Like a Latin American Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster, El Chupacabra(s) – literally “goat sucker” for the Spanish-ly challenged – is a beast whose alleged existence has plagued farmers and the collective Latin consciousness for some time now. Not quite as old as Sasquatch, the Yeti or even the Jersey Devil, the legend of El Chupacabra dates back to just 1995. Though, according to some reports, El Chupacabras’ origin story begins in Puerto Rico in the 1960s.
El Chupacabras is typically seen in the Americas – with reported sightings in Miami, Mexico, and the US Southwest – but they’ve been seen all over the world. According to the Daily Mail, not one, but two Chupacabras have terrorized people in Rukshin, Ukraine for a while. A farmer known only as Ivan said he killed an African fox-looking creature with a pitchfork. “The chupacabra was hunting and I killed it,” he said. “It had been scaring local people for a long time. It was eating our chickens and rabbits.” Vets studying the dead animal are all like, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. And according to Viktor, another local man, the second Chupacabras resembles a kangaroo and is still out there.
Back in 2012, a Chupacabra-like animal was spotted in Ukraine, and many thought it was a “mutant fox poisoned by radiation,” which is not too far from how people believe El Chupacabras originated in Puerto Rico.