Monstrum Athenaeum Tearing open the cryptid world of werewolves, vampires & zombies.
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Similar to the infamous goat sucking chupacabra, fifty years ago, sightings of another bloodsucker, the Vampire Beast of Bladenboro, became a phenomenon centered in the town of Bladenboro, North Carolina. Unlike the chupacabra, which has been spotted everywhere between Texas and South America, sightings of this creature have been limited to a handful of towns, a couple hundred square miles at most.
The Vampire Beast of Bladenboro, like the chupacabra, mostly attacks goats, biting them on the neck and draining them dry. The operative word here is “mostly” because this cryptid is also more aggressive than the chupacabra and occasionally preys on dogs. Not tiny ankle biters you expect but large dogs, including several pit bulls. Regardless of the type, all victims were bitten on the neck, and their blood drained from their bodies. It’s worth noting that many of the dogs also had their skulls crushed. Apparently this beast is a more formidable entity than the goat suckers of Mexico.
For those skeptical of the possibility that an unidentified cryptid roamed Bladenboro, there were several other, less impressive animals offered up as possible predators. The most obvious explanation was another dog or coyote was behind the attacks. Others speculated that perhaps a mountain lion was to blame. While any of these choices would be valid under normal circumstances, they are a bit ridiculous considering the facts.
If the attacker had been a dog, let’s say another pit bull, the physical damage to those unlucky animals would have been considerably different. Specifically, pit bulls don’t possess the ability to kill an animal by crushing its skull unless the pit bull uses its jaws causing considerable damage to the tissue. In the case of the dogs, the first blow to the head is what killed the creatures and there were no signs of mauling or tearing. Further, there was no barking or growling; the attack was swift and silent. Those dogs died without putting up a fight, even with the pit bulls, and it was over before there was even time to sound the alarm.
Coyotes, although mostly scavengers, are fearsome predators, and they do attack by going for the throat. However, even a large coyote at forty-five pounds would have a hard time dispatching a pit bull over twice its weight. In any case, coyotes aren’t known for being silent killers and the goat attacks should’ve made enough noise to work the dogs in the area into a frenzy. The goat owners, like the dog owners, simply found their animals dead with no idea how it happened.
The last and seemingly the most sensible choice would be a mountain lion. Unlike dogs, a mountain lion is known to hunt over large territories and unlike a coyote, it could very well overtake a pit bull. The only problem with the theory is that there haven’t been mountain lions in North Carolina for more than a hundred years. Mountain lions also tend to attack the back of their prey’s necks, severing the spinal column.
There are more obvious flaws with these not-so-plausible predators. First, they are predators, yet none of the corpses showed any sign of feeding other than the single wound to the neck and massive blood loss.
The second oddity pointing away from a traditional predator is the fifty-year gap. Why weren’t there any attacks in the intermittent fifty years? Did the beast just disappear or does it only go on a killing rampage every fifty years?
The mystery of the Vampire Beast of Bladenboro is a strange and interesting one to be sure.
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great documentary