Folk Tales of the Chupacabra and Other Mysterious Creatures in the Americas, The

People have always been fascinated with the hidden, the mysterious, and the unexplained. Every society has its tall tales and ghost stories, its odd legends, and heroes. Also, every society has its stories of strange beasts, dangerous or benign, that live in the twilight world between the everyday and the legendary. Through most of history, people have been closely tied to nature, hunting in forests and having an intimate knowledge of the animals in their regions. Even as the world becomes more connected, the belief in strange creatures is as strong as ever. In one sense it shouldn’t be surprising that people across the United States have reported seeing weird cryptids, including giant birds, sea serpents, wolfmen, and a creature so bizarre it defies any rational classification. The only thing these monsters have in common is that all have been seen regularly and reported by seemingly sober, rational witnesses in the United States, even as conventional science suggests these monsters cannot exist and that all the sightings are mistakes, misidentifications, or hoaxes. For example, a very strange creature had a series of encounters with several witnesses in 1952 in West Virginia that may have been associated with a UFO, and it eventually became known as the Flatwoods Monster. Others have claimed to see a humanoid frog, a flying creature that seemed to be associated with an accident that killed almost 50 people, and one of the most famous folk legends across the Americas: the chupacabra. Some of the sightings cannot be explained away easily, but at the same time, none of the creatures fit into a rational, conventional view of the world. Either those witnessing these creatures are completely wrong, deluded, or just plain crazy, or the outdoors is way weirder than people might think.