Are chupacabras of extraterrestrial origin?

Question

Throughout North and South America, thousands of people have witnessed chupacabras, or goat suckers, strange creatures that mutilate and drain the blood of farm animals. Source: The Puerto Rican students organization at Princeton University. Chupacabras are real.

Are chupacabras of extraterrestrial origin? Or are they some sort of natural species that has yet to be catalogued by taxonomists?

Here is a drawing of an alleged chupacabras:

You need to cite a notable source making the claim, otherwise a diamond moderator is going to close your question as off-topic very soon ... — , Sep 20 '20 at 01:54
The claim you are skeptical about is "chupacabras are of extraterrestrial origin". You need to provide a notable source that is making that claim. The source you are citing only mentions extraterrestrial origin as a hypothetical possibility, it doesn't assert it categorically. — , Sep 20 '20 at 02:15
That's not from a Princeton Students organization. It's a posting by one person who happens to be a student at Princeton. — DJClayworth, Sep 20 '20 at 13:14
More to the point, the question posits that chupacabras exist in the first place, which in and of itself might be a claim worth addressing first if this is something you seriously intend to pursue. — Shadur, Sep 20 '20 at 16:17
I'm saying that despite multiple investigations such as the one referenced in the answer below, no verifiable evidence for their existence has been found. I'm sure that the usual conspiracy theorists will simply insist that this is proof of their extraterrestrial origins and supernatural concealment abilities, but this site focuses on *scientific* skepticism, not thought experiments. — Shadur, Sep 20 '20 at 21:04
Note: the page at Princeton University linked in the question has been taken down, so there's no claim to follow up. — Weather Vane, Sep 21 '20 at 09:38
@DJClayworth I get Princeton, but "Error 404 Page Not Found" in the cloisters. Do you see something I cant? — Weather Vane, Sep 22 '20 at 18:24
@WeatherVane I'm seeing it. Can't do much except repost the link which won't help. It's the usual conspiracy theory stuff, and ends with "Article segment posted by Steve Wingate on the newsgroup alt.alien.visitors and forms a part of a larger article" so you can probably track down the original. — DJClayworth, Sep 22 '20 at 19:25
@DJClayworth thank you, perhaps it is a regional restriction. Your clues were enough for me to find [this Princeton page](https://www.princeton.edu/~accion/chupa13.html). — Weather Vane, Sep 22 '20 at 19:28
That's the same one. Same URL. Don't know why the original link wasn't taking you there. — DJClayworth, Sep 22 '20 at 19:29
Chupacabras exist, there's no question about that. Why would people lie about it? The question is whether they are from this planet or from elsewhere! — Nicholas Marshall, Sep 22 '20 at 20:22
Voting to close. This question is the prime example of begging the question. The notable source is one guy from Princeton in a text only HTML page. — DenisS, Sep 25 '20 at 18:56
@NicholasMarshall Then why did you accept an answer demonstrating that they're only an urban legend? — F1Krazy, Sep 25 '20 at 20:40

DJClayworth · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-28T00:24:37.860

A five-year investigation by Benjamin Radford, documented in his 2011 book Tracking the Chupacabra, concluded that the description given by the original eyewitness in Puerto Rico, Madelyne Tolentino, was based on the creature Sil in the 1995 science-fiction horror film Species. The alien creature Sil is nearly identical to Tolentino's chupacabra eyewitness account and she had seen the movie before her report: "It was a creature that looked like the chupacabra, with spines on its back and all... The resemblance to the chupacabra was really impressive", Tolentino reported. Radford revealed that Tolentino "believed that the creatures and events she saw in Species were happening in reality in Puerto Rico at the time"

The Chupacabra is extraterrestrial only in the sense that the first reporter imagined it based on a science fiction movie.

In late October 2010, University of Michigan biologist Barry O'Connor concluded that all the chupacabra reports in the United States were simply coyotes infected with the parasite Sarcoptes scabiei, whose symptoms would explain most of the features of the chupacabra: they would be left with little fur, thickened skin, and a rank odor.

In conclusion

According to biologists and wildlife management officials, the chupacabra is an urban legend.

So since they don't exist, they don't have a real origin, just in the minds of the people who believe in them.

All references from Wikipedia. Feel free to check their references.

Are chupacabras of extraterrestrial origin?

1 Answers1