FOXSYLVANIA

Both the Chupacabra and the Kraken have been considered at other times on several similar shows, but like old friends (I have strange associates) it was good to visit them again on S1/Ep2 of True Supernatural (2014).

Information on the Chupacabra focused on appearances in and around Cuero, Texas. Specimens acquired in this region have leathery, hairless skin, strange paws on which the middle digits are somewhat attached, blue eyes, and apparently strange nodules on the rear end. The creature moves unusually, and may have only two nipples on a side. Unlike Mountain Monsters, the True Supernatural show tends to interview actual scientists, university researchers, and also more credible eyewitnesses.

Three reputed Chupacabra corpses were at hand, one of which was from Dr. Phyllis Canion, who lost 28 chickens on her ranch to the mysterious predator. From the three specimens, samples were sent to an animal genetics lab at the Texas A & M University, where analyses were run on bone, skin, and teeth that yielded conflicted results. One specimen was identifiably canine, the other a coyote-dog hybrid, and Dr. Canion’s was a coyote/Mexican wolf hybrid. Normally these two species don’t breed, and the Mexican wolf hasn’t been seen in the area for 80 years. Speculation ranges from the conspiracy crazy…that Chupacabra was a living weapon created by the government…to the more reasonable, that Chupacabra represented a form of spontaneous evolution…

Now in Berlin, Nevada a site has the fossilized remains of nine Ichthyosaurs, apex predators that were rather like the killer whales of their Triassic day. What is curious is that these remains all show broken necks and ribs, with their skeletons twisted and seemingly arranged. The inference was given that these bad boys were themselves bested by something even badder, namely the legendary Kraken! Cephalopods are known to construct fort-like structures and to be far more intelligent than we usually give them credit for being. The scenario was presented that when oceans covered the area, a Kraken lured these mighty Ichthyosaurs into its lair, killed them, played with their remains, and then arranged the vertebral columns in a fashion which may have mimicked the array of suckers on its tentacles. Wild stuff…and as invertebrates tend not to leave much of a fossil record, we do not of course have proof of a Kraken other than sailor accounts from an earlier century.

As the great Fox Mulder would agree, the truth is out there. Cue the X-Files theme music, please…and release the Kraken!