Some residents of Box Springs Mountain, the rocky area separating Moreno Valley and Riverside, have been a bit freaked out lately after they claim to have spotted something resembling the mythical chupacabra.
“The ears of a deer, long snout, no hair, tail like a rat, long hindquarters,” M.J. Blunt told the Sun (via Press Enterprise). “I thought it might be a sick coyote, a sick wolf. But it had too many different characteristics from any of them.”
Perhaps a better way to get a sense for what she saw is to closely examine this photo:
Residents say chupacabra stalks mountains of Riverside County https://t.co/QOb5mlD2MJ
— The Sun (@sbsun) July 22, 2017
Cary Shuker also spoke with the newspaper about when he spotted a hairless creature with a possum tail and teeth jutting out from its jaw outside of his home hunting his cat.
“This thing was standing out there, looking at me” Shuker told the Sun “It was the ugliest looking thing.”
The first sighting of a chupacabra happened in Puerto Rico in March 1995 and sightings of the creature have been reported ever since.
The chupacabra was even a focus of a History Channel documentary:
In 1996, people reported seeing the chupacabra in Fontana and Perris. There was also reported sightings in Redlands in 2013 – but those reports turned out to be coyotes with mange.
Officials say they get several calls a year about sightings in the area, but that it’s never turned out to be am actual chupacabra – because they don’t exist.
John Welsh, a spokesman for Riverside County Animal Services wrote in an email, “There is no such thing, except in the folklore of various communities.”
