Following a series of unsettling encounters, a trio of California residents fear that a mountainous area in the state may be home to the legendary Chupacabra!

The three witnesses each say that they spotted a bizarre creature lurking around the Box Spring Mountains range over the last year or so and that its unnerving appearance led them to believe it was the famed blood-sucking cryptid.

The most recent incident occurred just last week when a man named Cary Shuker noticed that something had apparently terrified his cat as it was roaming in the backyard.

When he looked outside, Shuker saw a pink, hairless creature with a long tail, menacing teeth, and a body that was, in his opinion, "at least two feet or more longer than the biggest coyote you've ever seen."

Concerned for the safety of his cat and possibly himself, he yelled at the animal, but the creature only responded with a snarl that sent chills through Shuker's body before it slowly slinked away.

Another witness named MJ Bunt backed up Shuker's story as she claims to have also seen the mysterious animal in the same general location last year.

According to Bunt, she suspected that the hairless creature could be a sick coyote, but it's overall appearance led to discount that possibility since it possessed too many weird characteristics to fit the canine hypothesis.

Tom Brundige, the final witness who says he ran into the animal back in April, theorized that the mysterious creature ventured through the area from Central America and posited that it is some kind of marsupial-canine hybrid.

Despite the seemingly earnest testimony of the three people who reported seeing the creature, authorities in California indicate that they are not taking the encounters too seriously.

A spokesman for the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife told the Press-Enterprise newspaper that "the chupacabra is not a recognized species" by the agency.

And, in the kind of statement that usually precedes a horrifying turn of events in a Hollywood film, declared, "Chupacabras are not a thing."

Should the department decide to send someone, perhaps an intern, into the mountains in search of beast, we hope for their sake that the assertion about the infamous cryptid is correct.