Arica monster

The Arica monster or Arica beast is a cryptid reported from Chile's Atacama Desert, particularly near the city of Arica, described as kangaroo and bird-like animal resembling a dromaeosaurid dinosaur. It was reported on two separate occassions in August 2004, by families driving the road between Iquiquie and Arica, which runs through the Atacama.

Sightings

2003

In 2003, a hundred birds were discovered drained of their blood in Chaca. An eyewitness claimed to have seen an animal, "a sort of bird or kangaroo standing two meters tall, with lower extremities shorter than its upper ones and which moved by taking prodigious leaps," killing the birds, and his description has been connected with the Arica monster in hindsight.

2004

The first sighting of the Arica monster was allegedly made in the last days of July, by Hernán Cuevas, Dario Riquelme, and three others. They had just stopped their car when one of the animals passed across the road, quickly followed by a second individual of the same species. Cuevas described it as "a tremendous animal ... very similar to a two-legged dinosaur, with huge thighs". Riquelme added that the second animal was "grey in color, hairless and about two meters high".

Soon afterwards, a second sighting was reported to have occurred in Pampa Acha, twenty kilometers from Arica near Presencias Tutelares, in July 2004. Four of the animals were seen in this sighting, which occurred at approximately 21:00, and involved noncommissioned officer Carlos Abett de la Torre, his wife Teresa, their three children, and a three-year-old nephew. According to one of the daughters, Carmen Abett de la Tore...

“

I was traveling in the backseat with my brothers, talking, and suddenly everything went dark. Then I told my brother what I was seeing and he told me to keep quiet, because Mom gets nervous. Later I looked through the window and saw some things that looked like birds, with dogs' heads and backswept wings. My father said they were like gargoyles. We were speechless for some 10 minutes and my Mom told us to react, and then we started discussing what we'd seen.

”

Carmen described the animals as about two meters high, and she was unsure if the backswept appendages were wings or legs. She claimed that two of the animals "flew" over the vehicle, and that shortly afterwards two more appeared, leaping across the road. Teresa Abett de la Torre, who got the best look at the animals, said that the animals moving over the car had done so slowly, but they later matched the vehicle's speed, which was nearly 100 kilometers per hour.

Fanny Reyes, a Cuya shop owner, later reported that a truck driver who made regular trips between Iquique and Tacna, in Peru, had claimed to had seen a similar animal while driving through Chaca in June. According to his story, a strange animal matching the descriptions from Pampa Acha stepped out in front of his truck, stopped for a few moments, then swiftly ran off.

Theories

The greater rhea (Rhea americana) (Source).

A small ostrich (Struthio camelus) farm owned by Ricardo Arancibia was located in the vicinity of the sightings, and some 200 ostriches were believed to exist in scattered farms in Acha, Chaca, and Lluta. Arancibia suggested that an escaped ostrich might "give the wrong impression, especially if seen at night," and Municipal Veterinarian Alfrodin Turra agreed that the descriptions fit an ostrich. However, one of the eyewitnesses, Dario Riquelme, rejected this, insisting that he knew what an ostrich looked like. During an investigation for Destination Truth, Josh Gates obtained a large three-toed footprint which a palaeontologist believed was made by a greater rhea (Rhea americana). The dromaeosaurid dinosaurs compared to the cryptid are also now known or believed to have been feathered.

Similar cryptids

According to Arnošt Vašíček, a number of small, aggressive bipedal Allosaurus-like reptiles were reported from one of the tributaries of the Amazon River during the 1990s.