A mysterious creature has baffled a woman in Colorado, with even wildlife experts unable to figure out what the creature is.
Janay Lynn, 30, said the animal gave her ‘the chills’ when she saw it on Monday outside her home in Pueblo, Colorado.
Some have suggested the creepy animal is a ‘chupacabra’ or ‘skin-walker’ after footage emerged of the creature.
After first seeing the animal, Janay said nobody believed her – until she filmed it.
Footage showed a small, brownish-black creature with red spots on its face eating with its hands on Janay’s porch.
‘Ew, it’s all bloody!’ she remarked in the video, later adding: ‘I was mortified. I first saw it last Monday during the afternoon – it was sitting in the road in front of my house.
‘It didn’t run or act afraid of me, and it turned and looked at me, and I got the chills and ran back inside. I told everyone about it and no one believed me.’
Janay said on Saturday around 8.30 pm, she set out water and food for stray cats which live nearby – but when she opened her curtains, the creature was there.
‘I went outside to try to yell and scare it off because I was worried about the cats, and that’s when I got the video of it eating the cat food,’ she said.
‘It made eye contact with me the whole time and was not afraid.’
After sharing footage of the encounter online, the clips have gone viral as users try to find out what the creature is.
Some said it was a chupacabra – a notorious blood-sucking cryptid from American folklore.
Others called it a skin-walker – described by the Navajo as a witch with the ability to disguise themselves as an animal.
There was no shortage of more conventional guesses, either.
‘Raccoon, badger, wolverine, coatimundi, bear,’ said Janay. ‘But I’ve looked all of those up and it doesn’t match any of those.
‘That’s why it’s so scary because no one can even tell what it is.’
Janay said it has a ‘rat-like’ face, with small eyes far apart. A long pointy nose and mouth like a rat are also features on the creature.
‘It has long legs and arms, is about two-and-a-half feet in length, and has chocolate brown fur that is thick and coarse covering its whole body. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Some locals came to see the animal at Janay’s home, but it was hiding in a trash can and then ran down the street into a drainage ditch.
‘We shined a light in there, and it started making a hissing-like noise. We got all scared and left,’ she said.
Colorado wildlife officials said it’s tough to be ‘100% sure’ of the animal’s identity.
A spokesperson said: ‘The use of the front paws and the size makes us think it’s a raccoon. We think this animal might be a raccoon with mange.’
But Janay isn’t convinced: ‘I get raccoons here every night, it’s definitely not a raccoon.’
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