posted
Valier rancher John Peterson and his wife were recently headed out into the twilight to do some chores when they spotted her.
The healthy young cow lay dead in a stubble field, just off the road.
Stopping the truck to investigate, they found the sickening, telltale signs.
The cow's udder, genitals and rectum were cut out with stunning precision. The left side of her face was carved off, the exposed bones stripped as clean as if they'd been boiled.
Peterson, who discovered a similarly mutilated cow on his neighbor's ranch five years ago, knew he was the latest victim in one of rural Montana's greatest mysteries.
posted
Maybe it was done by Satanists from outer space?
-------------------- "Accompanied by the ghosts of dolphins, the ghost of a ship sailed on..." Terry Pratchett Posts: 660 | From: Gainesville, FL | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Or coyotes from outer space? Or perish the thought........ Satanist Coyotes from Outer Space!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posts: 83 | From: Southern California | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by El Chupacabra: Or coyotes from outer space? Or perish the thought........ Satanist Coyotes from Outer Space!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Given your screen name, that sounds like a pathetic attempt at a coverup to me!
-------------------- [God said] "I'll just sit back in the shade while everyone gets laid; that's what I call intelligent design." - Chris Smither, "Origin of the Species" Posts: 411 | From: Fairfield, CT | Registered: Aug 2005
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guruwan2b
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
Foxes with mange from outer space....
-------------------- Too much of this navel gazing and we'll disappear up our own arses. Danvers Carew Posts: 7465 | From: Oklahoma | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote: Peterson, a lifelong rancher, says he knows a predator kill when he sees one. Grizzly bears, wolves and coyotes aren't suspects in this case, he said.
Barns, a lifelong naturalist and skeptic, says he knows a deluded rancher when he sees one.
quote:"It's the weirdest thing," he said. "A guy hates to say too much because I don't know how far you can go before they'll put you in the nuthouse."
The time is now.
quote:Whoever, or whatever, is responsible has left precious few clues for Pondera County Sheriff Tom Kuka.
At least not the kind of clues lawmen are used to.
Why ask a Sheriff to figure out what killed a cow? Do you also consult wildlife biologists about traffic laws?
quote:"There's no reasonable or rational explanation for this," said Kuka, who is investigating the case as felony criminal mischief. Peterson's cow was worth up to $1,200.
...because cops are authorities on what constitutes a reasonable and rational dead cow. What's irrational is charging a canid with felony criminal mischief!
quote:Part of the left ear was cut off, but the utter was intact.
...we know that because we heard it moo.
quote:It was as if the bovine had fallen from the sky — and bounced.
Fascinating idea.
quote:Could she have been pushed from an aircraft?
That's what I'm thinking. She didn't explode upon hitting the ground because she bounced.
-------------------- Terrified, mortified, petrified, stupefied... by you! Posts: 3157 | From: Illinois | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
From what I've read from skeptical sources, the reason why the udder, rectum, and face are the prime targets of so-called "cattle mutilations" are because they are soft parts, and predators naturally go after those parts first. As for the "surgical" precision that the cuts seem to have been made, it is because jagged cuts (such as those made by teeth) tend to "smooth out" over time.
Now aren't the facts a lot more interesting than the fiction?
- Pseudo "damn coyotes" Croat
-------------------- "At all events, people who deny the influence of smaller nations should remember that the Croats have the rest of us by the throats." - Norman Davies, Europe: A History
God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts. Posts: 4578 | From: Sunrise, FL | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Hey, no inserting facts into the discussion. Next thing you know, people will stp believing in alien cow molesters altogether. Then where will we be?
posted
I agree with Pseudo Croat. It's disturbing to watch lions eat a young elephant (they will bring down young, weak elephants that the herd abandons) by starting at the rectum. Being unable to kill it in the conventional way, they go for the soft tissues. Predators and scavengers will aim for similar thin-skinned tissues on downed cattle - eyelids, lips/muzzle, rectum, udder.
quote: From what I've read from skeptical sources, the reason why the udder, rectum, and face are the prime targets of so-called "cattle mutilations" are because they are soft parts, and predators naturally go after those parts first.
quote: Originally published November 11, 2006 Perhaps the most unsettling hallmark of the mutilations is that hungry predators leave the carcasses untouched.
Peterson discovered the cow Oct. 9 and the birds are just now starting to peck at it.
posted
The only reason why the "hungry predators" seem to have left the carcass untouched is that said predators probably come out at night when the farmer has little opportunity to watch over the corpse.
- Pseudo_Croat
-------------------- "At all events, people who deny the influence of smaller nations should remember that the Croats have the rest of us by the throats." - Norman Davies, Europe: A History
God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts. Posts: 4578 | From: Sunrise, FL | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Fly larvae (maggots) can excise and consume large portions of dead flesh with what seems like surgical precision. They can do it quickly, too. Medical maggots are even used by hospitals to cleanly and painlessly remove dead (gangrenous?) flesh from living patients. They're useful little buggers.
Rogue, I think you and I saw the same show.
-------------------- "How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about." --Ray Nagin Posts: 1325 | From: Missouri | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
We had 30 similar attacks in north-west Switzerland this spring and summer, several cows and sheep being killed and mutilated the same way. The police said it was a sadist's work. Given the nature of the wounds (clear cuts), the predator theory (the lynx being the biggest one we have in this region of Switzerland) wasn't considered for very long. No further cases were reported this fall, but no one has been arrested either.
quote:Originally posted by Major D. Saster: We had 30 similar attacks in north-west Switzerland this spring and summer, several cows and sheep being killed and mutilated the same way. The police said it was a sadist's work. Given the nature of the wounds (clear cuts), the predator theory (the lynx being the biggest one we have in this region of Switzerland) wasn't considered for very long. No further cases were reported this fall, but no one has been arrested either.
I gotta go with Barnes and No Bull on this one, though. Why involve the police instead of a biologist? How much will they actually know about wildlife feeding habits? Now I am asking that without reading the article as my French is non-existant, so maybe they did involve biologists. It just seems counter intuitive to call the police about a dead animal as police are not trained to deal with animal behavior or necropsy.
-------------------- "How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about." --Ray Nagin Posts: 1325 | From: Missouri | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Once more, sorry for the French. My Google search brought up a few sites of UFO fans reporting the case, so I chose to go with the Swiss French public TV, which is very serious. I personally don't believe in a swiss version of the Chupacabra.
As for the case, I'd say the farmers who found their cattle cut to pieces naturally complained to the police, which itself found enough evidence that they had to deal with a sadistic zoophile and not an animal. They say they hired a profiler.
The article doesnt say if biologists were asked, but I remember the CSI people analysed the wounds for animal DNA. Since the re-introduction of the lynx and the reappearance of the wolf in some alpine valleys -too far away from the scene in this case - the swiss police is familiar with predator attacks and systematically checks if an animal was killed by a wolf, a lynx or a stray dog.
Besides, as soon as it became public that the police and farmers were starting to watch over the herds, the attacks stopped. I don't think a predator would have been deterred by the press and TV.
-------------------- Desperate, but not serious. Posts: 689 | From: Confoederatio Helvetica | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I saw part of a show about cattle mutilations and chupacabras last week on the National Geographic channel. The part I saw dealt with a small-town sherriff who had a rash of mutilations in his jurisdiction and people going ape over the possibility of aliens and chupacabras and what-not. He didn't believe it, so he enlisted the help of a friendly rancher who donated the corpse of a cow that died of natural causes. They then set it out in a field and set up a stakeout. To make a long story short, they discovered by observation that what was happening was maggots. The soft tissue was the first thing to go and attracted flies. The flies laid eggs that became maggots and ate the soft tissues like eyes and genitals with surgical precision. The result appeared identical to the so-called mutilations.
Posts: 716 | From: San Antonio, TX | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I believe you, but in the swiss case, it was evident that the animals had died of their wounds overnight, no significant amount of maggots have been found, the death being too recent - a few hours at best (and I don't believe in rabid maggots performing hit-and-run attacks on living cattle).
I wonder why the most evident explanation, a deranged sadist who loves to mutilate animals (probably because it's less risky than doing it on human victims) seems so unlikely to so many people.
-------------------- Desperate, but not serious. Posts: 689 | From: Confoederatio Helvetica | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Major D. Saster: I believe you, but in the swiss case, it was evident that the animals had died of their wounds overnight, no significant amount of maggots have been found, the death being too recent - a few hours at best (and I don't believe in rabid maggots performing hit-and-run attacks on living cattle).
I would pay good money to see rabid maggots doing hit-and-run attacks.
-------------------- "I have never in my life been more disappointed by a politician I voted for than I have been with George Bush. He is a total liberal."- overheard by me on the shuttle to the U of A game on Nov. 11th. Posts: 3878 | From: Tucson, AZ | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Major D. Saster: I believe you, but in the swiss case, it was evident that the animals had died of their wounds overnight, no significant amount of maggots have been found, the death being too recent - a few hours at best (and I don't believe in rabid maggots performing hit-and-run attacks on living cattle).
I wonder why the most evident explanation, a deranged sadist who loves to mutilate animals (probably because it's less risky than doing it on human victims) seems so unlikely to so many people.
I think it's because, out of the possible scenarios, it's just so much more unlikely than other explanations. If a perfectly healthy animal dies in a field of wounds, the most rational explanation is an animal attack. That the farmers went to the police instead of a wildlife biologist just seems off the wall to me. Now, again, they may have gone over this in the article. I don't have the ability to read it myself.
It is just far more likely that a wolf, lynx, or other large predator killed those animals. Killing other animals is a natural thing for big predators to do. Mutilating farm animals is a completely unnatural thing for a human to do. It makes the most sense, in a case with an unknown culprit, that we go with the most natural explanation.
-------------------- "How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about." --Ray Nagin Posts: 1325 | From: Missouri | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I don't think it's wrong to call the police if you think that someone has killed your cow. But I also don't think it's right to think that police are some kind of meaningful authority on animal death, predation and scavanging.
Some situations with dead livestock involve insurance payments and authorities therefore become involved by necessity. Figures who are professionals at determining livestock cause-of-death (or cause-of-post-mortem-condition) are universally in agreement that supernatural or extraterrestrial agents are not involved in these incidents.
If the word "mutilation" is used anywhere in the article or conversation, you can bet that a cultish alien visitation enthusiast is manning the rudder.
-------------------- Terrified, mortified, petrified, stupefied... by you! Posts: 3157 | From: Illinois | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Now for the black heliocopter theory (I've forgetten where I heard this one):
US government agents hoist the cattle up from heliocopters (probably painted black) and cut out various parts of the body in order to test radition levels from nuclear tests.
-------------------- All posts foretold by Nostradamus.
Turing test failures: 6 Posts: 5481 | From: Decatur, GA | Registered: Nov 2002
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