March 26, 2011
Need a quick $250 for your fieldwork or research fund?
Then take on, meet and defeat Ben Radford’s reward challenge regarding Chupacabras.
Sure it is a publicity stunt waged to get the mainstream media to mention his new book, Tracking the Chupacabra. But there’s nothing wrong with that, if it can send some funds in your direction, right?
Ben Radford feels that Chupacabras, in the form we know it today, came on the scene in 1995, after the “first eyewitness” viewed the film Species.
Is Radford correct? Here is what the editor of the Skeptical Inquirer says about his challenge to Chupacabras researchers:
Just because I didn’t find any references to a vampiric “chupacabra” before 1995 doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I’m a pretty thorough researcher, but no one’s perfect, and I might have missed an earlier reference. Surely if a chupacabra was widely known and discussed as far back as the 1950s, there should be plenty of written references in newspapers, magazines, books, folklore journals, etc., dating back decades. It seems there are none….it seems quite possible that people who are certain they grew up hearing tales of the bloodthirsty chupacabra beast may be merely incorrectly remembering the dates and details of when they first heard about it. The irony is, of course, that it was a Puerto Rican eyewitness’s faulty memory that confused a film monster with real life and essentially created the chupacabra.
Mass error, or incomplete research? Let’s find out! I’ll offer a public $250 reward (plus a signed copy of my book Tracking the Chupacabra) for the first verifiable written evidence of a blood-sucking monster called the chupacabra (or chupacabras) that dates before 1990. It must be a published, dated reference; I can be contacted via Discovery News.
Let’s see what turns up!Are Chupacabra Recollections Real?
Ben sends along a private note reinforcing what he has written, at the link above, by saying: “I’m offering a $250 reward (and signed copy of Tracking the Chupacabra) for the first verifiable written evidence of a blood-sucking monster called the chupacabra (or chupacabras) that dates before 1990. It must be a published, dated reference (and not a reference to the whippoorwill bird!). “
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Filed under Breaking News, Chupacabras, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology, Pop Culture