Chupacabra forces prom in Mendota to be canceled

Did this friendly lil guy cause the prom in Mendota to be canceled?

Photo courtesy of sapherequeen from fanpop.com

First off let me apologize for the lack of recent context. I've been in the process of moving and didn't have time for much else. Now that I'm settled in I can focus again on providing content for Weird Fresno. Today I thought I would do that by revisiting an early story that I had done.

According to a website called the Chupacabra Tracker, on May 10 (the year is never told) in the small farming town of Mendota a rooster is said to have died of "mysterious" circumstances. Soon after that the Fresno County Department of Agriculture started to receive reports of Chupacabra sightings in the area. This apparently alarmed the local parents so much that they had the prom canceled out of fear their children might become victims to the legendary goat sucker.

How legitimate this story is, I have no idea. When I first came across it I contacted both Mendota High School and the Fresno County Ag Commissioner (there is no county Dept. of Ag, only state) but never received a reply from either party. Still I love this story. Something had to have happened to freak out the local parents to have them go as far to cancel the local prom. I just really hope it wasn't a dog with a case of mange.

Top 10 strangest things to happen in Fresno for 2010

It’s hard to believe that 2010 is almost over. This year saw some good things for Weird Fresno. I’m now a featured writer over at Fresno Famous and I've also started a forum for people to share their stories with others. Going back through all the posts I did over the year, I was able to trim down the 165 posts (this one will make it 166) to what I felt was the top ten posts of the year.

Number 10 - Another strange creature sighted at Millerton Lake

I've done a few posts now on Millerton Lake and the strange things that people have seen in the water. This one story was interesting to me due to the fact I got a phone call from someone who had searched strange creature sightings in Millerton Lake on Google and my site was the first thing that came up. Out of all the e-mails I get, weird things seen at Millerton Lake are the most common. One has to wonder what's lurking under the water's surface.

Original post can be found here.

Number 9 - Strange triangular shaped craft seen over Fresno

Usually I ignore most UFO videos on YouTube, but this one grabbed my attention. To this day I still don't know what it is. But there's been some strange things in the skies above Fresno over the past year.

Original post can be found here.

Number 8 - Was the Chupacabra seen in a Bakersfield park?

It wouldn’t be a Top Ten post without at least one post of the unofficial mascot for Weird Fresno. This time the sighting was in a Bakersfield park and was complete with the grainy cell phone camera image. Most likely this was yet another animal with mange, but for whatever reason they keep being misidentified as chupacabra. One has to wonder how many sightings will occur in 2011?

Original post can be found here.

Number 7 - KMPH 26 reports UFOs seen in Fresno over the Fourth of July weekend

Like I mentioned earlier, some strange things have been seen in the Fresno skies over the past year and there was some crazy UFO stuff going on over the 4th of July weekend in the Fresno area. Several sightings occured, including a large cigar shaped craft flying over a house in Clovis. KMPH 26 even did a small news piece on the sightings.

Original post can be found here.

Number 6 - ABC 30 reports Bigfoot sightings on the rise in Fresno County

Like UFOs, Bigfoot sightings were also on the rise in the Fresno County area this year. What surprised me about this was that the reporter actually took the subject matter seriously. Usually with anything paranormal they always try to make jokes about it, add the X Files theme (happened to me once) or just make the people in the article look like kooks. ABC 30 was different. Granted they didn’t show any conclusive evidence, but still this was better than what other news stations have done. I hope they take note for the next time they do something.

Original post can be found here.

Number 5 - Did a UFO crash near Fresno over the weekend?

This has to be one of the strangest stories of the entire year. A UFO was reported to have crashed east of Fresno in the foothills and was military in origin. Jeffery Gonzalez of the Sanger Paranormal Society claims to have video taped the craft, but it’s hard to really make anything out. Still this story was of interest as it made news on several national paranormal sites. Unfortunately nothing else was ever reported on this story.

Original post can be found here.

Number 4 - Return to Snake Road

This one was interesting just because of what I was unable to do. Bored one night, I decided to head out towards Sanger with a fully charged video camera in tow. I’m on the fence about the story, but wanted to shoot some video to show what the area was like. After a 30 minute drive, I arrived and parked my car on the side of the road, grabbed my camera and started to walk. But when I turned on my camera I was surprised to find out that I only had about five minutes left on the battery (normally it can shoot for 90 minutes or so). So I hastily shot some video on the side of the road (which didn’t come out right as it was too dark) and then jumped back in the car and shot some video driving down the road.

Original post can be found here.

Number 3 -The return to the Fright Night Scream Park

Granted this one isn’t paranormal in nature, but it shows that even I can still get scared. Last year I had done some great promo work with the Scream Park and was asked to do it again this year. The idea I had was to have someone there call the Weird Fresno hotline and goad me into coming back. Problem was they were so busy setting up that when I arrived to shoot the video for the blog post, no one had called. But I had worked out something where I would get a few phone calls and then I would post the video a bit later then I planned.

A few days passed when I received a phone call. I let it go to voice mail (as I always do) and then listened to the message. It sounded nothing like the person who was supposed to call me and didn’t mention anything about the park and figured it was someone else. But before I could get a chance to call them back, they started calling my phone constantly. At work, at home, late at night. And the messages were just weird. The person kept saying they had something to show me, that they wanted to be my best friend and they loved me. Having my fair share of psychos calling me, I got a bit nervous and if you follow either @weirdfresno or my personal twitter feed you would know this. My tweets got the attention of the person who ran their twitter feed and they contacted me and said it wasn’t them, which terrified me even more. The calls continued and finally I started to freak out even more. Finally I received a message via twitter from the park saying it was them all along. I’m to assume it was someone else, as I didn’t recognize the voice. Luckily I was able to work in into the post even though I was expecting something entirely different. But needless to say I fell victim to my own promotion.

Original post can be found here.

Number 2 - Strange things going on at Lost Lake

This was one of my favorites of the year because we have two different types of sightings here. One was the ghost of a small child and the other was of a strange creature. Even more interesting is both accounts are from the same witness, but at different locations in the park. Both were definitely weird and plans to visit the park are in the works for 2011.

Original post can be found here.

Number 1 - Update on video of strange creatures captured on Fresno CCTV

and

SyFy channel show airs strange video shot in Fresno

These two go together in that they are related in the fact the first post then warranted the second one. One of my first posts was done about this strange video of these “creatures” that someone had captured on a CCTV video. About a year later I was able to find more video, this time showing the person’s house and yard and putting the size of the creatures into perspective. If you watch the video you and compare the size of the tree to the creatures you will see they can’t be more than 18 to 24 inches tall.

What’s even better is the second post put me in touch with a show on the SyFy network. The show was called Fact or Fiction and they try to either prove or debunk supposed paranormal related videos on the internet and had come across the one above. Through Google they had found my site and called me with a few questions. Unfortunately they didn’t offer me a job, but after watching them splicing some footage shot at Woodward Park and saying it was near the person’s house (which it’s not), I wasn’t too upset over this.

Original posts can be found here and here.

So there you have it, the top ten strangest things to happen in around the Fresno area for 2010. With the new year approaching us, that means that 2012 is that much closer (and the end of the world as some people want you to think). Who knows what crazy shit will happen in 2011. All I know is that whatever it is, you'll read about it here.

Gargoyle-like creature seen in Puerto Rico

Image courtesy of Tim Parkinson from Flickr.

There was a recent report coming out of Puerto Rico that a strange creature resembling a "gargoyle" has attacked several animals over the weeks and even one person fell victim to it's attacks.

Witnesses descriptions of the creature describe it as a short bipedal winged creature and emits a "sulferic or rotten odor". What's intersting is how similiar the description is to the original Chupacabra sightings in Puerto Rico, the only difference is that this creature has wings. Apparently this creature has been seen for several years in the Guánica area of Puerto Rico, but in Lajas and San Germán as well.

Another difference between this creature and the Chupacabra is it's choice of prey. The Chupacabra was known for going after livestock, but this gargolye creature has apparently decided to add humans to it's choice of meals. A man in the 1990's claims that he was attacked by a larged winged creature in his backyard. There were injuries to the man's back and stomach, as if something with claws attacked him.

Others have seen this creature over the years. One was a police officer who didn't see the creature, but heard the beating of powerful wings and knew it couldn't be a typical bird. Other witnesses aren't so forthcoming. They are afraid of going to the local police telling of what the saw in fear of either being scorned or being labeled as mentally disturbed.

Could this creature just be another sighting of the Chupacabra? Even though this one has been described as having wings, everything else is similiar to the blood sucker (except for the attack on the person as there haven't been any known accounts of a Chupacabra doing this). Whatever the case may be, I can at least say for certain that this is definitely not an animal with mange.

Full source: Inexplicata

Was the Chupacabra seen in a Bakersfield park?

There have been reports of Chupacabra sightings in Kern County for the last month or so. In July, one witness saw the creature in Hart Park. They pulled their car over and watched it walk around before it stopped to look at them. She was able to take a photograph of the beast which shows the typical hairless creatures that have been all over the news lately.

The Bakersfield CBS affliate, KGET 17, showed the pictures to the head of county parks. His opinion of it was that it was a coyote with mange. I'd have to agree with that statement, the photo looks like the typical canine with mange case that is usually the explanation for these sightings. Though the witness stands by her claim that what she saw as indeed the chupacabra.

Full source: CBS KGET

Chupacabra seen in Oklahoma?

A group of teenagers in Tecumseh, OK say they spotted the mythical Chupacbra behind the local high school. They described it as having long back legs and it's front legs were smaller and looked similar to a kangaroo's. The creature was also hairless and had a long tail. The group was able to snap a photo of the creature with a cellphone camera. Unfortunately the picture was a bit blurry and it's hard to make out any details.

The news story goes on to mention some of the other recent sightings and how that the likely explantion for those was some sort of animal with mange and that is this the case here. Still, this is the first sighting that I have heard of in Oklahoma.

The teens stated they have seen the creature several more times and their goal is to now capture it.

More Chupacabra sightings in Texas

It seems once again that Texas is the hot spot for supposed Chupacabra sightings.

An animal control office in Hood County, Texas shot and killed a creature that was hairless and didn't look like anything he had ever seen before. But that wasn't the only creature that was seen. Another creature with similiar characteristics was spotted and killed several miles away.

The animal control officer was quick not to say whether he killed the legendary goat sucker or not. The animal was sent away for DNA tests (most likely at tax payers expense) before he makes a decesion. He did say he knew whatever it was it wasn't normal. Another officer stated that it was nothing like she had ever seen before.

To me that the creature shown in the video is either a coyote or dog suffering from mange, which would explain the lack of hair. As for the emanicapted look, that can be explained by both the mange and the fact the creature was problably starving (which would explain why one was in the barn, most likely it was searching for food).

I found it a bit humorous that the reporter was looking for a "pack of Chupacabras" at the end of the video and the rancher said if he was a Chupacabra, that a certain clump of trees is where he would live. Part of me was hoping something would have jumped out when he investigated the clump of trees, but alas nothing happaned. Hopefully when the DNA tests comeback showing that this was nothing more than an animal with mange people will realize that these aren't Chupacabras. But that has happened before and nothing has changed. Meanwhile the real Chupacabra is in Puerto Rico laughing at all the imposters in Texas and the rest of the Southwest.

Thanks to Brodiemash over at the DumbDrum for sending me the video.

The rash of supposed Chupacabra sightings continue

The rash of supposed Chupacabra sightings continue, this time with a farmer in Texas claiming to have caught the mythological beast after setting a trap when he found several of his livestock dead from some sort of animal attack. The next day he found the strange hairless creature, describing it as a mix between a hairless dog, a rat, and a kangaroo. Now I'm no animal expert, but to me this appears to be just another animal (most likely a dog or some other canine) suffering from mange.

In my opinion the reports of Chupacabras in the States has nothing to do with the original ones seen in Puerto Rico. The ones seen here are nothing more than animals suffering from mange, whereas the creature seen in Puerto Rico stood up on two legs, had a row of spines down it's back, and glowing red eyes. Also most, if not all, sightings of Chupacabras were accompanied by UFO sightings several nights before. Unfortunately those sightings have died off and the legend of the Chupacabra has been regaled to stories of hairless dogs being chased in the desert.

Bizarre creature washes up in small Canadian town

Locals in a small Canadian town have been stumped by the appearance of a bizarre creature, which was dragged from a lake.

The animal, which has a long hairy body with bald skin on its head, feet and face, has prompted wild internet speculation that it is a more evolved version of the famous 'Montauk monster'.

The creature was discovered by two nurses in the town of Kitchenuhmaykoosib in Ontario, Canada, while out on a walk with their dog.

When the dog began sniffing in the lake, the two women started investigating, before the dog pulled the dead animal out.

After taking some photographs of the odd animal, the nurses left it alone. When locals decided to go back and retrieve the body, it has disappeared.

The photographs have now been posted on a local website, with an explanation which reads: 'This creature was first discovered by Sam the Dog, a local dog.

'It was discovered first week of May in the creek section of town, hikers noticed Sam sniffing something in the water and they approached to see in what the Sam had detected and they noticed the creature in the water face down.

'The dog jumped in the lake and pulled the creature to the rocks and dragged it out for the hikers to see and these are the photos they took.

'The creature's tail is like a rat's tail and it is a foot long.'

There has been much speculation about what kind of species the animal is.

The body of the creature appears to look something like an otter, while its face - complete with long fang-like teeth, bears a striking resemblance to a boar-like animal.

Even the local police chief Donny Morris is baffled, saying: 'What it is, I don't know. I'm just as curious as everyone else.'

The pictures of the animal have caused mass speculation online, from bloggers who are all stumped as to what the creature could be.

One internet blogger wrote: 'That certainly is a face only a mother can love. It looks like some sort of otter, weasel-type thing.'

While another added: 'Some kind of mustelid - I thought otter first.

'Being in the water and bashed around has made the fur on the face and tail come off so clean like that.'

Many people have suggested the animal could be a new 'Montauk monster' - due to the similarities between these photographs and those of a different creature which washed up in Montauk, New York, in 2008.

The animal, which quickly earned the nickname the 'Montauk monster', thanks to the beach's location to a Long Island government animal testing facility, has never been officially identified - although the general consensus is that it was some kind of racoon.

However, other bloggers have speculated that the new creature discovered is a type of chupacabra, or 'goatsucker'.

The chupacabra is rumoured to inhabit parts of the U.S. , with many several hundred eyewitness accounts over the past few years.

But despite these sightings, the majority of biologists and wildlife experts believe the chupacabra is a contemporary legend.

Original article can be found here.

Mangy "monster" sightings on the rise

A curious animal recently caught by hunters in the Sichuan province of China is being touted by some as a Yeti, the Oriental version of Bigfoot. The mysterious hairless animal was initially described by eyewitnesses as having features resembling a bear or kangaroo.

The finding is part of a growing number of mysterious mangy creature reports in recent years. And it could get worse.

The supposed Yeti is being shipped to Beijing for DNA testing, but a photograph of the animal clearly shows a small creature with four legs and a tail.

Loren Coleman, author of several books on Bigfoot, believes the animal is likely a civet, a cat-like creature native to the area. Whatever it is, it's not a bear, nor a kangaroo, nor a dragon, and certainly not a Yeti.

Wimpy Yeti?

In artist depictions and in the public’s mind, beasts such as the Yeti and Bigfoot are usually huge, powerful animals — not the scared, sickly, pathetic little "mystery creatures" that are found. Almost all mammals have hair, so when a hairless mammal is seen, it arouses mystery, curiosity, and of course wild speculation. Yet among biologists and zoologists, this is a non-mystery.

What the civet and other animals have in common is a bad case of mange. Mange is a parasitic skin infection caused by mites. Sarcoptic mange, a highly contagious form of the disease, can cause hair loss as well as skin welts and crusting. Because people usually see animals with their full coat of fur, animals with mange can be very difficult to identify.

In North America there has been a dramatic increase in the number of "mysterious" hairless animals found both alive and dead over the past five years. The "Montauk Monster" was a hairless raccoon, though most were initially identified as chupacabra, the Latin American vampiric beast. Various chupacabras found in Texas were identified through DNA analysis as belonging to the Canidae family — dogs and coyotes.

And now this Yeti. What's going on?

Global warming to blame?

If reports of strange animals with mange seem to be more common over the past few years, there's a good ecological reason: global warming.

LiveScience spoke to Mike Bowdenchuck, state director for Texas Wildlife Services, who explained why mysterious, hairless animals are more common in Texas and the southwest than other areas:

"Down here, animals don't die of mange, because the temperatures are warm enough," Bowdenchuck said. Rather, the animals live with mange.

"Mange is very common in colder areas, in fact wolves are getting it in Montana right now, and in North Dakota foxes get it," he said, noting a big difference: "Up there it's fatal, so you never see animals with the severe cases that we see in the southern climates, because they don't live long enough for the mites to get that bad to cause the hair to fall off. They die of hypothermia first."

Animals that have lost their fur are more vulnerable to the cold, so in warmer climates they live longer (and be more likely to be seen). Thus one might conclude that sightings of hairless animals will become more common as the climate warms. The extended forecast calls for more non-Bigfoot, non-Yeti, and non-chupacabra mangy monster sightings.

Original story can be found here.

Strange hairless creature discovered in China

A bizarre creature, dubbed the “oriental yeti”, has baffled scientists after emerging from ancient woodlands in remote central China.

The hairless beast was trapped by hunters in Sichuan province after locals reported spotting what they thought was a bear.

One hunter, Lu Chin, said: “It looks a bit like a bear but it doesn’t have any fur and it has a tail like a kangaroo.

“It also does not sound like a bear — it has a voice like a cat and it is calling all the time — perhaps it is looking for the rest of its kind or maybe it's the last one.

"There are local legends of a bear that used to be a man and some people think that’s what we caught," he added.

Now stumped local animal experts have shipped the mystery beast to scientists in Beijing for DNA tests.

Original story can be found here.

Police chase Chupacabra and get it on tape.

While on duty, Sheriffs deputies in Texas came across a strange animal they could only describe as a Chupacabra. The animal was hairless and the deputies described it with a short front snout and having shorter front legs than the back ones. The county sheriff said he is willing to work with credible researchers to help determine what this creature actually is.

Honestly to me this looks like another case of a dog or coyote having a case of mange and being misidentified as a Chupacabra. Though I do find it interesting that the sheriff is taking this so seriously, most just write it off as something mundane. Guess they take the problem of the Chupacabra in Texas seriously.

Texas man claims he has found the Chupacabra

Jerry Ayer, a teacher at the Blanco Taxidermy School in Blanco, Texas claims to have a dead Chupacabra

Ayer says he’s never seen anything like this before. He says one of his students found it.

“It got into his cousin’s barn and they thought maybe it was a rodent tearing stuff up, and they no idea since they’ve never seen it,” Ayers said. “He got out some poison and this is what they got the next day.”

The animal is described as gray, with leathery skin and unlike anything that is native to Texas.

“There’s no hair on it, it’s got long teeth, it’s got the long tail like a coyote but there’s no hair,” said Butler. “It just seems to me that the legs are a little longer than a coyote and I can’t tell you one way or another if it’s a coyote with mange or if it’s a chupacabra.” said Lynn Butler of Rosenberg speaking to a local TV station.

The Chupacabra from the Spanish words chupar, meaning “to suck”, and cabra, meaning “goat”; literally “goat sucker”), also called El Chupacabras in Spanish, is a legendary cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas, according to Wikipdedia.

Ayer plans to donate the remains to a museum.

Thanks to both Chris Hangsleben and Brodiemash over at the Dumbdrum for pointing out this story to me.

Reports of chupacabra in Calfornia farm town cancels high school prom.

I have no idea what year this was, but it made me chuckle.

From the Chupacabra Tracker.

On May 10, a rooster fell victim in Mendota, California, and the Fresno County Department of Agriculture subsequently logged ten complaints of goatsucker activity, prompting worried parents to cancel their childrens prom outings.


I'm going to have to look into this some more. I'm not sure of the truthfulness of the prom being canceled due to a few complaints of chupacabra activity. But if this is true, I'd love to see the reports that were filed.