I'm Sorry for Not Posting!!!!

Hi everyone... I am deeply sorry for not posting for over a month, but I've been pretty busy.

Early last month I was frantically finishing an article I penned for the wonderful Cryptid Culture Magazine (which you can now purchase here.) I share the pages of the magazine with the likes of Loren Coleman, Lyle Blackburn, and my good friend Brian Parsons. Go check it out! My article is called "The Chupacabra's Cronies" and discusses various vampiric cryptids besides the Chupacabra such as the abominable Chicken Man and the Beast of Bladenboro.

After that, I had my birthday and then my wisdom teeth got removed (and, of course, school) so the entire month just got eaten away.

I still have to catch up in school for missing when i got my wisdom teeth out, but I should be putting up more frequent posts about our world of the wonderful and weird soon.

Vampiric Cryptids

In 1995 the world was shocked by startling news released out of Puerto Rico... livestock was being slaughtered frequently throughout the island, and all the deaths had one thing in common: the corpses were completely drained of blood. Thus the legendary Chupacabra was born and the grotesque sucker of goats has quickly clawed its way into being a staple of cryptozoology. Stories of livestock drained of blood, supposedly by some sort of creature have spread across the globe and are frequently making the news.

Unfortunately, tracking down specifically what the term 'Chupacabra' refers to is difficult. The translation means "goat sucker" but the term has been used loosely for any strange looking animal. The media frequently uses the term as a catchall for any normal animal with mange and has been captured and researchers like to use it for any creature that appears dog-like or gargoyle-like but is extremely unusual for any other classification. For that reason, I generally prefer to avoid the use of the term.

Another problem with the Chupacabra is that many people assume that since the term and media attention came along in 1995, the phenomenon started around that time. That isn't true. Vampiric livestock attacks have a very long history in cryptozoology. The focus of this post is to share a few examples prior to 1995.

• In the months of November and December, 1905, sheep were being massacred on farms around the area of Badminton, England. The police suggested it was an escaped jackal but no such jackals were reported at the time. Huge, black dogs were also seen around the area, some on the same day as attacks.
• Bladenboro, North Carolina had a rash of dog mutilations in 1954. Dogs were frequently found ripped to shreds or cut open with their blood drained. At the same time, shrieks and strange shadowy creatures were seen in the surrounding forests. The media quickly blamed a lynx that was killed as the attacks ceased but law enforcement accused feral dogs.
• The story of the 1970-1971 Chicken Man attacks is a personal favorite of mine. In El Reno, Oklahoma, farmers began to find their chicken coops raided and their birds either missing or ripped open and drained of blood. No culprit was ever seen but huge, ape-like tracks were found at multiple scenes. 
• During the 1972 Bigfoot wave in Roachdale, Indiana, a farmer and his family found over 100 of their chickens ripped open and drained of blood. The grisly scene was discovered after they went to investigate a strange sound coming from the coop. As the farmer got closer to the coop, he saw a giant, manlike creature in the doorway and as it walked away, the farmer fired upon the strange intruder. 
• Our last case is probably the most famous of this list, but is still stuck in obscurity. An enormous farm known as Bodalog, situated in mid-Wales, was plagued with a supposed vampiric beast from the depths of a nearby river. In 1988 the unseen creature murdered at least 35 sheep with only a small incision-like bite to the sternum. Many have suggested that the creature might have been some unknown species of snake, but since the creature was never seen, the mystery to its origins will remain unsolved.

There is an abundance of cases where livestock, poultry, or pets are killed, mutilated, and sometimes drained of their blood by supposed unknown animals. I have logged close to 150 individual cases simply by looking through the books I own. Unfortunately the subject have been largely ignored or, due to its popularity, the cases have been tainted by the Chupacabra. 

Because of this, I have decided to put my previous idea for a book aside for the moment a focus on my research on this diverse subject. I have begun writing a rough draft for a book focusing on these cases and discussing various explanations as to why these things happen. 

Book Review: Nick Redfern's Chupacabra Road Trip

I am a frequent reader, I've read close to 500 books on the paranormal, cryptozoology, ufology, and other topics of high-strangeness. Every once and a while I pick up a book that will change my entire point of view on a certain topic. An example was Mothman Prophecies by John Keel. Another was Chupacabra Road Trip by Nick Redfern.

I have been reading Redfern's books since I initially got interested in the unexplained. I have always loved his writing and how each book he writes is significant to the subject. Chupacabra Road Trip was even more than that. It convinced me that there is more the the Chupacabra mystery than just coyotes with mange and mass hysteria. 

In Chupacabra Road Trip, Redfern leads us along as he explores the misty jungles of Puerto Rico, examines the strange looking corpses of hairless canines, and even gets peed on by a bat!

The book is filled with fascinating information about the Chupacabra, much of which has never been explored before. Redfern leaves no stone unturned as he investigates every aspect of the goat-sucker, examining ever possible aspect with his unique sense of humor. 

Chupacabra Road Trip is a journey that anyone interested in the truth about the goat-sucker of Puerto Rico and hairless dog of Texas should absolutely love. You can buy the book here

(On a side note, I will be down in Mississippi for the next week. After that I will be going to Harrisburg, PA for a long weekend. Because of this, I will be unable to put anything up on the blog for the next two weeks. I will be doing some paranormal related stuff so I will make sure to write about that when I get back.)