Chupacabras Attacks BMW? Or Was it the Lizard Man?

PALM SPRINGS — When Jim Flood — who lives on Tahquitz Creek Golf Course, just yards from the wash — found a section of his prized BMW 328i shredded and riddled with what looked like teeth marks, he wasn’t sure what to think.

When a neighbor told Flood he’d spotted two animals, “bigger than coyotes,” tearing through the neighborhood in the wee hours the night before, he decided it was time to call the police and report the odd event.

Flood noticed the damage when he went to pick up his newspaper Sunday morning.

“I came walking out of the house on Sunday morning to pick up The Desert Sun,” said Flood, who was not paid to say that.

“I walked outside — probably about 6:30 a.m. I saw a piece of the (convertible) cover was lying on the ground. Then I saw all this damage,” he said.

The wheel well around the car’s front left tire was twisted and had several punctures that could only have been made by teeth.

Large sandy paw prints were visible on his front lawn headed directly to the car.

The police, in an official report, chalked the event up to “suspicious circumstances.”

When Flood talked to neighbors, an insurance adjuster and even a rep at a nearby BMW dealership, he heard more tales of odd coyote-like creatures loping out of the desert to wreak havoc after sundown.