Well you learn something new everyday - at least I seem to.

I always thought that "Chuppies" were native to Chile but apparently they can be found ( if that is the correct term for a mythical creature ) all over the Americas.

Chupacabra means "Goat Sucker".

Typically signs of a Chuppy's visit consist of animals drained of blood and with puncture wounds visible on their bodies.

The puncture wounds are much larger than would be expected from vampire bats.

Recently there has been a reported attack on a human near Parral ( Chile ). This individual was hospitalised and the wounds were not consistent with attack by any known animal. The individual claims to have been a attacked by two unidentified creatures with dogs faces and wings.

Depending on time and available sources a lot more about these troublesome creatures should appear here relatively shortly.

Guazzo's Compendium Meleficarum (1608) gives six families, or genera, of demons.

Ahrimanes : angels that followed their leader, Ahriman, to stage a revolt against the principle of good, known as Orzud or Ormazd in Persian mythology. Ahriman and his followers were expelled and went to live on earth, where they were rejected. As revenge, Ahrimanes injured the earth's inhabitants. They now live in the space between the stars and the earth.

Beast 666 : According to the book of Revelation, the end of the world will be heralded by the unleashing of a horrible demon into the world. In one final, desperate attempt to reassert himself, the Devil will send a false prophet - the Antichrist - and the Beast 666, a ferocious apocalyptic creature who rises from the sea ridden by the whore of Babylon.

The Beast will lay waste to all around it, visiting plague and destruction on the lives of mankind and defeating the power of the saints. In time, the Beast will be accompanied by the false prophet, or Antichrist, who will trick people into believing that he is the Messiah.

According to the prophecy, the Day of Reckoning will dawn in a place called Armageddon: the false prophet, the Beast 666, and the legions of evil will do battle with the Son of God, seated 'faithful and true' upon his dazzling white horse, and an army from heaven bedecked in gleaming white linen.

In the long awaited final triumph of good over evil, Judgment Day will come and the false prophet and Beast 666 will be captured and hurled into a boiling lake of fire and brimstone.

The Devil will be chained and locked in Hell for a term of a thousand years, and all true believers who refused to succumb to the Beast will be saved.

Djinns : Also known as jinns or ginii, thay can be good or bad. The tendency of the evil Djinns' to enter a human through the mouth or nose, going straight for the head to drive their victims mad has led to the superstitious practice of covering one's mouth when yawning or coughing and saying 'gesundheit' or 'God Bless You' when another sneezes.

The good ones are of the type found in “Aladins Lamp” and can be persuaded to grant favors and wishes. They are also related to the div, another band of Persian monstrosities.

Elves : Related to and often confused with fairies and goblins, elves are created from the root of the magical mandrake plant. If treated well, they can be wonderful helpmates, amassing great wealth and power for their master. If treated cruelly, an elf will see that its owner gets his or her just desserts - often in a violently grotesque fashion.

Occasionally, elves colaborate with witches, especially in swapping one of their own children, otherwise known as changelings, with newborn human infants.

Fairies : Fairies, known in different parts of the world as nymphs, little people, trolls, or spirits, these creatures play a vital role in popular superstitions. Their origins are most likely pagan, and thus they have been demonized by organized religions.

As a group, they are usually deminutive and capricious, as likely to lend a hand as they are to torment and tease. For the most part, these entities live in the natural places they protect: trees, fields, forests, rivers, banks, brigdes, and stony ledges for example.

They are easily whipped into a fury if proper respect is not paid to their home, but their wrath can be avoided with gifts of food, flowers or coins.

The adore lovers, music, dance, and laughter, but once crossed can be vicious enemies. They are often responsible when something is missing, as they look at any human possession as fair game.

The more malicious kinds will kill or maim a human, but only if the person stupidly blunders into their territory without heeding their rules or paving the way with a smail gift.

The can be warded off with iron or steel since they abhor any element of industry or violence.

According to some, these little people are actually fallen angels who were saved from Hell by Christ. As the angels fell, Christ lifted his hand to stop the least responsible beings at the earth's surface, thus some vestige of goodness has remained in them.

Fates : The three hags memorialized in Homer's Odyssey.

One spins the yarn of a person's life, one measures its length, and the last snips it off with her sharp shears. The demonologist Alphonsus de Spina believed the fates were not real women but demons.

Ghouls :Also known as ghosts, ghouls tend to haunt graveyards and unearth the freshly buried.

In some Middle Eastern cultures, ghouls were thought to devour small children and corpses.

These undead creatures also like dark lonely places such as mountain tops and windswept plains.

Legend has it that dogs can see ghouls, which is why they occasionally bark at what appears to be nothing to the human eye.

If you want to see a ghoul, stand behind a dog and look between its two ears down the middle of its head.

Gremlins : Generally good-natured, gremlins usually behave badly when they are pulling a prank.

Gremlins are goblins that haunt the air, traumatizing pilots and air travelers by suddenly swooping up from their underground pits around airports and landing strips and grabbing a plane's wing.

They are green in colour and covered with mossy hair, and they use their webbed feet to suction onto airplanes and other industrial machines.

They empty full fuel tanks, disorient the gauges in the cockpit, and cause turbulence.

An old wives' tale claims that when you hear thunder, the rumbling comes from the gremlins' favorite pastime, sky bowling.

As technology advances, gremlins have found new arenas in which to play their tricks; computers, telephones, and televisions are only a few of the modern machines they now haunt.

Harpies :The harpies are hags from Hell, vicious shrews repulsive to behold. They torment their victim with unearthly screeches and wails, all the while scratching eyes out and tearing flesh with their hideously long fingernails.

The Harpies were originally storm goddesses in ancient Greece or, some believe, aspects of the death goddess. Later myths depicted them as "body snatchers". Their number varied, up to eight (or even more). As "snatchers" they were described as monsters with female heads (fair-haired), claws, bear's ears, and vulture-like bodies.

Other sources tell that the Harpies are hags from Hell, vicious shrews repulsive to behold. They torment their victim with unearthly screeches and wails, all the while scratching eyes out and tearing flesh with their hideously long fingernails.

Ladies of the night, Harpies may initially take the form of beautiful women to seduce their victims into lustfulness; but inevitably, as passions mount, they will suddenly reveal themselves, more often than not causing the death of their victims.

The wailing banshee that visits an Irish family to announce an impending death is a commonly seen Harpie.

Hellhound : The three-headed guard dog of the gates of Hell, the Hellhound is related to the Roman dog Cerberus who stood at the entrance to Hades.

The Hellhound accompanies the Devil on his night hunts and the heads are supposedly a parody of the Holy Trinity.

Hobgoblins or Goblins : Related to fairies and other little devils, goblins or cobolds, are predominant in England and Ireland. They are sooty-faced, hirsute creatures who loiter around rural villages and farmhouses causing trouble for the folks they live with.

Blowing out hearth fires, knotting up ropes, and undoing chores are only a few examples of the pesky tricks these demons play.

Their acts are hardly ever fatal, and if they happen to be in the mood, goblins will occasionally complete a task left undone.

Imps or Familiars : Imps take the form of small animals, rodents, insects or frog-like creatures. They are the errand-boys of witches, who send them off to execute a particular spell or charm. Because they are small, they are easily kept in boxes, bottles or pockets and they are suckled by Witches on a third teat, otherwise known as the Devil's Mark.

Incubi : An Incubus, meaning 'to lie on' is one of a horde of demons who take human shape and descend on sleeping women in the middle of the night, either raping them or inspiring lustful dreams and desires.Nuns and maidens are often the victims of the incubus's visit, and a pregnancy in a convent is usually the result of such a visit.

Copulation with an incubus, reports claim, is a decidedly disgusting affair. The entity allegedly sports an immense frozen penis that he uses to tear viciously into the internal organs of his victims. If, as unbelievable as it may seem, a woman invites an incubus to her bed, all members in the household will fall into a trancelike sleep, even the woman's mortal lover who may be snoring alongside her.

In the Middle Ages, any baby born with a mental of physical deformity was considered to be the progeny of this vile union.

Knockers : Knockers are yet another tribe of little people who torment miners working underground in tunnels and caves.

If a worker happens to catch site of a Knocker or approach one, legend has it that he will come down with a painful rheumatism. If left alone, Knockers are generally considered harmless.

Luciferge : These hideous demons roam the earth searching for souls to kidnap and bring down to Hell.

Equipped with razor-sharp talons and beaks the use to tear the soul from its body, they are the henchmen that come to collect on a deal made with the Devil.

Their counterparts, the Malebranche, torment some of the worst sinners in Hell. These unnatural beasts have snakes coming out of their noses and ears and sport cloven hooves and tails like their beloved leader. When a doomed individual takes his last breath, the Malebranche leap on his soul with whoops of joy and carry it off to its horrible fate in a cloud of stinking, sulfurous smoke.

Mourners present at the moment of death have been known to catch a whiff of the telltale odor of damnation.

Nightmare or Mares : Waking with shortness of breath or heaviness in the chest is evidence of a visit by a nightmare demon. These heinous creatures attack at night, sitting on a person's chest and breathing putrid breath into their nostrils.Their exhaust causes horrible dreams; and if the person awakes while the demon is still present, he or she will be paralyzed under the weight of the monster.

Poltergeists : Also called 'jumping demons', these creatures reside in people's homes and play irritating tricks at night breaking dishes, hiding belongings, shaking walls, and turning lights and stereos off and on. They also like to creep up and rip the covers off sleeping victims or stand at the edge of the bed and tickle the bottoms of feet.

Occasionally a poltergeist gets violent, resulting in injury to their victims or, more rarely, death. For the most part, however, poltergeists are harmless, albeit irksome and often terrifying household pests.

Succubi : The female counterpart of the incubus, a succubus (meaning 'to lie under') attacks innocent men in their sleep. The denizens of Lilith, succubi sit astride a man's prone body and have their way with him.

Often taking the form of beautiful women, succubi will instantly turn into miserable hags if confronted with their real identities.

In the Middle Ages, fearful monks tied crucifixes to their genitals before retiring at night as protection against nocturnal visits by succubi.

Vampires : A ruthless group of undead who surface only at night to suck the blood of the living.

Once mortal, these corpses were raised from the dead and granted eternal life by the forces of evil; the catch is they must drink fresh, warm blood in order to survive.

They have the ability to transform themselves into many forms - bats, rats, wolves, shadows, even a sinister, creeping fog.

Annals of vampiric legend and lore have been collected throughout the ages, and there have been many eyewitness accounts of their existence.

In what could be called vampiric tradition, certain Black Masses reportedly profane the Eucharist by celebrating a ceremony in which worshippers drink human blood from a gold vessel.

Werewolves : Lumped in the same category as vampires due to their ability to change shape, their nighttime proclivity, and their fondness for human flesh, werewolves are half-human, half-wolf creatures that have a penchant for juicy young maidens and farmers' livestock

They are especially powerful during full moons and occasionally stalk their victims in packs. In some traditions, one can become a werewolf by petitioning the Devil. In others, those bitten by a werewolf will metamorphose into one too.

Werewolves return to their human form at dawn, so it is impossible for most normal folks to know who is and who isn't...

Zombies : Living corpses who find their origin in West Indian, Caribbean, and Voodoo legend, zombies are used by evildoers as servants.

The zombie is actually a poor soul that, having just been buried, in unable to move peacefully into the afterlife because it is called forth by someone on earth.

Once it answers, the zombie climbs out of its fleshly dug grave to heed its master's call, obeying whatever commands the master makes.

To ensure that their loved ones get safely into the afterlife, many West Indian cultures bury their dead face down, with their mouths full of dirt and their lips shut.

The Chinese Dragon.

The Eastern dragon is considered to be a divine mythical creature that brings good fortune and prosperity.

The nine major characteristics of a lung type dragon include a camel's head with large canine teeth in the upper jaw and long, tendril-like whiskers extending from either side of its mouth, deer's horns, hare's eyes, bull's ears, iguana's neck, frog's belly, carp's scales, and tiger's paws with eagle's claws.

There are nine basic types of monster.

At the moment this page is sorted by country and merely shows the name and / or location of monster sightings.

There is definitely something strange which apparently has visited the Loch and been filmed. It is highly unlikely that it is a survivor of an otherwise extinct species of dinosaur or that it looks anything like the popular triple humped animal depicted in the media.

There have been several alleged photographs and film footage taken of objects in Loch Ness but only one of them, to my knowledge, remains unexplained.
Along with the film footage and an unexplained Sonar reading of a large fast moving sub aqua body it must be said that further investigations are needed.

Perhaps by trying to solve the mystery of the sightings rather than find the monster it may be possible to find a different angle to approach the problem from.

Lets also look at the Loch Ness mystery in another way, mathematically, or to make it sound a little bit more interesting lets have a look at the "odds".

Estimating Loch Ness to be 24 miles long, one mile wide and one mile deep it would have a volume of 3.5 x 10¹² cu ft...

assuming that the monster is 100 ft long, 20 ft high and 20 ft wide it would be 4 x 10⁴ cu ft

equivalent to approx. 1.13 x 10^-8 of the Loch... ... that is 1 / 88,318,771.

To put this into context it would take nearly 90 million blue whales to fill the Loch.

From most reports it would seem that the monster is more likely to be in the range of 30 x 10 x 10 ft and would therefore be one trillionth of the volume of the Loch.

As of September 2002 the samples it was reported tha the samples had not yet been positively identified. Hans Brunner, from Deakin University, Melbourne, has tested hair samples found against several species, i.e. orang-utan, chimpanzee, gorilla, sun bear, red leaf monkey, pigtail macaque, Malaysian tapir and human hair but was unabe to find any match as yet.

Dr Colin Groves, Professor of primatology at University of Canberra, Australia has also been working on the findings from Sumatra by analysing a footprint found on the expedition. He is not however willing to make his findings public until Mr Brunner releases a scientific paper on the hair analysis.

The Sasquatch, or Big Foot is considered by some to be an American equivalent of the Yeti.

While it is similar in the way that they are both large hairy anthropods there are suggestions that one is animal based and the other human based.

There are nine basic types of monster. Merhorse : Large eyed with smooth skin and a mane and between 40 and 100 feet in length. Multi-Humped : Similar to a whale but with several humps and from 50 to 100 feet long. Long Necked : Small headed with four flippers and between 30 and 70 feet long. Multi-Finned : Whale like but with a dorsal and multiple fins. From 50 to 70 feet in length. Super Otter : Long tailed giant otter type creature typically beige or grey in colour. Marine Saurian : resembling an alligator or crocodile with scales, a long head and tail. Super Eel : Any eel like creature that has no limbs and a length between 20 and 100 feet. Father of All Turtles : abnormally huge turtle. Yellow Belly : a 60 to 100 foot long yellow tadpole shaped creature with a black stripe.

UNICORNS.

The first known mention of Unicorns in literature was by a Greek Physician Ctesias circa 400BC when he was as the Persian Court of Artaxerxes and Darius II. He produced many tales of strange creatures amongst which was that of the Unicorn which he described as:

…wild asses as large as horses or even larger. Their bodies are white, their heads dark red and their eyes dark blue. They have a horn in the middle of their forehead that is one cubit in length; the base of this is pure white, the upper part is sharp and pure crimson, and the middle portion is black.

Apparently these horns, when made into drinking vessels have the ability to protect the drinker from all sorts of ailments and have the ability to neutralise poisons if the individual drinks from the horn either before or after the poison is ingested.

The account from Ctesias goes on to explain that the creature is so swift and powerful that there is no other creature that can overtake it and therefore the only way to capture them is by surrounding them when they take their young to pasture.

They will not leave their offspring, even when surrounded and therefore can be brought down by arrow and javelin, they cannot be taken alive as they continue to fight with horn and hoof until death.

The name Yeti is derived from 'the rock living animal' ('Yah' means rock and 'thi' means animal in Sherpa), and is popularly known as 'the abominable snowman' in the West.

The name “abominable snowman” is due to a mis-translation of metoh-kangmi, is native to the Himalayan region, ranging from China across to Siberia, although there have been reports as far a field as the Alps.

The creature is reported to be a fearsome, savage beast standing 6-8 feet tall with a conical scalp, pointed ears, long, reddish-brown hair all over its body ( although some report a hairless chest ) and a human-like face.

It also has a high-pitched whistling scream; a vile, pungent odour; feet that point backwards; and supernatural powers. It typically has a very bad temperament and will attack anyone who ventures too close, and as if all of that wasn’t bad enough superstitions say that merely sighting the creature can bring ill fortune, illness, or possibly death.

While stories of the yeti go back 6 millennia there is still no physical evidence in the form of an actual specimen. This however does not mean that the animal does not exist, after all it was not until the late 1930s that the Giant panda was discovered by Europeans and if a giant black and white Panda can remain hidden then why shouldn't a Yeti.

In the thick forests of Nepal and Tibet it is known by the name "migou." and the Sherpas have legends of a mysterious creature, Half man, half monkey, venerated and feared, which moves upright like a man, but bent, endowed with sufficient strength to "kill a yak with its fist," with a pointed head and a body covered in black or reddish-brown hair.

It has been suggested that the reports of yeti may actually be simply explained by mistaken individuals that have actually witnessed a large langur or gibbon type of monkey, a wild man or a blue bear.

Toby Murcott, the BBC's science analyst, said that while it is most unlikely that yetis exist, Mr Calonica's sighting should not be dismissed out of hand. "I think that he genuinely believes that he saw two yeti-like creatures in the Himalayas”. "There have been many, many claims like this. What you have to be careful about is what people are actually seeing.

"Did he really see two yetis or did he see perhaps two bears? Was he for example suffering from altitude sickness and hallucinating?

Among others, Harka Gurung, a former Nepalese minister, and Himalayan geographical specialist suggests that the Blue Bear is the most likely candidate. It is a rare creature whose fur looks blue in the sunlight, the blue bear is rare, lives in the wild forests and can climb to an altitude of 6,500 metres in search of food and is capable of killing a yak. There have been many expeditions that have attempted to prove scientifically that the Yeti is not merely a myth but an undiscovered species and whilst none of these has yet produced the required evidence there have been some interesting discoveries.

The Slick expedition of 1957 hoped that the discovery of an unknown primate that was reported to be similar to humans might be able to help science and medicine learn more about illness and disease. While they were unable to find a Yeti they did find bedding areas similar to those made by the mountain gorilla and hair and dropping samples. Unfortunately the samples were not tested for many years but when they were it was discovered that there were parasites from an unknown primate in the dropping samples.

Hilary took part in a ten-month expedition in 1960 in the Khumbu Valley, to the south of Everest but was unable to find any evidence.

Relatively recent sightings include: