FBI file: Animal Mutilation, Animal Mutilation Part 02

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

# The Mutilation Mystery

DURING THE PAST THREE YEARS. MORE THAN 1500 CATTLE IN 22 STATES HAVE BEEN KILLED AND MUTILATED. THEIR BLOOD DRAINED AND SELECTED ORGANS REMOVED WITH SURGICAL PRECISION. SUSPECTS RANGE FROM SATANIC CULTISTS TO GOVERNMENT RESEARCHERS.

## AN EXCLUSIVE REPORT BY ED SANDERS

In the fall of 1973, there were about 40 frightening cattle mutilations in a dozen counties in north-central Kansas, most of them occurring along U.S. 81, which runs north through Kansas into Nebraska. Nebraska also had some mutilated moos.

Kansas sheriff departments, the highway patrol and the state bureau of investigation seemed baffled, as did the victimized cattle ranchers. The ranchers were used to the nocturnal depredations of predators, but they had never seen anything like the surgical precision and methodical discrimination with which these animals had been chopped up: some with their ears and tongue and, say, an eye removed; others with a swish of tail, their udders and a patch of neck flesh cut cleanly away; and nearly all of them with the anus and genitals neatly excised.

The removal of cow vulvas and bull dongs caused speculation that weirdos were involved. Suspicion fell upon one or more of the following: (1) the irresponsible shenanigans of those great scapegoats, the hippies; (2) sex deviates practicing bull-dong/cow-vulva atrocieties; or (3) the rites of some religious cultists of a devil-worshiping nature.

Many authorities demurred. Dr. Harry Anthony, director of the Kansas State University veterinarian laboratory, stated in late 1973 that four out of the nine mutilated animals that the lab had examined apparently had died of a cattle disease called blackleg; the Kansas state branch commissioner declared that 99 percent of the deaths of animals that had

been mutilated had been caused by natural factors. Such statements triggered a bit of outrage in law-enforcement circles in the 12 Kansas counties affected, with many officials maintaining their belief that humans were involved.

There were several bits of evidence that pointed away from predators. There was the absence of blood and footprints, for example. One cow was even found in a large mudhole, but still there were no tracks. Then, there was a peculiar absence of dangling guts and scattered hunks of flesh (predators do not read Emily Post). Also, though many animals were found in secluded areas, others were found near barns or a few feet from sleeping farmers' windows—closer to civilization than predators usually roam.

And then there were the helicopters. Helicopters without filed flight plans were sighted quite often in the afflicted counties, sometimes hovering above cattle pens. But authorities were not able to catch the choppers or to locate their landing and refueling areas. One of the early theories was that a helicopter-borne rustling operation was going on, but when it was discovered that all that was being rustled were eyeballs, genitals, milk sacs and aphincters, that theory collapsed Then there was a rumor, apparently without foundation, that the helicopters were part of a secret military exercise out of Fort Riley, Kansas.

The situation invited off-the-wall speculation, especially as more and more strange facts became known—such as, when removing the eyes from cattle, the musilators would take not only the eyeball but also the cyclid, membranes and all, There was to be more. Much more. 1974: YEAR OF THE MUTES

In April 1974, the mutilators were at it again in Nebraska, with the same familiar modus operandi: Blood was drained in some instances; there were no footprints; and various organs were removed, apparently surgically. High officials again leaned toward the predatory coyote/crow/racoon-with-a-scalped theory. The toll of mules, as mutilation buffs began referring to the acts, mounted throughout the summer, and by September, some 50 cases had been reported in the Cornhusker State.

As in Kansas, the rumer that the mutilations were the acts of helicopter-equipped devil worshipers, or "fertility ritualists," began to spread among the good farmers of Nebraska. Shoguntoting vigilantes took to riding the back roads from dawn to dusk. Ranchers sometimes stopped out-of-state vehicles for a cow-blood check. Some marksperson in a pickup apparently tried to wing an aircraft that was checking a power line near Grand Island, Nebraska; as a result, the state National Guard ordered its choppers to fly at a minimum of 1000 feet rather than at the normal low of 500 feet. Sheriff Herb Thompson of hard-hat Knox County reported that, on several occasions, helicopters were seen on nights when mutilations occurred. There were also copters spotted just over the border in Iowa, where on July 15th, a Honey Creek farmer was shot at from a copie that bore no identification number.

In the fall of 1974, as the mute tapered off in Nebraska, the flying mutilation show worked its way up in South Dakota and over into Minnesota Again, copters and boring goriness were much in evidence and the authorities chose to place the blame on predator There was one notable exception. D Mahlon W. Vorhies, associate professor of veterinarian science at South Dakota State University, said that ten animals had been examined at the school and some of them had probably been implicated by Homo sapiens.

In Minnesota, meanwhile, there one case that points to a possible action to a part of the mystery. On Friday, October 4, 1974, a 400-pound was mutilated at the Charles Mez farm, in the extreme southwestern tip the state. Both of the bull's ears chewed/cut off and its mind end "damaged." The local vet said that cause of death was blackleg, a disease the Clostridia family of bacteria vet added, however, that there was sign of struggle, as is usual in cattle blackleg, nor was there much blood in the carcass. In fact, the animal apparently been mutilated after