Documents / FOIA release

FBI file: Animal Mutilation, Animal Mutilation Part 04

Federal Bureau of Investigation · 27 pages · text by GLM-OCR

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.

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## CATTLE MUTILATIONS

TOMMY BLAND, Lewisville, Texas, told the conference he has been studying UFO activities for twenty-two years and mutilations for twelve years. He explained that animal mutilations date back to the early 1800's in England and Scotland. He also pointed out that animal mutilations are not confined to cattle, but cited incidents of mutilation of horses, dogs, sheep, and rabbits. He also said that the mutilations are not only nationwide, but international in scope.

Other speakers at the conference suggested ways of approaching an investigation into the mutilations, urging access to technological equipment and technologically trained individuals.

Chief RALEIGH TAFOYA, Jicarilla Apache Tribe, and WALTER DASHENO, Governor, Santa Clara Pueblo, each spoke briefly to the conference. Both spoke of the cattle which had been found mutilated on their respective Indian lands. Governor DASHENO said he is concerned as to the extent of the jurisdiction by investigating agencies into the matter and Chief TAFOYA said some of his people who have lost livestock have been threatened. He did not elaborate on these threats.

CARL W. WHITESIDE, Investigator, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, told the conference that between April and December, 1975, his Bureau investigated 203 reports of cattle mutilations. He said in addition his Bureau conducted an undercover investigation in an attempt to resolve the mutilation problem. He said during the investigation by his Bureau, numerous pieces of evidence were submitted to the Colorado State University Large Animal Hospital and all civilian and military helicopter flights were monitored during this probe. WHITESIDE said, "Sadly, most of these efforts produced no results." He said they were unable to place any unidentified vehicle in the air or on the ground near the carcasses that were found. He said his group submitted 35 carcasses to the laboratory for examination Only 19 of those submitted were deemed to be of recent enough vintage to make an examination and of those 19, nine were determined to be willful mutilations. He said of those nine, it was concluded that two were done by pranksters. WHITESIDE said that his organization even set up a secret witness program with the cooperation of the "Denver Post", but this resulted in no information to assist in a solution to the matter.

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About this file

FOIA release, from the fbi-vault collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 27 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.