By
ALEX MISTRETTA
THE FIRST MODERN MUTILATION
It all started in 1967 with a mare named Snippy, (not her real name). Her real name was Lady, but the press had confused her with the owners of another horse and the name stuck. Snippy was found one morning lying in her tracks, as if something had circled her before she died. It was strange, in that all the meat from her head to her neck was gone, but there wasn’t a single trace of blood on the ground. A subtle smell hung in the air, not unlike that of embalming fluid. It was muddy, yet there were no other prints or markings of any kind anywhere near Snippy.
Not far from the horse, a green paste was found. Nellie Lewis, one of the owners, touched the paste with her fingers and felt a burn that continued for half an hour. The next day she felt ill. Nellie and Berle Lewis, who lived on the ranch, had seen strange lights in the skies in the nights preceding Snippy’s demise, and from that point on, for better or worse, UFOs and cattle mutilations would be forever linked.
Interviewed in 1993, Berle Lewis shed more light on the mutilation. He mentioned that the bones were completely white, almost bleached with absolutely no meat left on them. The cut was perfectly smooth and he didn’t think that the smell was embalming fluid, but definitely medicine like.
The strangest part of the story was the missing brain, because there were no visible openings anywhere on the skull. This was a pattern that would reoccur mostly on cattle, throughout the following decades. Investigated by both state police and the FBI, yet not a single suspect was ever brought forward.
MUTILATIONS AND BLACK HELICOPTERS
Horse mutilations are rare, cattle are usually the main victims, and by the mid-1970′s, the mutilation wave was in full force. In the early reports only UFOs were reported in areas associated with cattle mutilations. In time, however, a new phenomenon would emerge; the black helicopters.
The San Luis valley, which straddles Northern Colorado and Southern New Mexico, was and is, the epicenter for this phenomenon. The helicopters are always unmarked jet black or dark green, with tinted windows, and local authorities have been unable to ascertain their origin. All that we truly know is that they often appear following a UFO sighting, or just before or after a mutilation. In some cases they appear to be directly involved.
In the 1970′s, two loggers witnessed a black helicopter in the middle of the highway next to a dead bull or cow. Around the same time period, another eyewitness claimed to have seen a black helicopter with a cow attached and hanging underneath. Both of those reports together may suggest that these helicopters are transporting cattle for some reason, but does not necessarily link the two with the mutilations. Furthermore, the weight versus lift capability of these helicopters is obviously a point to consider. Adult bulls can weight up to 3000 pounds.
With all that said, an interest by these helicopters and pilots with the mutilation phenomenon is undeniable. One New Mexico rancher by the name of Eli Hronich lost 15 head of cattle in 18 months to the mutilators. Hronich also had a Black Helicopter hover right above his head as he was inspecting one of his mutilated cows. Hronich also experienced burning that lasted for a week in his fingers after he inspected yet another animal, this time a steer.
Sheriff Ernest Sandoval was one of the principle investigators at that time in the San Luis Valley. Sandoval felt confident that the helicopters were coming from across the Rio Grande, from a supposed deserted area. He stated publicly on several occasion that the helicopters perpetrated some of the mutilations, and as a result he instructed his deputies to shoot at them if they could, which they did. Admittedly, he has no explanations for some of the earlier mutilations, before the appearance of the helicopters, and no explanation for the strange lights that certainly aren’t helicopters.
UNEXPLAINED
A number of copycat mutilations have certainly occurred, fueling speculation that cults and devil worshippers were responsible, anything to stir the conversation away from UFOs.
In America, belief in the devil is always more comfortable and socially acceptable than the belief in anything UFO or alien related. But in these copycat cases, blood is everywhere. Which I suppose is kind of the point. Furthermore, footprints are always left behind and a knife had obviously been used, essentially a sloppy crime scene.
In bona fide mutes (as they are called in the business) there are no footprints, no tire marks, no blood in the immediate surroundings, and the animals often exsanguinated.
Exsanguinated does not mean that the animals are completely drained of blood. This is a misconception that is all too often propagated in the UFO community. Exsanguinated means sufficient blood loss in order to cause the death of an organism.
In mutilation cases, the blood loss is considerable; and yes there are cases where the cattle are entirely devoid of blood. However, one has to keep in mind though that in dead carcasses the blood pools to the bottom of the animal, and subsequently can seep into the ground ergo, given the impression that the blood has mysteriously vanished.
What is harder to explain is the cooked hemoglobin found on the mutes? Hemoglobin is a protein found inside red blood cells, and in this case would require a considerable source of heat to “cook” it.
Further analysis has indicated that incisions have been made with a high source of heat, such as a surgical laser. This source apparently is used to remove flesh, all reproductive organs, the rectum, ears, tongue and various internal organs. Furthermore, some of the cuts appeared to have been made post mortem, which could also explain the lack of blood on site.
There are also instances of broken bones, and broken tree branches, indicating that the animals have been dropped from considerable height. In some male specimens lying on their side, the bottom horn has been found embedded deeply into the ground.
This further fuels the debate between the pro-UFO camp and the pro- Black Helicopter camp, but engaging in that argument is missing the point. The real revelation here is the indication that the mutilations are been conducted somewhere else. This explains the lack of evidence at the location where the mutes are found, including the absence of any prints even in snow or in mud.
Logan County, Nebraska, lost over 60 head of cattle to mutilations in a year and half time period in the mid 1970’s. Sheriff Harry Graves investigated the majority of these cases and was perplexed when he couldn’t find signs of predation. None of the usual signs, such as bite marks and prints were present. Graves also found three circular indentations in the ground next to one of the mutes.
The indentations were 2.4 inches deep and 5.9 inches in circumference. This would not be the last time that these three circular indentations would be found next to a mutilation. So far, no one has been able to determine the object responsible. It has been speculated that these were the markings from a laser that was used in the field to cut open the animals. This is somewhat unlikely, especially in the 1970’s, as small, portable lasers did not yet exist, and the ones in labs were enormous machines. If lasers were indeed used by an earthly source on these animals, it would have been much easier to bring the animal to the source.
AN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY
In 2002 the sequencing of the genome of the cow begin. It included hundreds of scientists, from 24 countries, all under the direction of the Bovine Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, and the Bovine HapMap Consortium. Fifty million dollars and six years later, the entire cow genome was sequenced and some surprises were in store.
For one thing it was discovered that cattle have more in common with humans than the usual test subjects of rats and mice. Cows share about 80% of their genes with humans, and cow proteins are more similar to human protein than rats and mice (Tellam, 2009). It was also discovered that cows have a superior ability to resist diseases. In other words, on studies pertaining to diseases and environmental factors that lead to diseases, cows make much better tests subjects that mice and rats which are what all universities and research projects use.
One interesting aspect related to the cattle mutilation, at least in the United States, is that a great number of mutilated cattle are from areas that were once home to nuclear tests. This just might be a coincidence. Obviously, they needed open land with a lot of room to conduct nuclear tests, and ranchers need land with a lot of room for their cattle. So perhaps, that is where the relationship lies, but the correlation is intriguing.
Still, there appears to be in increase in UFO activity in the United States since the birth of the nuclear age, followed shortly by the cattle mutilation phenomenon. There is no doubt humans are involved with the mutilations in some capacity, hence the presence of unmarked Black Helicopters near mutilations sites. There is also no doubt that there is a UFO presence around cattle mutilations, and some of the mutilations themselves point to a superior technology. Whichever the case, this is clearly in my opinion an environmental study, and a study on the effect on the human population. The question is, what happens when the study is completed?
ADDENDUM (by Dr. Barry E. Taff)
For a very interesting and provocative entertainment take on the cattle mutilation mystery, check out the movie; Endangered Species, (MGM. 1982) starring Robert Urich and Jo Beth Williams (of Poltergeist movie fame).