all four teats removed leaving black circles on the surface of
        the udder, and the rectum and vagina cut out in a neat "keyhole"
        cut. No blood at any of the excisions or on the ground.

Tues Dec 26    early morning hours
Puerto Rico -  Torrecilla Baja region
        Woman heard strange noises in her house and dog barking.
        Siamese cat found dead with the genitals removed, two guinea
        hens with their throats slit, a chicken with "perforations,"
        and four ducks and four rabbits dead in their cages.

Tues Dec 26 1995
Puerto Rico - San German
        Eleven goats found dead.

Jan 4 1996
Isabella County, Michigan.
        Eight calves frozen and dead. Two were skinned of their hide
        from head to hooves; six were skinned of all their hide from
        neck to hooves.  All were black and white Holsteins and about
        a week old.

Jan 7 1996
Klamath Falls, Oregon
        One week old calf dead and mutilated. Right ear had been
        cut off and the entire skull had been removed.

NW Miami rural area
March 1996
        Killed about 40 animals. One woman saw a dog-like figure
        standing up, with two short hands in the air.

c May 2 1996
Rio Grande Valley  South Texas
        Pet goat dead with three puncture wounds in its neck.
        6 y.o. goat found with "telltale marks of the "Chupacabra"

Thur May 2
Juarez Mexico
        Many small mammels, dogs, etc. have met with this tall
        "animal"-like being with three toed feet and hands, on
        haunches with the fore arms suspended at chest level
        very similar to a kangaroo. It has a row of spikes or
        straight feather like projections from it's head and
        down it's back that raise and lower and have been seen to
        glow with their own light. Has been seen to take off on
        all fours. The "sucking " device seems to be a tube like
        projection from the mouth.

Thur May 2 1996
Mexico and Miami
        Attacks are becoming more distributed. Wounds resemble 1/4"
        holes similar to a biopsy puncture that extend completely
        through muscle tissue and in at least one instance the wounds
        were discovered pronouncedly through the inner tissue without
        leaving any wound traces on the surface layer skin.

May 3 1996
Calderon Village Sinaloa, Northern Mexico.
        A giant bat-like creature terrorizes a village. Goats
        are found daily with their blood sucked dry, witnesses
        said today. Farmers have formed night vigilante squads.
        "We are telling people to keep the women and children
        locked up inside at night" a villager said, "Nobody knows
        really what it is." Dozens of goats have fallen victim to
        the bloodsucker. It has allegedly attacked one human.

Fri May 3
Mexican State of Sonora - Veracruz and Agua Prieta.
        Numerous animals drained of blood and a vague report of
        a human suffering the same fate.

Fri May 3
Sinaloa State, the state below Sonora State.
        Dead cows and sheep. The animal(s) is described as 1-1.5 feet
        and able to take flight.

Fri May 3
Six other states in Mexico
        Similar attacks have been reported.

May 9 1996  2 a.m.
        Espinoza Family - a front door was opened and a creature
        was seen 3 to 4 foot high with scaly skin, clawed hands,
        red eyes, and a row of spines from the skullcap and down
        the back. The creature "mumbled and gestured".

May 9 1996  5-5.3O a.m. - dawn
        A seven year old boy in the same house said the creature
        stood on his bed and briefly on his chest. Both the older
        and younger Espinoza family members described a smell
        "like a wet dog."

May 10  1996
Florida
        Reports of a chupacabra among Hispanics.

Wed  May 12
Mexico's southern state of Chiapas
        28 dead rams found with puncture marks

----------------------------------------NOTES--------------------

"The world's 3 species of blood-sucking bats live predominantly
in the warm climates of Latin America.  Similar recent cases have
emerged from Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and El Salvador."

"Puerto Rico harbors a number of military animal research
laboratories."

"Seeing either the creature or moving lights in the sky has led
to speculation that the chupacabras might be from outer space."

"The New Jersey Devil adheres to descriptions of physical
appearence as well as the nature of the wounds. Puncture wounds
are often left resembling the classic vampire bite."

"Very large, slanted, glowing red eyes. Face is flat, perhaps
simian-like, body some say is covered with spotted skin "like a
frog's" or has "spikes on its head and back" with "chicken legs"
that have a 3-toed foot about six inches long. Such tracks have
been found and photographed in dirt near dead animals. This
creature has been seen to hop, or fly, from the ground to a
tree or from trees to the ground."

"It attacks so fast, everything from horses to sheep. It sucks out
the blood completely."
______________________________________________________________




From: freex@hal-pc.org on Mon, May 13, 1996 3:59 PM
Subject: Chupacabras - Front Page News

If Bruce Wright can risk tunnel carpal syndrome for the Greater Good,
how can I do any less?  This is from the front page of the May 13,
1996 Houston Chronicle, here in good ol' Texas.


'GOAT SUCKER' SPREADING FEAR ACROSS MEXICO
by Dudley Althaus, Houston Chronicle

ZAPOTAL, Mexico - The roosters had not yet crowed when the fierce
barking of neighborhood dogs jolted Violeta Colorado from her sleep.

The dogs had some animal cornered at the rubbish pile behind
Colorado's small concrete house in Zapotal, a farm village in the
steamy oil country of southeastern Mexico.

When the canines growled, shuffled and lunged early last Thursday,
Colorado says, the besieged beast responded with a nerve-rattling
hiss unlike any animal noise she had ever heard.  It was a full hour,
she says, before the beast escaped the dogs and peace returned to the
country night.

"The dogs were pursuing it.  They had it trappedm but we couldn't see
what it was," the 27 year-old mother of two toddlers says.  "I though
it was a coyote.  There are a lot of coyotes around here."

But in the light of the early morning sun, Colorado learned that nine
sheep had been killed in the pasture next to her house.  None of the
sheep had been eaten.  Their throats had been punctured and their
blood drained.

To their horror, she says, Colorado and her neighbors realized that
the dogs had tangled with a chupacabras, a goat sucker, the
much-feared yet never-seen beast that has been stalking the Mexican
countryside for nearly two weeks now, killing farm animals and
spreading terror.

Reporters arrived in droves.  Busloads of the curious trundled down
the lane to Colorado's house and the pasture.  Several of the dead
sheep were carried off to the state capital of Villahermosa 30 miles
away for further examination.

Colorado shakes her head at the thought of a chupacabras, wearing the
wan smile and world-weary expression of someone who has survived a
close brush with the infernal.    A coyote never kills
the way these sheep were killed, says the local veterinarian who
examined two of the dead sheep.  The coyotes and jungle cats in the
area devour their prey, rip it apart.  These dead sheep had only
puncture wounds.

And there was no blood left in them, no blood at all.

"I have never seen anything like it, ever,"  says Ramiro Santiago
Lara, 34, who has practicied veterinary medicine in the area near
Zapotal for eight years and in that time has examined hundreds of
animals killed by ordinary predators.  "It seems like a type of
vampire."

After appearing in Puerto Rico last summer and then passing through
Miami, the chupacabras - pronounced chew-paw-CAH-bras - reportedly
surfaced in Mexico 11 days ago in the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

Since then, the beast, or, possibly, a horde of them, apparently has
been moving fast and taking no prisoners.  At least 46 attacks have
been reported so far in 14 states across the country, according to a
tally published Sunday in the Mexico City newspaper El Financiero.
More than 300 goats and sheep have been slain, as well as several
horses and calves.

Four people also have reported being attacked.  But one of them, a
married woman from northern Sinoloa state, has been publicly accused
of trying to pass off a hickey given her by an illicit lover as the
work of the goat sucker.

News of, and speculation about, the creature fills the pages of
local newspapers and dominates the airwaves.  Thousands of notes
appear on Internet homepages dedicated to the chupacabras.

Cocktail party conversation in Mexico City focuses on almost nothing
else.  Goat sucker jokes are the rage.  But the subject is not funny
to the goats and sheep - or to the mostly poor farmers who own them.

"This is definitely a serious matter, one that we have never dealt
with before but which is very real," says Enoc Leon Ramirez, 48, the
owner of the sheep killed in Zapotal.  "The government is trying to
say this was the work of coyotes.  That is a lie.  The only
explanation is that it was this beast they are talking about, this
chupacabras."

Leon says he has lived in Zapotal his entire life and has never heard
of sheep killed the way his died last Thursday.

Everyone, of course, has a favorite theory.  Some believe the beast
is Mexico's latest national myth, its version of Bigfoot or the Loch
Ness monster, or a simple case of mass illusion.

Others think that perhaps the goat sucker comes from outer space or
is the mutant progeny created in some mad gene-splitting scheme.

And then still others opine that the creature is part of a plot
against Mexico for some unknown and evil purpose.

"It's from the neighboring country," says Andres Magana, a peasant
farmer in La Venta, a town about 40 miles north of Zapotal.
"Neighbor country" never refers to Guatemala or Belize in Mexican
conversation.  It always means the United States, and it usually means
trouble.

Local, state and federal officials, as well as scientific "experts",
have been busily trying to debunk the chupacabras lore.  They say the
attacks are the work of common predators such as coyotes and pumas,
magnified by the imaginations of simple country folk and hyped by the
sensationalist media.

But what government officials say carries little weight with most
Mexicans these days.

If the government says the sky's blue, many believe, it must be
green.  

"The authorities are hiding something," says Santiago, adding that
state investigators in Villahermosa have refused to release findings
from their examination of one of the dead sheep.

In the many artist's renditions of the beast published in the Mexican
media, the chupacabras looks like anything from Hollywood's ET on a
bad hair day to former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari posing as
Dracula.

Salinas, who left office 18 months ago, is almost universally blamed
for the country's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
He is Mexico's bogeyman of choice, who single-handedly sucked the
life out of the whole country.

In one political cartoon published Sunday, a vampirelike Salinas
commands a hapless peasant: "Tell that goat sucker not to be messing
on my turf."

But such clever political imagery may well be lost on those who
believe that have felt the chupacabras' bite.

"As farmers, we are not listed in the politics and the jokes," says
Leon, who lost his entire flock in the Zapotal attack.  "There has to
be something to this."