ANIMAL MUTILATIONS
Cattle mutilation (also known as bovine excision) is the killing and mutilation of cattle under unusual, usually bloodless and anomalous circumstances. Worldwide sheep, horses, goats, pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, deer and elk have been reported mutilated with similar bloodless excisions, often an ear, eyeball, jaw flesh, tongue, genitals and rectum are removed. Since the time that reports of animal mutilations began, various explanations have been offered ranging from natural decomposition and normal predation, to cults and secretive governmental and military agencies, to a range of unscientific speculations including as cryptid predators (like the Chupacabra), and extraterrestrials. Mutilations have been the subject of two independent federal investigations in the United States.
Charles Fort collected many accounts of cattle mutilations that occurred in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Reports of mutilated cattle first surfaced in the United States in the early 1960s, primarily in Pennsylvania and Kansas.[citation needed] The phenomenon remained largely unknown outside cattle raising communities until 1967, when the Pueblo Chieftain in Pueblo, Colorado published a story about a horse named Lady near Alamosa, Colorado that was mysteriously killed and mutilated. The story was republished by the wider press and distributed nationwide; this case was the first to feature speculation that extraterrestrial beings and unidentified flying objects were associated with mutilation.
THE LADY MUTILATION
On September 9, 1967, Agnes King and her son Harry found the dead body of their three-year-old horse, Lady. Lady's head and neck had been skinned and defleshed, and the body displayed cuts that, to King, looked very precise. No blood was at the scene, according to Harry, and a strong medicinal odor was in the air. A subsequent investigation concluded there were "No unearthly causes" of the death.
LATER DEVELOPMENTS
Democratic senator Floyd K. Haskell contacted the FBI asking for help in 1975 due to public concern regarding the issue. He claimed there had been 130 mutilations in Colorado alone, and further reports across nine states. A 1979 FBI report indicated that, according to investigations by the New Mexico State Police, there had been an estimated 8,000 mutilations in Colorado, causing approximately $1,000,000 damage. In 1993, documented photographic evidence of a 1988 mutilation surfaced that involved a human being near Guarapiranga, Brazil. An autopsy report concluded the procedure occurred while the victim was still alive, and the associated pain resulted in cardiac arrest. The victim's identity was kept private. An independent investigation later concluded that he died from natural causes. In May 2001, 200 goats were mutilated in Panggang District of Gunung Kidul Regency, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.