[CNI News thanks Joyce Spivey for sending us this exclusive story of her ongoing investigation into reports of a weird creature -- some say Chupacabras -- repeatedly sighted in the high desert country east of Los Angeles. Joyce can be contacted by email at tspivey@ctainforms.com]
by Joyce Spivey
Has the Chupacabras, well known in Puerto Rico, come to the Victor Valley in the High Desert of Southern California?
I have lived in this area for nineteen years. I got interested in the paranormal about eight years ago after seeing and hearing about so many strange things in this beautiful desert.
On the night of October 8, 1996, many witnesses reported four UFOs in the northeastern sky around 8:00 PM. A newspaper pressman for our local paper took video of the mysterious lights. It made front page news in the Victorville area.
Our local paper has taken an interest because it is good for the community. A lot of movies and videos are being shot up here, becoming a cottage industry, due to the fact that this is the former home of George Air Force Base. The city of Victorville is more than happy to let the movie and video makers use this former base for a fee. Jodie Foster was here last October to shoot scenes for "CONTACT," an alien-encounter movie based on Carl Sagan's novel, due for release this summer.
On October 9, the day after the alleged UFO sighting, a local woman called the Sheriffs's Department to report her run-in with a scary animal on a dirt road while going to pick up her daughter from a friend's home. I contacted the woman later and interviewed her. Her story is humorous now, but it wasn't on the evening it happened to her.
There are a lot of dirt roads in the desert. She was on one in west Victorville at the time of the encounter. She was driving slowly because the road was like a washboard. The sun had just gone down; it was twilight. She had just turned on her car lights when she noticed something or someone standing up the road. As the lights from her car illuminated it better, it leaped into the brush beside the road. She said that the creature, before it jumped into the brush, appeared to be about four to four and a half feet tall.
Now feeling curious, she slowed down to about 7 or 8 miles per hour and rolled down her window to see if she could hear anything. She heard something coming through the brush toward her, and then silence for a moment. At that instant, she saw something crouching behind a large bush about eight feet from her. Its head was moving as if it were trying to see her better too.
She became very frightened when she saw "the glowing red eyes, just like a Christmas tree lights." She realized that her car lights were pointing straight ahead, while this creature was right beside her on the driver's side. She deduced from this that the eyes were glowing on their own, not from her car lights.
As it stood up from a crouching position behind the brush, she stepped on the gas to get away from it. She said it kept coming toward her even as she was picking up speed. It was running faster than a dog or person.
"It didn't run like any animal I'm familiar with," she said. "It was upright, like a person. I was trying to roll up the window and step on the gas. At the same time, I was shaking, and it was getting closer."
Describing the creature, she said "it was a medium gray in color but had darker spots on the chest, which was broad. It had glowing red eyes. The shoulders were rounded. It had slender arms with what looked like claws. I couldn't see the legs or feet, but it was upright and moving fast. It had tufts of hair on different parts of the body.
"I didn't really take time to see it real well, because I was so frightened," she said.
Next I interviewed a family in an area called Pinion Hills in the Victor Valley, at the base of Wrightwood, a skiing resort. The family lives in a sparsely populated area at 4,300 feet elevation. The creature has been hanging around, and still is at this date [mid March, 1997]. They have seen it several times, but never as close as the night in October, 1996.
The children saw it first, then the husband and wife . The children, a boy age 11 and his sister, 13, were in the bedroom playing a board game. Mom was in the kitchen preparing dinner, while dad was in the living room, reading and watching the news on TV. The children stood up from playing and saw something standing outside the window with glowing red eyes, like lights. It just stood there staring at them through the window, about ten feet away from the house.They both got a good look, because they were curious. It seemed just as curious about them.
What they remember best, before becoming frightened and yelling for mom and dad, was the eyes. They were big and glowing red.
I had them draw a picture as best they could remember. The boy saw a creature standing upright, about four or five feet tall. In the drawing he shows the creature with sharp teeth, hunched over a little. The head seems to sit on the shoulders, without much neck. It has small pointed ears, long arms and what could be claws. He said it looked gray with small tufts of hair on different parts of the body, but not all over it.
"It looks meaner in person," he told me.
I talked to his 13 year old sister next. Her story is basically the same. The kids seem to focus on the eyes and the fact that they glowed red and were big, but not round.
I talked to the parents about that night. They were running toward the bedroom as the children ran out of the bedroom yelling, "It's a monster outside!" The parents ran outside and just got a glimpse of something moving very fast, then gone.
The parents did find odd footprints of something that was on two feet. Estimating from the depth of the prints, they figured it must have weighed forty to fifty pounds.
The creature is still seen at times around their two and a half acre homesite. I have asked someone to stay up there several times with a video camera, he is planning to make more trips in the coming weeks. I have told the parents to get plaster of Paris for footprints.
The parents seem to think the creature shows intelligence.
I have talked to several other people who have seen it, but who don't want anyone to think they are crazy and don't want their names in the paper.
A group of school children have seen something unusual in the same area as that of the first woman I interviewed. They have seen it more than once. They say it runs upright, very fast, and jumps a long way.
A student at our Junior College has seen it several times along the banks of the Mojave River in an area called Ore Grande. She said it frightened her because it wasn't like anything she had ever seen, especially the eyes. She got frightened while talking about it. "I haven't said anything because I don't want people to think I'm nuts," she said. "I know what I saw."
Several of the people said it has spikes or quills down its back that move.
I have one report from a young woman who got a real good look at something a little different. She was the only one who saw a tail, thicker at the body and thinner at the end. It didn't drag the ground, but looked like it was used for balance. The creature was light and dark gray, mostly dark. It had no visible ears. It was bulky, about four and a half feet tall, walked upright, and its arms and legs looked thicker than those of a human. It had gold or orangish eyes, big but not real round, and a snout with short and pointed teeth.
Her drawing looks like this creature has something like a chicken's comb that goes from the top of the head to the end of the tail. "Kind of like a dinosaur," she said.
This young woman said she didn't know why, but she felt sorry for it. The creature made no move to harm her.
In an area called Deep Creek, a wooded canyon at the base of the Big Bear mountain range, I heard two reports of a creature that sounds similar to what most of the other witnesses have seen. But in this case, the creature seems able to fly short distances with leather-like wings that cannot be seen unless it is soaring, like a flying squirrel.
The mystery continues. I keep getting more reports. I believe these people saw something. But what? Your guess is as good as mine at this point. Something very strange is going on in the Victor Valley.
Original file name: CNI - Chupacabras.Spivey
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