- Juan Berríos, a 40 year-old driver and an old-fashioned
Chilean catholic, has never driven his vehicle again since his run-in with
the monster. "He reached the truck stop in a state. His legs trembled,"
said one of his co-workers, half-jokingly, at the same time he made the
sign of the Cross just in case.
-
- Ip until 2 weeks ago, Santa Filomena was nothing more
than a lonely and long alleyway in the locality of Viluco in Buin, where
the peace was disturbed only by vehicles driving past it at high speed.
-
- While the routine is unbreakable, the town is beginning
to shake off its lethargy, but not because of the arrival of unstoppable
modernity, but because of the apperance of an indescribable, hungry creature
that hops across the streets with some small, wounded animal in its maw,
and which has seen by bus drivers of the Buin-Maipo route, who decided
to speak out after having experienced real fear.
-
- On January 5, at 5:15 hours, Berrios was driving through
Santa Filomena toward the Las Vertientes terminal when he suddenly noticed
a strange figure in the middle of the road some 70 meters away. He rubbed
his eyes and kept going. Some five meters away, the figure reappeared and
the shock of the horrible sight almost caused him to lose control of the
vehicle, almost rolling it over.
-
- "I had never seen anything like it. It had something
like a dog bleeding in its muzzle and it lost itself in the bushes in a
single leap," he told a co-worker minutes later. He was believed,
just from the expression of indescribably panic on his face. That day he
was jumpier than ever. After his second round trip, he was intercepted
by another driver, Juan Maulén, who took him aside and asked him
to describe the monster. After a few minutes, Maulén confessed:
"Yes, it's the same one."
-
- It was a bipedal animal standing 1.50 meters tall, with
hind legs like those of a kangaroo, small, curved hands ending in talons,
a sharp mane like that of a porcupine running along its back, a tail with
a rattle, a muzzle like that of a fierce wolf, several rows of teeth and
voracious red eyes.
-
- "It jumps a lot," added Maulén. "It
can easily jump 5 meters." He had kept quiet out of a fear of being
dubbed the local madman."I almost died of fright. I had to go out
in the morning just like Berrios, when I suddenly saw that thing int the
middle of the road. I slowed down and the beast stared at me. It took some
time look me up and down and then jumped aside," he recalled more
calmly, now certain that the beast exists. Just to give the thing a name,
he says it could well be the Chupacabras.
-
- "I think it's a hoax. I've been living here 35 years
and the nearest thing to monsters I've seen are old men riding bicycles,"
said Rosa Marileo, widow of Roberto Nancur and mother of 5 children who
do not live with her. "This has been circulating for a long time.
Everyone says that when [the monster] comes out, it does so in the morning
and I wouldn't dream of walking around at that time, because this street
is pitch black," she added, bringing the conversation to a close.
According to the multiple descriptions of strange creatures, what the drivers
saw is similar to the North American image of the Chupacabras, particuarly
due to its spiny mane.
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-
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- Translation (C) 2004 Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic
Ufology (IHU). Special thanks to Liliana Nuñez.
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