How A '90s Erotic Thriller Created the 'Chupacabra' Myth
We've all heard of the legendary El Chupacabra, the bloodsucking Puerto Rican vampire creature that first surfaced in the '90s. Reports of a reptilian monster killing off farm animals quickly captured the interest of cryptozoologists and fictional paranormal expert Fox Mulder, who investigated the Chupacabra in an episode of The X-Files -- although it turned out to be not a vampiric animal, but rather a mutant foot fungus because that show was completely insane.
Even now, in the 21st century, we're still getting reports of people spotting Chupacabras, who may or may not be in disguise as coyotes ...
It may not surprise you that Chupacabras aren't real, but even skeptics might be taken back by just how shockingly stupid its true origins are. It turns out that this mythical beast owes its existence to ... Species, the 1995 erotic sci-fi horror movie starring Natasha Henstridge and Ben Kingsley. For those who don't remember, Species was about a beautiful killer alien who trolls Los Angeles for men to mate with, presumably because she's from the planet Skinemax. And audiences paid good money to see it because in the days before the internet, sometimes cringey Alien rip-offs were the only way to obtain even fleeting glimpses of nude women.
What does this have to do with El Chupacabra? According to Benjamin Radford, author of Tracking the Chupacabra, the first person to see the Chupacabra, Madelyne Tolentino, gave a description of the monster that was not dissimilar from "Sil" the horny alien designed by H.R. Giger for Species. She revealed to Radford that she had seen Species just weeks before the alleged Chupacabra sighting. Radford posited that she likely saw an "amorphous" shape, and her brain simply filled in the details with Giger's imagery. Had she added a hot tub to her story ...
... people may have clued in even sooner.
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Top Image: MGM, Jeff Carter/Wiki Commons
