CHASING THE CHUPACABRAS
Late 1994 saw a proliferation of mutilations in Puerto Rico, involving hundreds of animals. These mutilations were attributed to the chupacabras ‘goat- sucker’ and what Jorge Martin calls Anomalous Biological Entities (ABEs).
Typically, the animals were found with small circular holes about a quarter-to a half-inch wide, though sometimes larger, arranged in a triangular pattern and penetrating deep into the neck or lower jaws and straight into the brain (cerebellum), causing instant death. ‘Whatever penetrates the animal,’ says Martin, ‘is at least three or four inches long, and in a few cases has been known to cauterize the wall of the wound apparently to prevent excessive blood loss.’
Some of the wounds of this type appear to the sides and belly of the victim.
This penetration usually cuts through the stomach down to the liver, apparently removing sections of the organ and absorbing liquid from it. Such actions would require an incision of up to five inches a fact verified during necropsies . . . Several larger holes have been discovered [ranging] from one inch in diameter to 12 inches in length . . . located in the neck, chest, belly and anal areas . . . clean-cut openings through which certain organs are excised from the bodies. Reproductive, sexual organs, anus, eyes and other soft tissue have all been removed.
Blood and other fluids are reported to have been removed from the animals, presumably with the creature’s long, snake-like tongue. According to most reports, the chupacabras appears to be a cross between a typical ‘Grey’ alien and the body of a bipedal, erect, dinosaur-type creature, minus tail, with short arms and three-clawed hands (see colour plates). Martin elaborates:
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 . . . It appears to have strong, coarse hair all over its body, and while most observers claim the hair is black, it has the remarkable ability to change colours at will, almost like a chameleon, [from] black or a deep brown colour [to] green, green-grey, light brown or beige.
The creature has also been reported to fly. One witness, Daniel Pérez of the Campo Rico sector of Canóvanas, to the north of El Yunque, claims to have heard a buzzing sound at around 06.45 one morning. ‘At that moment, the creature descended, apparently flying,’ Pérez told Martin. ‘It descended on a large stone that is on my property, some 20 feet from where I stood.’
As soon as it made contact with the stone, it took impulse again and rose into the air, and cleared the trees ahead without touching a single leaf. It’s a creature [that] when it stands straight must be some five feet tall. Its hindlegs are long, its forelegs are short . . . from the top of its head all down its back it has some type of fins that move. When it was about to take off, the fins moved in the direction it was headed . . . They’re some six to eight inches long [and] he moves them so fast that he makes it seem they’re hairs.
In January 1997 Jorge Martin and his wife, Marleen, took me to visit Canóvanas, where we spoke to several witnesses who, like Daniel Pérez, had seen the chupacabras in broad daylight. Madelyn Tolentino and her mother showed us where they watched it walking down the street outside their home one afternoon in August 1995. As they approached the creature, it shot off into the bushes at a phenomenal speed. The witnesses, who struck me as completely down-to-earth, reported seeing a transparent membrane between the creature’s arms and back, perhaps used in flight.
Jorge has learned from reliable sources that chupacabras have been captured on several occasions. He told me that on the night of 6/7 November 1995, a live creature was purportedly captured by Forestry Service personnel and taken to the continental United States. On another occasion, a live creature was taken away in a cage by federal personnel of Puerto Rico and the US Department of Agriculture.
A civilian employee (name known to me) who works at a US Army base in San Juan reported that he had seen there a dead chupacabras, preserved on ice in a special reinforced-mesh cage. ‘He was in an office,’ Jorge told me, ‘when several soldiers came by, carrying a cube-like container covered with a crystal-like mesh. They put it on top of the table in this office. ‘Curious as to what was inside, he moved the cloth, and saw a very ugly creature which seemed to be dead. He remarked to the soldiers that it looked like the chupacabras. The soldiers became furious and said it was a monkey, but warned him that if he talked about what he had seen, he would get into a lot of trouble and could lose his job.
The chupacabras phenomenon was taken very seriously by the Puerto Rican authorities. On 9 November 1995, Representatives José Nuñez Gonzáles and Juan López presented a resolution at the 12th General Assembly of the House of Representatives. It states in part: In the last months numerous deaths and attacks on animals have been reported in Puerto Rico, which remain without any explanation . . . The number of cases has increased recently and the Puerto Rican community demands action by the Government on the alarming situation . . .
It is hereby ordered that the Agricultural Commission of the House of Representatives make a profound and exhaustive investigation to clarify this unknown phenomenon and account for the damages caused by the so-called ‘Chupacabras’ to this country’s farmers.
Such official investigations are not new. In 1991, Colonel José A. Nolla, Director of the Puerto Rico State Agency of Civil Defence, who had sent a directive laying down guidelines for secret investigations into UFO sightings, stated under oath in a hearing at the Senate of Puerto Rico that he, the military and the Agency had been investigating the numerous UFO sightings and animal mutilations that had taken place over the years in the country.
In a radio interview for Noti-Uno, broadcast on Christmas Day 1995, Fernando Toledo, President of the Puerto Rico Agricultural Association, expressed his conviction that the chupacabras is not an indigenous species. ‘I think that if we already know it’s not an ape,’ he said, ‘we must then be dealing with an extraterrestrial . . .’