Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Chupacabra

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

What in the world is a chupacabra? Is it even real or is it the stuff of legend? Listen in to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave, so it's short stuff. And now, Chupacabra. That's right. Was that okay? That was gold.

All right, good. I asked Chuck, Chuck said that before we recorded. I was like, can you please say that on this episode? It was just that great. It's better than saying goat sucker cause that sounds like a very nasty thing that you would call somebody. But that's the literal translation of Chupa Cabra.

Chupar means to suck. Hence why they call them chupa chups, I just realized. And cabra means goat, not cobra like you would think, it means goat. So chupacabra means goat sucker, not cobra sucker. That's right. And if you're already frustrated a minute and a half in because you don't know what these words mean,

we are talking about the probably urban legend of the cryptid, which is an animal that doesn't exist, but has a great legend around it of the chupacabra, here I go, the chupacabra, AKA the goat sucker. Yeah, there's a reason that they call it a goat sucker too, and it's pretty straightforward. Yeah, I mean, one of the telltale signs of the chupacabra if they have come by your farm in the middle of the night is you will wake up to dead farm animals that have been

drained of their blood. Usually with puncture wounds in their neck and often there's a lot of them and some chupacabra sightings or attacks, I guess Hundreds of different animals around a farm sometimes domestic pets Sometimes wild animals in the area are found dead all at once the thing is this chupacabra, which is a cryptid we should say no one's ever actually seen one and all of the sightings and Evidence that has been collected. collected can be easily explained away by science. It's not that big. And from what I can tell,

people seem to believe there's just one. Did you get that impression? Like there's a chupacabra, like there's a Loch Ness monster. Not that chupacabras are a different species or race of something to where there's multiple ones. Did you, that's the impression that I have. I'm not sure I got that impression, but I'm not sure that I'm right about that impression. Can't you just say, yeah, Josh, you're right.

Way to go. Is that so hard for me? Just for once. Well, should we describe what this thing looks like since you brought that up? Yeah, because imagine what we're about to talk about, killing 100 goats the way that we said they do in a night.

Yeah. Uh, I've seen as short as three feet tall, but generally about four and a half to five, five and a half feet tall, um, oval shaped head, glowing eyes, like sort of alien shaped eyes, uh, which, you know, put a pin in that cause that'll come back. sort of alien-shaped eyes, which, you know, put a pin in that, because that'll come back. Long, sharp spines, usually from the back of its head down to the tailbone. A strong, stinky odor. A lot of people say it is sort of like a sulfur smell.

Some people say it doesn't smell at all. And then the skin can either be like lizardy or like a frog's or it can be what's been described as like a fuzzy lizard with like little prickly hairs and scales. Fuzzy wuzzy wizard. But here's a key, walks on two legs for the most part, which is one of the creepy parts. Yeah, yes. So there's a, do you want to take a break now and come back and talk about this? Like what people think it is or the origin of it or what? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. This is not scripted, everybody. You want to know how to leverage culture to build a successful business?

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Tom Slick, February 14th, 1958. We just heard it. The proof! Owen Wilson is Tom Slick, Mystery Hunter. To track the Yeti is an expectation of life and death, Mr. Slick. It's a mystery that does not want to be solved. That's why I'm here. We're gonna die! Nellis, when chance arrives, act! God, I need my blood pressure checked after that. Mom, you don't have to listen to this if it's too much. Tapped. Tapped. Tapped. Tapped. Tapped.

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Oh wait. I'm just going to start from the beginning. You have to take it with, and now, Chupacabra again. Okay. And now, part two of Chupacabra. Very nice. So, you talked about the origins. I've seen mentions of this all the way back to the 1950s in Arizona. It seems like it really picked up steam in the 90s,

probably as the internet picked up steam. And it looks like Puerto Rico, even though it's been found in a lot of countries, supposedly, mainly in South America, but there's a lot of stories from Puerto Rico and may have even originated as at least the modern online version from a woman named Madeline Tolentino in in San Juan in 1995 Yeah, apparently her description kind of set the tone for the basis or set the basis I guess for the tone Yeah of other descriptions and sightings to come That's right very similar to Betty and Barney right. Very similar to Betty and Barney Hill.

She was the Betty and Barney Hill of Chupacabra sightings. That's right. She was both of them. So yeah, Puerto Rico is a hotspot of Chupacabra sightings. Apparently in just one year, in one area alone, there was several hundred livestock fatalities that were attributed to the Chupacabra. And I mean, in just this one town, just hundreds of livestock dying in one year alone is very bizarre and strange. So you can kind

of guess that if everybody's aware of the Chupacabra already, they might be like, I think this is the Chupacabra at work. Yeah, for sure. If you've been online and you've seen pictures of like aware of the chupacabra already, they might be like, I think this is the chupacabra at work. Yeah, for sure. If you've been online and you've seen pictures of like chupacabra washed up on the beach, there are quite a few of those and most of them have been thoroughly debunked and proven to be. It's usually like a dog with mange who had rotted such that their skin receded and it

ended up looking really, really weird. Those aren't chupacabra. In fact, there are no chupacabra. But there have been some sightings in the past couple of years that I did look up on YouTube that aren't compelling that like where I was like, oh my God, it's totally real. But it was enough to where I was like, what in the world is that? Yes, in particular, there's one from 2022

where the Amarillo Zoo in Texas found an image or like a short snippet of some creature inside its perimeter fence. Yeah, that's key. At like 1 and 30 in the morning, yeah, walking around. And it looks very much like a werewolf, if you ask me. It's got the big, massive, massive like back and shoulders with its head, with like up around its ears essentially.

It's the way it's holding its arms and fingers make it, it looks a lot to me like somebody was dressed up like a werewolf and got into the Amarillo Zoo on purpose. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. But it's been chalked up as a chupacabra sighting. That's right. There was another one from 2023 in Bolivia, and this one also coincided with a bunch of livestock death, supposedly drained of their blood.

This is drone footage, so it's much higher, but it's near Oru City, and you definitely see like a shadowy figure kind of moving through the field. And I mean, it's not as kind of clear, clearly werewolf-y looking as the other one. But again, it was just another recent thing. And you know, both of these could be people screwing around with people. And dressing up like what they think

a chupacabra looks like. Exactly. So I mean, chupacabra, it's a fairly, you can tell it's a fairly recent phenomenon. I mean, the 90s really are when it started to take off and definitely it's heyday, but it has found itself cemented into popular culture, not just in Latin America,

but in the Southwestern United States too. There's been sightings apparently in everywhere from Arizona to New Mexico, all over the southwestern United States over the years. And apparently the earliest newspaper account of it dates back to the 50s in Arizona, which I found very interesting. Yeah, that's right. And I said to put a pin in the fact that some people say they have glowing alien-like eyes. That's because some people think, you know, there are, of course, theories on what could be going on here.

Some people do think that it's a visitor from outer space or maybe a pet from a visitor from outer space, like an, you know, like ET was left behind, just like this Chupacabra was. Or that it is like NASA was breeding alien things with human things, and this was one of those that got out supposedly. Sure, as they do. There's a veterinarian who believes that it was a genetically modified vampire bat. Because I remember it supposedly is a blood sucker, a goat sucker in particular.

I believe because of the fact that this was biggest in the 90s, I think that whole left behind alien pet was folklore directly influenced by porno for pyros. A hundred percent. Oh, from the pet song? Yeah, from We'll Make Great Pets. I love that song. Yeah, it's a great song,

but I guarantee somebody added that to the folklore from that song. Oh, so it was a future human that was kept as a pet? No, no, just the concept that aliens even have pets. Oh, okay. That's why I'm linking it to you. Gotcha. Could have been a future human. That's the thing. Everybody's just throwing anything that can stick at the wall,

at the whole chupacabra phenomenon. It, again, it's fairly recent enough that it hasn't taken full solid shape still, it seems like to me. You can say, oh, it's a genetically modified vampire bat or whatever. The best explanation I've seen, you kind of already touched on, about carcasses washed up on the beach,

being dogs having mange. Coyotes get mange too, and coyotes tend to kill livestock. Walk around on two legs. Yeah, if they're from the circus, yes. Yeah, yeah. The telltale sign to me though is that part of mange is the hair on the back between the

shoulders usually remains. Ah, the spikes. It's a patch of hair. Yes. Hence the spikes of spines down, well, the spine and the fact that they lose their hair so they look really weird. And apparently just about every single carcass

that's ever turned up and has been attributed or chalked up as chupacabra, and the autopsy's revealed it's an animal with mange. Well done, my friend. Thank you, well done to you too, Charles. I just wanna say one more thing. I had tickets to see that porno for Pyro's reunion tour last year. You were one of ten.

Got canceled. Yeah, because they couldn't sell enough tickets, right? That's what I heard. That's really surprising. Yeah, but Jane's Addiction is on tour again, and I love those guys. I just want to publicly say give credit to Casey Nicoli for her work.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about. Oh, is she the one who was erased from their, their, yeah? Their history, basically. Mm-hmm, great, great call out. Yeah, go read up about that because she's talking about it now and it's not cool at all.

I also wanna give a shout out, if this kind of stuff is up your alley or floats your boat or floats your alley or whatever. Go check out this site, The Anomalist. It's an aggregator of different weird stories including cryptids and UFOs and all that stuff from around the internet. It's great. Check out The Anomalist. Fun. Yeah. Since Chuck said fun, that means short stuff friends is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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