Argentina: An Entity in Colonia Elia

Source: Vision OVNI
Date: 11.25.08

Argentina: Bizarre Entity in Colonia Elia (Prov. of Entre Rios)
By Andrea Pérez Simondini and Daniel Szauter

Very early in the morning on October 8, a team from Vision Ovni headed for the locality of Colonia Elia in the Province of Entre Rios to research the manifestations of a strange creature that appears in smallholds and fields, slaying farm animals as well as calves and sheep. This was the information presented to us by the national media, which had taken an interest in the story. It was thanks to this interest that we became aware of the case.

Once we had reached the site, 260 kilometers distant along Route 14, we entered Colonia Elia through a dirt road in search of the witnesses. As always, we employed an old but sure-fire strategy to get information. We stopped a man who was riding along on horseback, and he quickly indicated the location of the Restayno family home. This was the family that had witnessed the events involving the unusual creature.

The witnesses warmly welcomed us: they showed us evidence of the mutilations, which was among the reasons for our trip, and quickly told us the details of the occurrences.

A Summary of the Restayno Family’s Experiences

Manifestations of this entity began a year ago, around September 15, when they found a dead chicken beside the granary, displaying strange marks, and a large print on the ground (see photo of plaster cast, courtesy of Daniel Padilla, researcher). The family’s boys – Matias and Gabriel – fully knowledgeable about the animals that wander the fields, could not recognize the type of marks left on the chicken’s breast and much less identify the footprint found near the dead animal. In an effort to glean further evidence, they found tear marks, made as if by claws, in the back of the henhouse. The following night, early in the morning, the heard noises that prompted them to go outside to see what was happening. Matias, 16, was startled when he saw a bizarre figure scurry away among the vegetation at the back of the house; he described this figure as large (standing at least 1.70 meters) and swift in its getaway. Upon inspecting the henhouse, they found a dead chicken with a large rip in it chest.

From that moment on, the family’s boys would not have a normal life again, as each night turned into an episode of chase and attempted capture of this creature, which turned the family’s life into a strange adventure. According to ach family member, the “critter”, as they’ve dubbed it, seems more frightened than them. Whenever the possibility of an encounter exists, the reaction is always the same: flight.

All manner of snares have been laid out to trap this creature: otter traps, cages (lent by a neighbor who cares for endangered animals), and they even prepared a trap using old bedding elastic [...]. The creature was captured in each of these, but managed to free itself. The otter trap, however, inflicted serious injury, given that blood traces remained on the trap and on a nearby stone. These samples were taken for analytical purposes.

Manifestations have been constant. The witness see fleeting shadows and the entity’s claw-prints, such as the ones it left on a tree, as though it had used the wood to sharpen them, or its footsteps, which are easily seen because the boys, in their urge to secure evidence, began spreading ashes and rice powder around the henhouses.

The best was yet to come, and it would happen inside the house at three o’clock in the morning. Matias heard a noise behind the kitchen but within his home. This experience allowed Matias to clearly see the entity that had been engaged in the chicken mutilations. We managed to obtain an oral picture of the creature. We showed him a series of figures from our files, and he identified one of them as very similar, and based on that, he outlined the description of what confronted him that night.

He seized his carbine (.22 caliber) and quickly headed to the front of the house. When he drew the curtain of the room that houses his mother’s pantry and the cheese-making churns, he found the “critter” on top of the freezer, clearly intending to grab the churn. Matias’s immediate reaction was to fire, which he did four times without wounding it. The anima jumped through a window, spilling chicken entrails throughout the room.

(Translation (c) 2008, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez)