Extract 1
The world's first 'internet monster" - a cruel creature that empties the blood from its animal victims - has been caught ..
Humans are fascinated and frightened by monster stories. We love hearing about strange, shadowy creatures that bring fear to communities around the world. Most societies have legends like this. In Mongolia, the Death Worm is a huge red creature that spits acid at its victims. In Colombia, Alligator Man swims along the coast looking for human wives. In Japan, man-eating spiders disguise themselves as attractive women before devouring their victims.
And then in Puerto Rico, there's the feared Chupacabra...
Chupacabra means 'goat sucker' in Spanish, because this monster buries its teeth into animals, but descriptions of the creature vary.
Typically (as with most supposed monsters), no photographs or footprints of the original Chupacabra exist - there's just a handful of eyewitness reports and a lot of dead animals. When the creature was first reported in 1995, it was said to have glowing red eyes, huge claws, spikes along its back and the ability to leap large distances. Over the next five years, more Chupacabras were rumoured to have been seen in Spanish-speaking countries such as Argentina, Mexico and Chile. The description of the monster also changed: by 1998, it was a fierce, hairless dog.
Unusually, these later Chupacabra bodies were actually tested by real scientists, rather than the 'experts' on web forums. The creatures had been shot by farmers and, for once, modern science could examine not only the victims of a monster, but the monster itself. The reality was a little less exciting than the myth. A Chupacabra was pretty awful to look at - skinny, hairless and with burnt areas on its skin. However, tests proved beyond doubt that the Chupacabras that had been found were less exotic animals - dogs, coyotes and racoons. Skin infections had caused these animals to develop bald patches, and as they scratched, their skin became inflamed, giving them a gruesome appearance. In short, there was no Chupacabra.
Of course, that was no real surprise to most people! Extract 2
The internet was crucial in the spread of the Chupacabra myth.
Modern communication has allowed rumour and myth to spread rapidly. A decade earlier, before global communication was so easy, this monster would have remained a local legend. But stories on the internet are like wildfires - they burn out of control. People told and retold the stories, changing descriptions of the creature each time. Without photographic evidence, the accounts of the Chupacabra were impossible to confirm. They seemed so exaggerated that it was hard to be they were true, as this eyewitness account from Chile shows:
"The thing that I remember most was its horrific red eyes. I only for a second, but it looked at me and struck fear into my heart. eyes will stay with me forever. Every time I go to sleep, I see the the speed with which it moved was incredible. I've seen nothir it before or since. Those sharp spikes on its back and its horre claws could do serious damage to someone. I'm only glad I v indoors when I saw it.In fact, details about the original sighting of Chupacabra in 1995 go some way to explaining how the myth took hold. The first person to report the creature was Madelyne Tolentino, from Canovanas in Puerto Rico. She reported seeing a frightening creature that looked like an alien from her window. Upon closer investigation, Tolentino's description was very like that of an alien creature featured in the film Species, which she had recently watched. It seems likely that she saw one of the real animals that had a skin disease, and her imagination got the better of her. Once her description had been repeated and exaggerated online, the Chupacabra myth was born.
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