Nexus - 0404 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Finally, he managed to free himself and started running. Then he was startled to hear a loud noise, like a jet taking off. When Pulido turned and looked back, the creature had already mysteriously disappeared. Chronicle reporter Dudley Althaus in early May. "A coyote never kills the way these sheep were killed. The coyotes and jungle cats in the area devour their prey, rip it apart. The dead sheep had only puncture wounds." The sheep that Dr Lara referred to belonged to Violeta Colorado, a 27-year-old mother with two small children. Colorado found nine of her sheep dead in a pasture next to her house. None of the sheep had been eaten, but their throats had been punctured, leaving bloodless holes. Several of the dead sheep were taken to Villahermosa, the Tabasco state capital about 30 miles away, for further examination. So far, no official reports have been released to the public. Mexican eyewitnesses in close encounters with the chu - pacabras report hearing a screeching sound like a wild turkey or even a sound similar to a jet airliner taking off. In the first week of May 1996, a man named José Angel Pulido from Tlajomulco, Jalisco state, reported to doctors and police that he was walking home through the small farming community at 11.30 pm when, ahead of him in the dimly-lit street, he saw a dark shape that he first thought was a dog lying asleep. When he got closer, the dark shape sprang for his head. Pulido said he felt pain in his right arm and tried to fight off the creature with his left arm. He said the attacker had no hair and that when he was hitting it, it felt like "a plastic bag filled with soft jelly; no bones, no mus- cles". Pulido also said that the shape of the creature's head reminded him of an owl's—large and round. Finally, he manage: to free himself and started running. Then he was startled to hear a loud noise, like a jet taking off. When Pulido turned and looke: back, the creature had already mysteriously disappeared. Drawing by José Miguel Agosta of the chupacabras creature “he saw early one morning in the first week of August 1995. The unknown animal leapt from a truck that Agosta was repairing. | hit the ground about eight feet away and then leapt straight up over a chain-link fence and disappeared into tall grass. Then he was And what was sitting on a tree branch near the home of com- puter technician Juan Murati at five o'clock in the afternoon at the end of September 1995? As he explained, "I was walking to my car when I had the feeling someone was looking at me. I take a glance and I see it, and I see the big red eyes, and I say, ‘Chupacabras!' And I got worried, scared." Pointing at a tree branch about 50 feet away, Juan said, "He was right there. He was sitting upright, not hanging down like a bat, but upright about two feet tall. And he was all black, a non- reflective black, like a bat, but non-reflective. The eyes were real- ly round, the size of oranges. And the eye colour was red like a ketchup bottle or a Coca-Cola can. Very reflective, very glassy, the eyes. I kept walking without showing the animal I had fear. Then I hear this sound, 'plah, plah, plah, plah, plah', and he's fly- ing away." Juan Murati has his house surrounded by a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire on top and guarded by five pit bull dogs. One day, a month after he saw the black flying creature in the tree, he found his largest and strongest male pit bull with two puncture holes in its neck. "I came here as I do every day to feed the dogs," Juan said, "and I saw the classical vampire marks on the big dog, the male. So I went to the police and from the police I went to Mayor Chemo Soto in Canovanas. He asked me what I thought it was— if I thought it was the demon, the devil, or from outer space. All I can say is I saw what I saw and that was it." I showed a Philadelphia vertebrate biologist (who wishes to remain anonymous) several chupacabras drawings I have collect- ed, including Juan Murati's sketch. The biologist emphasised that vampire bats don't sit upright in trees and don't make 3/4-inch- long punctures. Their front teeth are sharp and the bat makes sev- eral shallow cuts on its victim's skin and then licks off the blood. He doubted the credibility of the reports because "animals fall into categories which have long been studied and are recognisable. This is like a concoction that makes no sense, and therefore I doubt the accuracy of the eyewitnesses." When I showed him Juan Murati's drawing, he guessed the creature was an owl but admitted that owls are not solid black in colour. CHUPACABRAS REPORTS BEYOND PUERTO RICO On 11 May 1996, Molly Moore, reporting from Mexico City for the Washington Post, wrote: "First came the reports of goats, then lambs and roosters, massacred in the night and drained of their blood. The only evidence of their attackers: large fang marks on the animals' necks." But Dr Mario Santiago Lara, a veterinarian from Zapotal, southeast of Mexico City, disagrees that the wounds are fang marks. "I have never seen anything like it, ever," he told Houston JUNE - JULY 1997 NEXUS - 67