Chupacabras and Other Mysteries

Chupacabras and Other Mysteries by Scott Corrales was an excellent read. As the title suggests, this book focuses on the chupacabras, and its infamous exploits around Central America. The most outstanding feature of this book is, undoubtedly, the source of the information. The events detailed here occurred primarily in the South and Central Americas, in what are predominantly Spanish speaking countries. We English speaking earthlings from the north face two levels of difficulty in obtaining these extraordinary reports: The first, and most obvious, is that the accounts are natively documented in Spanish. Furthermore, there is a general lack of interest demonstrated by the northern media in publishing such events occurring in other parts of the globe. To put it another way, the stories here are rather unlikely to reach the English speaking nations of the world, and even if they did, you would need to speak Spanish to read them! Well, thanks to Scott Corrales, these barriers have been lifted. His work concentrates on translating and interpreting this valuable information into easily readable English. These are not your old rehashed tales from the States; these are fresh accounts which should grab the interest of any paranormal researcher. Furthermore, the text does not feel like a rough translation; it holds its own on a technical level and appears to be well edited. The depth of information in the book certainly adds to its value. It includes data from a variety of sources: indirect reports from researchers, first hand interview quotation, and direct entries from local news publications. At over 200 pages, this is not a cursory treatment of the chupacabras. The book really leaves you with a feel for the phenomena, and cements a lot of the bizarre details that are only often touched upon in more terse texts. Thankfully, the author trys to cover all the bases, and presents plenty of varying theories about the phenomenon at hand. Rather than telling you what to think, Corrales just presents as wide a body of information as he can, and lets you do the critical thinking. The inclusion of a few photos are a nice touch, although I wish they had a couple more pictures of the actual victims of the chupacabras (morbid as that may be, as evidence it's invaluable). A final point worthy of merit is that Mr. Corrales is not your run of the mill armchair investigator. He has worked on location as both an investigator and an interviewer. Although the majority of the book's text is the result of the direct research of others, it speaks to the character and qualification of the author that he has dedicated his time and talents to researching the field of which he's now writing. As good as the book is, it also had a few shortcomings, none of which were major, but which I felt worth noting here. First of all, the wealth of information mentioned above gets dry in a few places. One chapter focuses exclusively on chronological snip

I must admit that I didn't really know that much about the Chupacabras phenomena before reading this book and what little I did know was apparently wrong (thanks to the "El Mundo Gira" episode of the X-Files). Although some of the phenomena shown in that episode does bear a very loose resemblance to some of the things which people witnessed and were reported on this book. This is a well written and very enjoyable book on a very complex topic. Here's a way to generalize the topic: imagine the Jersey Devil phenomena plus all the W.V. Mothman happenings occuring in Puerto Rico with John Keel reporting on it. The author writes in a style similar to Keel and much like The Mothman Prophecies, there are a lot of highly strange things going on in a relatively isolated area. I read "Phantom in the Pines" about the Jersey Devil prior to reading this book and was surprised at the similarity between the Chupacabra and the Jersey Devil. I am a cautious skeptic on some of these sightings and about Cryptozoology in general; but, I very strongly feel that the majority of people do "see" something. I'm not sure whether it's perceptional differences between persons or that some people truly have the ability to see things that others can't see. Then again, the Chupacabra phenomena could be the result of military experiments....the entire time that I read this book I could hear "Biotech is Godzilla" by Sepultura playing in my head. Regardless, this is a very good read and well worth the time.

I must admit I bought this book as a rather light read. I expected to be finished within a few months. Bathroom material only. However as I got past the first chapter I began to read it more steadily. AFter only three days of owning the book I had read the entirety of the book and had began to search for small details. Anyone interested in Chupacabras or crypto-zoology, or even "Goblin universe" phenomena should check this book out. It reads easily and has a very nice style. I thought something would be lost in the translation, however I do not think so. All ideas are given a footing here (although not always equal) and it makes the mystery of Chupacabras very intriguing.

The Chupacabras remains a paranormal phenomenon not well understood where it appears, and even less so with interested US readers. Chupacabras and Other Mysteries provides the first substantive English work dealing with the bugger. It relies on the primary research and work of Jorge and Marleem Martin, who made first-hand investigations of animal mutilations attributed to the Chupacabras in the Puerto Rican municipalities of Orocovis and Morovis, and the book also uses the work of Jose Victor Ramirez, Willie Durand Urbina, Salvador Freixedo and other researchers, plus countless journalistic sources (El Vocero, El Nuevo Dia, The San Juan Star.) Chupacabras and Other Mysteries includes a photo section, none of the elusive creatures, but of kittens they "exsanquinated," haunts, and the original sketch based on eyewitness memory. Chupacabras is not a run-of-the-mill hide and seek type bigfoot. A wide variety of paranormal activity attends its visits. As UFO researcher Marc Davenport points out in the introduction, the creatures' reported eye-beams do not behave like the bio-luminesence of fireflies and deep sea fish. Chupacrabras is something else again, and this volume contributes greatly to helping figure out what. Kenn Thomas, Steamshovewl Press

The Chupacabras remains a paranormal phenomenon not well understood where it appears, and even less so with interested US readers. Chupacabras and Other Mysteries provides the first substantive English work dealing with the bugger. It relies on the research and work of Jorge and Marleem Martin, who made first-hand investigations of animal mutilations attributed to the Chupacabras in the Puerto Rican municipalities of Orocovis and Morovis. The book includes a photo section, none of the elusive creatures, but of kittens they "exsanquinated," haunts, and the original sketch based on eyewitness memory. Chupacabras is not a run-of-the-mill hide and seek type bigfoot. A wide variety of paranormal activity attends its visits. As UFO researcher Marc Davenport points out in the introduction, the creatures' reported eye-beams do not behave like the bio-luminesence of fireflies and deep sea fish. Chupacrabras is something else again, and this volume contributes greatly to helping figure out what.