WEBVTT - Season 08 Episode 5: Islands of Fear (Pt.1 of 2)

0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:15.200
<v Speaker 1>The professor's steel rimmed glasses glinted from the bright angle

0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:20.360
<v Speaker 1>poise lamp. He scratched his thick gray beard thoughtfully as

0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.720
<v Speaker 1>he pondered the site in front of him. He brought

0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.680
<v Speaker 1>the lamp down closer to better illuminate the body of

0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:31.280
<v Speaker 1>the dead creature lying on a table at the Natural

0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.600
<v Speaker 1>Science Research Laboratory in Lubbock, Texas.

0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:37.160
<v Speaker 2>The lab forms.

0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:41.560
<v Speaker 1>An important part of Texas Tech University's museum, and back

0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:46.240
<v Speaker 1>in two thousand and five, Professor Robert Baker was its director.

0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.320
<v Speaker 1>Recognized as a leader in innovative ways to look after

0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:57.600
<v Speaker 1>collections of biological specimens, The facility houses four major natural

0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:04.120
<v Speaker 1>history collections animals, birds, invertebrates, as well as an archive

0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.200
<v Speaker 1>of genetic samples from more than a hundred thousand animals

0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:12.760
<v Speaker 1>across the world. Baker was passionate about what is known

0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:17.520
<v Speaker 1>as the series problem, working out how exactly to define

0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:22.560
<v Speaker 1>and identify the new species of animal to date. In

0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.759
<v Speaker 1>his lifetime, he had already been responsible for describing eighteen

0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:32.920
<v Speaker 1>completely new mammal species previously unknown to science, and now

0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:38.679
<v Speaker 1>he was pondering a possible nineteenth. In appearance, the creature

0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:45.480
<v Speaker 1>was shocking frightening. Even the emaciated corpse was covered by

0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.920
<v Speaker 1>furlsh skin that was shrunken and blackened, so that the

0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:55.160
<v Speaker 1>snout and teeth of it were garishly pronounced. It had

0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.800
<v Speaker 1>been brought in by game wardens at the Texas Parks

0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.280
<v Speaker 1>and Wildlife District, who said that the animal had been

0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.760
<v Speaker 1>shot one night while running across someone's.

0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:07.320
<v Speaker 2>Ranch on the South Plains.

0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.680
<v Speaker 1>Although he couldn't be certain, Baker suspected that what he

0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.560
<v Speaker 1>had on his hands was a raccoon. The man who

0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:21.600
<v Speaker 1>shot it, however, believed it was something else entirely, a

0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:28.640
<v Speaker 1>fearsome mythical creature known as the tupa cabra. You're listening

0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.560
<v Speaker 1>to Unexplained and I'm.

0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.720
<v Speaker 2>Richard McLean Smith.

0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:45.160
<v Speaker 1>Back in early spring nineteen ninety six, in the state

0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:50.360
<v Speaker 1>of Hallisco in Mexico, a series of strange reports emerged

0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:55.800
<v Speaker 1>detailing the seemingly senseless slaughter of countless sheep and goats.

0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.840
<v Speaker 1>The report stated that the animal's carcasses or almost all,

0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.480
<v Speaker 1>had two teeth marks about the third of an inch

0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:10.760
<v Speaker 1>across on their necks and had been exsanguinated, meaning all

0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:15.880
<v Speaker 1>their blood had been completely drained. It was like nothing

0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:20.400
<v Speaker 1>anyone had ever seen before, and there was one word

0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:27.000
<v Speaker 1>on the lips of local residents Cupa cabra. The name

0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:32.280
<v Speaker 1>was coined by Puerto Rican comedian Silverio Perez the year

0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:37.280
<v Speaker 1>before to describe a mysterious predator that had supposedly been

0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.960
<v Speaker 1>responsible for a number of strange animal deaths that plagued

0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.960
<v Speaker 1>the country in the late nineteen eighties and early nineties.

0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:51.080
<v Speaker 1>Taken from cupa, the Spanish verb to suck because of

0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:57.080
<v Speaker 1>the animals reportedly vampiric habits, and cabras for goat due

0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.800
<v Speaker 1>to that supposedly being the animals favored prey. As time

0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:06.000
<v Speaker 1>went on, the last s was eventually dropped to form

0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:12.320
<v Speaker 1>the name more commonly used today. By the late nineteen nineties, however,

0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.800
<v Speaker 1>it seemed fear of the creature, and perhaps the apparent

0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:23.240
<v Speaker 1>creature itself had long since escaped the borders of Puerto Rico.

0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.479
<v Speaker 1>In response to the killings in Hallisco, Mexico, the director

0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:32.240
<v Speaker 1>of the Guadalajara Zoo, Francisco A. Rahon, visited the scene

0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.680
<v Speaker 1>of one of the mass killings, where he made a

0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.520
<v Speaker 1>cast of a poor print that he found there. After

0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:43.400
<v Speaker 1>careful examination, however, he concluded the culprit was nothing more.

0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.360
<v Speaker 2>Than a large dog or wolf.

0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:52.920
<v Speaker 1>Two investigators, Patricia and Mario Menendez Acosta, staked out several

0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:57.560
<v Speaker 1>farm yards where similar attacks on livestock had taken place.

0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.960
<v Speaker 1>One night, the the couple witnessed the animals being attacked,

0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:08.520
<v Speaker 1>but found the culprits to simply be feral dogs. The

0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.640
<v Speaker 1>attacks had so gripped the local community that Cuban born

0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:18.560
<v Speaker 1>American TV personality Christina Sarah Leggy featured reports of the

0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:23.400
<v Speaker 1>mysterious creature on her widely popular Spanish language TV show

0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:30.000
<v Speaker 1>Christina Then in Miami, Florida, on the night of March twentieth,

0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:35.200
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety six, something left the lifeless bodies of sixty

0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:40.320
<v Speaker 1>nine goats, chickens, and geese strewn across two backyards in

0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:45.760
<v Speaker 1>the neighborhood of sweet Water. One reporter described them as

0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:50.640
<v Speaker 1>being a vampire dry. It was left to Ron McGill,

0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.680
<v Speaker 1>a zoologist from Miami Dade Zoo, to attempt to bring

0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:59.839
<v Speaker 1>a little calm and logic to the situation. Countless dead

0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:04.200
<v Speaker 1>animals still littered the scene when he arrived the following day,

0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.520
<v Speaker 1>having read all the reports about them supposedly being attacked

0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:13.360
<v Speaker 1>by a vampiric creature. His first thought was to put

0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.560
<v Speaker 1>that to the test. Taking a sharp knife, he took

0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.880
<v Speaker 1>hold of one of the goats and sliced through its

0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:27.640
<v Speaker 1>carotid artery. Almost immediately, blood flowed out in a heavy stream.

0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.320
<v Speaker 1>When he looked for puncture wounds, he found a number

0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.680
<v Speaker 1>of bite marks that to him looked no different to

0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:39.560
<v Speaker 1>classic canine puncture marks. As he told a gathering of

0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:44.839
<v Speaker 1>TV reporters shortly after, these animals had also been killed

0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:56.640
<v Speaker 1>by dogs. Some residents of sweet Water wondered why if

0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.400
<v Speaker 1>dogs were to blame that none of the animals had

0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.880
<v Speaker 1>been eaten, But as Ron McGill explained, it was fairly

0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.200
<v Speaker 1>typical of dogs to kill simply for the thrill of

0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:07.800
<v Speaker 1>the chase.

0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:10.040
<v Speaker 2>It was a topic.

0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:15.200
<v Speaker 1>McGill knew only too well. Two years previously, feral dogs

0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.040
<v Speaker 1>had gone on a killing spree at his zoo, killing

0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:23.360
<v Speaker 1>fifteen antelopes, leaving the bodies uneaten, lying where they died,

0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.120
<v Speaker 1>just like the scene in sweet Water, but others were

0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.400
<v Speaker 1>not convinced. It was just as the TV crews were

0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:36.280
<v Speaker 1>preparing to pack up that an elderly woman approached one

0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.400
<v Speaker 1>of the cameras a stern, determined look on her face.

0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.120
<v Speaker 1>It was no dog, she said, as the camera zoomed

0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:49.120
<v Speaker 1>in closer, her eyes narrowing at the apparent memory of

0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:54.280
<v Speaker 1>it all. The creature, she said, whatever it was, had

0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.440
<v Speaker 1>stood on two legs, not four, like a dog, with

0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.480
<v Speaker 1>a body that was hunched over strangely, and when it

0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.000
<v Speaker 1>looked at her, she said.

0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.560
<v Speaker 2>Its eyes were bright red.

0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.200
<v Speaker 1>As fears of the tupa cabra began to spread, more

0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.200
<v Speaker 1>people felt the need to weigh in on the subject.

0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:21.920
<v Speaker 1>Esteban Sarmiento, a primatologist from the American Museum of Natural History,

0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.480
<v Speaker 1>examined tracks allegedly left by the creature and claimed to

0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:31.720
<v Speaker 1>find clear evidence of a hoax. In contrast, self described

0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:36.360
<v Speaker 1>researcher from the Miami UFO Center for Hilio Sanchez O

0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:41.480
<v Speaker 1>Sejo took more plaster casts of tracks. He pronounced them

0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.800
<v Speaker 1>to have been made by an unknown, possibly extraterrestrial creature.

0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.959
<v Speaker 1>By April two thousand, the tupacubra had apparently made it

0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.400
<v Speaker 1>as far south as Chile, where some of the weirdest

0:08:55.440 --> 0:09:00.800
<v Speaker 1>reports were being made in the northern Chilean city of Calama.

0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.360
<v Speaker 1>No one seemed to have directly witnessed the creature as

0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.120
<v Speaker 1>it attacked, but it was claimed that it killed up

0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:11.960
<v Speaker 1>to three hundred domestic livestock, once again draining many of

0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.960
<v Speaker 1>their blood. The attacks always seemed to happen after dark,

0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.400
<v Speaker 1>with many locals claiming that sounds made by the creature

0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:27.239
<v Speaker 1>made them too terrified to investigate until daybreak. In response,

0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:33.760
<v Speaker 1>local governor Francisco Segosia called for an investigation. When it

0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:38.480
<v Speaker 1>finally wrapped up in June, Segosia pronounced that, as it

0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.000
<v Speaker 1>was after previous investigations, the attacks had been made by

0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:58.319
<v Speaker 1>feral dogs, but many residents were skeptical. It wasn't long

0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.240
<v Speaker 1>after the Calama investigation came to a close that a

0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.920
<v Speaker 1>report on Chilean radio suggested that, in fact, the real

0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:11.240
<v Speaker 1>culprits were animals that had escaped from a secret testing

0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:16.600
<v Speaker 1>facility run in coordination with the US government. The theory

0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.760
<v Speaker 1>was fueled by a small group of prominent Chilean eufologists,

0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.800
<v Speaker 1>who claimed that some time ago, members of the Chilean

0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:29.280
<v Speaker 1>military had found three strange eggs while out in the desert.

0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.600
<v Speaker 1>The military, with the assistance of NASA, were then said

0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.920
<v Speaker 1>to have conducted genetic tests on the eggs at a

0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:41.440
<v Speaker 1>secret lab in the Atacama Desert, where they eventually hatched.

0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.960
<v Speaker 1>It was all part of a program to genetically engineer

0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:50.520
<v Speaker 1>a hybrid animal that could survive on Mars. They asserted.

0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.600
<v Speaker 1>They believed that a male, a female, and a cub

0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.319
<v Speaker 1>of this hybrid had escaped from the lab and been

0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:03.280
<v Speaker 1>living in a mine nor of Calama until NASA scientists

0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.200
<v Speaker 1>flew down in a large black helicopter and took the

0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.520
<v Speaker 1>three creatures back to captivity.

0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:11.240
<v Speaker 2>Later.

0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.480
<v Speaker 1>In one TV report, a Chilean taxi driver claimed that

0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.600
<v Speaker 1>he saw a weird winged beast about the size of

0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.839
<v Speaker 1>a man running down the street as he drove home.

0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.360
<v Speaker 1>It ran beside him for a short while, he said,

0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.160
<v Speaker 1>before out running his speeding vehicle. There were no other

0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.280
<v Speaker 1>witnesses to this event, which, like the other reports of

0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:43.160
<v Speaker 1>the Chilean schupacabra, remained unsubstantiated. As the chupacabra mystery spread,

0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.400
<v Speaker 1>reports came in from countries as far afield as the

0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:55.160
<v Speaker 1>Dominican Republic, Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, and Brazil.

0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.400
<v Speaker 1>In the Caribbean, it was typically described as being four

0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.199
<v Speaker 1>to five feet tall, with long claws and a row

0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:04.960
<v Speaker 1>of spikes.

0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.920
<v Speaker 2>Down its back. In Mexico, it was said to.

0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.920
<v Speaker 1>Look like some sort of weird dog that walked on

0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:16.400
<v Speaker 1>two legs, while in Central and South America it was

0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:20.520
<v Speaker 1>a three to four foot tall kangaroo like creature with

0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:25.120
<v Speaker 1>wings that hopped and varied in color from purple to

0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:30.760
<v Speaker 1>brownish yellow. Some claimed the animal's eyes emitted beams of

0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:35.200
<v Speaker 1>light which shone like flashlights into the night, or that

0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.640
<v Speaker 1>there was a smell of sulfur in the air when

0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.920
<v Speaker 1>it was around. What the descriptions did agree on was

0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.840
<v Speaker 1>that it had a rounded head with elongated black eyes,

0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.720
<v Speaker 1>thin arms with long claws, and a row of what

0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.040
<v Speaker 1>appeared to be spikes down the center of its back.

0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:58.199
<v Speaker 1>Some reports included details about the animal's jawline, which was

0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.720
<v Speaker 1>said to be delicate, with a small mouth full of

0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:11.800
<v Speaker 1>needle like teeth. The creature was reputed to have attacked goats, cats, sheep, chickens, dogs, ducks,

0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:16.160
<v Speaker 1>and pigs. A few farmers even claimed that it tried

0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:20.640
<v Speaker 1>to impregnate their cows. Over the course of ten to

0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:25.959
<v Speaker 1>fifteen years. Tuper cabra sightings were also reported fairly frequently

0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:30.360
<v Speaker 1>in local press across southern Texas and even as far

0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:35.880
<v Speaker 1>west as, Arizona in the United States, One apparently terrified

0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:41.320
<v Speaker 1>boy in suburban Tucson told his father, Jose Espinosa, that

0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.240
<v Speaker 1>a tupa cabra had walked through the front door of

0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.240
<v Speaker 1>their house and sat down on his bed before jumping

0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:52.560
<v Speaker 1>out of the window. Then, in two thousand and seven,

0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:58.280
<v Speaker 1>biologists at Texas State University in San Marcos seemed to

0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:09.040
<v Speaker 1>finally get their hands on In the summer of two

0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.840
<v Speaker 1>thousand and seven, Phyllis Canyon claimed to have found the

0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.880
<v Speaker 1>body of the strange, hairless dog like creature on a

0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:21.520
<v Speaker 1>ranch outside the small town of Cuero in Texas, just

0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:27.760
<v Speaker 1>southeast of San Antonio. Canyon thoughtfully preserved its head in

0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:33.680
<v Speaker 1>her freezer. She then contacted a reporter, Joe Conger at

0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:37.040
<v Speaker 1>the local news station, giving him a tissue sample from

0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.680
<v Speaker 1>the animal, which Conga passed along to Mike Fawsner, a

0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:47.320
<v Speaker 1>biologist at Texas State University. Forwsner, who was experienced in

0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:52.680
<v Speaker 1>DNA testing on animals ranging from bats to toads, assigned

0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.440
<v Speaker 1>two of his students to do an analysis on the

0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.920
<v Speaker 1>tissue sample. They found its genetic sequence was the per

0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:06.160
<v Speaker 1>match for a coyote periodically in the noughties, Cuba cabra

0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:10.840
<v Speaker 1>sightings and occasional corpses would be reported across the border

0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:16.000
<v Speaker 1>regions of Texas and Mexico. One Saturday evening in May

0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:20.640
<v Speaker 1>twenty sixteen, a woman in White Faced, Texas contacted the

0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.760
<v Speaker 1>local game warden saying that she'd just seen a cupa cabra.

0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.520
<v Speaker 1>The Texas Parks and Wildlife District had been getting calls

0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.720
<v Speaker 1>about such sightings for a while, associated with an animal,

0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:39.160
<v Speaker 1>either living or dead, that looked very strange. The warden

0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.760
<v Speaker 1>went to the place the woman had described, just over

0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.560
<v Speaker 1>the county border in Hockley County, and found a corpse

0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.480
<v Speaker 1>that fitted the description of other dead animals his colleagues

0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:56.000
<v Speaker 1>had investigated. It was very thin, with bones showing through

0:15:56.040 --> 0:16:00.240
<v Speaker 1>its skin that was blotchy and darkened in places. A

0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:02.480
<v Speaker 1>lot of the animal's fur seemed.

0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:02.760
<v Speaker 2>To be missing.

0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.880
<v Speaker 1>The carcass was taken to the Natural Science Research Laboratory

0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.840
<v Speaker 1>at Texas Tech in Lubbock, the same lab where several

0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:17.200
<v Speaker 1>years before, Professor Robert Baker had examined the grotesque, blackened

0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:23.280
<v Speaker 1>corpse of his own apparent tuber cabra. Baker's successor, doctor

0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:24.760
<v Speaker 1>Robert Bradley, was.

0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:26.440
<v Speaker 2>Now in charge.

0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.880
<v Speaker 1>Unfortunately, he didn't have the preserved corpse of Baker's animal

0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.480
<v Speaker 1>to compare this latest find with, because it had not

0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:39.120
<v Speaker 1>been frozen intact to save space and the lab's freezers.

0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:43.000
<v Speaker 1>Professor Baker had just taken a few tissue samples from it.

0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.640
<v Speaker 1>Then the body had been put in a sealed case

0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:52.720
<v Speaker 1>full of dermasted beetles, a procedure routinely used to reduce

0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:57.000
<v Speaker 1>a dead animal to just a skeleton. Over a period

0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:02.640
<v Speaker 1>of several days, the voracious beetles munched away at the carcass,

0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:07.160
<v Speaker 1>a chorus of tiny mandibles, clicking audibly as they feasted.

0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.360
<v Speaker 1>When they'd finished, all that was left of the mysterious

0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.639
<v Speaker 1>looking creature was a nice clean skull and skeleton to

0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:21.360
<v Speaker 1>add to the lab's collection. A subsequent DNA test revealed

0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.800
<v Speaker 1>it to be a raccoon after all, just as Professor

0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:30.879
<v Speaker 1>Baker had suspected. Doctor Bradley remembered another crucial bit of

0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:35.159
<v Speaker 1>information about Baker's creature that what had made it so

0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.160
<v Speaker 1>hard to identify at first was because it was suffering

0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:45.480
<v Speaker 1>from sarcoptic mange. When doctor Bradley ran a DNA analysis

0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.639
<v Speaker 1>of his strange corpse from Hockley County, it was revealed

0:17:49.680 --> 0:18:01.080
<v Speaker 1>to be a coyote, it too, was suffering from sarcoptic mange.

0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:07.760
<v Speaker 1>Sarcoptic mange is caused by parasitic mites known as Sarcoptis scabii,

0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:13.720
<v Speaker 1>which attack mammals. The ticks have circular bodies, four pairs

0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.879
<v Speaker 1>of front legs, some with suckers, and two pairs of

0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:22.600
<v Speaker 1>rear legs with long trailing bristles and spur like claws.

0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:28.160
<v Speaker 1>When they infect dogs, the female mites use those legs

0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.520
<v Speaker 1>to dig into the skin, causing severe itching, which makes

0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:36.679
<v Speaker 1>the hapless dog constantly chew and scratch at its own body.

0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:43.680
<v Speaker 1>Sarcoptic mange is highly transmissible, infecting wild animals like coyotes

0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.080
<v Speaker 1>and raccoons. It can even jump to humans who have

0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.639
<v Speaker 1>come into close contact with an infected animal. On humans,

0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:56.840
<v Speaker 1>it is easily treated. However, for wildlife like coyotes and raccoons,

0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:03.159
<v Speaker 1>contracting sarcoptic mange means a sad and grizzly fate. The

0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:07.199
<v Speaker 1>mites eat the fur off their host, typically from the

0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:12.280
<v Speaker 1>abdomen and hindquarters first, so that the infected animals appear

0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:16.679
<v Speaker 1>to develop a ruff of hair around their shoulders. Sometimes

0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.760
<v Speaker 1>an animal will become almost completely naked, except for little

0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.600
<v Speaker 1>tufts of fur around the feet and in what looks

0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:29.440
<v Speaker 1>like a ridge of hair running down its backbone. As

0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:34.000
<v Speaker 1>the disease progresses, the host becomes very weak, making it

0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:38.680
<v Speaker 1>hard to effectively hunt for food. As the animal starts

0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:44.479
<v Speaker 1>to starve, its skin becomes tight and drawn, causing hip bones, teeth,

0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:49.000
<v Speaker 1>and claws to become more prominent. Also with fur loss,

0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:54.359
<v Speaker 1>skin is exposed to sunlight and melotonin is produced, often

0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.240
<v Speaker 1>turning the animal dark gray or blackish in color. The

0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.960
<v Speaker 1>effect some is sinister. Glimpsed briefly in low light or

0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:09.120
<v Speaker 1>after dark, to the untrained human eye, an infected animal

0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:15.560
<v Speaker 1>would very likely appear monstrous, even alien. One biologist from

0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:21.280
<v Speaker 1>the University of Michigan speculated that coyotes infected with sarcoptic

0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.639
<v Speaker 1>mange might very well have trouble running down their normal prey,

0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:31.040
<v Speaker 1>small mammals like rabbits. This, he said, might force them

0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:38.360
<v Speaker 1>to attack domestic livestock out of sheer desperation. Back in Lubbock, Texas,

0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:44.720
<v Speaker 1>doctor Robert Bradley concurred, stating that coyotes and raccoons suffering

0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:49.560
<v Speaker 1>from sarcoptic mange were especially prevalent in the surrounding areas.

0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:55.680
<v Speaker 1>Every other so called tupacabra that doctor Bradley has subsequently

0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:00.200
<v Speaker 1>tested has turned out to be a coyote, raccoon, or

0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.399
<v Speaker 1>some other well known species of animal. And so it

0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:09.159
<v Speaker 1>seemed there was finally a logical, scientific explanation for the

0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:14.920
<v Speaker 1>alleged tupa cabra sightings and corpses. And yet the very

0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:18.840
<v Speaker 1>first cupa cabra sightings were reported from one of the

0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:25.160
<v Speaker 1>largest islands in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, which doesn't have coyotes,

0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:30.879
<v Speaker 1>and where eyewitness reports of cupa cabras have invariably described

0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:46.119
<v Speaker 1>an animal walking on two legs, not four. The stories

0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.240
<v Speaker 1>started in nineteen ninety five, when the island was beset

0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:55.400
<v Speaker 1>by a succession of difficult circumstances. Puerto Rico has many

0:21:55.720 --> 0:22:01.080
<v Speaker 1>unique characteristics. As a commonwealth of the United States, residents

0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.800
<v Speaker 1>have American citizenship but cannot cast votes in US elections.

0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:12.199
<v Speaker 1>The island effectively has the USA's only tropical rainforest, El Junke,

0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:18.360
<v Speaker 1>where at times it literally rains frogs. This intriguing phenomenon

0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:23.000
<v Speaker 1>happens when the indigenous cocky frogs climb up trees during

0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:27.160
<v Speaker 1>periods of high humidity and heavy rain, only to jump

0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.840
<v Speaker 1>back down when they find predators waiting for them in

0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:34.760
<v Speaker 1>the tree tops. The island sits next to one of

0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:38.440
<v Speaker 1>the world's deepest ocean trenches at almost eight and a

0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:42.399
<v Speaker 1>half thousand meters below sea level, and is also the

0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:47.280
<v Speaker 1>birthplace of the rum based cocktail, the Pina Colada, and

0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.480
<v Speaker 1>in the nineteen nineties, Puerto Ricans could be forgiven for

0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:55.640
<v Speaker 1>turning to rum for comfort. The island had been hit

0:22:55.760 --> 0:23:01.119
<v Speaker 1>by one difficulty after another, starting with an alarming eight epidemic.

0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.600
<v Speaker 1>In nineteen ninety one, the US Center for Disease Control

0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:09.720
<v Speaker 1>reported that Puerto Rico at the second highest rate of

0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:16.000
<v Speaker 1>HIV cases among all US states and territories, especially among women.

0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:20.520
<v Speaker 1>It was also a time when Puerto Rico was inundated

0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:24.560
<v Speaker 1>by a voracious rat population. This in turn led to

0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:29.040
<v Speaker 1>an increase in the rat's main predator, the mongoose. The

0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:33.760
<v Speaker 1>mongoose proved to be spectacularly successful in controlling the rats,

0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:38.680
<v Speaker 1>but that only created another problem, lots of hungry mongoose

0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:43.240
<v Speaker 1>short of food. Then, from June ninety four to May

0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:48.600
<v Speaker 1>ninety five, the island experienced another epidemic, this time of

0:23:48.720 --> 0:23:54.880
<v Speaker 1>Dengi fever, affecting twenty five thousand people, hospitalizing five thousand

0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:59.879
<v Speaker 1>and killing forty. It was spread by mosquitoes whose populations

0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:05.000
<v Speaker 1>had increased dramatically, encouraged by several months of drought and

0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:08.479
<v Speaker 1>unusually warm weather in the months prior to the summer

0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:13.359
<v Speaker 1>of ninety five, and finally, in late summer that year,

0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:18.359
<v Speaker 1>Whereto Rico faced the looming threat of Hurricane Marilyn, which

0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:23.080
<v Speaker 1>was rapidly intensifying to the north. It eventually hit eastern

0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:27.280
<v Speaker 1>portions of the island as a Category three hurricane, causing

0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:33.440
<v Speaker 1>damage estimated to total around ten million dollars. Assaulted by

0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:36.840
<v Speaker 1>this barrage of threats, it isn't hard to see how

0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:41.160
<v Speaker 1>a general climate of fear and anxiety might have contributed

0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:48.359
<v Speaker 1>to the proliferation of unsettling stories about strange vampiric creatures.

0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:49.000
<v Speaker 2>Roaming the land.

0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:54.080
<v Speaker 1>But there were other longer term issues that weighed on

0:24:54.119 --> 0:25:07.000
<v Speaker 1>the country's collective subconscious Two. In nineteen thirty eight, hundreds

0:25:07.040 --> 0:25:11.879
<v Speaker 1>of Rhesus macaque monkeys were captured from twelve different districts

0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:16.080
<v Speaker 1>of India, put in cages and brought by boat to

0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:20.520
<v Speaker 1>Puerto Rico. From there, they were taken to the island

0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:24.960
<v Speaker 1>of Cayo Santiago, just one mile off the eastern coast

0:25:25.000 --> 0:25:29.719
<v Speaker 1>of the mainland. By the nineties, the island was completely

0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:34.040
<v Speaker 1>inhabited by the free ranging monkeys. It was part of

0:25:34.080 --> 0:25:38.000
<v Speaker 1>a project set up by Columbia University and the United

0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:41.960
<v Speaker 1>States and the School of Tropical Medicine of the University

0:25:42.040 --> 0:25:43.360
<v Speaker 1>of Puerto Rico.

0:25:43.840 --> 0:25:45.120
<v Speaker 2>Their goal was.

0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:49.200
<v Speaker 1>To establish a breeding colony of free roaming, disease free

0:25:49.320 --> 0:25:54.320
<v Speaker 1>monkeys on whom they could conduct research into tropical diseases,

0:25:54.600 --> 0:26:00.320
<v Speaker 1>amongst other things. It became known as Monkey Island. The

0:26:00.400 --> 0:26:03.760
<v Speaker 1>island was well known as one of the best places

0:26:03.800 --> 0:26:08.440
<v Speaker 1>to study population management practices, as well as for providing

0:26:08.480 --> 0:26:14.520
<v Speaker 1>an extensive genetic database, making it a top destination for primatologists.

0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:20.080
<v Speaker 1>But Cayo Santiago wasn't the only focus for monkey research

0:26:20.240 --> 0:26:26.159
<v Speaker 1>in Puerto Rico. The Lapagera primate facility, located on the

0:26:26.200 --> 0:26:30.280
<v Speaker 1>southwest coast of Puerto Rico, was managed by the Caribbean

0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:35.080
<v Speaker 1>Primate Research Center of the University of Puerto Rico's Medical

0:26:35.119 --> 0:26:40.600
<v Speaker 1>Science campus from nineteen sixty one until nineteen eighty two.

0:26:40.720 --> 0:26:44.520
<v Speaker 1>Through a contract with the US's Food and Drug Administration.

0:26:46.080 --> 0:26:50.720
<v Speaker 1>Primates were introduced from there to Isla Cuaver and Isla

0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:56.800
<v Speaker 1>Huaya can just off the southern coast near Juanica. According

0:26:56.840 --> 0:27:00.639
<v Speaker 1>to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in

0:27:00.680 --> 0:27:05.040
<v Speaker 1>the nineteen seventies, there were multiple incidents of the monkeys

0:27:05.240 --> 0:27:10.160
<v Speaker 1>escaping from the islands. They carried the viral herpes bee,

0:27:10.480 --> 0:27:14.679
<v Speaker 1>which can be fatal to humans and potentially contributed to

0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:18.800
<v Speaker 1>numerous outbreaks of the disease in the local human population.

0:27:20.200 --> 0:27:25.159
<v Speaker 1>The American state of South Carolina eventually stepped in to help,

0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:29.520
<v Speaker 1>offering to make an uninhabited island off its coast available

0:27:30.000 --> 0:27:34.439
<v Speaker 1>as an alternative location for the research to continue, and

0:27:34.560 --> 0:27:39.600
<v Speaker 1>so between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty over one thousand,

0:27:39.720 --> 0:27:45.240
<v Speaker 1>four hundred animals were relocated to Morgan Island. But memories

0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:49.119
<v Speaker 1>of the escaping monkeys still lingered in the minds of

0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:54.199
<v Speaker 1>some on Puerto Rico. Exactly what kind of research was

0:27:54.240 --> 0:27:57.919
<v Speaker 1>still going on with the macaques on Isla quaver and

0:27:58.080 --> 0:28:10.959
<v Speaker 1>islahuaia Can, they wandered, Did it involve genetic manipulations? It

0:28:11.040 --> 0:28:14.879
<v Speaker 1>was in March nineteen ninety five that initial reports of

0:28:15.000 --> 0:28:20.040
<v Speaker 1>slaughtered farm animals began to surface on mainland Puerto Rico.

0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:26.960
<v Speaker 1>Sheep were found butchered in suspicious circumstances in Orakovis and Morovis,

0:28:27.760 --> 0:28:31.000
<v Speaker 1>small towns located about an hour and a half's drive

0:28:31.400 --> 0:28:35.000
<v Speaker 1>southwest of the capital, San Juan, in the center of

0:28:35.040 --> 0:28:39.960
<v Speaker 1>the island. In one case, eight sheep were discovered dead,

0:28:40.520 --> 0:28:44.520
<v Speaker 1>each with three puncture wounds in the chest area, allegedly

0:28:44.800 --> 0:28:49.000
<v Speaker 1>completely drained of blood. It was around this time that

0:28:49.120 --> 0:28:54.600
<v Speaker 1>Puerto Rican comedian Silverio Perez coined the name tupa cabra.

0:28:55.480 --> 0:28:59.720
<v Speaker 1>But for poor ranchers and farmers having their livestock killed

0:29:00.080 --> 0:29:07.120
<v Speaker 1>in what were already financially marginal circumstances was no laughing matter. Then,

0:29:07.800 --> 0:29:12.360
<v Speaker 1>in August nineteen ninety five, in the town of Canovnas,

0:29:12.600 --> 0:29:16.520
<v Speaker 1>just east of San Juan, around one hundred and fifty

0:29:16.760 --> 0:29:21.680
<v Speaker 1>farm animals were found dead, But this time an eye

0:29:21.680 --> 0:29:26.760
<v Speaker 1>witness gave a detailed account of a bizarre creature they

0:29:26.840 --> 0:29:31.560
<v Speaker 1>saw lurking round the area at the time. It was

0:29:31.640 --> 0:29:35.280
<v Speaker 1>to give rise to the most well known and iconic

0:29:35.400 --> 0:29:44.920
<v Speaker 1>description of the tupa cabra. Find out more next week

0:29:45.680 --> 0:29:49.000
<v Speaker 1>when we return with the second and final part of

0:29:49.160 --> 0:29:56.440
<v Speaker 1>Unexplained Season eight, Episode five Islands of Fear. Thank you

0:29:56.480 --> 0:29:59.320
<v Speaker 1>as ever for listening to the show. Please subscribe and

0:29:59.400 --> 0:30:02.200
<v Speaker 1>rate it if you haven't already done so. In some

0:30:02.360 --> 0:30:05.680
<v Speaker 1>other news, Unexplained will be coming to YouTube very shortly

0:30:05.800 --> 0:30:09.440
<v Speaker 1>in video form, so please watch out for future developments there.

0:30:10.000 --> 0:30:12.720
<v Speaker 1>You can subscribe to the channel at YouTube dot com

0:30:12.720 --> 0:30:16.440
<v Speaker 1>Forward slash at Unexplained Pod. You can also now find

0:30:16.520 --> 0:30:19.600
<v Speaker 1>us on TikTok at TikTok dot com Forward slash at

0:30:19.680 --> 0:30:24.120
<v Speaker 1>Unexplained Podcast. This episode was written by Diane Hope and

0:30:24.160 --> 0:30:29.160
<v Speaker 1>produced by me Richard McClain smith. Diane is an audio

0:30:29.160 --> 0:30:32.240
<v Speaker 1>producer and sound recordist in her own right. You can

0:30:32.280 --> 0:30:35.680
<v Speaker 1>find out more about her work at Dianehope dot com

0:30:35.720 --> 0:30:40.800
<v Speaker 1>and on Instagram at in the sound Field. Unexplained as

0:30:40.840 --> 0:30:45.160
<v Speaker 1>an AV Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain smith.

0:30:45.840 --> 0:30:49.120
<v Speaker 1>All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are

0:30:49.160 --> 0:30:51.640
<v Speaker 1>also produced by me Richard McClain smith.

0:30:52.840 --> 0:30:53.440
<v Speaker 2>Unexplained.

0:30:53.480 --> 0:30:57.120
<v Speaker 1>The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.

0:30:57.520 --> 0:31:01.400
<v Speaker 1>You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and

0:31:01.480 --> 0:31:05.840
<v Speaker 1>other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever

0:31:05.880 --> 0:31:08.480
<v Speaker 1>you get your podcasts and feel free to get in

0:31:08.520 --> 0:31:12.040
<v Speaker 1>touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've

0:31:12.040 --> 0:31:14.760
<v Speaker 1>heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of

0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:17.520
<v Speaker 1>your own you'd like to share. You can find out

0:31:17.560 --> 0:31:21.280
<v Speaker 1>more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online

0:31:21.400 --> 0:31:26.480
<v Speaker 1>through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.

0:31:26.520 --> 0:31:28.880
<v Speaker 1>Forward slash Unexplained Podcast