This Is Conspiracy Theory 101
Why is it that whenever there is the possibility of solving some conspiracy theory or Coast To Coast legend that all we get are a couple of grainy photos? The latest example of this are the photos that someone took of this 13 year old kid who claims he shot and killed a chupacabra which was in his backyard.
From looking at the pictures you would think you are looking at a picture from 20 years ago that someone took with their $5 Instamatic camera that had not been used in a year because they needed to take the last three or four shots from the roll before they could get it developed and see the photos from Aunt Marge's wedding. "Oh, she looked so good in green. More brides should wear it."
Sorry about that. Had a little rewind moment back to childhood. These photos were not taken 2o years ago though they were taken on Sunday. As in a few days ago. Apparently they were taken with a pin hole camera though because I cannot make out anything. Did anyone in the family not own a cell phone camera or digital camera? A neighbor perhaps? Does someone know the word closeup? Of course not because then you would be able to see that this is something that is not a chupacabra and ruining the conspiracy. This is Conspiracy 101.
Well, the thing is still around if it was taken on Sunday so more pictures could surface. I watched an episode of Fact or Faked where they looked into this thing but I can't remember what the conclusion was.
ReplyDeletedang I need glasses I thought the second shot was of a kangaroo. Personally I'm not into conspiracy theories...
ReplyDeleteIn the first picture, the rifle looks bigger than that kid does.
ReplyDeleteCoyote with mange.
ReplyDeleteWhat ever it was, it suffered from a bad case of mange!!
ReplyDeleteAm I supposed to be impressed that a kid is shooting wild animals in his backyard? Not so much.
ReplyDeleteStupid kid! He could have fed it, named it, and had his own reality show. Chupa and Me!
ReplyDeleteI would have watched it.
ReplyDeleteChupacabra, Schmoocabra. I was on a moonlight canoe trip this past weekend at Elk Lake in Bend, Oregon and Sasquatch walked right through our campground. True! He drove up, walked through the campground where we were drinking and eating s'mores, then got in his car and drove away. And it HAD to be real because the tour operator denied knowing anything it. One of our group even got a clear picture! Fame and fortune here we come.
ReplyDelete@ Ms Cool. The Fact or Faked espisode they never came up with a conclusion as to what type of creature was running on the street in the video. They tried a hairless dog and miniature pony, but still they couldn't figure out what the creature was. It was freaky looking with it's enormous head and snout. That part was unproven.
ReplyDeleteThen the woman in the same episode, who had the head of the one in her house and the body in the feezer, was proven to be part coyote, part something else mix...so that one was not real.
IF a kid cant even drive yet or have any other type of acknowledged lawful responsiblity they SHOULD NOT own things that are capable of hurting/harming another living thing.
ReplyDeleteGood for you kid, glad you were taught somewhere along the lines that seeing something exotic and unknown to you means that its yours for the taking and you get to play god and snuff out its life.
bet this was somewhere in the south.
@Jasmine: some Southerners are cool and take offense with such small-mindedness. Ahem.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a dog or coyote that was likely begging to be shot because the mange had already eaten it alive. Nothing to see there.
It's ok, Jasmine, I'm from the south and hate guns BUT I could totally see this taking place somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line. :-/
ReplyDeleteI call bullshit on these photos. Who doesn't have a camera phone these days that would have taken a better shot.
@Jasmine, when a coyote jumps your 6 foot fence and kills your pet in front of you you might change your tune a little.
ReplyDelete@Sharon, same thing happened to me in Bend, true story ;)
ReplyDelete@Layna- your very flippancy over something that was killed just reinforces my point, so thank you.
ReplyDeleteand a lot of stereotypes are based in some form of facts. Many many southern people are hunting pro-gun people. Just cause you are not doesnt mean several people surrounding your vicinity arent either.
I've never heard of these so when I looked it up I laughed at the picture Wiki has to go along with there description.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra
They basically say the animals they've sighted and found were para-sited coyotes and Wiki has some creature that looks like it came from Ben 10.
@.robert- ummmm okay.
ReplyDeletecoytotes continue to have their hunting grounds demolished by more and more people building on top of it. Last time I saw a coyote was in the hills of LA and it was half starved and very skittish.
If you are living somewhere close enough for a coyote to be such a threat to your animals that it is desperate enough to go over a fence and look for food AND THEN you feel you need to kill it for doing such- thats you fault and gross.
Coyotes are not native to the south east. They have moved into urban areas everywhere and are a nuisance. You have no idea what you are talking about.
ReplyDeleteIf a coyote came for my puppies, I would shot it too.
ReplyDeleteJasmine has spoken. Everyone better move out of LA.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly they are in South Texas near Mexico. Kind of a Urban Legend/Lochness Monster story. They found one dead and it was some sort of mangy cross breed. Not the vicious monster the stories tell would lead you to believe.
ReplyDeleteActually Katie- if you took the time to get your head out of your ass while you're drawing your quick conclusions, I said I saw ONE coyote in the hills that was half starved and skittish, as in not a danger. But thanks for popping in with your nonuseful comment.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Jasmine on this. Shooting/killing an animal is incredibly offensive to me, whether it's a coyote, dog or freaking chupacabra.
ReplyDeleteBut, Jasmine, that one half-starved very skittish coyote could very well be desperate to jump over a fence in search of food in the form of someone's pet. And by your very own admission, it would be the pet owner's fault for living in such an unsavory area. All pet owners in LA should thank you for being on the lookout. This should give them plenty of time to put their house on the market and move to......wait, where should they move? Obviously, not "the South". Where do you propose, Jasmine? I have no idea because all of my comments are very nonuseful. Maybe you could give a useful suggestion?
ReplyDeleteThanks ZuZu :))
ReplyDeleteLOVE the name btw
Just a dog with mange.
ReplyDeletePoor thing :(
ReplyDeletePersonally I don’t care for hunting (though I think it’s far less evil than factory farming, i.e. the meat you buy in the grocery store!), but at the same time, I don’t care to see starving, diseased animals roaming my neighborhood/getting hit by cars due to urban expansion. We’ve screwed up the natural balance; hell, we’ve screwed up entire ecosystems with our greed, and unfortunately wild animals are the ones who have to pay the price. I’ve never heard someone who is against hunting come up with a real solution for population control, but if anyone has a suggestion, I’m all ears.
ReplyDeleteBeing someone who lives in the countryside, I always have to look out for migrating deer and bears; I’ve hit a deer with my car before and I had to wait 30 minutes for the state troopers to show up to put her down. Imagine 30 minutes of hearing that doe crying in pain and attempting to get up, but being unable to because she’d broken both her front legs, and a rear leg. When I was in high school, I came upon an accident where a woman hit a black bear and died before paramedics got there.
I live in Jackson, MS, which is home to about 600,000 people - not small, not huge either. While driving on one of our busiest highways I hit a 150lb coyote. They are a menace and quite aggressive. On a different note... I am an open-minded, peaceful person, and the lumping an entire section of the country under one stereotype is narrow-minded and rigid.
ReplyDeleteI live in a rural area bordering provincial parks that are basically considered wilderness. My dogs have chased numerous coyotes, deer, bear and an occasional lone wolf off the property. We once had a fox in town with a horrible case of mange. The animal was so sick it was trying to come up to me and my two dogs (who were on lease) which is abnormal behavior. One of our residents got permission to kill it and put it out of its misery or it could have spread mange to every dog and cat in the area. If the animal in the photo was a coyote with a severe case of mange, it is a kindness to kill it. And this is coming from an animal-lover.
ReplyDelete@Layna- your very flippancy over something that was killed just reinforces my point, so thank you.
ReplyDeleteI take you for being smart, so how you miss the point is beyond me.
You stereotyped a whole group of people and think that's cute. IT'S NOT! You claim to be open-minded and liberal. I don't see it. Granted, I don't know you. But your comment doesn't prove it.
Wild animals often carry rabies and other diseases that can be transmitted to pets and livestock. People love their pets and livestock is very expensive, as I'm sure you know.
While I don't condone anyone going gun-ho into the woods and shooting at animals for laughs, I do understand that if a mangy coyote goes into a cow pasture, the cows' owner is likely going to shoot the coyote.
You have an opinion. Cool. But the rest of us have one, too. Just because it's different from yours doesn't make it less valid. We're not talking in a vacuum. We live in such areas and understand the situation.
It would be nice if you didn't throw everyone into the same group because of geography. You wouldn't want to be called Plastic Surgery Bubblehead Barbie because you happen to live in LA with vapid reality stars. But you have no problem taking a swipe at a lot of CDAN readers. And IMO, that's very unfair of you.
But believe what you want. :-)
That looks like a diseased coyote to me, too. While I'm not a fan of killing any animal, it probably was a mercy to kill it and to keep whatever it had from spreading. I'm also not going to get on my high horse about hunting, since I eat meat. Until the day comes when I stop eating meat and wearing leather and having leather purses, I will bite my tongue around people who think killing animals is a "sport".
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record Jasmine, I live in Tennessee and worked with a lady from New York who was huge proponent of hunting. In fact, her husband would go back to New York every fall because it is legal there to bait bears and kill them. That means they could put out food to deliberately lure bears to them, and then murder them with high-powered rifles. So much for your theory on "this must have been in the South." Shove your stereotypes up your ass. Oh, bless your heart!
AgainI'm reminded of Mitch Hedberg and his theory on Big Foot. It's not that the pics are bad it's just that in reality this is just a blurry creature. ;)
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I was born in an East Coast metropolis, and I've lived in New England, the Rocky Mountain region, and I now live in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I've also traveled a bunch. And I'm here to tell you folks that from what I've seen...
ReplyDelete...woefully ignorant, wonky-mouthed, gunmongering, coalbucket redneck trash is NOT confined to one area of this country, or even the world. ;-)
Speaking of which, I'll spare my ire for this dkid's parents, since they're the ones who presumably allowed this guttersnipe to pick up a gun in the first place. I do agree with a few of you who think that the "chupacabra" was a diseased coyote who was blessedly put out of its misery -- but I still think there's something sick about gleefully killing a creature that's regarded to be extinct, or at least severely endangered. Or, like, a mythical legend. Whatever. Still creepy and fucked-up, regardless. This kid is gonna be a real winner when he grows up.
Oh, and in Colorado -- a heavily coyote-populated area, obviously (though Robert is absolutely correct in that coyotes have migrated everywhere, thanks in part to our mostly-collective inability to consider how unsustainable population growth and suburban sprawl are sucky things) -- smart people kept their cats and dogs inside when they weren't around to walk/observe them. A fence? To keep out a coyote? *PFFFFFFT*
Sorry, but I don't blame a hungry coyote for jumping a fence and snagging a critter. To them, it's just a matter of pursuing unprotected prey. We've encroached on THEM, and are responsible for diminishing their food sources. I'll forever defend an animal's instinct to eat and kill. Sorry, but it's a hell of a lot more justified than the shit that goes on in factory farms.
Ida I completely agree with your opinion. Coyotes and other wild animals are coming out closer to homes because we've taken over where they used to live and they're starving. That is why most are very skinny. We don't get to be the only animal on this planet.
ReplyDeleteI saw a coyote and had pulled over thinking it was a stray dog at first on the lawn outside Kaiser in N Ca. It had probably come from the field behind it. I didn't get out if the car but it wasn't scared of me and it just sniffed around the grass. I felt awful because it was starving and I didn't call animal control because they don't relocate them, they just kill them. FYI, before I'm accused of killing your dog, I have two myself and my county's policy is they don't want to be called if they aren't bothering anyone because they won't come. Besides, it would feel the same as shooting the animal to me.
My patio overlooks a huge bunch of a acreage of fields about 15-20 feet away. Depending on the season there are bobcat, deer, coyotes, and smaller things like snakes, owls, skunks, racoons and who knows what.
Having pets and living near nature don't go hand in hand with guns or wanting to shoot them. My dogs mean everything to me but I would never have a gun, but I would also never have one in case someone broke into my home.
Animals should be respected not wiped out.I'm very sorry though, for anyone who has lost a pet especially through an animal attack.
I'm thinking diseased coyote/dog/cross-breed, too, and while putting it out of its misery was most likely for the best, I can't help but feel that the kid looks just a wee bit too happy over having just killed a living creature. (And before you all start in on me, I grew up in rural NH and my dad has been a hunter for my entire life and most of his; he's a responsible hunter who only takes what will be eaten or needs to be killed for safety reasons. Sensible hunters are one thing; rabid gun nuts are quite another.) And yes, between NH and 8 years in Athens, GA, I agree w/Ida that rednecks & white trash aren't limited to any particular part of the country; the only real difference in the various groups is their regional accents.
ReplyDeleteI live in Athens, GA too :) We are more known for our killer music than our killer ways.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ida. That's how/what i think, but i'm not nearly as articulate or capable of writing as well as you do. And i mean WRT your beliefs re regional stereotypes and the care and protection of both wild and domestic animals.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Ida.
ReplyDeleteLove you as always Ida.
ReplyDeleteYou wont ever see a clear close up picture of this thing or any mythical creature because if it was a clear close up picture it would be clear that they werent mythical creatures at all. In this case, a clear picture would make it clear that some kid killed a diseased starving dog.