El Duende reportedly seen in Uruguay

It seems that El Duende has been seen again. For those who don't know, El Duende is a mythological creature in Spanish folklore (think a troll or gnome) that tends to cause mischief to those that happen across it. There was a rash of sightings in South America during 2008 and I had reported on it and the possible relationship to any sightings in Fresno. Well after a near two year hiatus, the creepy little bastard is back and was seen in Uruguay recently.

According to the reports, a duende had been spotted perched on top of some powerlines late at night in the small city of Nueva Palmira. Local shopkeepers and several other witnesses notice the strange creature sitting on top of the powerlines for several minutes. Upon closer inspection, they notice that it would change colors. Attempts to photograph it using cellphones failed, as the image was not clear or usable at all.

According to the eyewitness reports collected by repoter Roberto Tatto, “It was on Saturday night, out comes a business shop owner and he sees a bright light. He noticed that it was at a noticeable height. It was on top of a powerline. He called his wife and a few of his cusotmers, who got closer and stood underneath the figure and noticed that it was changing colors. It had the shape of a doll. With a flash light they illuminated it and it started to move, as if bothered by the light. It looked like a doll of 25 centimeters that would move on the cable. Later on that morning, the local police with spotlights and that’s when it really started to move more. Like it was nervous. It would move its head and get bothered.“

It wasn’t until around 4 am that the creature started to slowly shrink, so much that it had completely vanished. More witnesses were on sight by that time. According to them, after the creature had completely vanished, it left a ‘pearl-colored ooze’ dripping from the cable.

The residents of Nueva Palmira believed that what they had witnessed was either a duende or an alien being.

Personally I just blame this on World Cup hysteria (and those damn horns), but that's just me.

Link to the original article (in Spanish) can be found here.

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.