On June 28, 1973, a closely observed landing case was reported from Columbia, Missouri. At half past midnight, a man and his sixteen-year-old daughter looked out the window of their home to see two bright, silvery-white light beams about five feet apart and fifty feet away. The objects tapered to about two feet in diameter at the bottom. As the beams faded, a twelve- to fifteen-foot bright oval object appeared close to the ground, lighting up the area “as bright as day.” They heard a “thrashing sound,” and the trees swayed so much that a large limb snapped off. As the father reached for his gun and called for help, the UFO moved away to the north, passed beneath some tree limbs, rose, and hovered. Blue and orange bands of light were now visible on the surface of the craft. It moved silently to its original position, but disappeared before police arrived at 1:45 A.M. The police took a quick look, then left. Later searches uncovered broken tree limbs, damaged foliage, scorched leaves up to height of thirty-five feet, and impressions in the ground as deep as two feet.18
Animal mutilations became widespread throughout the American West during the 1970s, especially Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. They also occurred in such eastern states as Pennsylvania and Florida. But the phenomenon was global, reaching Canada, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Brazil, parts of Europe, the Canary Islands, and Australia.
As mutilations became common, cases arose which defied simple explanations. Frequently, the anal area of the animal was bored out and the reproductive organs removed. The cuts seemed to be precise, very smooth, and in a few cases, a near perfect circle of hide was removed from the belly. Often the eyes, tongue, ears, and reproductive organs were missing. Usually there were no signs of struggle, nor of blood—either in the victim’s body or anywhere at the site—and predators often avoided the carcass. Even more strange, there were frequently no tracks around the animal other than its own.
Many mutilations appeared to coincide with sightings of nearby UFOs, as well as mysterious, unmarked, black helicopters. Inevitably, the UFO connections prompted claims that aliens were performing the mutilations, perhaps with a focus on the reproductive system. Skeptics claimed the mutilations were probably the work of predators and perhaps cults. Still, several veterinarians could not determine what killed the animals, in some cases claiming the removal of organs was made by instruments that were not available to them. Other investigators doubted that predators were capable of performing the precise incisions found on mutilated carcasses.
Beyond question, the phenomenon of mutilated cattle was real. In Minnesota, twenty-two cases of mutilated cattle carcasses were reported between 1970 and 1974. In Iowa, so many reports emerged that U.S. Attorney General Alan Donielson asked the FBI in 1973 to make “an intensive investigation.” Between 1973 and 1975, the state of Colorado confirmed more than 130 cattle mutilations. In the following decades, there have been approximately ten thousand mutilation reports.
The primary official study of mutilations, analogous to the Condon Report in its study and conclusions, was undertaken by retired FBI agent Kenneth M. Rommel, Jr., for the state of New Mexico in 1979. Rommel concluded that “the vast majority of mutilations are caused by predators and scavengers.” During the course of his study, unfortunately, reports of mutilations dropped off. He personally investigated only fifteen cases and analyzed twelve more cases investigated by local law enforcement officials. Rommel declined to request on-the-scene participation from the various experts he consulted with. Nor was he interested in the cause of death, per se, for any animal. If there was evidence of scavenger activity, that was enough to move on. Rommel also re-investigated, such as was possible, 117 “classic” mutilation cases that had occurred since 1975; each of these, he concluded, could be explained conventionally. He quoted one physician who stated, that “surprising as it may seem to the uninitiated, many of the scavengers make as clean a cut as might be done by a surgeon....”
Rommel’s report was thorough and sober, but inadequate to persuade many ranchers and some investigators. Alleged cases of mutilations, numbered in the many thousands, continued to appear. John Altshuler, who had examined Lady in 1967, later examined many such cases during the 1990s and found lesions “consistent with electrosurgical excision.” Other researchers continued to find abnormally high radiation levels near the dead animals.
