Original subtitles

A horrifying, blood-sucking beast

is terrorizing Appalachia.

A canine like body...

It's like a wolf or a coyote, but it's bigger.

...with razor-sharp teeth.

So is there anything other than the vampire bat

that would suck blood out of this animal?

Locals believe it could be the chupacabra

first encountered in the southwest 35 years ago.

As soon as we see it, it's gone.

Recent sightings are further east than ever before.

They're continuing to breed and flow up here.

God, that thing was fast.

Can one scientist's archive hold the clues

to solving this mystery?

Our next guest tonight is one of the world's leading naturalists,

and he's been accumulating material for some 30 years.

In the mid-20th century,

scientist Ivan Sanderson,

set out to separate fact from fiction.

He investigated hundreds of frightening encounters

with unexplained creatures around the world.

There seemed to be a lot of these creatures on our continent,

in South America and Africa, and all of Eurasia.

As the founder of cryptozoology,

he built the most extensive archive

of unclassified creatures on Earth.

But following his death in the 1970s,

that archive disappeared...

until now.

Armed with modern tech and Sanderson's lost research...

We need to take this and compare it to what's in the archives.

...a team of experts will reinvestigate his unexplained cases

using up-to-the-minute research, and predator expertise.

I've never seen wildlife do this.

There's nothing like that that should be doing that here.

Holy!

Can Sanderson's files lead to an incredible new insight

and take another creature from myth...

Did you see that?

...to reality?

Everything is here from the origin of cryptozoology.

My name is Charlie Mewshaw.

I have multiple degrees in science and tech.

My passion for cryptozoology is a lifelong study.

And I use modern technology to discover things that just weren't possible in the past.

Physical specimens here...

Yeah, we've got castings. We've got skulls, bones.

That's the Gigantopithecus skull.

I'm Brittany Barbieri, and I'm a cryptozoologist.

I believe that there are hidden animals

that have not been discovered yet.

We have the Komodo dragon,

we have the snub-nosed monkey

and even the giant squid.

Something that was just a myth is now a fact.

This is years and years of work.

Sanderson was absolutely brilliant.

He was a zoologist,

the first to bring real science to the hunt for cryptids.

This is unbelievable.

Nobody has access to this.

He spent five decades

proving and disproving the existence of creatures.

But he has files on hundreds of cases that were never solved.

That's where we come in.

Once Brittany and I got access to the archive,

we spent weeks combing through the binders.

We're gonna find some of Sanderson's biggest files,

and we're gonna carry that investigation forward.

Hold on, Charlie.

I got a call from a farmer.

- He's in North Carolina. - Okay.

We literally have a carcass to go examine.

He doesn't understand how his animal died,

but it's been drained of blood.

And there's been other farmers in the area that are seeing things,

and this is happening to the livestock as well.

This isn't just one account,

and it honestly sounds a lot like a chupacabra.

The chupacabra was first discovered

in Puerto Rico in 1995

as a bat-like creature that mutilated livestock.

But in North America, its name is synonymous

with a strange canine known for nocturnal hunting

and draining its victim's blood.

- So North Carolina? - Yes.

- My backyard? - Yes.

- We have all kinds of legends. - I know.

We do not have chupacabra.

And Sanderson was actually,

long before the word chupacabra was ever coined or, like entered pop culture

was looking into hybrid canines

as a source of cattle mutilations.

So he was looking at different species

because this is a dire wolf.

And then this is the canine genus, so-called dog genus.

The dire wolf is not merely a wolf.

It is a monster that roamed North America

for tens of thousands of years,

with jaws that could demolish the ten-ton long tusk mastodon

with evidence of its straying in the Ozarks nearly 4,000 years ago.

I suspect there is a chance this terrible dog interbred

with other canines and continues to stalk us like its prey.

I mean, obviously, Ivan was trying to figure out

the same thing at his time, and it's still happening now.

But what is it that we're dealing with?

And the fact that we have an actual physical body to examine,

I might be able to cross reference

our research to Sanderson's files.

That actually reminds me a big story that broke,

you know, in 2007, out of Texas

was labeled the chupacabra.

- Right. - The body was taxidermied

by a scientist named Phyllis Canion.

And it was a canine.

I wanna go to Texas.

I'd like to take a 3D scan of the specimen

and then compare that to the skull

from Sanderson's research.

So if I get to the farm and I have the body,

we can line it up with whatever you find out in Texas

and see if we're dealing with the same thing

or if it's a completely different animal altogether.

These files give us an opportunity to see

right into Ivan Sanderson's frame of mind.

So we're going to try to use his methods

and finally document a new and deadly species.

We'll measure the gathered evidence

against his classification index.

That will help us determine if this creature

is a known animal species, a Lazarus species,

something formerly thought to be extinct

or is an entirely new species altogether.

I'll head to Texas to examine the taxidermied specimen.

Meanwhile, Brittany will head to Alexander, North Carolina,

where there's been recent sightings and livestock mutilations.

Our job is to make as much of the unknown known.

And finally document proof of this elusive creature.

The Appalachian Mountains are the intersection

of two of the largest towns in North America.

With large expanses

of the treacherous landscape, uh, unexplored,

I'd say the possible and improbable are lurking in the wilderness.

Ivan Sanderson in his files,

he was looking at reports of hybrid dogs,

and he was looking into these weird, strange accounts

way before chupacabra was even coined.

Twenty miles out of Alexander, North Carolina,

Brittany, along with predator expert Troy Lillie,

and tracking expert, Justin Igualada,

head to a farm that's been the site of recent attacks.

The farm is located on the Blue Ridge Mountains,

a 615-mile highlands

that's a piece of the larger Appalachian mountain range.

The region is home to numerous predators,

including black bears and coyote.

Whatever is killing these animals, it isn't eating them.

It's just biting their necks and draining their blood.

Like, main, two large holes in the neck.

Also, we have to take into consideration

there's a lot of predators out here.

You know, you also have venomous snakes

and venomous snakes can really put you down.

Troy is my older brother.

He's extremely skilled as an animal behavioralist

when it comes to cryptids.

He's one of those guys that he has to see it to believe it.

My name is Troy Lillie, and I'm an animal behaviorist

with over 30 years of experience with wildlife,

from hoof stock to large apex predators.

Spider monkey.

Every living thing is a cryptid if it hasn't been seen yet.

Our job is to come out here and isolate everything

that it could be before we jump to that conclusion.

If it's a nasty bite, what's gonna happen is if you get bit on the neck,

for one, that's an extra vital organs.

If it hits the jugular...

...it doesn't take much.

My name is Justin Igualada.

A lot of people call me Biteforce.

I've been working with wildlife since I was a child.

I've tracked and captured alligators,

crocodiles, cougars, leopards, jags.

I've got missing body parts. Accidents can happen.

It's not a matter of "if," it's when.

And it's how you handle it.

I think that's our guy right there.

Brittany, Troy and Justin meet with a local farmer

who's had some strange animal deaths on his property.

We have to walk away from this with as much evidence as possible

for our best chance of being able to document whatever this creature is.

- Hey. - Hey, how you doing?

- Good. - Nice to meet you, Jeff. I'm Brittany.

- Hi, Brittany. - Pleasure to meet you.

- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you. Troy.

My name is Jeff. I'm a farmer.

I raise cattle and hay.

I got 65 acres.

There ain't no telling what's out here.

But I know that something's out here

because it's getting after my animals.

I came out here one morning to feed,

and I found a 1,000-pound cow here in my cow enclosure

with two puncture wounds on her neck.

So where exactly was she sitting?

Was she, like, behind the wall?

She's about 20 feet from this wall right here

in between them two posts just laying on that ground.

It's deader than hell.

And you looked it over, no mutilation, no blood, nothing?

- Nope. - And no disease, right?

Didn't affect any of the other cattle.

I mean, you figure if it was disease, they'd start falling off?

Absolutely.

So, after talking to Jeff, he said that he's had

three separate incidences where he's found dead animals.

Could that be coincidence?

Absolutely. Could it be a trend?

Once we put some signs to it,

we can verify to really know what's going on.

Down over there, I don't know if you guys

can see that tree line over there, past those power lines.

- Yeah. - I do.

I found a dead deer down there,

and it had the same markings on it as my cow.

Of course, that's two.

This is my pigpen.

But I come out here.

And look what I found.

Oh, my God.

- Poor little buddy. - Oh, man.

When we're looking at a case like this,

something that really baffles the mind is an abandoned kill.

Normally, when a predator kills something, it's to eat it.

They're doing that for a purpose.

They're wasting a lot of energy to do that,

and they're gonna do that to get more energy

by consuming the food that they need.

So for something to just leave the kill there,

it leaves this big mystery of why.

Has the goat been in here the whole time, too?

Yeah, that's Penny. We don't eat Penny.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the whole area.

We're gonna find out what possibly killed it.

Whether that'd be footprints, tracks, hair,

any of that type of stuff first,

that's a good indicator of what did happen.

But I don't see any tracks.

Bear prints would be very relevant in here.

There's just parts of it that doesn't make any sense logically.

But there is one thing I just don't see, and that's blood.

So...

Guys, would you start looking at the pig? - Yeah.

Can you look and see

what kind of the bite wounds it may or may not have?

And then I'm gonna talk to Jeff and get a little more information

on what he remembers seeing when we talked about encounters he had.

I feel like going in the shade and maybe grabbing a seat.

- All right, cool. - Yeah, absolutely.

So a lot of times when I'm investigating and I'm interviewing somebody,

it's really important that I hear their account.

This is a little dusty. - Nah, I don't-- No.

- Are you sure? - Totally fine. Yep.

Sanderson's files helped guide me.

I loved his investigative tactics

because he did his own sketches, much like myself.

So I just wanna get more details,

as much as you can remember.

I was up on the hill watching the sunset.

So, I mean, it was starting to get dark.

But I can see something

on the backside of that hill against the tree line.

I could see something moving.

And at first I thought it was a coyote.

But it was bigger.

It was bigger.

It was thicker. Its head and its nose were bigger.

I thought-- I thought, "Man, that wasn't a coyote.

That must've been a wolf." But there ain't no wolves around here.

- Right. - It hasn't been for over 100 years.

Mm-hmm.

But what really got me was the green eyes.

I didn't have a light where it could be reflecting off its eyes.

It was like its eyes was glowing on their own.

And the body color?

But like I said it was, it was dark outside,

but it definitely wasn't tan like a coyote. - Yeah.

It was a real dark, like real dark gray, almost black.

Did it look like it had hair on it?

Or did it look more skin-like?

It was almost like it was kind of mangy-looking.

Okay. I'm gonna show you what I sketched.

And you tell me if this matches what you've seen.

- Whoa. - Is that similar?

That's real similar.

Looking him in the eyes,

I firmly believe that he did see something out of place

for what he knows for his farm.

I want nothing more than to discover the chupacabra.

But have you talked about your account with anybody else in the area?

Any of the other buddies that are farmers around here?

The same thing has happened to at least two or three farmers.

Do you think I could talk to any of them? Would they be willing to talk?

I'm pretty sure that if a girl with blond hair bought 'em a beer,

they might tell you about a chupacabra or two. -

They probably would.

Let's get it up on the table.

I'm sorry, dude.

So anytime we have a death that's mysterious,

we'll do a necropsy.

The same way that you would think of an autopsy for a person.

The coroner goes in, they get the person.

They cut him up to see what the cause of death was.

For us with the animals, same thing.

It's to find out why the animal died or how it died.

We're gonna be looking for any punctures, damage,

damage to the body.

The feet look good.

When you first see Justin,

he looks like he's been thrown through a meat grinder,

and then dressed up and sent out to the street.

But once you really understand him,

Justin has talents that are way beyond

almost anybody I've ever met, including a lot of vets.

He's very talented, from husbandry to breeding, tracking.

His knowledge goes really, really far.

I mean, there's some lacerations on the arm.

Superficial, nothing deep.

There's a massive laceration here on the snout,

so that could be some defensive wounds right there, Troy.

What the is that?

Oh. Those are wounds.

yeah, they are.

That could be a bite mark.

Oh, right inside of the neck, huh?

Yeah.

You're looking at a 2-inch bite gap, man.

Bottom punctures are smaller.

Which is indigenous to a dog bite.

So is there anything other than the vampire bat

that would suck blood out of this animal?

I mean, the best way to find out,

we're gonna have to open this up.

The tonsils do look a little funky, to be honest with you.

And that's right next to where the bite is.

But I am gonna take the full tonsil.

So normally when you're investigating an animal that's dead,

you want to know if it was taken by a predator.

Generally, they're consumed.

And there are animals that feed on blood.

Mosquitoes, vampire bats.

but they eat off the victim while it's still alive.

The fact that this animal is dead

and still fully intact is weird.

The mosquitoes and, like, vampire bats, they have,

like, I don't know if you would call it...

I think it would be an analgesic.

It's a painkiller. It's a topical painkiller.

I got you. So they don't feel it.

But this animal clearly felt the wound,

like there's defensive wounds all over this animal.

Yeah.

The broad analysis that I can give

off of the necropsy.

I can pretty much cut out any large cat.

Predatory cats, when they go for the kill,

they have surgical knives for hands.

They're gonna use that to grab, subdue their prey,

they want to kill it as quickly as possible.

Bear's a little bit different.

It's using the mouth to pull up while using the claws

to kind of shred the meat as it goes.

Based off what I'm looking at, the animal looks okay.

The only thing we're seeing is these bite marks.

- Ugh. - See the bite right there?

And there's another mark right there.

Yeah, that's what we're talking about.

That's a bite underneath and then two bites on top.

What we can put in is canines.

I think that would be the closest thing that I can assert

from the information that I have in front of me right now.

What would you guys say is your best guess at this point?

Best educated guess would be like a loner coyote.

A coyote taking out a cow is pretty unlikely,

- I'm just saying. - Right.

It didn't have any blood everywhere,

and there was no big prints.

There's so many scenarios

that we just really don't know much about - Mmm-hmm.

to pinpoint anything just yet.

The whole thing's perplexing.

With the account of his cow, and now we got this pig.

I mean, you're talking about some pretty weird

Okay, so I talked to Jeff about his encounter.

I went ahead and sketched what he saw,

and basically this is the best description

of the image of what he saw.

A lot of animals, and in some cases large predators,

will only go to a certain proximity away from their home

or their nesting or their dens.

So we aren't really sure

what we're dealing with at this point.

We don't know its behavior,

and it might stay in a small proximity.

He mentioned to me today that

he has other people in the area

that have had similar sightings,

so I think it would actually be beneficial

if we could get with those individuals,

maybe locally in town, and hear more of the reports,

and maybe try to make some connections

of some type of animal

or what animal this might be.

Well, the more information you get us,

the better we can do.

I personally want to hear their accounts

to make sure and confirm

that what they're seeing is the chupacabra.

It's easy to forget that the domesticated canine

is the descendant of many vicious predators.

In 1854, remnants of a dire wolf were uncovered

from the bed of the Ohio River.

Uh, this is an indication that the ancient canine

may be in the southwestern United States.

Now, one could speculate that there was abundant opportunity

for stateside canine inter-breeding.

Going straight to the source on something like this

is super valuable.

I agree, especially from an investigative standpoint.

You have a body, you have the actual witness who was there.

It really doesn't get any better than that.

1,500 miles southwest of Alexander, North Carolina,

Charlie, along with ex-CIA agent Tracy Walder,

approached Dr. Phylis Canion's ranch.

Phylis has the only specimen of chupacabra

that has ever been recovered.

And I brought Tracy along to authenticate

Phylis and her research.

Dr. Canion has clearly done her homework on this.

She biopsied the carcass for mange,

she took DNA samples,

she looked at all the possibilities of what it could be.

Hi, Phylis.

My name is Tracy Walder,

I'm one of the few women to have served

as a CIA officer and FBI special agent.

I served nine tours overseas

supporting the counterterrorism mission.

Having a body here gives us the ability

to provide basically first-hand analysis,

to measure it, touch it, do our own research,

and in all honesty, that's what's gonna get us closer

to the answers that we need.

It's absolutely beautiful here.

Thank you very much.

I am Dr. Phylis B. Canion,

and yes, I have the only chupacabra anywhere in the world.

I've watched this animal for about two years.

Once I started losing the chickens,

then it was like, "Well, what really is it?"

So I kept losing so many chickens.

How many did you lose?

- Twenty-nine in total. - Wow.

I thought it was amazing

that whatever was killing the chickens

never hauled the chicken off,

and that's very unusual for any predator

to come in and kill fresh meat and leave it.

And if you look in these pictures...

Oh, it's a puncture mark.

It's very clear there are puncture marks.

The animal has a different look.

The animal had no hair on it, dog-like,

and eyes were so blue.

Then I got the call that something had been hit

and killed in front of our ranch.

As I'm driving down the highway,

I can see it laying in the middle of the road.

So I pulled over, pulled it off the road,

and it... that was the animal.

So if you want, we can let you see it,

and we'll go from there.

I am really excited, actually seeing the specimen.

I have followed this story

for almost two decades at this point.

Wow.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

Within the world of cryptozoology,

having a witness and hard evidence together

are the holy grail.

If we can take measurements and connect those

with the other team's findings,

we will be able to figure out

how this chupacabra came to be.

Phylis, do you mind if Charlie and I

do some analysis of this?

Absolutely not.

Yeah, whatever you guys would like to do, you can do it.

We're going to use high dynamic range imaging

on the suspected chupa specimen.

The device generates a three-dimensional representation

of the creature to scale.

We'll be able to zoom in, maintain scale,

look at what these teeth are like,

and then compare that to any bite marks that are recovered.

With the 3D scans, we can compare the body structure,

skull sizes, and teeth measurements to the dire wolf.

The 3D model of the specimen will never deteriorate,

and we can closely examine

every nook and cranny of the body.

What's going on with these haunches?

We don't really know what they were.

In the beginning, it looks like it's probably a gland.

But when I did one of the DNAs, I scappled here,

and it was just pink, fresh meat.

During my time at both the CIA and the FBI,

I was really trained to determine whether or not

someone is a credible witness.

I think Phylis is extremely credible,

has done so much research,

and such a thorough investigation herself.

So this was the first time that we did DNA.

We have done it multiple times,

and it all has come back identical.

Part of it matched the Mexican wolf,

and the other part matched the coyote.

What about the third one?

The DNA doesn't match anything in the animal data bank

that we have in this country.

What you're saying is this is a straight-up hybrid.

Yes, and we have the DNA to prove it.

Based on the experience with Phylis,

I am all in on this hybrid dog creature

being what people are calling the Chupacabra.

Species interbreed.

What I need to do now is to determine

if that third unknown DNA signature

could point to the dire wolf.

Oh, Charlie's calling.

- Hey, guys. - What's up, dude?

I look forward to hearing what the field team came up with.

Before I examine the specimen further,

I want to share relevant measurements.

Head size, body shape, teeth size, and spacing

to see how that compares with what's being encountered

in North Carolina.

We're on, um, Jeff's farm.

Yesterday, we were able to dive into his latest kill,

which was a pig.

We did a necropsy on the animal,

and we were able to discover that it had the same type

of puncture wounds

that matched a lot of the chupacabra cases

with the two fangs that make the mark in the jugular.

That's interesting.

The specimen was decidedly a canine.

The DNA analysis, we were able to confirm

that it was Mexican wolf, coyote, and partially unknown.

Can you elaborate on partially unknown?

It just didn't match anything in the system.

It's like fingerprints.

If you have a catalog of fingerprints,

you can only match what's in the catalog.

There's a high probability that it could be related

to the dire wolf.

Charlie, what's really interesting is that pig that died

has bite marks on its neck that matches that of a canine.

When you were looking at the specimen,

what kind of measurements did you get from it?

From the front right tooth to the front left tooth,

so like the fangs, essentially, of the canines, - Mmm-hmm.

uh, inch and a half.

Does that line up with anything? - Yes.

That's what we got right here, too.

That was the one on the pig.

I can kind of hold this up so you can look real quick.

It was an inch and a half.

Okay. This is good stuff.

I have no doubt that this is a hybrid animal,

the specimen that I've seen.

Where it starts to get weird, where I'm really interested,

is what you are encountering is the same kind of hybrid.

Or they're migrating up more north,

and they're continuing to breed,

and it's just continuing to flow up here.

If we can match that specimen to the DNA from your site,

that would be awesome.

The most important part of this investigation

right now is DNA.

We have got to collect DNA in the field

and match it to Charlie's DNA

to see if we are dealing with the exact same creature.

I'm going to set some traps

and see if we can get it inside a trap.

If not, I'll do my best to get maybe a hair snag.

Something important Jeff mentioned was the fact

that other farmers in the area

are having the same type of sightings

of the same type of creature.

It's important that we go and meet with these locals

and get their accounts,

because we could probably triangulate a perfect location

and pinpoint where we're going to be able

to find this creature.

Sounds like we have a pretty good turnout in there actually.

It sounds like a lot of people.

I have a profound respect for the local natives

simply due to their real knowledge of the country.

and local accounts are still ever more precise

and categoric reports that these creatures really exist

and are not just old wives' tales.

All right.

Hi, everybody.

Whoa, what's going on?

Hey, all right.

Where's Hammer?

- Right back here. - Hi, buddy. How are you?

- Good. - I'm Brittany. Nice to meet you.

- You too. - We got to meet your buddy, Jeff.

- Okay. - Troy. Nice to meet you.

I need to know how you got that name, too.

Ah. That's a long story.

Thank you, sir.

Um, we're in the area because obviously there's been

some really strange accounts on a lot of the farms up here

of kind of like animal mutilation.

Has anybody else had any kind of strange accounts like that?

- Similar to that? - Yeah.

- Yes. - Yes.

So pretty much everybody.

It was like a vampire, sucking blood,

making the puncture wounds.

And it didn't get its prey.

- It just got-- - It bit. It just sucked blood--

Yeah. Got a bite of it and left.

A lot of the accounts is very much like...

almost like if they went to attack

and they got something and then you scared it off.

- Right. - Like the animal couldn't do what it needed to do.

We've also found cats and foxes with one--

chickens, lots of something, dug underneath one time.

And it took their heads and the back ends, also as well.

Were there any blood of the remains of the chicken death?

- No, actually, there wasn't. - Or were they pretty dry?

It looked like a clean--

Yeah.

- From the back? - Mmm-hmm.

I don't trust group witnesses

because a lot of the stories are going to line up.

Everybody comes to the watering hole,

they go, "Did you see that? I saw that. Did you see that?"

And then over time, the stories start to blend.

But each one of these people have seen something,

so we have to take everyone in consideration

and figure out where this thing is hunting.

I want to pull out my map

because if I'm able to figure out a pattern,

then we might be able to hone in on them...

- Right. - ...which would be amazing.

- So if I can get everybody... - That would be.

...for Troy and I to get names of locations

of the towns or areas you've seen them in,

I'm gonna mark them on my map.

- You got it. Yes, ma'am. - Okay?

All right.

All right, John.

I saw one of 'em over about 10 miles up the road.

How about you, Punk?

Um, right here in Oak Grove.

- Right here? - Yeah.

Right here.

What about you, bud?

The beginning of Mill Creek. - From the beginning.

- So that'd be right-- Yup. - That's up in the top right there.

I just had the cat encounter.

- Where was that? - It was up on Mill Creek.

Oh, so same spot!

It's all circles right through here.

There's a lot of things.

You don't know what's out there, but...

but they are.

Now that we have some pinpoints on the map,

it will allow us to kind of triangulate the areas

and the patterns in which these animals are being seen.

And having that information, we might be able to pinpoint

the exact location to find this creature.

We could be capturing the Chupacabra tonight,

and that has never been done before.

- Is this the light? - Yeah, it's the UV light.

We need to test some gear to track this creature.

The phosphorus within our blood

that actually under a UV light will glow

like a bioluminescent almost in color.

That's in all bodily fluid.

Well, is it all? Is it all bodily--

- It's a lot of them. - Hold on.

- All right, let's go. - Hold on, hold on.

We'll test this theory right now.

Are we doing this? We're not doing this. - Shut up.

Just shut up for a second.

- Hold on. I got it. - Oh, my God.

I got you covered.

This is going to help.

Is it lighting up?

- No. - No.

All right. Well, now we know

- it only works for blood. - Phosphorescence lets it glow.

So carry on.

Well, thank you for...

Ugh.

Guys, the cage is ready. Let's get this goat.

The next morning in the foothills of Appalachia,

the team prepares the most important step of the hunt,

to lure in and document the mysterious killer canine.

You're okay, mama.

Want some Cheetos?

Using Farmer Jeff's goat Penny as bait,

they will head to a location they identified as ground zero,

based on local accounts.

All right. So, we've been spending a lot of time

with Miss Penny over here. And this is Jeff's goat.

We don't want anything bad to happen to her.

We're gonna have her in a separate enclosure

and keep her safe.

Here you go, mama.

Good girl.

It's okay, mama.

We really gotta do whatever we can

to keep Penny safe tonight, J.

Using the map of recent eyewitness sightings,

the team has determined the best location

to encounter the creature.

Hey, is this the right spot?

Just, I think this is kind of a game or cattle trail.

What do you want to do?

Well, we got this hole right here.

This is obviously heavily used.

We can tell because the clay is packed so hard

that the shrubs and the grass can't even grow.

So what's your plan?

I mean, I get it. I just--

We're running out of daylight,

and I want to get this up before it gets dark.

Yeah, well, it's a clear path.

Somebody's definitely taking it.

And it's going to take that corner.

So I think we just put it as close to that corner as possible.

The game trail runs along the fence

and turns a corner at the tree line.

They plan to surprise the creature

and set the trap where the trail turns.

Are you ready, baby girl?

I'm gonna spin this way and we'll walk that way. Okay? - Okay.

That way you ain't got to spin too much, okay?

This is an extremely big moment

for all of us out here.

We literally could be capturing

the Chupacabra tonight at any moment.

We're gonna go right up yonder.

This is huge for cryptozoology and even for zoology.

This is a new animal to study, and this is massive.

If it works, whether it be a coyote, a wolf or a chalupa,

what it's going to do is it's gonna run into that enclosure,

there's a foot plate down there,

the minute it goes through to see to get to the goat,

if it touches that plate, it'll just drop,

and then these two stoppers will pin down in

and we have the animal safe. It won't hurt the animal.

And, man, if we catch it...

Well, that gives us all the information we'll ever need.

What I'm doing here is a makeshift type of hair snag.

And what hair snags are is basically

a more humane way of catching the hair.

Anybody on a farm knows that when they use the barbed wire,

deers jumping over the fence,

coyotes coming underneath there,

these little-- if you look...

You see these little metal pieces coming out?

It'll catch the hair, catch the skin.

And most the time, it just-- the animal just keeps on going

and left behind is just DNA.

So our goat is in front of the trap.

We're all built. Next move,

Brittany and I are gonna go down to the blind.

Justin's gonna go up into the tree stand,

and we have infrared and thermal cameras,

and we're gonna be watching,

waiting for anything to come by this area.

Now, in a normal situation,

I'm gonna be over there with Troy.

And if sis is with us, she's coming with us, too.

So we usually stick together.

But in a scenario like this,

I think it's better that we split up.

And I got a good vantage point

because I'm about... probably 20 feet up in the air.

They have a different line of, uh, a line of sight...

on the the right opening.

And then, as far as I am,

I am dead-sight on that goat.

You got the good camera.

I'm over here with the old-school infrared.

Remember we used to use these when we were kids

and pretend we were ghosts?

I'm the ghost from Christmas past,

and I'm here to tell you...

God, you kind of look like... - ...that that thing's gonna

take you.

- Ew, that looks-- - Can you see my real soul?

Ew-- No. Your eyes are white.

Like, everything's white, but your beard.

You guys can't see it,

but I can put my feet up over here

and kind of lean back and just be real quiet

and wait for things to come by.

So, I'm gravy.

I think I could live up here for the rest of my life.

It's very rare on these occasions

when we work together like this with sis,

uh, for our theories to kind of intersect.

I think we're kind of all in agreement

that it is some canine species.

If we can actually get some DNA out of this,

it's gonna be the only way to actually find out

exactly what the hell we've got going on,

aside from us getting that thing inside that trap.

Troy. Troy. Troy!

Do you hear it?

Troy. Troy!

What is that?

Justin, did you see that? Go, go.

- It ran past the trap. - It went all the way past it.

- Okay, okay. Let's go. - Comin' down, Troy.

Penny!

Yo, get to the goat! Get to the goat!

- Go, go, go! - I got him.

Hi, sweet girl. You're okay.

Justin's gone. He's chasing it.

Shoot!

Holy hell, that's fast.

Damn!

I can't see.

It didn't even mess with this.

No, it didn't.

God, that thing was fast.

- Oh, my God. Troy I had that-- - Son of a bitch!

- I had that in view-- - I'm telling you,

that thing was moving quick. It cut right through here.

, I was wondering why this curve was here.

He's got to be traveling this way.

He didn't even set the trap off.

Where the is the post?

Troy, that means it hooked it. - No, he hit it.

What do you got? What do you got?

This took some strides that I ain't never seen before.

No, he had, like, a... like a, um...

You know how when an armadillo runs really fast?

And you kind of see his legs?

He flew through here, but I bet you it was about--

Man, like, you can't judge the distance by looking.

But I would say his back was probably right about here.

And he was screaming, dude.

Oh, my God, I found it!

I found it! I found it! I found it! I found it!

- Hold on, hold on, hold on! - Yeah.

- He never went here. - Come on, there's got to be something.

It wouldn't have just dragged on it for just--

Oh, I see it! I got something!

That's actual skin.

I got skin, which means when that thing dodged that pen,

it actually caught it by the leg, most likely,

and that's when it hooked it and actually ran out with it.

I don't actually have hair, which would make sense

because in some cases, these things are hairless.

This right here could be the evidence

of the Chupacabra. Right here.

And what's been terrorizing this area,

it could literally be sitting

right here in the palm of my hand right now.

Did we get the actual physical body of the Chupacabra?

No.

But what we did get was a piece of DNA.

I have tissue of this animal, whatever it is.

But now I need to get that sample tested

because Charlie is in Texas with Tracy,

and I need to see if we can cross reference

and see if we're dealing with the same animal

in both places.

We've got a few key pieces of evidence here

that I think we can really work with.

Dr. Canion was able to give us copies of her report

and verify the databases that the DNA was sequenced against.

Using the 3D scanner,

I made a composite skull of Phylis' Chupacabra.

It doesn't it look like Sanderson's theorized hybrid skull sketch.

It's pretty darn close. - It is pretty darn close.

We actually got something on camera

that very much looked like a canine.

Okay.

And I have the report right here from the lab.

Okay, big reveal.

What did you say your sequence was again?

So I had part Mexican wolf, part coyote

and another part unidentifiable.

Charlie, we have a match.

This is saying "potential coyote and Mexican wolf

and an unknown hit."

I think we have our culprit.

Based on the evidence we've collected,

we have a link in DNA and the predatory patterns

between the creatures from Texas and North Carolina.

The dire wolf skull similarities

could indicate a Lazarus result.

But it is highly likely,

according to Ivans Classification Index,

that this is a new species.

I don't like calling it the Chupacabra.

I think this is something special.

We need to completely give it its own file.

Let's do "lykos" for wolf, in Greek term.

- I like that. - And...

Sphynx.

Ooh, a lykos sphynx.

This furthers Sanderson's research

in a meaningful way.

But we won't stop searching

until we can document the Chupacabra definitively.

That means the research has to continue,

hopefully, before it migrates further north.

Let's make a new folder.

Individuals believe that science

is simply a list of what the collective already knows.

Uh, I believe that science

is a set of tools to uncover what we do not know.