From http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=13028&topic_id=21
February 16, 2007
One week after Chile’s Armed Forces released photos and videos of UFO activity around the country, Chile’s mainstream media has once again gone extraterrestrial with various Chupacabra sightings reported throughout the country.
Chupacabra – literally translated as goat sucker – is the name for a mythical creature known for sucking the blood out of farm animals throughout Latin America and the southern United States. Many enthusiasts speculate that Chupacabras are aliens – or escaped alien pets – as evidence of the creature is frequently reported in tandem with nearby UFO sightings.
While UFO activity is typically reserved for Chile’s tabloid press, Chupacabra sightings make big news in Chile, and the countries principle newspaper, El Mercurio, reported Wednesday that Chupacabras are once again causing a stir in the southern cone country.
According to the daily, a Chupacabra attacked a henhouse in San Antonio Tuesday evening, leaving every chicken dead, without blood, and with a mysterious orifice on their spines.
Flor Vásquez, 73, told police that she could not believe what she saw when she entered her henhouse. “All the chickens were dead and were sucked completely dry of blood,” she said. “But the animal that did it did not eat a single on of my birds. It’s really strange.”
One of Vásquez’s daughters, who did not want to identify herself to the press, said that she heard dogs barking wildly that night, but did not see anything abnormal after rising several times throughout the night.
Vásquez also told police that she found strange footprints on her patio with only three toes, two facing forward and one backward.
The same night, another Chupacabra sighting occurred in Curicó. Samuel Saavedra told reporters that he heard a loud noise, “as if something had jumped off the large wall surrounding the house.”
Saavedra said he saw a creature that was approximately 1.20 meters in height, furry, and with a round, bald head. The creature apparently had large eyes and an intense stare and gave Saavedra a “defiant glare.”
Saavedra said he called police and then went to spend the night at his mother’s house, being so scared that he refused to return home for 48 hours.
The last Chupacabra activity in Chile occurred in 2000, when the creatures caused widespread panic and interest in Calama after 120 sheep were killed in the course of one week.
The Internet is full of websites dedicated to the Chupacabra. The most common theory speculates that the creature is extraterrestrial, but other conspiracy theories suggest the creature to be a product of a genetic experiment carried by the U.S. government. Most scientists say the creature could be similar to a bloodsucking raccoon species found in Africa.
The first Chupacabras were reported in Puerto Rico in 1987 after farm animals around the country began dropping dead. While none of the animals were eaten, all were drained of blood and had two puncture holes in their necks.