Mutant, Myth, or Alien?

The chupacabra is relatively new to cryptozoology having first been spotted around 1995. It is also fairly contained to areas with high Latin populations since they first started being spotted in South and Central America. I hadn’t heard of them until we moved here to New Mexico.

Some people believe they are a mythological creature that sucks the blood of smaller animals particularly goats (which by the way is what chupacabra means, goat sucker), while others think they are actually aliens. It’s kind of interesting how the stories evolve around the chupacabra. Most mythological creatures are just that. I’ve never heard of a vampire being thought of as an alien.

When chupacabras first arrived on the scene they were described as walking on their hind legs, reptilian looking, and being up to 5 feet tall.  More recent descriptions have them more doglike and much smaller. In fact in once case where a farmer found what he thought was a chupacabra carcass on his land and had an autopsy done on it. It ended up being a coyote with a bad case of mange.

Which brings up the third theory of what the chupacabra really is: just a mutated dog, or coyote, whichever the case may be.

I’ve lived here in the Southwest for about 6 years now and I’ve met people that believe in a lot of strange things but chupacabras are one of those things that most people still kind of scoff at…at least the ones I know.  

So what do you think? Are chupacabras mutants, myths, or aliens?