- Long spines going down its back
and a beetle-like head and little pointy teeth.
- Chupacabras have been seen all over the place.
- There's something in the water
which conferred longevity on animals.
It may well be applicable to human beings
or other types of animals.
- The further back you go in time
the stranger the dog becomes.
It has one eye, two eyes,
it howls, it drags a chain.
- Have some Australian cattle
found a magical elixir of life?
And just what are the phantom black dogs of Britain?
Animal X uncovers the weird world of animal mystery.
First we head to Mexico to investigate
a strange creature known as the goat sucker.
- They say it stalks the countryside,
preying on defenseless animals.
It only strikes at night
and has an insatiable thirst for blood.
It'll stop at nothing,
even attacking humans to satisfy its needs.
- I know what I saw.
And this really was a creature.
- Three fingers.
The first finger here was much larger
than the rest of the fingers.
- Long spines going down its back
and a beetle-like head and little pointy teeth.
- This is the only photograph of what
Spanish-Americans have christened
the chupacabras, or goat sucker.
Animal X went to Tucson, Arizona to find out
what struck fear into the heart of the Spanish community.
Since the first reported encounter in Puerto Rico,
three years ago, sightings have increased dramatically.
With some as far flung as New York and even Moscow.
Few have followed the chupacabras trail
as closely as independent investigator Ted Loman.
The growing weight of evidence has turned
the riddle of the goat sucker into a personal obsession.
- I've gone back into a number of reference books
to see if there was something like this
that I could refer to back in history.
Could this spend years, possibly,
tens of years or maybe even hundreds of years
hibernating until something that we don't know awakens it?
And then it finds itself trying to survive
on a place that it has really no recollection,
or no idea how to do that.
Whatever its origins,
chupacabras has become a byword for terror
south of the border, where attacks are on the increase.
- The woman from Mexico claims--
- This Mexican woman claims she was
attacked by a chupacabras after it
went on a livestock killing rampage.
- He grabbed me right here, he wouldn't let me go.
I fought with him, but he wouldn't let me move my head.
- The twin puncture marks,
first seen on animals said to be killed by the goat sucker,
were found on this man after he says he was jumped
by a chupacabras along a darkened country road.
In Puerto Rico this kind of media coverage
has aroused such fear among the general public
that many are afraid to leave their homes at night.
One local man has even organized a chupacabras hunt.
One of the most recent sightings
was at this suburban Tucson home.
A man claims the creature entered the house
early one morning, passed through the kitchen
and sat on the bed of one of his young sons.
He's convinced what his son saw
was a chupacabras.
- And he described it, that it had big red eyes,
and ears and a beak.
And it was the same thing that I had seen.
Then I realized that we had it inside the house.
- Tucson Police Department.
- A police investigation into the incident
found the son's description entirely consistent
with previous sightings.
- Any other distinguishing features?
Large red eyes?
We took the report as a true and real life
sighting of some kind, or activity,
and a suspicious activity report on it.
He said it was about three feet tall.
It had long arms,
no legs.
It had a beak
and a bright red nose.
And they said that when the creature
came into the house, it smelled kinda like a wet dog.
- Jim Griffith is a folklore
expert at the University of Arizona.
He's been following the growing chupacabras cult in the US
and abroad since the first reported encounters.
He agrees there's no logical explanation
for the goat sucker phenomenon.
Chupacabras have been seen all over the place
and there are a lot of people who absolutely believe
that there are chupacabras.
I think one school of thought feels that they're diabolic.
Another school of thought feels that
they're mysterious animals.
- For Joe Urea, the specter of the chupacabras
still haunts him more than 30 years after the day
he came face to face with his worst nightmare.
At play in the back yard of Tucson home,
Joe realized he was not alone.
- I felt something looking at me.
I turned around,
saw this creature's head.
First thing that ran through my mind was to go ahead and,
Joe you better run.
And I did.
And as I did, I kept looking at the creature.
First thing that I saw was his eyes.
And then its head.
And noticed it didn't have any ears.
And it looked like it was either real tall
or it was standing.
And he was, as it looked at me,
it looked at me like a very...
I don't know, like it wanted me to come over there to him.
Like he,
seemed like I was his, he was the predator,
I was the victim.
- With the US media
jumping on the bloodsucker bandwagon,
there's more speculation than ever
over the existence of the chupacabras.
Eyewitness accounts continue to
pour in from around the globe.
But it is anything more than a product of mass hysteria?
Experts believe that the growing number of sightings
makes the mystery of the chupacabras impossible to ignore.
- There has to be a reason behind the phenomena.
I don't think that there is enough investigation
on this animal yet to compile enough
information to find out exactly where it comes from,
where it lives, what's its purpose.
Maybe in the future if something is
trapped or captured,
Then we may be able to know.
- While the debate continues
over the chupacabras,
in Australia scientists and farmers
are searching for answers to another
puzzling mystery, involving cattle.
Animal X went to take a look at the so-called
magic cows.
- Imagine if we could all live
to the ripe old age of 150.
Bear children into our 60s and 70s,
have twins, triplets, even quads.
Now in Australia,
discovering that magic elixir
could be closer than we think.
And the clues are coming from the most unlikely source.
Animal X traveled to New South Wales
to visit the Monaro region
and the mysterious cattle that defy the laws of nature.
They look like everyday cows.
- Most cows are gone by the time
they're nine or 10 years old.
- But Aussie farmer Wendy Hanes'
daisies are definitely different.
- The oldest cow here at the moment's 22 years old.
- Gunya Loyal the 80th
had her last calf just a couple of years ago.
In human terms, that's like having a baby in your 70s.
- I do know that Wendy has cows that have had,
regularly had calves up until the age of 15 years.
Cows have lived to 23.
- And that's like us living to about 150.
There can be little doubt that there's a strange secret
lurking beneath this cattle country,
here in the shadow of Australia's Snowy Mountains.
Scientists have been here to investigate
and they're not saying what they've found.
Here the country they call the Monaro is tough.
When the winds are blowing,
temperatures plummet well below freezing.
Julie Johnson, Wendy's neighbor, runs an angus stud.
It's the same mysterious story here.
Many of these animals are living
more than twice their normal lifespan.
Still producing offspring at 18 or 19 years of age.
What's more, there's an extraordinarily
high number of multiple births.
- When you get to having as many twins
as we've had in cattle, that really is an unusual thing.
Solving the mystery
could be significant for all of us.
The biochemistry of old age in cattle
is much the same as in humans.
Finding out what keeps these cattle alive
could give us all a longer lease of life.
In the nation's capital, Canberra,
in a small anonymous building belonging
to the Department of Health,
months were spent testing and probing samples.
Usually after samples are taken,
scientific theories are made public.
But in this case, the mystery only deepens.
The scientists won't talk.
- I think they're keeping things pretty quiet.
- One of the most plausible explanations
floating around seems to be in the water.
- All of Wendy's stock are fed from spring water,
which comes from deep down in the ground.
The water table is getting lower.
Whether that's a factor or not,
I don't know.
Millions of years ago,
volcanic eruptions covered this area with basalt,
lava rocks rich in minerals.
Local springs contain a chemical cocktail
of calcium, magnesium, iron, sodium and potassium.
- All our water supply on the place is
from underground springs.
- They've served generations
of long-living sheep and cattle,
but not local families.
They've tried to run it into their homesteads,
but the water is so loaded with minerals,
it destroys the pumps and the pipes.
If the water is the key,
the scientists aren't letting on.
- There's something in the water
which conferred longevity on animals.
It may well be applicable to human beings
or other types of animals.
- But if the cows have discovered
a magical elixir of life, they're not alone.
Wendy and Julie also run sheep on their Monaro properties.
It seems that they too are also
living long and fertile lives.
And some of the ewes are 17 years old.
When, and if, the scientists release their results,
we may finally discover the magic of the Manaro
and maybe, just maybe,
the elusive secret to a long and healthy life.
Australia's magic cows
present an intriguing tale.
After the break, we investigate another one.
This time with more frightening overtones.
Britain's phantom black dogs have been seen for centuries.
Animal X speaks to those who claim
to have had a ghostly encounter of the canine kind.
- I've got my head down, biking towards work,
and I suddenly heard a chain rattling around
like a dog pulling a chain along.
And when I looked up, there was nothing there.
- Welcome back to Animal X.
Dogs may well be man's best friend,
but that's rarely the case when it comes to
the phantom black dogs of Britain.
Sightings are often followed by tragic events.
Not so surprising, really,
these canines are said to be in league with the Devil.
- For some, they're protective creatures.
For others, an omen of death.
They've even been described as a manifestation of the Devil.
Whatever their purpose, the phantom black dogs of Britain
have appeared in many shapes and forms.
400 years ago, a demon black dog was even blamed
for killing five people as they prayed in a church.
Not surprisingly, these phantom beasts have left
an indelible impression on anyone who's sighted them.
- The further back you go in time,
the stranger the dog becomes.
It has one eye, two eyes,
it howls, it drags a chain.
It takes many guises.
- The red, fiery eyes were the things that
stuck in her memory, more than anything.
- I think it was a ghost,
which a lot of people have seen 'round here.
I think that my sister and I saw it that night.
- Animal X traveled to East Anglia in Britain,
where the legend of the black dog,
or Old Shuck, has its strongest roots.
And where it's still seen today.
We met up with this man, Ivan Bunn,
a folklore expert who's collected
more than 100 reported sightings of the ghostly canines.
One of his most fascinating cases
involves a Coast Guard at a beach in Norfolk.
Graham Grant was on duty at dawn 25 years ago
when he noticed a huge black dog
with a shaggy coat walking along the sand.
He said it appeared to be searching for something,
not like an ordinary dog, but as though
it had a higher purpose.
Its paranormal origin was confirmed
when it disappeared into thin air.
- He's convinced that it vanished,
he says if it had run off into the sea
or up onto the sand dunes then
he would've seen it go, and he didn't.
And as a trained observer,
I suppose we have to accept the story that he told.
- At the time, Graham Grant
didn't consider the dog to be evil,
but later another Coast Guard told him that
what he'd seen was the legendary phantom black dog,
considered to be harbinger of doom.
Old Shuck soon lived up to its reputation.
According to a report from Mr. Grant,
shortly after the sighting, his colleague died,
suddenly, at work.
Then, just weeks after he told the ghostly tale
to his father, he also died unexpectedly, of a heart attack.
- There's a very old tradition that,
should you see what you think is a phantom black dog,
then you should never tell anybody for a year and a day.
If you do tell anybody,
then that's when the evil befalls you.
- 40 years earlier,
Brenda Bartram had a ghostly encounter at nearby Barnby.
She was walking to the post office with her sister at night
when she suddenly saw a dog in the moonlight.
Assuming it was her neighbor's pet,
she tried to get hold of it.
- When I first saw it,
it was just like a retriever dog.
You know, black retriever dog.
And when I went to get hold of it,
to take it home because,
boy was deaf, that just went small.
I couldn't touch it.
When I went down to get it, like that,
that just went like a cat.
And I stepped back, I was frightened.
- More than 60 years on,
Mrs. Bartram still won't venture out alone at night.
She fears the phantom dog could be out there,
somewhere.
It was around the same time that Old Shuck
was spotted by another witness,
a few kilometers away in Beccles.
Christine Turrell's mother, Emma, was convinced
she saw the phantom canine in her back garden.
It appeared out of nowhere and jumped up
to look through a window.
- The dog turned 'round and brushed past her
and she noticed its big, red, fiery eyes.
And it run off down the yard.
And Dad came out with the torch
and put the torch all around the garden.
But there was no dog and it couldn't
possibly have got in or out becacuse there was
a six-foot wall 'round the garden then.
- Right up until she died,
Emma Riches stood by her story.
That she'd disturbed a devil dog
that fateful night in 1938.
Other people in the area say they've only heard Old Shuck.
One man who contacted Ivan Bunn
claimed he was followed by a phantom dog.
- This dog, which he never saw,
apparently got closer and closer to him.
He could hear it breathing,
he could hear its footsteps coming
through the reeds and the grass.
He could hear it panting.
And the faster he walked to get away from it,
it continued to follow him right across the marshes.
And he was extremely frightened by the experience.
- A few weeks later,
the man reported that his son had died tragically.
Had the presence of Old Shuck been an omen?
A foreteller of disaster?
Most paranormal experts agree that black dogs
are more substantial than ghosts,
as they often leave physical traces behind,
such as paw prints.
In 1577 a devil dog reportedly
bounded into a church in Blythburgh.
As the congregation knelt in prayer,
it swept through the pews,
apparently killing two men and a boy.
Another person was said to have
suffered burns in the attack.
Today, scorch marks are still visible.
- They are, will be offered, are offered,
as tangible proof that the Devil
in the shape of a great big black dog
visited this church in 1577.
Did the things that he did and
fled through this door and damaged it on the way out.
- Even the church has
given some weight to the story.
Its official brochure describes
the markings as the Devil's fingerprints.
Legend has it that another church in the nearby town
of Bungay was also visited by a devil black dog.
The frightening event is said to have happened
on the same day, during a violent thunderstorm.
One written account, published shortly afterwards,
describes how a black dog, or a devil in such likeness,
appeared before the terrified congregation.
Panic broke out as the beast attacked two worshipers
who dropped to their knees, praying for mercy.
While church records make no mention of the phantom dog,
they do confirm two deaths, but in the belfry.
It's claimed the pair were struck by lightning
as they rang the giant bells to frighten away
evil spirits, thought to have caused the shocking storm.
Demon dog or nature's fury?
One thing's for sure,
after that day church goers took Old Shuck very seriously.
- There were certainly prevalent notions
about the black dog as a very evil figure.
And so, presumably, if anything tragic
or disastrous happened in their lives,
they might associate that with a sort of black dog figure.
- Bungay isn't shy about
the dark page in its history.
Quite the opposite.
It plans to commemorate the millennium
with a statue of the black dog.
But not everyone is keen to see
the devil creature celebrated in bronze.
- They say it's a symbol of the Devil.
And that it's an evil thing and we shouldn't be
associating it with a Christian millennium celebration.
- While the debate rages on,
there's no sign of it affecting the number
of witnesses coming forward.
- I was gonna go out one cold and windy morning
and I got my head down, biking towards work,
and I suddenly heard a chain rattling around
like a dog pulling a chain along.
And when I looked up, there was nothing there.
- Mr. Jackson says the sound
made by the heavy chain was unmistakable.
And terrifying.
His wife is another who agrees
that Old Shuck is no fairy story.
- There's obviously something around here.
I mean, it's not just coincidence
that different people have seen things,
as far as I'm concerned.
So yes, I do believe in...
The Old Shuck, whatever you like to call it.
- For Ivan Bunn, the weight of evidence
is too heavy to dismiss.
Reported sightings are too common
and too convincing.
- The people that have contacted me,
the people that have talked to me,
the people that I've talked to,
are 100% certain that what happened to them
was beyond an explanation, an ordinary explanation.
That they are convinced that
this ghost,
this apparition, this devil dog, this Shuck,
whatever you wanna call it,
was extraordinary, for some reason or the other.
And I firmly believe that
their stories shouldn't be taken lightly.
- No one can really explain
the appearance of Old Shuck.
But many are convinced that the lonely parts
of East Anglia are home to a phantom creature
that looks like a huge dog,
but has paranormal powers.
- It's said there are stranger things
in Heaven and Earth than we can think of.
- There has to be a reason behind the phenomena.
- There's something there,
but we just don't know what it is.