Texas Chupacabras Sighting?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on February 8th, 2006
Was this the real Chupacabras? Not the mangy coyotes that the news stations like to show, but an actual unidentified animal, a cryptid.
This report comes from an associate of mine who lives in El Paso, TX. The original report was posted on her website in the last couple of days. It was submitted on January 24, 2006.
Teen has encounter with an unidentified creature while driving on a rural Texas highway.
Our daughter’s school is located 9 miles from town in a rural farming area. In order to get to the school from town, she has to drive on two separate highways and a farm to market road. The houses are sporadic along this route and the terrain varies between farm land, stock pastures and canyons.
When she got out of a basketball game late on Tuesday night, she had to be extra careful driving home because there is quite a bit of wildlife on the road at night; deer, cows, wild pigs and turkey. When she was about 4 and 4/10th miles north of Dickens, Texas, and heading south on Hwy 70, she came to a place the locals call Turkey Crossing.
She started to slow down to watch for the wild turkey when she noticed something up ahead. As she started to pass the nearest ranch entrance, she noticed that there was something sitting on a wide gate post. She did not know what it was so she slowed down to look. As she got closer, she saw a flesh-colored animal, about three feet tall, crouched on top of the post. It had a round head like an owl and a round, sloped face with a tiny round nose, like a short snout, and a slit for a mouth. It had eyes that looked like they were slanted down at the inside toward the nose and up at the outside. She could not see what color the eyes were and they did not shine when her headlights lit it up. The creature was sitting with its feet together and its knees out, in a bow-legged squat. It had feet like a bird with a set of toes or talons in the back and another set in the front. It had short arms with a flap of triangular skin on the back sides. There was something pointed at the tips of the skin flaps that looked like a bat thumb or claw. It looked like it had paws with four digits on each one and the arms were partially hidden underneath a flap of skin on each side. If the skin flaps were wings, the creature did not attempt to use them to fly. The skin or short fur was a tan or peach color and it was wrinkled in places like a baby bat.
Flesh-colored creature sitting on post
Just as our daughter started to pass the creature it sprung from the gate post and jumped toward her truck. The gate post is quite a distance from the highway but she swerved to avoid hitting the creature.
Creature jumped toward truck
The thing hit the ground, crouched for a second then started running on two legs. She said she hit the gas pedal and left the thing eating dust. She was so scared that she bawled the rest of the way home.
Creature closest to truck
What do the readers of Cryptomundo think this creature was? The legendary Chupacabras? An over-sized bat? What do you think?
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
How dark was it in the area? What time was this? How late? Depending on the light and how much light was being cast by the car, I wonder how visible anything was in that area.
What kinds of nocturnal creatures are known to inhabit the area?
I have very little faith in eye-witness testimony. I know from personal experience how easy it is for people to think they’ve seen something amazing but only have it be the product of an overactive imagination or a misrepresentation of something more mundane. I’m not saying she is lying or didn’t see anything (which are the usual uninformed assumptions people make when I am hesitant to embrace eye witness testimony), but with no corroborating witness, no details on the conditions of the area or what the night was like, I’m more than happy to file this away under “weird tales” until more witnesses come forth or physical evidence becomes apparent.
To speculate on such an account does little good, because there are just too many variables, and we’ll hear opinions on everything from chupacabra to raccoons to vampires to trans-dimensional reptile men.
Well if somebody looks at that drawing and tells me that it’s a raccoon…I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t know of many animals that you can tell me look like that. If you show me an animal that looks like that then you have showed me the CHUPACABRAS.
Sounds strange. But remember how strange those bald, mangy coyotes look.
Do raccoons get sarcoptic mange? How about ring-tailed cats?
Are there armadillos in the area? Sometimes parts of the face and underbelly of armadillos look flesh-colored, and they do have formidable-looking claws. Check out this picture.
Can somebody go investigate this thing to get more info?
O.K. That armadillo picture was about the funniest thing I’ve seen all year. Tell me that would incite some hysterical reports of extraterrestrial, armored, attack-rats.
I have spent some time in West Texas in Terrain similar to what is described here. Since it is a rural area, depending on moon light, and the likelyhood that she had brights on, I’d say that the distances and proximity of the creature from the truck could give the gal a very good and clear look at the creature.
Nocturnal creature wise, outside of the possibility of the usual rodents, larger creatures would be coyotes or mountain lions, deer. The way she describes it on a fence post, definitely reminds me of a turkey, just to throw that out there.
I once took a night hike on a 24 mile road out that way, and will say that on that, with a creature hearing me, we still managed to come up right on a rather large coyote, and something else, only visible by the eye. So it would be possible for her to almost suprise the creature if the winds were blowing hard in the opposite direction. I know that a majority of Texas did receive high winds throughout January. But Texas being as big as she is, I can not guarantee the wind conditions in El Paso.
I’m no zoologist, but wouldn’t a living creature have “eye shine”? Especially a nocturnal one? I have a dog and a cat, and if you catch their eyes just right even in a well lit room they light right up.
If not, could this just be an owl?
If there should be “eye-shine, could it be a kid in a costume? “three feet tall crouched” – I’m 5’9″, and if I crouch down like a gargoyle or Spiderman my head doesn’t break 3 feet from the floor.
Just a few thoughts
Ok, this is my first post here. If you would like to see what she saw, on top of that fence post, then check out these pictures of a fledgling owl.
or this one.
Those two will give different components of what she saw. Young fledgling owls also will go into a bluffing, defensive stance when they feel threatened. AND they will even charge the animal/human they feel threatended by. For that stance check out this picture, the owl is less mature than what she probably saw, but put the posture with the other pictures and you will get the idea.
These young fledgling owls will alos drop their wings down and partially spread them out to make themselves look bigger. I have seen it in person many times in the field. I still get spooked when I walk up on an owl in the field at night. They just look so other-worldly. Don’t get me wrong though, I am a believer and not a de-bunker.
But as soon as I saw her drawings, I knew immediately what she saw.
Good Hunting
MojoHotep, your sources and owls were very interesting.
Very nice Mojo, but: “She could not see what color the eyes were and they did not shine when her headlights lit it up.”
An owls eyes do reflect light (next to last paragraph).
So, either she missed it or the headlights didn’t hit it at the right angle, or was there some other reason?
I think the girl saw exactly what she said she saw and that if it had been anything even remotely like an owl, bat, hairless coyote, or whatnot, that she – being a country girl – would have had enough experience to recognize it. Whatever it was, it produced an intense reaction in the observer, such that she cried all the way home in terror.
Was it a “Chupacabras?” Well, it doesn’t have to be. After all, if there IS such a thing as a Chupacabra type critter, no reason that there can’t be other really strange types of creatures.
We ought not to forget things like the Beast of Gevaudan, Spring-Heeled Jack, Mothman and other dimensional “Window Fallers.” See my article here as well as my article on other “Monsters” here.
I believe MojoHotep may have the answer.
Surely an owl would close its sensitive eyes in the beam of a car’s headlights?
Fledgling great horned owls and barn owls can be pretty big. We have a great horned owl around here that looks HUGE.
It is also about the right time of year for owl fledgelings.
mtgrogan-
{whisper} Shhh, the armadillos might….hear you. They’re not to be trifled with. {whisper}
MojoHotep-
Pretty good. Strong theory. Hopefully someone can get some more information or feedback from the witness.
The owl theory is good, but wouldn’t she know a young owl if she saw one?
Or, could it be that she had never saw a fledgling owl and when she did, she did not know what it was and thought it was something more?
And if the owls eyes were closed, wouldn’t the eyelids (one of the three it has) be the same color as the rest of it, almost making it look like it didn’t have eyes, as in this picture? Yet in the drawing, the eyes are black.
Those pesky owls, getting mistaken for all kinds of things, maybe Chupas as in this case, and UFO creatures. Where will they turn up next? Teaming with those armadillos to try and take over the world?
Been giving this some thought. I grew up a country boy myself, and there have been times, that even “I” have been fooled by owls. AND, they have a tendancy to tilt their heads down and look up at you, which keeps the eyes from reflecting light. I have seen this in person. I am not sure if this behavior is intentional or if they are tilting their heads to better pick up sound with their enormous ears. Owls operate by sound as much if not more than sight. Especially at night. ALSO, it would not have to be a fledgling owl. It could have been an adult barn owl. One more factor here. If that owl had been feeding on something it had caught on the side of the road, had finished eating and flown up on the post to clean and groom itself, then it would have taken a defensive posture if approached to protect the remainder of its prey. I have witnessed this behavior many times in person in the field. I know what the girl thougth she saw, and maybe she did. But when you have a very, very good explanation like this one in comparison to the data given, it would take a photograph to convince me otherwise on this one, because I have had the peedoodle scared out of me, at night, by owls, up close and personal. I think it is really important in CryptoZoo to be careful about getting caught up in the moment. I want to “believe” as much or more than anyone out there. But I don’t want to take credibility away from CryptoZoo by jumping to conclusions either way. If we are going to call it a science, we need to respect that label. In 1979, as a biology major in college, I told my advisor I wanted to become a cryptozoologist. He laughed in my face and told me there was no such thing and that there never would be. He was a PHD in biology. I went on to get my degree in the biology sciences and I have waited a long time for CryptoZoo to become legit. Good hunting all,,,,,and keep those cameras handy.
Photographs would be nice, but as everyone knows, not even the PGF has convinced people of Bigfoots existence, so a still photo of a cryptid doesn’t stand a good chance of convincing people IMO, unless it is high quality, and maybe not even then.
I agree about being careful and not jumping to conclusions. I dislike that whole “true believer” attitude.
Of course, I also dislike those dismissive, closed-minded scientists also, which could be considered a “true non-believer syndrome”, I guess.
Now someone needs to present the witness with the owl theory and see if she agrees or not.
I am sceptical of the owl theory, because the mouth is more of a slit than a long beak. Maybe some kind of large, snub-nosed bat?
Maybe it had its mouth open and it just looked like a slit?
J.-
DINGDINGDINGDING! That makes owl a lot more probable! I could see the “hands” being short feathers, and the longer thingies on the arms as longer feathers.
I don’t wish to dismiss this girl’s sighting out of hand, and I’m willing to accept her as being experienced in local wildlife, but even that doesn’t rule out a conventional explanation. I am an avid naturalist here in South Jersey, and although I know owls to be quite common here, I have only ever seen maybe 4 in all my nocturnal or sylvan wanderings. Further, I once had an experience which may be relevant. Walking at night in the woods of Higbee Beach, Cape May, my friend and I crossed the path of an animal, about 3 feet high when standing on its hind legs, that was furred and creme-coloured, with a long tail. Needless to say, it freaked us out plenty. Thankfully we had a flashlight and it was obliging enough to pause for a moment before it dropped to all fours and scuttled off, allowing us time to better observe it. We are all in agreement now that it was an albino or light-haired opossum or skunk. But had it not paused for that moment, I virtually guarantee you that we all would have come away convinced that we had seen something quite unusual, and not altogether dissimilar from this girl’s experience. Just food for thought in considering this case.
Now, if the thing she saw is much as she described, and not of any conventional nature, perhaps it was a Thunderbird (Maybe a fledgling), as even good reports often fail to describe very avian features. Another cryptid possibility (which, if real, I think gets confused for Thunderbirds quite often, especially in Texas) is the giant bat found in Central American lore. I don’t have my CZ books with me right now, but I believe its called a Camazotz or Camazotl, something like that.
I don’t care what that thing might have been, I’m not moving into that area. I don’t know anything that doesn’t reflect light from its eyes, and usually the more nocturnal the more it reflects.