UFO Researcher Says Predator Stalks Chihuahua; Officials Have No Reports

A new creature story is spreading from the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, and it comes with a familiar name attached. Jaime Maussan, a Mexican journalist and well-known ufologist, says a “strange being” is killing chickens, roosters and rabbits in the Valley of Juárez, a rural area in the state of Chihuahua outside the city. Some Mexican and international outlets have asked whether it is the chupacabra. Local officials say they have no reports of anything unusual, and no remains or other biological evidence have been made public.

What Maussan says

Radiza and La Opción de Chihuahua report that Maussan says he is investigating witness accounts of a being that moves on two legs and looks partly human. Maussan told reporters his interest began after a child, who has not been named, supposedly saw the animal carry off a hen by the head and climb a tree, Infobae reports.

At a press conference on Saturday, October 17, IBTimes UK reports, Maussan described an agile, white predator. Infobae, citing the Daily Mail, says four research assistants working with him estimated that it measures about 1.8 meters (nearly six feet) from head to the tip of a tail of roughly 90 centimeters, by comparing it with the brick wall it was seen climbing. They said it did not match the raccoons, opossums or rats of the region. El Mañana, a Nuevo Laredo newspaper, noted that this is a visual comparison and “not a confirmed measurement.”

Maussan has also raised a stranger idea. “It’s a predator. I’m not saying it’s extraterrestrial, but it is something scary,” IBTimes UK quotes him as telling NetNoticias.Mx, and he has floated an “interdimensional” origin. El Mañana pointed out that he presented no verifiable evidence for that hypothesis.

It’s a predator. I’m not saying it’s extraterrestrial, but it is something scary.

Jaime Maussan to NetNoticias.Mx, as quoted by IBTimes UK, October 21, 2026

What the images show

Maussan’s team says the photos and videos it released show a being with long limbs and a long tail, Infobae and El Mañana report; according to Infobae, team members say it is seen climbing a wall or coming down a tree. Infobae said the team offered no conclusive scientific identification of the species. IBTimes UK noted that the footage does not show the animal walking upright, even though Maussan has said it can. El Mañana wrote that there is no public scientific evidence of what the animal is, and that the allegations rest on testimony that still needs independent corroboration. Infobae added that photographs and videos alone do not show that it is a chupacabra.

In mid-October, La Opción reported, Maussan said he would keep gathering information over the coming months and was considering setting up cameras and traps. He said the results could “surprise” the residents of Ciudad Juárez, the paper said. Infobae reports that he had already travelled to Ciudad Juárez to follow the case.

What officials say

On October 14, La Opción and Radiza reported that the municipal Civil Protection office in Ciudad Juárez had no official reports or evidence supporting Maussan’s account. Its director, Sergio Rodríguez, said the agency’s only recent work in the valley had been related to rain damage, with no incident linked to an unknown creature. La Opción’s report closed by calling the claim an account “without official verification” (“sin comprobación oficial”).

The story has crossed the border. Police in Texas told the El Paso Times that no predatory incidents had occurred, IBTimes UK reports. Infobae, citing the Daily Mail’s account of the El Paso Times report, adds that they had no records of strange encounters or farm-animal deaths since Maussan began speaking publicly about the case on October 5. We could read only the El Paso Times’ video caption on Yahoo, which describes Maussan’s claim that a humanoid predator is killing chickens in the valley; the police statement comes second-hand from the other outlets.

The skeptics’ file

Scientists and journalists have good reason to treat Maussan’s claims carefully. In September 2023 he showed Mexico’s Congress two mummified bodies he described as non-human beings. According to Infobae, researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) distanced themselves from the interpretations attributed to their analyses, and experts who examined similar pieces concluded they had been assembled from human and animal remains and other materials. IBTimes UK reports that forensic experts concluded they were dolls assembled from animal and human bones using glue and paper. Infobae and IBTimes UK also recall the 2007 “Metepec creature,” a hairless animal that Maussan promoted and that was later identified as a squirrel monkey modified by a taxidermist; IBTimes UK reports that Maussan has called the Juárez animal an adult version of it.

There are also plain explanations for chicken losses on farms. In general, dogs, coyotes, raccoons, opossums, foxes, owls and snakes all take poultry. The chupacabra became famous in the 1990s, El Mañana notes, when accounts of dead animals began circulating in Puerto Rico and later in other countries in the Americas. Those are general possibilities; none has been tested against the Juárez images, and we cannot say what the animal in them is.

For now, the facts that can be checked are few: a claim made at a press conference, a set of images released by Maussan’s own team, a child’s account relayed by Maussan, and official statements that nothing has been reported. IBTimes UK reports that Maussan says the images came from automated camera traps; clear footage released in full, or a physical sample examined by independent biologists, would settle far more than another press conference. We will update this report if either appears. Readers who like their border-country legends rooted in older tradition can also read our report on La Llorona season, or browse the cryptids of Mexico.