Cattle Mutilations are known as bovine excision, this subject refers mainly to cattle but other livestock and wild animals have been reported with similar conditions that would put them in this bracket, Often the animals put into this bracket have died with trauma that seems unusual such as missing organs or lack of blood.
In 1606 a case was recorded and is perhaps the first for this subject, it refers to sheep. It is recorded in the records of James I of England and records sheep had been slaughtered in London and around the shires nearby. It records how nothing but their tallow and some internal parts were missing, some conjecture was also made that fireworks could have been involved. Stalking the Herd: Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery – Christopher O’Brien is the source, via Wikipedia it is also noted that Charles Fort collected cases between the 19th and 20th Century.
9th September, 1967 saw Agnes King and her son, Harry, found their dead horse, Lady, who was only three years old. The horse had been skinned, de-fleshed and some cuts that king felt looked very precisely aimed. They noted that there was a medicinal smell, there was no blood on the scene and at the time the cause of death was not determined. “No Earthly Cause” and the press for some reason put it down as Snippy, not Lady. Snippy was a sire and you can go visit the website, snippy.com which goes into more detail. There are also comments on there about how it could be naturally explained so you can investigate a little more if you wish.
1975 saw a Democratic senator Floyd K Haskell approach the FBI to ask for help due to public concern over mutilations. His claim was that there had been 130 cases of animal mutilations in Colorado alone, there was further public concern that another 9 states reported more of them, the details can be found at the FBI Vault and again if you want to read up, you should. The FBI indicated that overall 8,000 mutilations in Colorado cost around a million dollars in damage.
In 1979, Sheriff Herb Marshall of Arkansas, USA, dealt with the event in Washington County, a little differently. Having gained a fresh cow corpse, he left it in a field and then watched it, for 48 hours he had it watched. It was observed that a series of natural events and entomology on a basic level provided them with similar results. The cow split open from gasses and flies/maggots would eat away at eyes, hips, anus and accessible soft tissue. It felt like it was case closed to Marshall. A Canadian study ten years later added natural scavengers to the list but pretty much agreed with his summons.
So, what should we be looking for in these cases? Well often it will appear that the animal has been drained of blood or there is no sign of blood in the area around their wounds. George E Onet, a doctor of veterinary microbiology, investigated and concluded that in these cases predatory animals would avoid the beast for several days after the death. He also observed that domestic animals would be ‘visibly agitated’ or even ‘fearful’ of that carcass.
Dr Howard Burgess, recorded the average ages were between four and five years old, 90% of his cases fit that range, this would put Lady out of that range. (Alien Contact: top-secret UFO files revealed, Good Timothy).
Lady does fit the bill for the lack of tracks and any clues around the body. They noted that there were strange puncture holes in the ground and in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, 1976 found those as well. The conclusion was that the indentations came from a tripod. I found no conclusion about why these marks were involved.
Some, but not all, animals have shown either unusually high or low vitamins or minerals in their tissue samples. The samples were of chemicals not normally found in the animals either.
It seems to be that lab reports feedback some interesting points too, as an example it seems the time of death and decay were hard to pinpoint, just the knowledge of when the animal was last visibly seen then up until their discovery, again reference to this is in the FBI documents released.
1978 New Mexico, the death of an 11-month-old bill was found with what might be considered as classic signs. They sent samples off for testing and gave no conclusions or investigation why the heart was an unusual colour or texture, the second lab concluded did find the liver was devoid of copper and had four times the usual level of zing, potassium, and phosphorus but could not explain how or why it may have occurred.
In this case they had blood samples from the scene it was pink in colour and did not lot after several days. There was a note that the flesh was very brittle for an animal that had been dead around 5 hours and the flesh underneath was discoloured.
I also found a more recent case in Trinidad, Colorado, USA about cattle mutilations on Tom Millars farm and an investigator called Chuck Zukowski. Zukowski indeed the missing udders, tongue and that on one bovine the rib cage was separated from the back bone from a very serious impact. There had been two cows, one dead with the trauma already mentioned and a second one that had internal injuries, the injuries led to the animal being put down.
Both had gone missing and were then recovered in their state but the rancher noted the gully was not deep enough to have injured the animals that way, the deaths did not resemble animal attacks and could not see the dead animals condition being a result of scavengers either.
I found nearly all references related to sources for cases in the USA which makes me wonder, do aliens only want to test cows from there? Well no but it seems the phenomenon isn’t entirely all theirs and I did start with that London note.
Nick Redfern wrote a book which includes a 1985 case from Cannock Chase, it seems he found other animal mutilations I his book were quite often linked to occult sacrifice but he found one that might suggest something else. It was in the autumn that year and around 8,30pm, father and son were crossing a fairly large area of woodland to collect a motorbike. Driving along they went around a bend, coming to an area that had once been used by the military, about 100 feet away and up in the air was a large black triangular object with three lights on the underside.
The two men got out to look closer, reminder this is before smart-phones, and the object flew off without warning – prompting the man to race off and then once back in their car they raced home to Rugeley. They reported it to the police and the matter was going to rest there but then nearby in Penkridge a man was out in the early hours of the morning for a ‘duck-shoot’ and saw an object that flashed down a light beam towards a herd of cows in a nearby field.
The man was astonished to see that the beam aimed at them and he ran to his car to get his friend. The two ran back but the cows were fine and neither saw the strange object, had he witnessed and interrupted a cattle mutilation attempt?
So how/what causes this phenomenon and can it all be explained away?
The FBI had come under pressure to explain it and opened up ‘Operation Animal Mutilation’ in May, 1979. Rommel’s report was 297 pages long and cost $45,000 which centralised on the New Mexico events. It concluded that many of the results could be explained as a natural phenomenon. The report did conclude that some of the anomalies could not be concluded. Rommel conclude that the answer was down to normal predator and scavenger activity.
An ATF investigation concluded another investigation in New Mexico, they found some evidence that there were animals that had been tranquilised and treated with anti-coagulant but could not find out who was responsible or any motives.
So, if it is not natural or caused by humans who seem cruel what else can it be?
It it’s not just about cruelty but down to humans could it be cult activity? It suggests that the acts would be planned and the theory is supported by the idea that there is a lack of blood at the sites, the organs may have been removed for ritual needs and some think that they may even be aiming for some cattle with unborn they could extract.
At the height of this period during the 1970’s and 1980’s there was reason to attribute some of them to this, Jonestown and People’s Temple were in the news and TV evangelist Bob Larson spoke on his programmes to raise public awareness about it, no doubt adding fuel to the fire.
This was harder to investigate when so many animals were too far decayed to look at or had been given a natural cause of death for the cow’s demise.
There has also been rumour about government involvement with one going back to the 1985 case at Cannock Chase, already mentioned, the idea of it being that they might be testing an aircraft, or perhaps, as some might think, they may be testing diseases or viruses they might want to test about when they came into contact with human beings. I was unable to find more information that I could summarise with, there is a lot of information to wade through, can you help with anything you might know about this? Any reported illnesses or cases of this I can look at about humans getting sick after handling cattle mutilation cases?
In regards to another theory – Aliens/UFO involvement and that other worldly investigations are/have been conducted. It is the idea that they may be using them to gather information on living beings. A hypothesis exists that the UFO’s can collect the animals, investigate on their ships and then deposit the remains back down or conduct them very swiftly and leave with the parts they need for further analysis.
Other theories are that creatures like the Chupacabra might be involved. There are, simply put, a varying number of explanations and some might feel more reasonable over others but also that comes down to personal belief or experience.
Sources:
https://www.amazon.com/Stalking-Herd-Unraveling-Mutilation-mystery/dp/1939149061/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Wikipedia
Vault – FBI files archive
Skeptoid
Ufonut.com
Kdvr.com
Fortean Times
(image – South Park Cows)
Investigations into the unknown and weird 