Free-Range, Organic Terror: The Mystery of Cattle Mutilations

If you're vegetarian or squeamish, look away now.

By Skylar BanachPublished 3 years ago • 20 min read

Cattle mutilations are, to believers, a surefire sign of extraterrestrial activity. The phenomenon has been occurring since roughly 1606 when an outbreak of it was reported in the official court records of James I of England. Since then, there have been various incidents, usually in outbreaks of multiple bovine victims. But what exactly is happening t the cattle? And why?

What is a Cattle Mutilation?

Cattle mutilation is also known as an unexplained livestock death, or in some cases, bovine excision. The phenomenon is defined by the discovery of a dead livestock animal, typically a cow, that has been killed in an odd, almost surgical manner. Often, the wounds are clean and the animal has been drained of its blood, with no blood in the wounds or around their bodies. While the victims are usually cows, researchers have found that a whole host of animals have been mutilated in this manner, including but not limited to:

Sheep
Goats
Horses
Pigs
Bison
Deer
Elk
Dogs
Cats
Rabbits

Very often, these carcasses are missing parts - ears, eyes, and tongues are commonly missing, along with strange tissues like flesh from the jaw, lymph nodes, genitals, or rectal tissue. When the bodies are tested in lab settings, some of the corpses will show unusually high or unusually low levels of various vitamins or minerals - occasionally, chemicals that aren't usually present in animals will also be found.

It's interesting to note that not all mutilated animals show the same levels of things, and some don't have any chemical anomalies at all. Considering the time that elapses between mutilation and examination of the body, and a lack of background information on specific cattle that fall victim to this, it's difficult to determine whether these findings have anything to do with the mutilations.

The other hallmark of cattle mutilations is the absence of tracks or marks in the dirt around the corpses. Often, there are no footprints from humans, other animals, or even the dead animal to explain how it reached the location where it was found or what might have happened to it.

Alongside this absence of normal tracks is, occasionally, the discovery of unusual tracks. In the case of a horse called "Snippy" in 1967, there were no tracks in a 100ft radius of the body - except several small holes in the ground that looked as though they'd been "punched" into the earth and two flattened bushes. And in a New Mexico mutilation from 1976, a trail of "suction-cup-like impressions" was discovered leading away from a mutilated cow. According to the reports, these indents were in triangular formations; each circle was 4 inches in diameter, and the circles were 28 inches apart. The trail led 500 feet from the corpse before vanishing without a trace.

History

The earliest documented outbreak occurred around the city of London and surrounding areas in 1606. This is a quote from the official report:

"Whole slaughters of sheep have been made, in some places to number 100, in others less, where nothing is taken from the sheep but their tallow and some inward parts, the whole carcasses, and fleece remaining still behind."

England hadn't seen the last of these strange cattle deaths, either - Charles Fort, an American specialist in the strange and unusual, collected quite a few accounts of the phenomenon that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

At some point, the United States started noticing cases as well. John Keel and Ivan T. Sanderson mentioned investigating cases that occurred in the Ohio River Valley in 1966.

Despite its apparent widespread nature and the shock that came with finding a carcass mutilated in this way, tales of cattle mutilations remained limited to cattle-raising communities for decades. It wasn't until 1967 when a newspaper called the Pueblo Chieftain from Pueblo, Colorado published a story about a horse that had been mysteriously killed and mutilated near Alamosa, Colorado. The story went viral and was republished in other newspapers nationwide. The horse's name was Lady.

Lady - September 9, 1967

That morning, Agnes King was out doing her farm chores with her son, Harry, when she found the carcass of their three-year-old horse, Lady. The horse's head and neck had been skinned and defleshed, and there were other cuts on the body that looked "very precise", according to Agnes King. Harry's observations were that there was no blood around the carcass and that there was a "strong medicinal odour" in the air around it.

Despite the Kings' assertion that something wasn't right about Lady's death, investigators didn't agree. Wadsworth Ayer, the investigator for the Condon Committee, concluded that there wasn't any evidence that the horse had died of "abnormal causes." When someone contacted the Alamosa County Sheriff, Ben Phillips, he told them his theory - that the horse had been struck dead by lightning. He had never bothered to visit the site.

Press coverage on the case was incredibly widespread - early reports misreported Lady's name as "Snippy." Snippy was Lady's sire and remained untouched by this particular incident. Later, the newspapers reported that the horse had been shot "in the rump." This turned out to be true - a pair of students from Alamosa State College confessed that they had snuck out into the pasture and shot the horse's body several weeks after it had died.

Nothing much came out of investigations into Lady's death, but her case was the first to be recognized by the public and it spurred a lot of speculation. This case was also the first time that extraterrestrials were ever mentioned as a cause of cattle mutilations.

Investigations and Findings

Everything was quiet for a few years after Lady's mutilation, but it wouldn't remain that way for long. In 1975, a senator from Colorado named Floyd K. Haskell contacted the FBI. Public concern about cattle mutilations was mounting - there had been 130 reports in Colorado alone, and more from nine other states.

The FBI began investigating in May 1979 - they were granted jurisdiction over the problem under Title 18, Section 3. The investigation was given the rather on-the-nose title of "Operation Animal Mutilation." It was funded by a $45 000 grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, and it operated on five objectives:

Determine the reliability of the information that the grant was based on (this would entail gathering as much information as possible about the mutilations reported in New Mexico prior to the investigation beginning)
Determine the cause of as many cases as possible, particularly the ones in New Mexico.
Determine if the livestock mutilations constitute a problem that should be handled by major law enforcement.
If the mutilations are a major law enforcement problem, determine the scope of the problem and offer recommendations on dealing with it.
If the mutilations aren't a problem for major law enforcement, recommend that no further investigations be funded.

The investigation lasted a full year and culminated with a final report in June 1980. In the introduction, it stated that "by 1979, 10 000 head of cattle have been mysteriously mutilated." This report concluded that most of the mutilations were the result of natural predation, despite their incredibly weird circumstances, but acknowledged that some of the circumstances could not be accounted for by "conventional wisdom." The FBI wasn't able to identify any people that could be responsible for the mutilations.

Since the Lady incident in 1967, there have been thousands of cattle mutilations reported worldwide, mostly in the Americas and Australia. The statistics in South America indicate that almost 3500 cattle mutilations have occurred there since 2002, which had over 400 cases reported. Investigators that look into the phenomenon estimate that only one in every ten mutilations is ever reported to authorities, so these numbers in themselves are astonishing.

Cattle mutilations have continued to be a problem for farmers - the last publicized report is from 2019 when five bulls from the Silvies Valley Ranch in Oregon were found mutilated. Each of these bulls was 2000 lbs but showed the classic signs of mutilation with no prints leading up to their corpses. This incident cost the rancher approximately $30 000 USD; the FBI hasn't commented on the case or whether they're investigating it, but the Silvies Valley Ranch has offered a $25 000 reward for information o the mutilations.

Explanations

Of course, people have been trying to explain the cause of this weird phenomenon since it began happening. The explanations range from the reasonable to the quirky to the downright bizarre, and the evidence for each varies.

Natural Causes

The most common explanation put forward by scientists, authorities, and other knowledgeable people is that the admittedly strange circumstances of cattle mutilation can be explained by known natural phenomena like predators, scavengers, and insects. Corpses that are missing soft tissues such as the tongue, lips, anus, and genitals could be explained by the preference of small scavengers and various burrowing parasites for eating those tissues first or using the orifices to enter the corpse. Alternatively, these tissues are known to contract as a result of dehydration.

As for the eyes and internal organs, blowflies and vultures, as well as many other carrion-consuming insects and animals, are known to eat these parts first, as they are soft and easy to access. The lack of blood in the corpse and around the scene could be explained by the decomposition of blood shortly after death; blood that is outside the corpse could be consumed by insects or simply dried up by the sun.

But what about the surgical incisions often found on mutilated cattle? Surprisingly, this theory has a natural explanation for them too. When a body decays, the skin can be stretched by bloating caused by gases released by bacteria or shrink due to dehydration and exposure to the elements. Either of these situations can cause tears in the flesh that are surprisingly clean and linear, resembling surgical cuts.

This theory has long been the stance of government officials and scientific experts, and the results of experiments have upheld it. Robert T. Carroll, a well-known skeptic, cited one experiment conducted by scientists working with the Sherriff's Department in Washington County, Arkansas. The experiment was pretty simple - the scientists left the body of a freshly dead cow in a field and observed it for a period of 48 hours. During this period, they observed bloating that caused tears in the cow's skin that were remarkably similar to the "surgical" cuts found on mutilated cows, while blowfly and maggot activity was starting to mirror the pattern of missing soft tissues.

However, it should be noted that experiments have also been conducted on the difference between naturally made tears and surgical incisions over time on a corpse, and there are pronounced differences between the two. It is unclear which type is typically found on mutilated cattle. On top of this, many ranchers who have experienced cattle mutilations firsthand raise a good point - the animals die in cattle mutilation cases often fall outside the normal category of natural deaths caused by predators, old age, or disease. Often, the animals that fall victim to the phenomenon are healthy prior to the discovery of their corpses; they're young, strong, and large enough to make them unlikely targets for opportunistic predators. So even if the mutilations themselves have natural causes, the question has to be asked: what's killing the cattle in the first place.

Human Causes

Those who don't subscribe to the "natural causes" theory often move to the next likely explanation - human intervention. Some even go so far as to say that most cattle mutilations can be explained naturally, and the ones that carry unexplained anomalies are mutilated by deviant humans who derive a thrill or sexual pleasure from mutilation.

1. Animal Cruelty

Humans killing animals is not rare - often, budding serial killers and people that will later become violent against others begin by torturing and mutilating animals. Typically, the victims of these "practice runs" are cats, dogs, and other accessible family pets, though attacks on larger farm animals such as cattle aren't unheard of. And while most cases include simple cruelty such as beating or burning animals, some psychopaths have been known to mutilate their animal victims in elaborate, extreme ways. A young Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, was known to dissect animals (albeit ones that had already died) and once placed a dog's head on a stake outside his childhood home.

In the 1979 FBI report, C. Hibbs from the New Mexico State Veterinary Diagnostics Lab testified at a hearing that cattle mutilations fall into three categories - one of these categories was cited as "animals mutilated by humans." However, the FBI report does not record their proposed percentage of the mutilations that were caused by humans.

Skeptics of this theory often cite the odd circumstances of the scenes of cattle mutilations as evidence that human involvement is unlikely. After all, many scenes lack disturbances or footprints that indicate a struggle, or the presence of anyone at all. Often, even the animal's own tracks are not present. How, then, do all of these psychopaths manage to erase all traces of their presence?

2. Cults

A similar theory was born out of the Satanic Panic from the 70s and 80s in the US - a theory that clandestine cults mutilate cattle for the purpose of ritual sacrifice. At the time, national attention was devoted to incidents such as the Jonestown mass killing, which occurred in November 1978, and various cases of so-called "Satanic ritual abuse" like that described in the McMartin Preschool Trial throughout the 80s. So it wasn't difficult for people to believe that these dastardly cults were harvesting the blood, organs, and soft tissues from cattle for their nefarious, Satanic purposes. Over time, it has come to light that Satanic cults at the scale of those imagined during the Satanic Panic years don't exist, but the theory persists nonetheless.

In 1975, the US Treasury Department requested an investigation into the possible connection between cults and cattle mutilations - this investigation fell under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and was headed by Donald Flickinger. Flickinger's investigation revealed a number of "unusual" cattle mutilation incidents, and a small amount of circumstantial evidence to support the theory, but nothing else that was useful, and that wasn't enough for the ATF to continue their investigation. At the time, the media reported that he dropped his investigation after discovering that the cattle mutilations weren't a precursor to a coordinated campaign of terror against elected officials by cult members.

Other investigations have been conducted by the FBI and the ATF over the years, but none of them have found evidence that cults have any involvement in cattle mutilation. There is little to no consistency between the attacks that would mark them as sacrifices, and there is no evidence as to how or why the cults would perform procedures that would result in the strange evidence found in some necropsies, such as strange mineral levels or liquefied organs. There's no evidence that these anomalies are even connected to the outer mutilations, or that they are in any way the result of human intervention.

As the Satanic Panic waned in the 1980s, so did interest in the cult theory. Some people still hung on to it, such as a TV evangelist from Colorado named Bob Larson, or author Roberta Donovan, who published a book about a deputy sheriff who investigates cult-related cattle mutilations in Cascade County, Montana in 1971.

3. Government Experiments or Interference

Other conspiracy theorists have taken the theory of human involvement in cattle mutilations in a completely different direction. Proponents of this theory claim that cattle mutilations could be the result of clandestine government research into diseases emerging from cattle and the possibility that they could "spillover" into humans. Most of these theories are driven by an article titled "Dead Cows I've Known", published by a cattle mutilation researcher named Charles T. Oliphant in 1997.

According to Oliphant, there are allegations that pharmaceuticals typically used on humans have been found in mutilated cattle, and that mutilations are typically found in organs and areas that are related to "input, output, and reproduction." He believes that federally funded health organizations such as the CDC or NIH could be involved in cattle mutilations for research purposes and that they could be backed up by the US military. Oliphant points to the Reston ebolavirus case as proof that these things can happen - in that incident, plainclothes military officers that travelled in unmarked vehicles clandestinely entered a research facility in Reston, Virginia to destroy animals that had been contaminated with the highly infectious pathogen.

Charles T. Oliphant isn't the only one who believes that government experiments are the cause - a report from the NIDS published in 2002 includes eyewitness testimony from a pair of police officers from Cache County, Utah. The area has experienced quite a few cattle mutilations, and ranchers had organized armed patrols to attempt to surveil and stave off unmarked aircraft that they were certain had been involved in the animals' deaths. The officers claimed that they had encountered several men in what they believed to be an unmarked US Army helicopter at a small community airport in the area. The confrontation was heated, and the officers claimed that after it occurred, cattle mutilations in the area ceased entirely for a period of 5 years.

A biochemist named Colm Kelleher also believes in the experimentation theory - he's investigated multiple mutilations personally and argues that the most likely pathogen that the US government could be clandestinely tracking is bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease. Mad cow disease devastated the UK between 1986 and 2015 - it's caused by a misfolded protein called a prion that occurs in brain tissue. Animals that are affected can pass the condition to humans; the human form is formally known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an incurable degenerative brain disease. However, there is little official evidence that the US government is particularly interested in mad cow disease, especially enough that they would be secretly researching it since the 60s.

Notably, there is a correlation between cattle mutilations and "black helicopter" sightings. Black helicopters are allegedly associated with secret government departments linked to UFO conspiracies, and alleged reports often pop up around other phenomena.

The biggest issue with the government experimentation theory is a matter of simple common sense. If the US government (or any other government, for that matter) is simply monitoring or researching diseases that occur in cattle and the possible danger to humans, why would they go about this research in such a bizarre, secretive way? Surely, they could simply contact these ranchers and conduct testing on the animals out in the open as part of a public health initiative - they could even purchase or seize the animals if they needed to be killed as part of this research. The act of mutilating cattle in the middle of the night without the knowledge of their owners seems unnecessary, expensive, and downright bizarre as an alternative, not to mention illegal and distressing to the public.

Paranormal Explanations

If you're not convinced that cattle mutilations occur naturally and all of the human explanations seem a bit lacklustre to you, then welcome to the weirder side of things. The favourite theory of conspiracy theorists, writers, playwrights, and directors for decades is that something paranormal is going on in the case of cattle mutilations. After all, they are incredibly bizarre, and many find the idea that these cattle are being abducted by aliens more likely than clandestine government experiments. These theories typically fall into two categories: alien involvement and cryptid involvement.

Aliens

This theory is by far the favourite of anyone who has looked into cattle mutilations and thought that something fishy is going on. Cattle mutilations are very often surrounded by coinciding UFO sightings - this began in 1974 in Nebraska. This was shortly after the first round of alleged cattle mutilations ever reported in the US. Farmers had begun reporting UFOs around their farms on the night that the mutilations occurred, inextricably linking the two events. These sightings were quickly followed by a flurry of black helicopter sightings, leading some to believe that a secret branch of the US government was in league with the aliens, conducting sinister research with cattle organs.

Many believers think that aliens are abducting the cattle to take samples and experiment on them for unknown research purposes. This could explain the missing organs, surgical injuries, and the weird levels of minerals found in the necropsies; some believe that the aliens are stealing or harvesting particular minerals for unknown purposes, even though what is missing or added varies from case to case.

Cattle mutilations are often related to an incident referred to as "Project Grudge Report 13" by ufologists. Project Grudge was essentially a UFO debunking operation launched by the US Air Force in 1949. Report 13 allegedly detailed the investigation into an Air Force Sergeant named Jonathan P. Lovette who was thought to have been abducted by a saucer-like UFO before being found mysteriously mutilated in the desert in New Mexico. This document is thought to be a 600-page investigative report into his death, but there is absolutely no official evidence that such a report exists, or has ever existed. The US government denies that the investigation took place, even as files from Project Grudge and its successor, Project Blue Book, are being declassified. Reports 1 through 12 from Project Grudge are readily available, as well as Report 14, but Report 13 is nowhere to be found.

The details of the report can only be gleaned from secondhand claims, reported by people who claim that they have seen and analyzed the report. There are only two such stories - one from a conspiracy theorist named William Cooper who asserted that he analyzed an annotated version of the report in the 70s, and one from a former Green Beret named William English who also claimed to have analyzed it.

Between the two reports, it appears that English's is more well known - he dictated two audiotapes about what he remembered from Grudge Report 13, and he discussed it during an interview that was broadcast on the radio in Colorado in 1991. However, it should be noted that Cooper's account is very close to English's, making some think that the claims might be legitimate.

Cryptids

Locals in areas where cattle mutilations are semi-common occasionally believe that the deaths are due to predators, but predators that have yet to be categorized by modern science. The most commonly named cryptid culprit is the chupacabra.

The chupacabra is a cryptid that is native to the Caribbean, Central and South America, Mexico, and the southern US. According to legends, it's a densely built creature roughly the size of a small bear. It has spines all the way down its back and is generally described as reptilian looking, though some legends describe a creature that more resembles a wild dog with mange. The main activity of the chupacabra is attacking farm animals, mostly sheep and goats. Apparently, it drains blood and vital organs out of the bodies via three punctures in the chest area - those who connect it to cattle mutilations assume that this is the reason for the internal damage, while the rest can be explained by decomposition.

The creature has been reported since roughly 1955 when eight sheep were attacked by an unknown predator in Puerto Rico. Since then, there have been hundreds of sightings and reported livestock attacks from all over the Americas, and even occasionally in other countries like Russia and the Phillippines. The US government's official theory on the chupacabra is that the sightings are most likely describing wild dogs afflicted with mange.