Cattle Mutilations: “Some Animals Survive” - Interview with Daniel U. Padilla

Cattle Mutilations: “Some Animals Survive”
A Radio Interview with Daniel Ubaldo Padilla in Chepes, La Rioja – December 13 2013

[Intro omitted]

Daniel U. Padilla: Just let me clarify a few things. While I am identified as an ufologist within the UFO community in Argentina my specialty is the subject of mutilations. There is no question that the UFO phenomenon is tightly related with the cattle mutilations phenomenon, which I have been studying for eleven years, I want to be objective about this. While the ETH or the UFO theory of beings that may not be from here is involved in the matter of mutilations, and cannot dismiss this. Yet it is not the most important one. There exists a more important or transcendent aspect here, a tougher one, as I say, which is the impact on the cattle rancher. And I believe it is the most serious loss to us as a society, since the losses ascend to fifteen heads of cattle per person in some places. So, who refunds the cattleman for his loss as a result of this phenomenon? This is the reason that there is no official investigation [into the subject]. Here, the first thing that happens when you appeal to an official agency is the expert investigation. Our scientists are in agreement – or have been educated thus – that the limitations of their profession appear when they face an enigma, when science is unable to explain something. How then, can you summon an expert to a judicial proceeding when he or she is unable to explain what is going on? Do you understand me? However, in spite of all this, this enigma must be explained somehow, and we must reach what I have termed the “moment of mutilation” – the observation of the party causing the mutilation, because the mutilator is hitherto unknown. If it [was known], I wouldn’t be here in Chepes today. In other words, the day I find out who is responsible for the mutilations, I would cease my research. It is true that the UFO phenomenon is closely related, and has significant impact in the matter in some way, on the societal level. I remember six years ago when I was being asked from La Rioja: “What do you say about this? Are they aliens or what are they?” It’s the first question out of anyone’s mouth.

Interviewer: That’s first question, of course. Who is behind all this?

DUP: The fact is that there is a major enigma, which as you say, surrounds all mutilations and creates fear, perception by animals such as horses and dogs as these creatures approach, there are odors which add to the mutilation enigma, the mutilations themselves seen on the animal’s bodies, which astound scientists and country people alike. Beyond the veterinarian, who is the first scientist involved in the animal mutilation, country people are the ones who have the greatest moral opinion when saying that something unusual is at work here. When the cattleman sees a dead animal, he is saying, when he says: “This is completely uncanny, this had never happened to me before”, he has spent all his life in contact with animals and living from that business, shall we say. They are fully aware that a veterinarian will be unable to explain the situation. He or she will not be able to say that blackleg is to blame, or that it is due to a lack of vaccinations, or that parameters that correspond to a clostridium infection are found when performing a necropsy…all of these matters add to the nebulous quality of finding an answer to this riddle.

Interviewer: And what people are wondering, Daniel is what a mutilation is? How is this conceptualized?

DUP: Well, mutilations are what I have called “traditional mutilations”… traditional mutilations are the apparently sudden death of an animal in which the extraction of certain body parts is a feature. For example, lacerations on the mouth, not incisions, lacerations on the mouth, on the ear, eyes, genitals, for example the anus, vagina in the cases of cows or the male parts of bulls, the extraction of these organs, and in cases involving pregnant cows, [we notice] the extraction of the fetus. But the main objective is the genital area, beyond the pregnancy of the cow. In other cases I have ascertained that the fetus is not extracted, but in most mutilation incidents all of these things are missing.

Interviewer: Daniel, which animals are the most mutilated during these episodes? Cows, horses, goats…

DUP: Yes, bovines – in both the Hereford and Angus breeds – are the most mutilated.

Interviewer: Not all breeds then?

DUP: No, not all breeds. But Poll Hereford and Gardiner Angus are the most common in Argentinean livestock. We also find that dairy cows – Frisians - are mutilated to a lesser extent than Poll Hereford or Gardiner Angus cattle. We must mention both breeds, since we have the black ones and the red ones alike.

Interviewer: Yes…

DUP: These are the two predominant breeds subject to mutilations.

Interviewer: Yes, and bovines stand out the most among what you have researched. Are there other animals…?

DUP: Pigs have been mutilated to a lesser extent, for example. Deer have been mutilated, along with what we call “gasunchos”, a sort of deer. Those have also been found. I also took photos of a mutilated lizard – one of these really large ones, lagarto overo (tegu - Tupinambis merianae) - which you must have here too.

Interviewer: Iguanas. We call them iguanas.

DUP: Well, iguanas, then.

Interviewer: Chickens. Have chickens ever been found [mutilated]?

DUP: I want to separate this, too, Mauricio. I can personally attest that attacks on farm fowl aren’t the same kind of attack as we see on cattle. We have been able to establish a pattern of mutilations in bovine deaths in Argentina. There are two other researchers in Argentina who have looked into these matters seriously: one of them is Quique Mario from La Pampa and the other is Andrea Simondini, on the Buenos Aires side, which is Victoria, Entre Rios. These two people have researched, and tried to provide the livestock farmer with solutions and support, a solution to keep people from feeling foolish when they ask about mutilations, or step forward to make a formal complaint. We must incentivize the reporting of cattle mutilations, because this may not be exclusively related to the UFO phenomenon; it could be related with other situations.

Interviewer: So what you’re telling me, Daniel, is that when people come across an animal with these characteristics, they must file a report.

DUP: They must report it. This is the only way we can reach the truth. Why is this? Because the research I am involved in keeps statistics on the subject, specifying the days and prevailing weather conditions. But the most important thing is the day and the phase of the moon. The phase of the moon. The moon has a major influence here. I established a moon-based period of mutilations that goes from the end of the new moon to the start of the full moon. This is to say, going throughout the waxing moon phase. We are currently in a waxing phase and I paid no attention, as I was on vacation and I took off. I came here because there had been mutilation incidents and I believed the focus was here.

Interviewer: In other words, mutilations aren’t always occurring. In ten years of research you’ve determined this to be the case.

DUP: No, there is a period of mutilations.

Interviewer: The moon must be taken into account,

DUP: The moon, because it’s the only point of reference that leads me…because mutilations largely occur at night.

Interviewer: Can I ask you if you have some hypothesis...why does it happen at night?

DUP: Well, there is a broad hypothesis that I told you in person, but I would sooner not share it with the public out of a need for explanation, since many things could be misconstrued based upon what I say. Cattle ranchers who want to know – I can give you my phone number – can contact me and I can give them an explanation they can consider at that moment. We’re in December and statistically, mutilation events are few, and this lunar phase is the last one for the month, and the likeliest for mutilation episodes to take place. Temperature is also a factor. The temperature dropped today, for example. We don’t know what it might be at night, so a mutilation may occur, or one may have taken place days ago. So I believe there is a strong possibility that one may take place….

Interviewer: But look at all the factors you’re giving us. Moon, temperature, time of day, day or night, the number of animals, mostly bovines…all of this is important.

DUP: Exactly. Cattle ranchers shouldn’t take all of this as a psychosis – they should simply be mindful, nothing more. They shouldn’t set up night watches, shouldn’t arm themselves with shotguns, because we don’t know what we’re dealing with. The fact is that something is approaching animals and killing them.

Interviewer: The important thing is what you said. If the livestock farmer finds a dead animal, he must report it.

DUP: Very important, because the cattlemen usually say: “Why should I report it, if nothing will come of it?” but that’s the harsh reality.

Interviewer: Daniel, in our country, where have mutilations occurred? Overall, in the north, in the south, what does experience tell you?

DUP: Well, I’m going back to 2002, when initial media exposure of mutilations came about. Nearly 10,000 head of cattle where mutilated in Argentina. This is what was reflected in the media, in other words we know that many people did not file reports, and it is perfectly possible that this figure could have been exceeded within the country.

Interviewer: 10,000 within the country alone? These are registered?

DUP: Exactly, around 10,000. Afterward, in 2007, what brought me to Chepes was the cattle mutilation wave of 2007. In Entre Rios, there was a mutilation wave from south to north in Entre Rios. We came to Chepes because there were mutilations occurring in Chepes – not many, but we came because of the animals that were found alive here in Chamical. By the way, for those listening to me in Chamical, I’d like to thank Don Gonzalez who assisted us in the investigation of two animals who survived being mutilated. These are two out of seven living animals in my files. No one in the world has tested seven animals who survived mutilations. I’m not saying this out of egocentrism, but because if forms part of the information and is part of the disinformation made by other researchers, who don’t mention these seven animals in spite of the fact that it is well-known in Argentinean ufology, and researchers who don’t speak out for personal reasons, perhaps, about the research work I have carried out.

Interviewer: In other words, our listeners must know that it hasn’t all been deaths – some animals have survived.

DUP: They have survived. The least percentage, but they have survived. Let me go on with the story. What brought me to Chepes were these mutilations. When I arrived here in Chepes, I recall it was you, Mauricio, who told me there had been a mutilation in Santa Cruz. When we went to Santa Cruz to see the family that had experienced the mutilation event, what drew my attention is that their animal was a Hereford. So upon examining the local livestock – many Charolais and mixed Cebu cattle, breeds that are proper to this location, as they need to be hardy on this terrain, surviving amid the rocks and mountains – this detail stood out. So I asked them why no other [animals] had been mutilated. They said: “No, this was one of the last remaining Hereford animals brought by the landowner from elsewhere due to an emergency.” And where did he bring it in from? From the islands to the south of Entre Rios. When? This year, at the beginning of this year. Of course, 2007 had been an El Niño year and this phenomenon caused the Paraná River to flood, causing much livestock to be removed and causing the loss of others by drowning. And this cattleman brought these animals to Santa Cruz because he had meadows in Santa Cruz. But is it sheer chance that a Hereford brought from Entre Rios was mutilated here? No, it isn’t a matter of chance. This leads me to think that there is an identification of the animal, or an indication of sorts, prior, perhaps, when the cows were inseminated, or when the animal was young, or perhaps a lineage of animals that has been marked in a certain way. They don’t kill just any animal. For example, animals that are fed with chemical products are not slain or mutilated –

Interviewer: In other words, those animals that are in a feed lot aren’t killed…

DUP: In a feed lot? No, no. At least we have none recorded. Animals in the field are mutilated, those that are in the pastures. In many cases, like in Santa Cruz, in remote areas that are barely accessible to human beings. But it forms part of the cases, not all cases.

Interviewer: Is there any explanation you can put forth, Daniel? Why do [deaths] occur in the open range, not in the barn or feedlot?

DUP: Personally, I can tell you – and this is purely personal, based on experiences and research - I think that the search for these animals, in the middle of the wilderness where there is no access, no access to human beings, allows the animals to be fully mutilated. Not only can they extract organs, they can come back and mutilate it again over consecutive nights during this time period. When they have the chance, they return to mutilate the same animal. This tells me that it is a sort of nourishment, they are feeding on it.

Interviewer: But why? Why mutilate in such a way?

DUP: The surviving animals have given me the indication that tissue is destroyed and not extracted or taken away. Rather, the tissue is destroyed or deteriorates under the influence of something that we have been unable to bring in for analysis.

A photo of cattle mutilations researcher Daniel Ubaldo Padilla with the following text: "Five deaths with confirmed mutilations in July 2013. Two of them occurred at a ranch called La Celestina and antother in the vicinity of the cemetery of the town of Chelcos. Two pigs in the vicinity of Chepes Viejo. All of them in the southern end of the Province of La Rioja, Argentina."

[Transcription and translation (c) 2014 by Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology]

Mutilations: An Interview With Raul Oscar Chaves

An Interview With Raul Oscar Chaves of CiufosLaPampa

Readers of Inexplicata have become familiar over the years with the reports provided by Raul Oscar Chaves, one of Argentina’s most prominent researchers of cattle mutilations and UFO activity. He took time from his busy schedule this week to answer a few questions regarding the current wave of animal mutilations occurring in his country.

What is Ciufoslapampa and how did it come about?

This organization, whose visible heads are Rosa Ester Urban and Raul Oscar Chaves, was created in 2002 immediately following the manifestation of the cattle mutilation phenomenon in Argentina, particularly in La Pampa, playing a role in the research of early cases at the provincial level and in the province of Buenos Aires. The reason for this was the need to know the details of the phenomenon in its various manifestations, that is to say, its implications and even its consequences from the standpoint of research.

Are animal mutilations common in your area?

They were and are customary. Although they have decreased at the present time, having reached their peak in the year 2002, when over 1500 cases of large cattle mutilation were reported. Lesser species were also mutilated, such as rabbits, chickens, cats, dogs, pigs, wild boar, deer, foxes, sheep, etc. Cases are being reported at this time, although the number is not significant in this province, and they involve beef cattle and pigs. There is a certain concern among cattlemen regarding the particular characteristics displayed by the phenomenon this time.

Is there any connection between mutilations and UFOs?

In cases that have been detected since 2002, finding mutilated carcasses invariably followed sightings of strange lights, particularly in rural areas. The emerging theory indicates the intervention of other Intelligences operating over highly specific sectors or areas. Veterinarians and former members of the School of Veterinary Medicine of La Pampa were unable to find answers to the following during their research into the phenomenon:

· The precision and neatness of the incisions, both under cold and hot conditions, after having performed lab tests using electric scalpels and thermocauterizers, without being able to come “even close” to results similar to the ones obtained in mutilations. This was evidence of the use of unknown technologies and procedures, according to experts.
· The nearly total absence of blood in some cases, with the flesh itself being found bloodless.
· The absence of corneas, in certain cases.
· The absence of fetuses or neonates in cases of pregnancy established by palpation and in the final months of gestation, without any deterioration to the birth canal.
· Absence of muscular mass in unopened bodies, with minor incisions (jawline only) attesting to the absence of Longinis Dorsis in a 40 cm tract, with signs of exposure to microwave radiation.
· Preservation of mutilated carcasses for up to 20 days under death conditions occurring within 24 hours.
· Changes in the coloration and consistency of pastureland in areas adjacent to the animal, attesting that even microfauna had been affected, detection of very high temperatures or some type of radiation in the soil, which acquires a notorious compacting and consistency.
· Detection of a crystalline, viscous, gelatinous element on the animal that changed to the liquid state, followed by crystallization and subsequent disappearance, presumably of exogenous or unknown origin and playing a role in the mutilations.
· Detection of a bluish-green pathogen inside various parts of the mutilated bodies, without any origin being established.

It was also established that the flesh of a mutilated animal exposed to the open air was preserved up to some 40 days with evidence of a slight fetid odor, with only some flies present. The work of these experts was highly important despite the absence of results from a rational standpoint and given the lack of adequate technology for research of this nature.

What is the popular opinion about this phenomenon?

Although the most critical and vivid stage is behind us (2002-2003), which left a powerful impression on public opinion, the uncertainty is experienced by rural livestock farmers, especially those who had significant losses (12-15 animals) and are trying to glean more details about the phenomenon’s manifestation in this instance.

Many thanks, Raul. We look forward to more reports on this disturbing phenomenon.

Cattle Mutilations: Commotion over Animal Attack in Pellegrini, Santiago del Estero

Source: Vision Ovni (A.P. Simondini)
Date: 04/9/2013

Cattle Mutilations: Commotion over Animal Attack in Pellegrini, Santiago del Estero

Residents found young goats with incisions, without organs and entrails, and with no traces of blood in the area. No reliable explanation has been found.

Interior. In recent days, residents of the provincial interior have been shocked by two cases involving animal mutilations that ocurred in remote localities, but having similar characteristics.

The first event took place in the Quebrada Esquina wilderness, department of Pellegrini, where a family of farmers found a small goat mutilated in its pen. The animal presented a perfect incision around its tail, through which organs and entrails were extracted.

The strange event took place in a community of peasant families some 13 kilometers away from Nueva Esperanza. The animal was found by Gerardo Villagrán and Nilda Ruiz, small livestock farmers, who headed for the pens, as is their custom to feed the young kids. They were shocked to find a 20-day-old kid dead from an incision under its tail, its organs and entrails missing along with the bones in its head. Its hide was intact -- a constant feature of these cases -- and there was no blood to be found.

The news spread throughout the settlement and many came to see the Villagrán's animal in its pen. All agreed that there is no predatory animal in the area to whom the event could be ascribed, and this was a source of concern to the community, which cannot find an answer or explanation to the situation.

In Quimlí

The second case occurred in Quimlí on Saturday morning, when according to locals, a "strange being" appeared during the night and mutilated an animal. Citizens of Quimlí are stil amazed by the bizarre situation they experienced upon discovering an animal carcass with unusual incisions and mutilations, yet without a single drop of blood in evidence.

According to reports from Ruben Dominguez, he arrived on Saturday with his work team from the Mobile Health Unit attached to the city's Ministry of Health. A group of local residents described hearing odd sounds during the night, which they associated with the presence of the [legendary] Almamula.

Furthermore, they added that their hypothesis was confirmed by the discovery - fifty meters away from the city's CIC, of the carcass of a six-month-old cold with strange incisions to its neck, muzzle, breast and tail. Beyond the wounds, the locals were astonished by the fact that signs of a struggle between animals were present, yet without any blood.

Many curiosity seekers visited the site, yet no one was able to ascertain what had taken place.

(Translation (c) 2013, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Andrea Pérez Simondini and Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)

The Night of the Chupacabras (2000)

The Night of the Chupacabras
By Scott Corrales
(C) 2000


A small crowed gathered within the narrow confines of a clothing store on San Juan's Ponce de León Avenue to watch the clerks remove armfuls of crisp white t-shirts from nondescript boxes. Colorful serigraphs and silkscreened images depicting the gargoylesque paranormal predator known as El Chupacabras by the media decorated the front of each garment: Chupacabras as lifeguard, Chupacabras as gourmet chef, Chupacabras as straw-sipping vampire. An overweight woman gently took one of the t-shirts and looked at it skeptically. "Eso no puede ser," she said aloud to no one in particular: This thing can't be.

For that was the zeitgeist in the shining star of the Caribbean in December 1995: half-hearted denial of a physical impossibility. A red-eyed nocturnal creature alleged by many to have caused the deaths of countless small animals in rural Puerto Rico since the beginning of the year. What had originally been considered the idle prattle of country cousins was now a subject of serious discussions in thoroughly urban, sophisticated San Juan. Congressmen from opposing sides of the political spectrum now proposed joint resolutions calling for a formal investigation of the problem affecting not only their constituents, but which they themselves had experienced on their country estates.

The madness would soon spread to Florida, then Mexico, then Central America...a paranormal domino theory whose reach would extend as far south as Brazil and across the wide Atlantic to Spain and Portugal. The United States, skeptical and derisive of any supernatural developments outside its borders, would also be brushed by the Chupacabras' dark wings.

Anatomy of a Paranormal Pandemic

WANTED: Chupacabras--the Goatsucker--variously described by witnesses as standing between 4 and 5 feet tall; covered in greenish brown or blackish grey fur; spindly arms ending in claws; powerful hind legs enabling it to jump over fences; a thin membrane under its arms that have been described as "wings"; glowing red eyes; has a crest of glowing appendages running down its back; estimated weight at some 100 pounds; has been known to use telepathic powers against human witnesses. Suspect is unarmed but considered dangerous. Contact your nearest police station.

These descriptions, gleaned from dozens of cases in a number of countries, coincide on the details that make this aberrant being a fascinating subject for study. Here we are faced with the ultimate chimaera: a being described as being able to fly or float, but with a body/mass ratio in excess of the size of its wing-like appendages; self-luminous eyes, and perhaps most amazing of all, the resemblance of its head and eyes to that of the so-called "Greys" that have become a staple of contemporary ufology, grafted onto a tail-less, kangaroo-like body. This identikit image was made even grislier by the addition of a proboscis emanating from the creature's mouth, employed to suck the blood out of its victims.

Pre-Chupacabras Mutilations

Eminent Puerto Rican ufologist Willie Durand Urbina offers information concering the mini-wave of animal mutilations which took place in the early 1990's, prior to the appearance of the Chupacabras. The events began in March 1991 and centered around the Lares, P.R. area: residents of Barrio Pezuelas filed complaints with the police regarding the deaths of pigs, geese, chickens and other animals whose carcasses presented fang marks on their throats and had been completely drained of blood. Many of the animal owners told the police that they had seen "a strange animal" hiding in the exhuberant vegetation of the hillside; some eyewitnesses described the alleged perpetrator as an ape, while others insisted that it was much larger in size than a normal dog, and completely black in color. However, Wilfedo Cubero, a director of the Cuerpo de Investigación Criminal or CIC, insisted that no notice of these cases had ever been given to his agency. Nor had any specimens of the mutilated animals been collected by official agencies for formal autopsy purposes. When nine pigs were found exanguinated near the outskirts of Camuy, on the Atlantic shore, Civil Defense Director Aníbal Román would summarily dismiss the case as "the handiwork of a hungry dog."

The benign neglect of the authorities prompted the affected citizenry to take matters into their own hands: like extras from a horror movie wandering through the night with torches, the residents of Barrio Pezuelas armed themselves with clubs and went out to find and liquidate the "vampire" bent on destroying their livestock. Fear spread across the mountainous rural area. Children were forbidden by their elders to walk alone along the country roads or to be out of their homes after seven o'clock at night.

Héctor Colón, a public school teacher, would soon become the spokesman for the terrified residents of Barrio Pezuelas. Himself a farmer, he appeared on radio shows and in newspaper features to stress that the situation experienced by his community was highly unusual. "I'm a farmer and can tell you that these deaths are abnormal," he declared on a radio interview on Lares radio station WGDL on April 4, 1991. He went on to describe the finding of a large boar that very morning which had been completely drained of blood and sported fang-marks on its neck. The aggrieved locals soon began accusing the police of not wanting to look into the matter so as to avoid presenting reports on the high strangeness deaths.

As spring turned imperceptibly to summer, the vampiric activity moved from Lares to Aguada on the Mona Channel, the body of water separating Puerto Rico from the island of Hispaniola. Planters and livestock owners of that community's Barrio Lagunas began experiencing losses in June 1991 to a predator equally in killing animals as in tearing banana trees apart to feed on their succulent tender hearts. The island media soon christened the beast "Comecogollos" -- the Banana-Tree Eater.

The jocose moniker did nothing to assuage the fiend's temper. Frightened eyewitnesses described it as a manlike, hairy creature weighing some sixty pounds, strong enough to kill a dog and a goat and tear its way through plantain groves. Manuel Rivera, a planter and businessman in Lagunas, complained to the press that not a single government agency had paid attention to the matter, and that the police refused to respond to calls involving the strange creature. A number of goats slain by the hairy being had to be buried when no official agency turned up to perform autopsies.

In July 1991, officialdom began having a change of heart. Juan Morales, Regional Director of the Civil Defense for the Arecibo area, indicated that the persistence of animal deaths and creature sightings merited careful investigation, while at the same time hestitating to venture any opinions as to their possible cause. The cause of his about-face was almost certainly the unexplained slaying of twenty goats in the Quebradas Sector of Camuy. The twenty lifeless animals all had the same fang-marks on their throats and had been drained of blood.

Their interest had come about too late. By the time elements of the Civil Defense had reported to Quebradas, the dead goats were too far along the decomposition process to subject their carcasses to scientific analysis. But the startling admission that none of the goats had been slain by dogs was made by the same Regional Civil Defense office.

To cap off the high-strangeness events of 1991, government agencies on the offshore island of Culebra, to the west of Puerto Rico, found themselves faced with the appearance of a "mystery cat" -- a one hundred and fifty pound feline, grey in color -- seen by personnel of the Natural Resources Department and of the Conservation and Development Agency on Culebra's Playa Flamingo. The authorities confessed their bewilderment at how a large feline could have appeared "out of thin air". The outcome of their efforts was never made known to the public.

Horror Made Manifest

After remaining in abeyance for four years, the mutilations started again, this time in the municipality of Orocovis, in the heart of Puerto Rico's mountainous interior. Sickening feelings of deja-vu welled through the hearts of farmers who stumbled upon the silent carcasses of their animals: a new round in the struggle with the unexplained had begun.

On March 21, 1995, word of the strange events replaying themselves in the center of the island was broadcast by the media. The focus of attention was a locality called Saltos Cabra outside Orocovis, Puerto Rico. Reserachers José A. Rodríguez and Federico Alvarez Frank promptly visited the area on March 22, 1995 to inspect the property of Mr. Enrique Barreto, the dead animals' owner. After visiting the municipal police headquarters in search of directions, the researchers arrived at their destination. Mr. Barreto, a lifelong resident of the community and an employee of the Municipality of Orocovis, was considered to have impeccable credentials.

Barreto's testimony indicated that the animal deaths began on March 10, when realized some certain sheep were missing at feeding time. Puzzled as to the situation, he was later shocked to find a consderable number of his flock dead. Saddened but not overly preoccupied, he didn't think to file a police report, ascribing his losses to the predatory activities of some wild dog. But when more animals turned up dead in the days that followed, the farmer was intrigued by the unusual puncture marks on their necks. It was then that he decided to file a complaint with the municipality's police.

Researchers were quick to seize upon the most obvious evidence on the Barreto property -- the strange three-toed footprints covering the ground. This fact ruled out a dog or wild cat attack, since canines and felines have four toes. Further analysis proved there was an 18 inch distance between footprints, suggesting that whatever creature they belonged to was bipedal rather than quadrupedal. Its weight was estimated at between 120 and 140 pounds.

Alvarez and his group took Geiger counter readings of the sheep. "The incorrupt sheep," Alvarez notes in his report,"gave off readings of .011 on a scale of 1000 (110 rads, in other words), which is somewhat high [...] The spine of another sheep also produced readings of .011 rads. After the corresponding analysis, the conclusion was reached by one of our experts in nuclear medicine that the radiation emitted by the dead sheep was not irradiated but injected intravenously, judging by the reading found on the dead animal's spinal column. Hence the delayed decomposition process in the carcass."

But although no trace of the mutilator or mutilators were found, a high-strangeness event soon befell one of the investigators, José A. Rodríguez, in the vicinity of a cave, suspected to be the hideout of the creature causing the mutilations. Rodríguez experienced the sensation that something was watching him, and felt mysteriously compelled to head for a nearby gully, falling into it and receiving head wounds. Police officers took the wounded Rodríguez to a nearby hospital to have his injuries seen to.

While animal mutilations continued throughout the remainder of the spring and summer, it was not until August that the creature known as the Goatsucker would finally enter the stage, choosing not landlocked Orocovis but the coastal town of Canovanas for its debut.

Canóvanas is a prosperous community that benefits from its location on Route 3, which handles the heavy traffic between San Juan on one end and Fajardo on the other. The majestic, mist-enshrouded peaks of El Yunque are only a stone's throw away, and the excellent beaches of Luquillo attract thousands of local and foreign tourists. Canóvanas also boasts the spectacular El Comandante, one of the finest race tracks in the entire world. It was this fortunate piece of real estate that the gargoylesque creature called the Chupacabras would select as its own.

Madelyne Tolentino and her husband, José Miguel Agosto, have the distinct privilege of beign the first witnesses to the creature. During the second week of August 1995, at approximately four o' clock in the afternoon on a weekday, Ms. Tolentino looked out a window at her home and saw a young man walking backward with an expression of indescribable fear on his face, as if something horrible were about to pounce on him. She then noticed that a strange creature was approaching the house at a moderate pace, allowing her to take a good, long look at the aberration. Whatever it was stood four feet tall and had a pelt covered in a mixture of colors ranging from brown to black and ashen grey, as if it had been burned. Tolentino added that the entity had gelatinous dark-grey eyes and spindly arms ending in claws. "To me, it couldn't be anything from this world," she would later tell reporters.

Her momentary fascination with the entity came to an end when she realized the enormity of the experience. Shouting, she called for her mother to witness the surreal event. Her mother would later add that it had a coppery plumage running down the length of its back and that it moved in a series of short hops, like a kangaroo, but lacking the marsupial's characteristic tail. The creature ran into an overgrown field, and Ms. Tolentino's husband and other resients of the same street gave chase, but the creature was nowhere to be found.

The supernatural predator appeared to have found an abundance of easy prey in the Canóvanas area and concentrated its attacks there for the next six weeks.

On September 29, 1995 the creature killed an assortment of rabbits, guinea hens and chickens at a farm belonging to Felix Rivera in Guaynabo's Barrio Santa Rosa. A week later eyewitnesses claimed to have seen a beast "hairy like a bear" in Canovanas again: a young man named Misael Negrón allegedly observed the entity for ten minutes from the balcony of his home. He added that the creature appeared to take a great interest in its surroundings and stood up suddenly when it realized that Negrón was watching it. Both creature and human beat a hasty retreat from one another. Misael's brother Angel would claim the following day that he had been pursued by creature after seeing it standing beside a dead
goat.

The people of Canóvanas, daunted by their unwelcome visitor, found a champion in a most unlikely source: their own mayor, the Hon. José "Chemo" Soto. On October 29, having organized a citizen militia of up to two hundred people, Soto led a series of nightly hunts for the elusive creature, equipping his posse with nets, tranquilizing dart guns and other non-lethal means. Some decried the gesture as useless, in the face of the powers ascribed to the creature, and others ridiculed the mayor for his gallant effort, but it represented the very first response against the bloodsucking visitor from anyone in an official capacity.

The mayor's plan involved trapping the creature by using a goat as bait. Volunteers crafted a sizeable cage, made out of the welded iron fencing commonly found on the island, and deposited in a field: The Chupacabras, however, was not quite so easily fooled. Its exploits were now being reported from one end of the island to another, causing many to wonder, with increasing dread, if the Chupacabras were not one but many. One case involving a prestigious pharmaceutical company on the island dealt with the inability of the security staff to find guards for its "graveyard shift" since one guard reported seeing three Chupacabras-like creatures on the premises. The terrifying sight prompted the watchman's resignation.

The balance of 1995 was filled with senseless animal deaths and choking feeling of terror among rural residents. Police officer José Collazo would become one of the growing number of citizens having their own close encounters with the non-human attacker. At eleven o'clock at night, as the off-duty police officer and his wife were getting ready for bed, Collazo heard the unmistakeable sound of his car alarm go off in the carport. Fearing thieves were trying to spirit away his new Toyota, he approached the door to the carport with his .357 Magnum in hand. The sight that greeted him would later make him wish that it had indeed been something as mundane as a car thief!

Collazo found his dog growling and keening, engaged in a struggle to the death with what he at first took to be another dog. He then realized that a bizarre creature was overpowering his pet Chow and digging its fangs on the hapless canine's back. Firing a dead-on shot at the creature, Collazo was even more startled to see it roll into a ball--sticking its humanoid head between its legs -- and hurling itself against one of the carport walls, bouncing out of the open-ended structure. When asked by reporters if he could have fired another shot and killed the creature, the officer sheepishly admitted that he had been afraid of damaging his new car.

The brief encounter with the unknown yielded a wealth of physical evidence: the creature left behind tufts of coarse hair and samples of its blood on the carport floor and walls. A nauseating reek remained in the air for a number of days.

Physical Evidence and Scientific Naysaying

The growing number of Chupacabras sightings around the island was starting to create a considerable number of physical traces which were being collected and analyzed with unsatisfying results. Dr. Hector García, a veterinarian with the Department of Agriculture's Caribbean Veterinary Laboratory, remained steadfast in his belief that "feral dogs and monkeys" were ultimately responsible for the spree of animal mutilations. After performing twenty autopsies in the last three months of 1995, he insisted that none of the animal carcasses brought to him for analysis presented any perforations in the jugular vein, which would have been the likeliest location for a predator to suck blood. The dead animals, he pointed out, had the amount of blood one would expect to find in carcass, putting paid to the exanguination hysteria. Pneumonia, hepatitis and animal bites were likelier causes for the deaths.

García would soon find his ideological opposite in Dr. Carlos A. Soto, a veterinarian who felt no compunctions about saying that his colleagues were utterly mistaken. Admitting that the island indeed had a problem with wild dogs and feral apes, he was quick to note that the entity performing the mutilations was unknown to veterinary medicine.

Performing autopsies on a number of mutilated rabbits, Soto observed that the puncture marks on their bodies were perfect circles measuring some three to four inches in diameter. If the marks had been made with a scalpel, he argued, there would be irregularites on the edges, which were not apparent. If dogs or apes had been the culprits, there would have been the inevitable tearing of the flesh that is associated with said attacks. The vet went on to remark that the wounds on the rabbits in question appeared to have been cauterized, indicating a heat source; one hapless bunny was missing its trachea and esophagus, although the skin around its throat was intact.

Nor could Soto account for one of the more noticeable characteristics of the Chupacabras attacks: the lack of rigor mortis in its victims. The carcass of a dog slain by the paranormal predator remained flexible five hours after the alleged attack, and no coagulation of the blood was apparent.

Dr. Aracelis Ortiz, a forensic specialist in the University of Puerto Rico's School of Medical Sciences, urged that no responsibility be ascribed to either alien attackers or feral animals until having first established a bite pattern on the carcasses. On the other hand, Jose Luis Chabert, director of the Deparment of Natural Resources' Terrestrial Resources Division, noted that not all the incisions found on the carcasses were alike, adding that it was incorrect to state that the animals had been found bloodless. He explained that many of the victims had in fact been slain by breeders of "pit-bull" terriers, who would show off their animals' prowess to potential buyers by staging nocturnal attacks in desolate fields.

While experts ruffled each others' feathers, the physical evidence continued to gather: on November 16, 1995, Mrs. Santa Ramos Reyes was terrified to see a bony, hairy arm come in through the steel jalousies of her bedroom window. The claw at the end of the arm picked up a teddy bear on a dresser and shredded it before its owners horror-filed eyes. The intruder left behind a piece of white flesh and a thick, goo-like substance which her husband, Bernardo Gómez, quickly collected and put in the refrigerator. Subsequent analysis proved the strange meat "was not beef". The whereabouts of this item were never made clear.

The Chupacabras "drool" was reported and collected in a number of cases. On November 23, 1995, a mongrel dog belonging to Demetrio Rivera was attacked in the home's backyard. The sudden response of its owners caused the assailant to flutter into the darkness. Rivera and his daughter Ivette found the pooch covered in a thick, clear goo which later washed off easily; a number of agonizing rabbits, property of Joel Carrillo and his wife Yolanda, were also found covered in the slimy substance during an attack in Gurabo's Barrio Celada. Elements of the Department of Natural Resources took samples of the substance for analysis but no results were ever circulated. Experts speculated that the intruder had swallowed the goo-coated rabbit and later regurgitated it.

The powerful and disagreeable odor emanating from the creature was also reported in many cases: in the Collazo case, a Spanish journalist who smelled a sample of the awful stench, collected in a plastic bag, remained physically sick for days after her experience; Madelyne Tolentino, the initial witness in Canóvanas, characterized the unnatural odor as reminiscent of the pesticide Malathion; Efraín Arce, who had a tussle with the creature in Mexico, described it as having the odor of a rabid animal; the ominous smell of sulfur, reported in the April 1996 attacks, was so overpowering that a group of Civil Defense workers and newspaper journalists were sickened by it. Even Mayor "Chemo" Soto described encountering a terrible stench during his nocturnal forays in search of the creature.

The Conspiracy Quickens

Lost amid the half-hearted attempts at humor and the Procrustean attempts at making the Chupacabras a space alien, a third alternative was quickly emerging--one which linked the mutilations to U.S. military activity that had been taking place over the course of decades. The events at Canóvanas and the Chupacabras encounters in the towns of Juncos and Aguas Buenas--all of them surrounding the El Yunque Rainforest--led some to believe that creature's point of origin could have been anywhere within the 28,000 acres of dense tropical foliage. Might not, conspiracists reasoned, the creature be the product of some biological experiment taking place within the rainforest?

The framework for this conspiracy theory was somewhat sturdier than many expected. Not only had Agent Orange-- the infamous Vietnam War-era defoliant-- first been tested at El Yunque, but radiation tests had also been conducted: between February and April 1965, over 20,000 curies of cesium were released in the rainforest, creating a gap in the canopy and affecting the tropical hardwoods growing there. Military activity was prevalent in the area, with the forest periodically being closed to tourism due to exercises. This verifiable framework was buttressed, in the minds of the public at large, by a shakier one linked to the considerable amount of UFO activity over Puerto Rico since 1987--which invariably involved the pursuit of unidentified aerial phenomena by Navy and National Guard fighters, the cordoning off of sites where alleged alien encounters had occurred by shadowy "Federal Agents" issuing vague threats or very real Special Forces types forbidding access to certain locations. It is believed to this day that the large drug interdicition dirigible or "aerostat" moored to a ground station near Lajas, Puerto Rico has a real mission of detecting the approach of incoming spacecraft.

The conspiracy theorist saw matters with much greater clarity than the journalist, the beleaguered Department of Agriculture functionary, or the UFO researcher: the mutilations were simply the next round in the covert relationship between the U.S. goverment and extraterrestrial intelligences (the large-headed "Greys" so common in '90s ufological lore). Whether the relationship was consensual or hostile was up for debate. Nevertheless, it appeared to be a dangerous dance in which one partner led (the E.T.'s) and the other followed (the chagrined U.S. military). In some scenarios the Chupacabras was an alien creature dumped on earth by aliens for study while the Army Rangers and other Special Forces kept the unwary at bay; in others scenarios, the military turned a blind eye to the creature's depredations possibly in exchange for advanced technology, which was also being tested over the island. It was all part of an emotionally charged scenario in which UFOs were seen to vanish into the premises of the U.S. Army's Camp Santiago in southern Puerto Rico, giant triangular UFOs crossed the skies and "absorbed" hostile U.S. Navy fighters, and casual witnesses to putative extraterrestrial activity or animal mutilations received visits from inviduals in seemingly official capacities, usually bearing cautionary messages or entreating them to remain silent.

The Goatsucker - An International Phenomenon

A case could perhaps be made for paying little attention to the Chupacabras if it had remained circumscribed to the island of Puerto Rico. But in 1996, it (and its cousins) decided it was time to see the world at large.

Miami, Florida, would be the predator's next stop. In February of that year, it killed forty-two animals belonging to Barbara Martínez and exanguinated fourteen chickens belonging to Luis Martin; eyewitnesses in northwestern Miami reported seeing a creature walking erect and covered with thick matted hair at the scene of the attacks. Dr. Virgilio Sánchez Ocejo, who investigated this case and other during the "Florida leg" of the aberrant predatory activity, noted that it ran from February through July 1996.

Mexico's turn would soon be next. On May 2, six goats were found dead along the Rio Grande, their throats presenting the now-characteristic marks associated with the Goatsucker. In the northern state of Taumalipas a taxicab driver reported seeing a five-foot tall creature cross the road in front of his vehicle and effortless hop over the wall of the School of Agronomy, where two dozen goats and sheep were later reported dead.

On May 10, 1996, Mexico's "Primer Impacto" broadcast announced that Teodora Ayala Reyes, a resident of the village of Alfonso Genaro Calderón in Sinaloa, had become the Chupacabras' first human victim--the victim presented what appeared to be "burn marks" on her back, exactly where the creature had clawed her. "It was very ugly," Ayala insisted. "I had my hair up in a bun, and it nearly shredded my scalp." The seaside village was further wrenched out of obscurity after reports of a colossal bat-like creature stalking the area became widespread. All manner of farm animals were being found dead by their owners.

The town of Tlaliscoyan, Veracruz, at the heart of the region's goat-raising area and was also subjected to the mysterious depredatory attacks linked to the Chupacabras' trademark. The death toll quickly rose to sixty slain sheep. Dr. Rafael Lara Palmeros, director of research for Mexico's CEFP, visited the University of Veracruz' Faculty of Veterinary Sciences to find out what measures were being taken deal with the mutilations. He discovered that while authorities had "an awareness of the situation" based on TV and radio reports, the medical establishment was not planning on taking steps to conduct field research of its own.

More human victims began appearing in Mexico: Jose Angel Pulido was the unfortunate recipient of an alleged Chupacabras bite on his right forearm -- two deep puncture marks had apparently been inflicted by an entity described as "hairless and gelatinous to the touch." Pulido showed the grievous puncture marks inflicted to his upper arm on Mexico's TV Azteca. He explained: "It leaped on me when I saw it. I slapped it away and turned to run home. I'm not sure if it ran or flew [behind me]. I didn't believe in this at first. Now I can tell you that I did see it, and I do believe in it."

When José Linares' 23 sheep turned up dead with odd puncture marks in Guazguaro, Michoacan, the wheelchair-bound farmer was so shocked that he could only say that something with two fangs had killed his livestock. When a six-hundred pound cow was found dead in similar circumstances, Mexican federal authorities ordered the municipality to perform the necessary autopsy.

The spokesman for Mexico's National Agropecuary Commission, Francisco Gurría, was interviewed by the broadcast media for official comment on the mutilation spree. "We are not talking about the same creature in all cases," he advised. "After autopsies, we have proven that carnivores are attacking goat and sheep populations due to the drought sweeping across our country. This is a perfectly natural phenomenon."

Reports became even more mind-bending as the Chupacabras--or whatever it was-- outstayed its welcome in Mexico. Four truck drivers made an effort to earn their place in the history books by capturing a creature which had fallen to the ground after having been entangled in high-tension wires. The truckers tried stoning it to death, but the entity managed to limp away, leaving a trail of slime in its wake. Police officers reporting to the Salinas Victoria truck terminal stated that the eyewitnesses' descriptions corresponded with that of the Chupacabras.

The Mexican government maintaned the hard line against the belief that something unnatural could be behind the attacks. Julia Carabias, Secretary of the Environment, decried the destruction of bat habitats by farmers setting caves ablaze in hopes of killing the Chupacabras. Ironically, public opinion believed that the government itself was fostering belief in the creature to distract the public from more pressing concerns.

The infestation was quickly becoming rampant as reports came in from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras and as far south as the Amazon Basin, acquiring suitably mythic proportions: Guatemalan farmer Vicente Sosa thought he had seen a black dog with a long tail that suddenly increased in size, becoming a red-eyed beast with enormous eyes. Dr. Oscar Rafael Padilla visited the site of a Chupacabras attack on chicken coops in the Estanzuela region, and remarked on the high radioactivity readings found in the area.

The southern U.S. soon produced its very own bumper crop of Chupacabras sightings. In mid-May 1996, Sylvia Ybarra went out to her backyard in Texas town of Donna only to find that her pet goat had been killed by three inflamed puncture wounds to its throat. The animal had been felled near its shed.

The story spread like wildfire throughout Donna, although local veterinarians assured the owner that her goat had merely been attacked by a dog, and that the puncture marks had simply become inflamed. As had occured in Puerto Rico, the official explanation didn't wash, and this time there was a good reason for it: the Rio Grande basin had been plagued for decades by sporadic sightings of "giant birds" whose manifestations often coincided with mysterious animal mutilations. A Donna rancher had discovered one of his steers in such a condition as far back as 1970.

On May 1st, 1996, the Tucson police received a phone call from the home of José Espinoza in West Tucson. Apparently, something had broken into the house. Mr. Espinoza would later repeat his story to the media, saying that he'd seen a creature with large red eyes, a pointed nose and shrivelled features within the confines of his home. The mind-bending narration had the Chupacabras entering the home, slamming a door, and jumping on the chest of Espinoza's seven year-old son before hopping out of the boy's bedroom window. Footprints and handprints of all sorts were allegedly left on the walls (most of them corresponded to Mr. Espinoza's three year old son).

Heading ever westward, the wave of perplexing animal mutilations eventually reached California, where a construction worker, Roberto García, claimed that a puncture wound on the back of his hand was the result of falling asleep near an open window.

The Orange County resident told the press that he had been awakened from a deep sleep by the sensation of something tugging on his right hand. Pulling his hand away, he saw a sizeable, shadowy figure moving away very quickly. Adding to the "high strangeness" of this account was the fact that García's third floor apartment opened out to nothing but an alleyway below.

With its depredations in the Americas coming to a close, the paranormal predator somehow crossed the Atlantic Ocean and restarted its activities in northern Spain, decimating flocks of sheep in Aragón, the Pyrenees and the Basque Country. Spanish cattleman Ricardo Bárcena lost over twenty sheep and a mare between mid-1996 and early 1997. He remarked that his dead animals "had a puncture in their necks, about as wide as a button and five centimeters deep and bloodless. They were destroyed inside, as if someone had plunged an awl into the animals, causing damage as it was withdrawn." Other reports mirrored the incidents in the Americas in the most trivial details, and veterinarians noted that the wounds could in no way have been produced by a wolf, dog or insect.

¡Yo Quiero Goatsucker!

The Chupacabras phenomenon went from relative obscurity during the Puerto Rican phase to global celebrity after the mainland leg of its unholy tour. This gave rise to the another strange phenomenon: the societal impact of the sightings.

In December 1995, a casual television viewer could not watch an hour's entertainment without hearing comic reference being made to the Chupacabras on Puerto Rican television. A memorable TV commercial for a station had a smiling island beatuy simply saying the word "Chupacabras" at the end of a thirty second segment.

Then came the t-shirts, which tried to shoehorn the paranormal predator into the framework of contemporary culture -- a grey-colored creature standing beside an all-points-bulletin reading SE BUSCA (Wanted) with the perpetrators identifying characteristics; a rural family evacuating their home hurriedly as the Chupacabras stages an appearance; chubby, cartoonish Goatsuckers politely refraining from belching after a mealk; overmuscled, monstrous depictions of the creature reminiscent of the Balrog from Tolkien's Middle Earth.

More permanent material goods than t-shirts could also be found: a number of eating establishments, even a candy store, dubbed either Chupacabras or El Chupa Cabras materialized throughout the Spanish-speaking communities of the U.S., and even sandwiches named after the unknown entity made an appearance. A Chupacabras "psychic hotline" also made a brief appearance.

Mexico, devastated by the financial depredations of a corrupt administration, produced a wealth of items showing disgraced president Salinas grafted on to the Chupacabras' body. Constant reference was made in the land of the Aztecs to the fact that no bloodsucking could have been more damaging or strange than the one inflicted by the errant politician.

The music industry, always on the lookout for the newest trend to immortalize in song, seized on the Chupacabras' notoriety. A merengue orchestra dubbing itself the New York Band took to the airwaves on Latin-oriented stations with their hit single Chupacabras, a bawdy ditty with few reprintable lyrics. A translated sample follows: "The classy Chupacabras/is fit for any goat/kissing their bodies and necks/inside, outside, what the heck/I'll kiss one goat, two goats/three goats, five or more/I'll never lose the taste/for a lovely little goat, mmm!"

Fans of rap music were not dissapointed either. A song in Spanish by rapper Gaby Meléndez claimed: "At El Yunque with my girl one dark night/we were doing stuff, you know/when this thing came into sight/a shady criter with big eyes and bigger fangs/The Chupacabras came out of nowhere/we were surrounded by its gang..." Chupamania lasted ran its fiercest during the summer months of 1996, dying down by December of that same year.

Yes, But What Is It?

Three avenues of thought on the true nature of this predator emerged from the beginning. One held that the being was proof positive of the advanced nature of genetic research and that it had been released into the world to see how it functioned; others claimed that it was an extraterrestrial creature; either an alien probe designed to collect blood from terrestrial livestock or a "pet" left behind by the crew of a passing UFO; still others believed that the Chupacabras was related to black magic. These three viewpoints, of course, were challenged by the skeptics.

The initial urge was to ascribe the carnage in rural Puerto Rico to the activities of Santería practitioners and even black magicians, whose rituals call for blood sacrifice, but the sheer enormity of the slayings soon caused this theory to topple under its own weight. To the contrary, Mexico's Department of Religious Abuses inicated that the bulk of the mutilations were occuring in parts of the country harboring large numbers of satanists and adherents of Santería. Hector Elizondo, a spokesman for this agency, indicated that the mutilations could have been "perfectly orchestrated" by a group of human beings devoted to such religious practices.

Journalistic sources led credence to this belief. Mario Landeros, interviewed by Mexico's El Sol Veracruzano newspaper (5/17/96) stated that the Chupacabras was in fact a giant bloodsucking bat brought to the Americas on a regular basis by a satanic cult known as "Golden Lucifer". An truck accident caused a cage carrying a pregnant female bat to break open, allowing for the chiropterid to fly off into the dense vegetation of the surrounding area. The outbreaks of Chupacabras activity squared perfectly with this event.

The peasantry in the Caribbean and on the mainland believed that only a supernatural creature would be capable of the feats performed by the entity terrorizing their respective countrysides. Some saw it as a sign of the approaching End Times or as the handiwork of a particularly capable sorceror. Religious authorities were quite firm in stating that this belief was not one they shared. Msr. Sergio Obeso, Bishop of Xalapa, indicated that the Church "completely ruled out any supernatural pretentions" when it came to the Chupacabras. Curiously, the Russian Orthodox Church, far removed from the scene of the events, indicated that the Ebola virus, Mad Cow Disease and the Chupacabras should not be construed as divine punishment, but an "invitation to reflection" upon manmade abuses of God's world.

Greatest attention was given to the propounders of an extraterrestrial hypothesis for the predatory creature's origin, particularly in Puerto Rico, where the Chupacabras was linked to a number of UFO cases. However, this appears to have been the exception, since no anomalous activity of that sort appears to have been prevalent in any of the other locations in which animal mutilations and Goatsucker sightings took place. Mexico's Dr. Rafael Lara Palmeros emphatically stated that no UFO sightings had taken place at Chupacabras attack sites.

The genetic experiment theory captured the public's imagination due to a number of media events that had little to do with the creature itself. One of them was a photograph of a laboratory mouse with a perfectly shaped human ear growing out of its back, appearing in the November 6, 1995 issue of Time Magazine. The story by Anastasia Toufexis indicated that the dramatic photo was "the latest and most dramatic demonstration of progress in tissue engineering." The U. Mass/M.I.T. project involved the introduction of a synthetic structure with human cartilage cells grafted under the mouse's skin. Fed by the rodent's blood, the cartilage cells would multiply and form a human ear. A segment of the popular UFO/paranormal program Encounters: The Hidden Truth discussed the possibility of human-ape hybrids thru gene splicing. The creation of "plantimals"--fusions of animal and vegetable cells-- to patented animals, such as the so-called "hupigs"--pigs bred with human genes in order to minimize the danger of rejection during animal to human transplants-- led many to believe that the aberrant bloodthirsty Chupacabras could in fact be the grafting of human (or nonhuman) genes onto marsupial stock, accounting for its outlandish appearance.

The genetic experiment hypothesis captured the minds of veterinary experts in Mexico. Dr. Alfredo Villanueva openly expressed his beleive that the Chupacabras was nothing more than a genetic experiment released by accident or design from a research facility in the U.S. or Mexico. Dr. Villanueva used ultrasound to scan the wounds on the animal carcasses; his findings corroborated those of his Puerto Rican counterparts -- the puncture marcs extended deep into the animals' vitals. Subsequent analysis proved that said organs had been entirely drained of blood.

Belief in the genetic manipulation scenario was further fueled by the discovery of a "mutant" rabbit during the Mexican events. The newborn bunny, discovered in Veracruz's Ortiz Rubio neighborhood, presented fully developed claws and dorsal muscles which veterinarians thought could be incipient wings. Was some sinister project underway to blend bats and rabbits? Desiderio Aguiar, Secretary of Citizen Protection for the state of Sinaloa (northern Mexico), pointed out that scientists studying the mutilation outbreak in his state believed they were dealing with a "mutation on the cellular level".

Conclusion

The events surrounding the Chupacabras' initial eruption into popular awareness are now many years behind us, allowing for a less heated atmosphere in which to debate its origin and even its existence. Episodes involving a nocturnal predator similar to the Chupacabras are still taking place in Brazil, although the animal described in these cases is clearly a canid of sorts--long-eared and quadrupedal--whose wounds on animals and humans alike in no way resemble the perfect, circular perforation marks found on cattle and small domestic animals in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America.

The greater part of the naysayers in all countries steadfastly refused to look at the evidence, choosing instead to offer the same tired explanations for the mutilations (feral dogs, apes, satanists) but never explaining the face-to-face encounters with humans or the odd radiation signatures found in Puerto Rico and Central America (which may or may not have been directly linked to the creature). Most certainly, the feral dogs, apes and satanists are still on the scene. Did they choose to stop killing helpless animals all of a sudden, or did these convenient scapegoats vanish along with the mysterious predator?

But the Chupacabras would find advocates--even friends--in a number of different places: renown cryptozoologist Loren Coleman vigorously defended the creature's inclusion among the realm of biological anomalies studied by his field, even speculating that Chupacabras is a fresh-water, land-oriented variety of Mer-being (the hypothetical classification for Mermaids and Mermen alike) . Parapsychologist and lecturer Peter Jordan, who achieved prominence in de-mythologizing the "Amityville Horror" case of the '70s, worked closely with a number of psychometrists and psychics--many of whom have collaborated with U.S. police departments--in finding an answer to the Chupacabras' provenance and motives, producing a wide array of results mostly leaning toward a terrestrial, non-alien origin to the creature.

Space alien, interdimensional wanderer, escapee from a government biological laboratory or denizen from hell -- it is almost certain that the creature's origin will never be clearly established. However, no one can deny its impact on our postmodern society and on the ever-turbulent disciplines that dare study the unknown.


. Correspondence with Willie Durand Urbina, PRRG, May 1997.
. El Vocero, April 6 1991.
. El Vocero, April 5, 1991.
. El Vocero, June 26, 1991.
. El Vocero, July 2, 1991.
. El Vocero, n.d.
. Alvarez Frank, Federico. "Report on Unidentified Flying Objects and Animal Mutilations in Puerto Rico." UFOSICPR, 1997. p.1
. Alvarez Frank, Federico. "Report on Unidentified Flying Objects and Animal Mutilations in Puerto Rico." p.3
. Pla, Lucy Guzmán de. Interview with Madelyne Tolentino and Jose Miguel Agosto on March 20, 1996.
. Anonymous. La Verdadera Historia del Chupacabras. San Juan: Redacción Noticiosa, 1996.p.14
. El Vocero, November 1, 1995.
. Conversation with Jorge Martín, December 21, 1996.
. Freixedo, Magdalena del Amo. "Un Monstruo Causa Terror en Puerto Rico." Enigmas No.7 (1996) p.46
. EFE news agency. "Investigan al Chupacabras". November 16, 1995.
. El Vocero, February 12, 1996.
. Freixedo, Magdalena del Amo. p.48
. Tolentino Interview, March 20, 1996.
. El Sol de Sinaloa, May 7, 1996.
. "Research History and Opportunities in the Luquillo Experimental Forest", U.S. Department of Agriculture General Technical Report SO-44, September 1983. p.112-113.
. Sanchez Ocejo, Virgilio. Miami Chupacabras. Miami: Pharaoh Productions, 1997.
. Lara Palmeros, Rafael A. "High Strangeness: Unexplained Animal Deaths in Mexico -- A Preliminary Report." Nemesis: The Chupacabras at Large. Samizdat Press, 1996.
. TV Azteca news broadcast, 1996.
. ibid.
. ibid.
. USA Today, May 15, 1996.
. Tucson Weekly, May 30-June 5, 1996.
. Cardeñosa, Bruno. "El Chupacabras Ataca en el País Vasco". Año Cero V-No.74, p.40-42.
. El Sol de Toluca, May 9, 1996.
. Diario de Xalapa, May 12, 1996.
. Ovaciones, May 2, 1996.
. Coleman, Loren and Huyghe, Patrick. The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide. New York: Avon, 1999. p.39

Argentina: "Cattle Mutilations are Caused by UFOs"

Source: Nuevo Diario Web & Planeta UFO
Date: 09.09.2015

Argentina: "Cattle Mutilations Are Caused by UFOs"

Expert rejects "red muzzled mouse" explanation put forth by SENASA in 2002

Mario Zain Pinto has a lot of information on UFOs.

After the events that shook the interior of Santiago, resulting from the discovery of mutilated animals, Mario Zain Pinto, a scholar of quantum physics and a UFO enthusiast, explained to Nuevo Diario that "it has been proven all over the world that animal mutilations are caused by these flying objects. Everything else (The Almamula, Chupacabras, etc.) are old tales. The problem is that no one wants to talk because they're scared."

He stated that mutilations have particular characteristics that allow them to be determined as UFOs. "They drill an hole (on the animals),draw all of their blood, and that's why they say it’s the Chupacabras, but the fact is not a single trace is left. For a winged creature to be able to absorb so many animals, it would have to be an enormous creature, and no one has seen that. It's all stories."

"We have to start by acknowledging that this is real, that animal mutilations are occurring more frequently all over the world, and that the sightings and experiences that aviators have had with such objects occur everywhere," Pinto explained.

Furthermore, he maintains that behind the cover-up of this information "there are many vested interests coming from such countries as Russia and the United States," adding: "The fact is that there are many mutilations in Santiago with the same characteristics."

He recalls that the greatest proof of the existence of UFOs occurred during 2002, due to the discovery of mutilated animals through the country, and sightings by some people also substantiated this. It was then that UBA [University of Buenos Aires] and the SENASA reported that the red muzzled mouse was responsible for it all, a rodent able to terminate entire herds of cows.

In this regard, Pinto says: "It was a mockery," adding that "no one saw or knows about the red muzzled mouse, and mutilation cases were studied very responsibly in Santiago del Estero. Heat and magnetic readings of the ground were taken, determining that alterations were tremendous in a circle surrounding the mutilated carcasses. They also ascertained that 'rigor mortis' -- a logical thing in any dead creature - was not present. No traces were found, not even birds of prey animals would come close." Finally, he asked: "There are so many galaxies. Don't you find it foolish to think the Chupacabras or the Almamula is responsible?"

To remedy the harm these flying objects cause to rural residents of our province, Pinto proposes creating a civil agency jointly with the National University of Santiago del Estero, and with military support as much as possible, "much like those that have existed for a long time now in other countries like Brazil and Chile, and like we have to a certain degree in the Argentinean provinces, like CEFORA (Comisión de Estudios OVNI Republica Argentina)."

This is necessary - he says - not only to follow-up and research these phenomena, but also "to hold chats, evaluate and certify the damage done, and see in what ways we can set the affected parties at ease."

The researcher stated that in the context of his presentation, and in order to bring this about, the most important thing "is financial assistance throughout the country, a subsidy law for verified cases (of UFO-related cattle mutilation)." Finally, he observed that these phenomena occur in rural areas and the facts are not scrutinized in detail.

[Translation (c) 2015 S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Nuevo Diario Web and Planeta UFO]

Argentina: Cattle Mutilations in Rocamora, Entre Rios

Source: Planeta UFO
Date: July 3, 2014

Argentina: Cattle Mutilations in Rocamora, Entre Rios
By Daniel Ubaldo Padilla

A new avenue of research in the mutilation field opened in 2013, beyond what could have been predicted, and in regard to the information emerging from my research. The fact that an attack of such striking characteristics should have been made public – on account of the number, and on a single property in February 2013 – represents an exclamation mark in our line of investigation. This is the first time it has happened beyond the time period evinced since I embarked on this quest, but there are certain other elements that accompany this yearly periodicity reckoned in months.
In an effort to find an answer beyond the perpetrator, it is necessary to find the coordinates of the attack…of the moment…with the aim of coming face to face with the elusive culprit. As part of this search, and endeavoring to answer other mysteries that will channel an answer to the first, we tried to determine if there was a given moment for carrying out the attack, or whether certain conditions had to come about for it to happen. It was then that the statistics began to come together in an answer that had more than mere whiff of the esoteric.

The possibility of having access to many mutilations of the type we have called “traditional”, aside from peripheral observations of the facts, has led us to concentrate on the dates of the deaths, approximating the animal’s actual date of death as closely as possible. Based on “X” amount of mutilation attacks we were able to put together the following scheme, determining a “peak period” based on a lunar period and which from the standpoint of investigation, reflects a likely number of days per month in which attacks may occur, covering a yearly period running from April to September, which we have called the “annual period”, with a 98% likelihood of having a “predator moment”

2007: Two Equines and Four Likely Mutilated Bovines

In this 11-year search for the very intelligent entity behind the animal mutilation events, “mutilation harvests” are nothing new at the San Diego ranch owned by Edgardo Raul Slootmans. While my goal is to make this situation widely known, the material collected with regard to mutilations over these years is truly interesting, requiring its dosification through this blog. As I have told my associates, the material transcribed herein in columns is approximately 15% of all that has been documented during the access to this phenomenon. I hope my readers will forgive my evisceration of this information, but given the persistence of events in this region, it is necessary to refresh other important events that shed more light on current events.
Between October 15-18, 2007, the San Diego ranch was part of the mutilation wave that swept the province of Entre Rios. It was there that Lalo Slootmans watched two of his equines. His interest, a result of hearing the stories propagated in the media at the time, caused him to contact Dr. Roberto Lezcano, who at the time shared our “quest” to unravel the cattle mutilations. Accompanied by one of Lalo’s children, and thanks to his contact with Omar Izaguirre, who had official police duties in the dependency of Rocamora, we were able to gain access to the possible mutilation that very same afternoon. While no veterinarian was present, it was possible to ascertain the mutilation incisions on the right jaw and the absence of an eye on the left side, as well as a perforation of anus. But the most significant discovery was that for the first time we noticed micro-peforations throughout the animal’s body. Dr. Lezcano’s thorough observation led him to detect this nearly total correspondence in the majority of mutilation events, to a greater or lesser extent, with the subsequent observation and collection of fungi emerging from these perforations. Under the same inclement, intensely rainy conditions, nearly 100 meters from where the two equines lay, were four mutilated bovines in groups of two. Due to the considerable amount of water accumulated around them, the observation was made at a distance, unable to ascertain if these were really “traditional mutilations”.

Without expanding any further on the information on 2007 cases, I consider Lalo to have been another victim of the indifference and lack of response of the institutional authorities as a whole, and of those who govern us. When it comes to providing accurate explanations on events effectively recorded, which keep repeating in the area, they only fall into contradictions that are wholly detrimental to research itself, and denigrating of the influence which the scientific community should have.




2013: Eight Mutilations and Six Probable Related Deaths

On Tuesday, February 19, a phone call from Doctor Lezcano alerting me to the news should have been surprising…but it wasn’t. Although it was striking, considering that the event occurred beyond the specified annual period, it really wasn’t if we paid attention to specific concomitant patterns that accompany mutilation phenomena, such as the lunar period scheme, and the noticeable drop in temperature, unwarranted for those days in the month of February. The possibility of a traditional mutilation then gained strength, with eight documented mutilations, followed by five likely bovine deaths and the certain possibility of another mutilated horse in a neighboring field.

While the Rocamora Police appeared on Wednesday the 20th, they did not enter the area due to the inclement weather and the daunting hike required to reach the site: nearly 3000 meters (2 miles) from Route No. 39.



Accompanied by Lalo, Dr. Lezcano was able to perform an informal necropsy on one of the animals found, learning that the animal had died only a few hours earlier in comparison to the others. This animal was in the left lateral decubitus position, missing an eye, its tongue cut out to the root, with a mutilated anus and the beginnings of a chest mutilation, and an apparent squeeze to the groin. While these marks are startling, they are nothing new in cases of animal mutilations I have seen, but they do add quality to the ones already found. An inverted V mark, with its vertex pointing toward the head (like an arrow) and signs of apparent “clamping” in the groin are, to my humble understanding, a more than new contribution to research. Another observation centered on the animal’s heart: what startled the doctor the most was the presence of the entirety of the coagulated blood, which filled the various coronary cavities 100%. This is nothing new, from my perspective, since around 2002 we eviscerated an animal in the San Cipriano area, not too far away. We saw the same on that occasion, but by being a neophyte in the matter, and without the presence of an expert, the normality or abnormality of what was seen remained a mystery. Today we can say that the anomaly is real, since blood should be liquid in a carcass, beyond coagulation of the vena cava in a pathology that approximates traumatic reticultitis. But the question I pose here is directed at physicians: Is there a pathology in which the cause of death presents a total coagulation of the auricles and ventricles of the heart?

Diagnoses and Institutions

Upon reading subsequent statements made by the police to the press, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Of course, over 11 years of research, there have been changes in positions in that institution, and many of them, to the extent that they all forgot the small “red-muzzled mouse”, the yellow jacket and the carnivorous insect offered as explanations. Some understood that it is necessary to resort to science and credible diagnoses, but the unfortunate tendency to keep justifying the unjustifiable. Thus it was that eight days after having found the dead animals, and 24 hours after gaining access to the site, the police said the following:

“Minutes before 23:00 hours, the radio [station] at Basabilbaso learned that the information gleaned by the police commission headed by Cancio implies death by anthrax. This is an infectious disease known since Colonial days, highly contagious and affecting ruminants mainly, being transmissible to other animals, even humans…”

Dr. Roberto Lezcano consulted a senior authority at SENASA, and based on filmed, photographed and verbal documentation, the presumptive diagnostic was: symptomatic anthrax, also known as blackleg or emphysematous anthrax. When consulted by the media, Dr. Lezcano stated plainly: “…the expert said that samples had been lifted from two animals “which had been dead for a few hours”, allowing him to gather evidence that led veterinarians to conclude that the animals “had died of blackleg, an acute highly infectious illness characterized by an inflammation of the muscles, severe toxemia and high rates of mortality, affecting young bovines aged 6 months to 2 years old, and whose etiology is a bacterium.” He hastened to add that according to his dialogue with veterinary physicians, “adult bovines are naturally resistant to infection by this microorganism, from an epidemiological standpoint.”

Foundering Between Scientism and Research

The apt notion or description voiced by John Carew Eccles on scientism fits this situation perfectly, in which we should eliminate all presumption of conspiracy theories despite the police department’s expeditious statement to the media. He says: “ A pernicious insidiousness arises from the presence of some scientist, even eminent ones, that science shall soon provide a full explanation of all of the world’s natural phenomena and all our subjective experiences: not only perceptions and experiences involving beauty, but our thoughts, imagination, dreams, emotions and beliefs as well. It is important to acknowledge that while a scientist may make this pretense, he is no longer acting as a scientist, but as a prophet disguised as a scientist. That is scientism, not science, but it impresses the layman greatly, convinced that science provides the truth. On the contrary, a scientist should not believe that he has certain knowledge of the truth. The most that we scientists can do is to approximate a true understanding of natural phenomena through the elimination of errors in our hypotheses. It is highly important that scientists appear before the public as what they really are: humble seekers of the truth.”

Now, the swift but detrimental police statement does not even reference the explanation – or lack thereof – for the mutilated parts. But Doctor Lezcano’s statements, offering guidelines for the SENASA’s institutional specialists to render a verdict without having been at the site, offer the perspective of one who places himself in the role of the humble seeker of the truth. Furthermore, Lezcano forces the veterinary expert to expand on the mutilated parts, being unable to offer an explanation on the subject. While the necropsy yields blackleg as the cause of death, what I am seeing is an evident thrombosis with excessive accentuation, in comparison with other cases of blackleg. When we add the anomaly of the blood coagulated in the heart, plus the mutilated part and the marks found on the carcasses of some animals, plus the opinion of an acknowledged university engineer, a specialist in meats from the Province of Cordoba, who noted that he was startled by the blood clot in the neck vein, which was out of proportion to blackleg, the place where the characteristic blood clot from clostridium chauvoei is found. I add to this comparisons with living animals not described here, arising from research, in specific information gathered over 11 years. For this reason, and given the evident clash between scientism and official research, I take the liberty of putting forth a new scenario for the deaths:

For some special reason, the central area of the province is chosen for repeated incursions by a cattle mutilating predator. I could say that this special reason could be a special element: WATER and the characteristic wetlands of the Argentine Mesopotamia. This significant element would foster intimate contact with our cattle. The inhospitable landscape of the San Diego ranch would propitiate an attack by the predator. The sighting made by Edgardo Slootmans is no small thing. As we stood in the apparent street of marked grass, we looked toward the Gualeguay River from east to west, and he said, could it be possible that the herd of young animals had been chased? That’s why they were scattered to one side and another of the lane that empties out to the river. Three of the animals followed this trajectory. Another three were lined up toward the end of the lane, close to the river and parallel to it, extending a hypothetical escape down the lane, limited by the river itself at the end. This caused the animals to turn around and run parallel to the Gualeguay, fleeing from a predator. One or two managed to escape; eight were left on the lane. The abundant, brusque signs of manipulation, marks and mutilations suggest a forceful, invasive contact, seen in the cornea of the animal’s blue-white eye, and on the other hand, the invasive “clostridial explosion” caused by the ANAEROBIC action of the bacteria, possibly clostridium chauvoei, whose swift progress is aided by the aggressive contact with the predator tied to a certain luminous action that would accelerate natural processes to higher degrees, producing multiple blood clots. High coagulation in the blood and in the heart, aside from the blindness often seen in natural processes of excessive exposure to sunlight in bovines. It is also worth noting that since the animal was found barely hours before its death, it’s body temperature was elevated to over 40 degrees, notable when performing the necropsy through a pair of rubber cloves. I understand that the accelerant that sped the deaths of the calves, a sudden death caused by the sudden appearance of clostridium, which favored by the lack of oxygen in some muscles due to clamping, added to the stress endured, precisely indicates the abominable action of the mutilation, the reason I consider to be the main cause of death of the animals attacked during that lunar cycle. In other words, they died from the wounds caused by the attack, a concept that bolsters the line of investigation I have been following in the cattle mutilation phenomenon.

DEDICATED TO MY FRIEND EDGARDO RAUL SLOOTMANS AS PERSONAL SUPPORT AGAINST THE IRONIC REMARKS HE ENDURED DUE TO THE LACK OF ANSWERS STEMMING FROM THE INCOMPETENCE AND NEGLECT ON THE PART OF THE AUTHORITIES AND INSTITUTIONS RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVIDING ANSWERS AND RECOMPENSE HIM FOR THE EVENTS IN WHICH HE WAS THE VICTIM.
© 2013 – ALL CONCEPTS FROM THIS INVESTIGATION ARE THE PROPERTY OF DANIEL UBALDO PADILLA.

[Translation © 2014, Scott Corrales, IHU with thanks to Daniel U. Padilla and Guillermo Giménez]

Cattle Mutilations: Interview with a Puma Hunter

Argentinean cattle mutilation researcher Daniel Ubaldo Padilla posted this interview with a cattleman and hunter as part of his ongoing investigations into his country's mutilation phenomenon. "The idea of this interview," he writes, "is to disabuse the notion of the puma as the apex regional predator. Pumas did not attack the animal appearing in the photographs [at the start of the video]. Nor are pumas still causing mutilations in La Rioja. Over the years, these strange depredations (mutilations) could have been camouflaged by successive deaths, with the blame for all of these deaths and mutilations being laid upon the puma."

Daniel Padilla: Well, we're here with Nicanor Gonzalez, who is going to tell us a little about...his hunting experience, shall we say, gained by being a disciple of his father in law, Teodoro Vizuela, who was a great hunter. He will be telling us a bit about puma hunting. Here we have a puma trap and a cured puma hide, so, Don Vizuela, please -- I mean, Don Nicanor Gonzalez, sorry -- thank you so much for the attention you've given us, and for welcoming us into your home after journeying so many kilometers.

Nicanor Gonzalez: No, not at all. I'm very grateful that you've come so far, having made such a long trip, I'm very thankful

Daniel Padilla: I would like to ask you some questions about the animals that attack cattle in these regions. How did you learn to hunt pumas?

Nicanor Gonzalez: Yes, my father-in-law was the real hunter, he had one hundred and five dead critters. Toward the end I’d help him out, yes. And you put the prey, as we call it, in the places where it hunts. The animal can be a goat or a calf, we
set the trap, and by the following night, the predator will return. Sometimes it escapes. You can also set the traps wherever it goes to pee or defecate. It'll return in a few days, maybe fifteen days, twenty days or [you can set the trap] in the water, like in that reservoir where they come to drink. Because in these parts we don't have watering holes, like they're called elsewhere. All we have is the reservoir.

Daniel Padilla: Here in this area you're the only one who has this setup?

Nicanor Gonzalez: Yes, there are others, but at times when there is no rain, like October or November, there's very little water left. If it's very hot, the critters are forced to come and drink. Due to the heat, they have to find water.

Daniel Padilla: Pumas, generally speaking, during these large hunts of over a hundred pumas like the ones your father-in-law hunted, the animals still presented a problem to cattle at the time, and still do.

Nicanor Gonzalez: Yes. [A problem] to goats. He had many goats, and [the pumas] would kill them. One, two, three, four...many. And that's what he did. He trapped them over a year or two, keeping track, logging them down.

Daniel Padilla: Did you get to hunt a puma --

Nicanor Gonzales: Yes. About three or four...we caught them by the reservoir [unintelligible]

Daniel Padilla: Could you see how a puma attacks, let's say a bovine. What's the predatory action of the puma?

Nicanor Gonzalez: Yes, I've seen them attacking little colts and small mules. Like I was telling you the other day, it attacks them from behind, grabs them by both legs, jumps on their backs, claws them on either side. Terrible. Then it exhausts the animal, causing it to run until it catches it. Then it jumps on their necks and stabs [the animal] with its hunting claws.

Daniel Padilla: So first it stabs it with the claws…

Nicanor Gonzalez: Yes, well, when the animal is a large one. Otherwise, when it's small like a goat or a kid, no, it just waits it around like a toy. It drags them, covers them up well, to come back at night to eat. If he hunts during the day, we'll come back at night.

Daniel Padilla: With your knowledge of the field, what other type of animal could be responsible for cattle attacks. Is there any other animal?

Nicanor Gonzalez: No, here in this area there is nothing else known. Just pumas. No,no. There is no other known animal.

[Transcription and translation (c) 2013, S. Corrales IHU with thanks to Daniel Padilla]