Sunday, September 28, 2014

Mississippi Chupacabras

News reports out of Leake County, Mississippi claim that a local man has killed a chupacabra, the legendary creature known as the ‘goat sucker.’

Twenty eight year old local man, Matthew Harrell shot the creature when he caught it in a chicken coop. “My neighbor said the creature had killed three of his chickens. I thought it was a coon at first.”
Harrell says he realized the animal wasn’t a raccoon when he saw its glowing red eyes.

“This one wasn’t lunging. He was down like a cat…and I was seeing the teeth and red eyes. It looked like he was going to jump down there and I didn’t give him the chance.”

101809_ff_chupacabra_16_9The animal that Harrell killed appears to be a canine, but it is mostly hairless. Local animal officials believe that the animal is nothing but a wild dog or possibly a coyote with mange, a common explanation offered in such cases.

The animal looks very similar to other ‘chupacabras’ specimens that have been found in Texas and other parts of the west. Dubbed ‘Texas blue dogs’ because of the tint of their skin, these animals are being reported with greater frequency from the southwest to the deep south.

Reports suggest that these strange canines can run as fast as thirty-five miles per hour. In 2008, DeWitt County deputy, Brandon Riedel captured footage of one of the animals using his patrol car’s dash camera.

Dr. Phylis Canion, a nutritionist from southern Texas found one of the creatures in 2007 on a road near her Cuero, Texas ranch. In an interview on “The Unexplained Files,” Canion stated that she believes the creature was responsible for almost 28 chickens killed on her property.

“Each time we found a chicken dead, it was opened up…in its throat area. It appeared that all the blood was out of it.”

The creature that Canion discovered weighed almost forty pounds had blue eyes and a long snout with a pronounced overbite.
DNA test conducted by the University of California, Davis, have suggested that the animal is a coyote/Mexican wolf hybrid. Canion herself disagrees and believes the animal is a separate species. She’s been studying the creatures for several years and has offered to pay for DNA testing on the animal killed in Mississippi.

Harrell however, threw most of the corpse away, keeping only the jawbone and teeth, along with a couple of clippings from the body. Canion is unsure if scientist will be able to obtain viable DNA for tests.

“I’ve seen a lot of nasty stuff. I’ve never seen anything like this” says Canion who spent four years in Africa. Her hope is that one of the animals can be captured alive for study and DNA. If that happens, perhaps science can prove once and for all if the legendary goat sucker is a new hybrid, or an undiscovered species.


Monday, September 1, 2014

Slenderman Paranoia

There's been a lot of attention drawn to Slenderman recently.  Is this a Internet meme or something more sinister?

I covered the history of this creature's genesis in my book Strange Intruders, but with recent criminal cases now making national news, there's more interest than ever, and with it, there are more questions than ever.

Ron Patton, publisher of Paranoia magazine has produced a special edition of the magazine featuring the Slenderman. 

Contributions from a wide range of writers are featured, and happy to have my own piece, "Tendrils of the Slenderman" included.

Check out the issue for some great reading on this weird topic, available at the Paranoia shop:

http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/shop/paranoia-59-fall-2014-pdf/