Morning Myth - Your Myths in the Making - the Chupacabra

How are myths born? The initial myth, well I have no idea though I have my theories. Why we have myths, that's varied. What we do know is that we have myths and that the having of myths will never change. 

In 1995 the movie Species was released to theaters in the United States and, Puerto Rico. It was a moderately popular movie. At the same time in Puerto Rico there was a group of rhesus monkeys being experimented on in a lab. That group of monkeys was never accounted for after having either been killed or somehow perhaps maybe escaping (or being allowed to escape) from the lab (these things do happen, I know).

At about the same time there were numerous reports of a monster killing goats. Appropriately called the chupacabra. Which literally means "to suck goat."

The first detailed desciption follows.

"A woman named Madelyne Tolentino said she saw the beast through a picture window outside her house in Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, during the second week of August 1995. In a 1996 interview, Tolentino said the bipedal animal had dark gray or black eyes that “were damp and protruding, running up to its temples and spreading to the sides,” like typical alien eyes. Its height was “about 4 feet, more or less. At the time, it was walking like a human, on both legs. Its arms were drawn back in an attack position, as though it were a TV monster.” She said it had three long, skinny fingers and that its arms were also very long. Its hair “was rather short, and close to its body. Rather well-combed in fact.”

Does this look anything like....

Over the next few years sightings of the chupacabra increased and it was blamed for thousands of inexpiable animal deaths and mutilation. Apparently its range increased as well as reports of the beast showed up in Mexico and later the USA then Quickle to central and south America. Its current range seems to extend from somewhere in Canada  all the way to Tierra del Fuego. By 2018 the chupacabra made its arrival in India and has even snuck into China despite their strict visa requirements. 

The beast has also morphed, or evolved I should say, over time. it looks less that which was originally described and depicted and is more often described as a dog like creature, but leathery, with a pronounced ridge, deep socketed eyes, large fangs, and large claws.

What the two have in common is sucking the blood out of their prey. It should come as no surprise that all the purported sightings and corpses of the chupacabra have been deemed by 'scientists' as being mange ridden dogs and coyotes. 

In any respect, during my lifetime I have been witness to, though never a party in, the creation of numerous myths. So many myths. 

 Of course I defer to Jung...."We can keep from a child all knowledge of earlier myths, but we cannot take from him the for mythology."

We, as humans, are impelled to create myths. All we understand and believe to be in the world are myths of our own individual or collective making. Even 'science' is a myth whose phantasmic revelations will be rendered to the dust bin of delusions one day.