Chupacabra Sightings

The Chupacabra, the goat-sucker, is one of the great folk figures of the modern Latin American world. The figure is, in one sense, very new — the first widely reported sightings date to 1995, in the central mountains of Puerto Rico — and, in another sense, very old, for the basic shape of the figure belongs to a much older folk tradition. The Chupacabra has spread, in the three decades since the first sightings, from Puerto Rico to the rest of the Caribbean, to Mexico and Central America, to the Mexican-American borderlands of the southwestern United States, and to the wider world. The Chupacabra is a creature of the modern media age, and its career is a striking example of the way in which a folk figure can be born, spread, and become global within a few years.

The Chupacabra is said to be a creature that kills livestock — particularly goats, but also sheep, chickens, rabbits, and other small animals — by sucking their blood. The name Chupacabra is the Spanish for goat-sucker, from chupar (to suck) and cabra (goat). The creatures are said to leave behind the bodies of the animals, drained of blood, with small puncture marks on the neck or the chest, and with no other sign of violence.

The First Puerto Rican Sightings (1995)

The first widely reported sightings of the Chupacabra occurred in the central mountains of Puerto Rico in the autumn of 1995. The first reported case was the killing of eight sheep on the farm of Madelyn Rodríguez in the town of Caguas, in October 1995. The bodies of the sheep were drained of blood, and small puncture marks were found on the chests of the animals. The case was reported in the Puerto Rican press, and similar cases were reported in the months that followed in the towns of Canóvanas, Loíza, Fajardo, Humacao, and elsewhere.

The figure of the Chupacabra was soon given a physical description. The first widely circulated description, from a witness in Canóvanas in November 1995, was of a creature that was about the size of a small chimpanzee, with greenish-gray skin, large red eyes, spines running down the back from the neck to the tip of the tail, and a row of fangs. The figure was described as walking on two legs, although it was said to be able to walk on all fours.

The figure of the Chupacabra spread rapidly through the Puerto Rican media. The story was picked up by the local television stations, and the figure was soon being talked about across the island. In March 1996, the Puerto Rican government officially denied the existence of the Chupacabra, but the figure was by then well established in the public imagination.

The Physical Description

The physical description of the Chupacabra has changed over the years. The first description, of the creature of 1995, was of a bipedal creature, about the size of a small chimpanzee, with greenish-gray reptilian skin, large red eyes, spines down the back, and fangs. This is the original Chupacabra of the Puerto Rican form, sometimes called the “Mexican Chupacabra”, although the figure was first reported in Puerto Rico.

A second, later form of the Chupacabra, the “original” Chupacabra of the Cuban and Mexican-American tradition, is a four-legged creature, about the size of a small dog, with grey or tan fur, large eyes, and a row of spines down the back. This form is the figure that is most commonly reported in the Mexican-American borderlands and in the southwestern United States, and it is the form that has been most commonly captured, photographed, and studied by cryptozoologists. The captured animals have usually been identified as coyotes, dogs, or coyote-dog hybrids with severe mange (a skin disease caused by parasitic mites) that have given them a strange, hairless appearance.

The UFO Connection

The Chupacabra of the 1995 Puerto Rican form was closely connected, from the very beginning, to the UFO and alien-abduction traditions of the late twentieth century. The first widely circulated description of the creature, with the large red eyes, the spines, and the grey-green skin, was strikingly similar to the popular image of the alien in the science fiction of the period, especially the grey alien of the Whitley Strieber Communion (1987) tradition. The Puerto Rican sightings occurred in the same period as the great UFO wave of the 1990s, and the Chupacabra became part of the wider modern UFO folklore of the Americas.

The UFO connection is also reflected in the fact that the first widely reported Chupacabra sightings occurred in the central mountains of Puerto Rico, the same region in which the great UFO wave of 1977 had occurred. The Puerto Rican UFO wave of 1977 was one of the great UFO waves of the modern era, and the region has remained a centre of UFO belief in the years since. The Chupacabra of 1995 can be read as a continuation of the older UFO tradition of the region, in which the figure of the strange being is updated from the form of the saucer and the alien to the form of the creature and the killer.

The alien-abduction connection is also important. The figure of the Chupacabra is, in many ways, the figure of the alien-abduction narrative made flesh. The Chupacabra is a being that comes from elsewhere, that is not quite of the natural world, that has strange powers, and that is associated with the violation of the body.

The Original Cuban Chupacabra

The “original” Chupacabra of the Cuban tradition, also called the Cojimar Chupacabra, is a figure that is sometimes said to predate the Puerto Rican form. According to the Cuban folklorist José Alberto Álvarez and other sources, the Cuban Chupacabra was reported in the Cojimar region of eastern Cuba in the 1990s, and the figure was known in the Cuban rural tradition before the Puerto Rican wave of 1995. The Cuban figure is described as a four-legged creature, about the size of a small dog, with grey or tan fur, large eyes, and a row of spines down the back.

The Spread Through Mexico and the Borderlands

The Chupacabra spread rapidly from Puerto Rico to the rest of the Caribbean and to Mexico. By the late 1990s, the figure was being reported from across Mexico, and the figure was particularly common in the northern states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Chihuahua, the states of the Mexican-American borderlands. By the early 2000s, the figure was being reported from the southwestern United States, especially from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and the figure was soon part of the modern Mexican-American folk tradition of the borderlands.

The Chupacabra of the Mexican-American borderlands is associated with the killing of livestock, especially goats, sheep, and chickens, and the figure has been reported across the rural areas of the border. The figure has also been reported in the urban areas, especially in the barrios of the border cities.

The Mexican government has never officially recognised the Chupacabra, but the figure has been the subject of much research. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has studied the Chupacabra cases, and the university has concluded that the captured animals are usually coyotes or dogs with severe mange. The United States Department of Agriculture has also studied the cases, and the department has reached the same conclusion.

The Chupacabra in the Wider Tradition

The Chupacabra belongs to a much wider tradition of the mythical creature in the modern world. The **Mothman of Point Pleasant](../appalachian-folklore/mothman-of-point-pleasant.html), the Jersey Devil of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the Loveland Frog of Ohio, the Beast of Bladenboro of North Carolina — all of these are part of the same modern folk tradition of strange creatures at the edge of the world. The figures are part of the wider tradition of mythical creatures of world folklore, from the European dragon of the European tradition to the Thunderbird of the Native American tradition of North America. The Chupacabra, in this sense, is the modern Latin American representative of an ancient human fascination with the strange beings that may live at the edge of the world.

Sources and Further Reading

Paiva, Benjamin Radford, and Coronado, Colm. Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore. University of New Mexico Press, 2011.
Mech, L. David, and Boitani, Luigi, eds. Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Davids, Javier R. The Chupacabras: A Modern Myth of Origin and Its Sources (in Folklore Forum).
Saunders, Nicholas J., ed. Ancient Americas: A Brief History. Oxford University Press, 2014.