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A Slam-Dunk Debunk MATT CROWLEY

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A Slam-Dunk Debunk MATT CROWLEY SI July August 11_SI new design masters 5/25/11 12:18 PM Page 57 REVIEWS] A Slam-Dunk Debunk MATT CROWLEY enjamin Radford is a longtime sci - Bentific investigator of fringe-science Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, topics with an emphasis on cryptozool - Fiction, and Folklore ogy. The University of New Mexico By Benjamin Radford. University of New Mexico Press, Press has published Radford’s latest Albuquerque, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-82635-015-2. book, Tracking the Chupa cabra: The Vam - 202 pp. Softcover, $24.95. pire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore . Though modestly titled, this book is ar - guably the greatest cryptozoological book ever written. It’s a winner in every way, a slam-dunk debunk of the mystery surrounding the new monster on the of the 1970s, virtually all cases of alleged ent from normal, healthy animals. block: el chupacabra . chupacabra attacks involve animals dying The real death blow to the chu - Radford builds his case methodically, by ordinary predation, not by having pacabra legend was Radford tracking starting off with a history of vampire leg - their blood sucked. Using both photo - down and personally interviewing the ends in general. After all, chupacabra lit - graphs and drawings, Rad ford illustrates first known chupacabra eyewitness, a erally means “goat sucker” in Spanish and how an untrained individual might Puerto Rican woman named Madelyne as such falls squarely within the realm of come to misinterpret an animal’s death Tolentino. To borrow a term from epi - vampiric tradition. Many people become as the result of a blood-sucking beast. demiology, Tolentino was “patient familiar with vampires through popular Sometimes asking a simple question zero,” i.e., the single person from whom media such as books or movies. In leads to a surprising result. By the time the tale originated and spread. This is America, the emphasis is on Euro pean or the chupacabra legend went north to the the point at which everything falls into American monsters. Yet Radford dem - United States, the beast had changed place, giving Radford’s investigation an onstrates that vampiric legend is a world - from a bipedal being with spikes down almost Euclidian elegance. A careful wide phenomenon that goes far back in its back to a quadruped, something examination of Tolentino’s account history. Not surprisingly, each culture has along the lines of a dog, wolf, or coyote. demonstrates virtually beyond a doubt a slightly different spin on the legend, These animals are all canids , and as such that her sighting was a confabulation and the culture of Puerto Rico, where the have certain familial characteristics. with a work of fiction. first chupacabra reports originated, is no Radford works through a very simple, As with a geometric theorem, the el - exception. non-intuitive question: Is a canid even egance lies in the process of the proof, The Puerto Rican version of the chu - physiologically capable of sucking blood not just the result. Radford freely ad - pacabra legend incorporates elements of from an animal’s wound? mits that it may seem like overkill to anti-American sentiment as well as con - The technology behind DNA put so much time and energy into de - spiracy theories and religious “end times” analysis has progressed so quickly dur - bunking an intrinsically unlikely mon - notions. The chupacabra myth sprang up ing the beginning of the twenty-first ster. Yet the beauty of Radford’s book is to explain dead animals left behind that century that it’s not surprising that it that we get to watch how things ought to had been killed (and supposedly left has been used to identify the carcasses be done. The investigative process is as bloodless) by unknown predators. Rad - of animals claimed to be chupacabras . important as the ultimate conclusion. ford methodically investigates how these Without fail, DNA analyses of these Radford’s book is a must-have in any animals probably died. animals have shown them to be known good crypto-library. n There’s an entire branch of science, species or, occasionally, hybrids of taphonomy, that deals with what hap - known species. In many cases the car - Matt Crowley earned a bachelor of science de - pens to animals after they die. Radford’s casses are hairless, or nearly so. Radford gree in pharmacy in 1987 from the University of account is both accessible to the lay includes a treatment of the nature of Montana. He has given presentations at several reader and sparing in unnecessary gore; sarcoptic mange, which can cause an Bigfoot conferences on the subject of “Dermal all photos are in black and white. A animal to lose most if not all of its fur. Ridges and Casting Artifacts.” He currently lives near-reprise of the cattle mutilation flap Hairless canids often look very differ - in Seattle, Washington. Skeptical Inquirer | July / August 2011 57.
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