Whether you’re a UFO believer (a “Mulder”) or a total skeptic (a “Scully”), one thing is for sure: compelling new TV is hard to come by these days.

Reality and documentary television has traditionally been a refuge from crises like the current writers strike. The History Channel is continuing that tradition tonight with its new series UFO Hunters. The first episode deals with an Air Force team involved in a deadly plane crash after investigating a UFO sighting in Washington state. Here’s the kicker: the sighting was reported in 1947, just a week before the famous incident in Roswell, N.M.

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Or, “I’d've gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids and your mangy mutt!”This story by AP writer Elizabeth White with photos by Eric Gay makes one wonder. The mythical blood-sucking chupacabra, discovered at last … in Texas … or just a freakish dog? You decide.

Phylis Canion, a lifelong hunter who has lived in Africa and says she has seen “a lot of nasty stuff” in her life, says she decapitated the mystery creature (!), which she found as roadkill outside her Texas ranch, and is storing the severed head in her freezer (!) so she can have its ancestry traced before it joins the zebras and other hunting trophies on her wall.Similar hariless, doglike creatures were found in Texas three years ago; it was determined they were coyotes suffering from mange.Or were they?Photos by Eric Gay, The Associated Press