Documents / FOIA release
This FBI file section compiles New Mexico State Police reports by Officer Gabe Valdez on 1978 cattle mutilations at Manuel Gomez's ranch near Dulce, a Los Alamos laboratory letter calling tissue findings inconclusive, and a December 1978 letter from Senator Harrison Schmitt asking the Justice Department to reopen an investigation. It also includes a Justice Department request that the FBI investigate 15 mutilations on Indian lands, and a report on an April 1979 Albuquerque conference that recommended central coordination of mutilation data.
“New Mexico State Police”10 pages
decided. If we are merely to investigate and direct our efforts toward the 15 mutilated cattle on the Indian reservation we, I believe, will be in the same position as the other law enforcement agencies at this time and would be seeking to achieve an almost impossible task. It is my belief that if we are to participate in any manner that we should do so fully, although this office and the USA's office are at a loss to determine what statute our investigative jurisdiction would be in this matter. If we are to act solely as a coordinator or in any other official capacity the sooner we can place this information in the computer bank, the better off we would be and in this regard it would be my recommendation that an expert in the computer field at the Bureau travel to Albuquerque in the very near future so that we can determine what type of information will be needed so that when the invitation for the April conference is submitted from Senator SCHMITT's Office that the surrounding States will be aware of the information that is needed to place in the computer. It should be noted that Senator SCHMITT's Office is coordinating the April conference and will submit the appropriate invitations and with the cooperation of the USA, Mr. THOMPSON, will chair this conference. The FBI will act only as a participant. Since this has not been investigated by the FBI in any manner we have no theories whatsoever as to why or what is responsible for these cattle mutilations. Officer GABE VALDEZ is very adamant in his opinion that these mutilations are the work of the U. S. Government and that it is some clandestine operation either by the CIA or the Department of Energy and in all probability is connected with some type of research into biological warfare. His main reason for these beliefs is that he feels that he was given the "run around" by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and they are attempting to cover up this situation. There are also theories that these are cults (religious) or some type of Indian rituals resulting in these mutilations and the wildest theory advanced is that they have some connection with unidentified flying objects. If we are to assume an investigative posture into this area, the matter of manpower, of course, becomes a consideration and I an unable to determine at this time the amount of manpower that would be needed to give this our full attention so that a rapid conclusion could be reached. The Bureau is requested to furnish its comments and guidance on this whole situation including, if desired, the Legal Counsel's assessment of jurisdictional question. An early response would be needed however, so that we might properly, if requested to do so, obtain the data bank information. If it appears that we are going to become
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FOIA release, from the fbi-vault collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 27 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.