CHUPACABRA@25 REVISITING THE FIRST SIGHTING
Even amid the rarefied field of cryptozoological curiosities, the chupacabra [initially chupacabras; see FT85:9] stands out as an oddity. It is the only vampire among the likes of Nessie, Yeti, Bigfoot, Mothman and other such fortean brethren, said to suck blood from goats and other animals. It’s also the only creature that has significantly changed form over the years. While most monster morphology remains fixed – big hairy bipedal sylvan creature here, big scaly saurian there – the chupacabra has appeared in at least three distinct forms over the years: humanoid alien, canid, and “other” (including raccoons and basically any dead, unidentified animal).
It’s also the new kid on the block – a strapping young pup just 25 years old. As detailed in a previous article (FT271:30-35), the original eyewitness, a Puerto Rican woman named Madelyne Tolentino, described the creature based on the HR Giger-designed monster Sil in the sci-fi/horror film Species. The 25th anniversary of the chupacabra’s sudden appearance offers the perfect opportunity to take a closer look at that very first sighting – the astonishing encounter that spawned a monster whose fame now rivals that of Bigfoot or Nessie.
FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL
Most accounts of Tolentino’s 1995 encounter offer only a brief summary of her description and little in the way of context. While key sightings of other monsters have received extensive analysis – Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin’s 1967 alleged encounter with a Bigfoot, for example (FT360:32-39), or Chris Davis’s 1988 sighting of the Lizard Man near a swamp (FT51:34-36, 333:26-34) – Tolentino’s encounter received scant investigative attention, even at the time.
In the months after her sighting, the island of Puerto
