Skeptics and debunkers have an innate need to solve things. They need to have closure on mysteries, and so they go about investigating their topic like a homicide detective after a murder suspect. Mysteries are crimes to be solved and only rational explanations will satisfy. The known has to be the conclusion to the unknown; once this happens the unknown is no longer something unexplained, but "solved." In keeping with this mind set is the penchant skeptics have for offering rewards for those who can provide proof for the unexplained. This proof has to be irrefutable.Solid, hard core, no doubt about it proof. Something that will stun the skeptic. The Randi challenge is one: for years now uber debunker and Skeptic Overlord "Amazing" Randi has offered a $1,000,000 reward for anyone who can provide proof of their paranormal abilities. No one has passed this challenge, though many have tried. To the skeptics, this is one more point of support for their persistent contention that the paranormal is bunk. Recently, skeptic Benjamin Radford, (who, in disingenuous marketing, is presented as a "paranormal investigator" as is skeptic Joe Nickell) claimed that he "solved" the mystery of the Chupacabras. You can Google all that, but basically, it gets down to Radford's take that one of the early witnesses in Puerto Rico was influenced by the movie Species, and overlaid the imagery of that film's "monster" onto whatever it was she saw that quickly became the cryptid chupacabras. (Which is not to be confused with the hairless canine type animals seen throughout the United States and also called chupacabras.) According to several researchers, skeptic and non alike, the small, spiny backed large eyed chupacabras hasn't been around before the 1990s. Others disagree, who say they knew of the chupacabras much earlier than the '90s. (I mean the alien type cryptid known as chupacabras, not other animals or lore that refers to blood sucking animals.) Radford has offered a reward to anyone who can provide proof -- it has to be concrete proof, not anecdotal -- of chupacabras references prior to that date. For my posts on popular culture imagery and unexplained events, as well as Radford's comments, see my blog Animal Forteana.