Approximately thirteen thousand years ago, in Mesopotamia (current region of Iran and Iraq), it’s generally believed mankind first began harvesting crops and breeding livestock. The breeding of livestock comes with an assortment of challenges, but once mastered, the nomadic hunter can become a somewhat sedentary farmer. But while a farmer can abandon the hunt, the hunt (despite all attempts otherwise) will never abandon the herd.

“Since 2002, there have been more than 4,000 cases of cattle mutilation in South America – and are still reporting anywhere from three to a dozen cases a week.”

—Investigator/Author, Christopher O’brien, 2017

It’s easy to conflate all sorts of explanations when it comes to the mutilation of cattle, because it is quite common. However, in most instances there is either a reasonable, if not obvious explanation for the death, method and culprit responsible for livestock mutilation. Natural predators prey on livestock, farmers the world over learn to identify these victims. Natural scavengers also share eating habits, vultures, for instance, take advantage of deep flesh wounds, but if the body is relatively intact the softest areas go first (eyeballs, extremities, and so on).

Then there are other, less natural events that lead to unusual mutilations. Throughout history, there have been many documented cases of deranged individuals harming passive, docile animals purely for their own amusement (or other motives). Ritualistic animal sacrifice, in some instances, pentagrams, (satanic) symbology left etched into a carcass. Again, an abysmal practice, yet common enough to be comparably identifiable.

There are some mutilations however, which leave very unusual signs behind. Indications that suggest, the usual suspects cannot be to blame. It’s these mutilations that cannot be explained, that do not have an identifiable culprit, that leave many of those who investigate them, wondering what exactly is going on?

“For several months my office has been receiving reports of cattle mutilations throughout Colorado and other western states. At least 130 cases in Colorado alone have been reported to local officials and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI); the CBI has verified that the incidents have occurred for the last two years in nine states.”

—Senator Floyd K. Haskell, August 29th, 1975. FBI Records.

What are the common characteristics of unexplained livestock mutilation?

• The animal (prior to event) was healthy, in most reports, between four or five years old.
• The carcass appears to be entirely drained of blood, also there is no blood present on or around the body. “We searched and searched and we could not find blood on the ground or on the cow. I just can’t understand how anyone could surgically remove a part from an animal and not spill some blood,” —Jim Garren, rancher from Walsenburg, Colorado, March, 2009.
• Deep precise cuts can be examined on the remains, severing the hide, tissue and organs. “Surgical precision”.
• Natural scavengers have been observed avoiding the mutilated carcasses. Animals of various species have been observed behaving differently to a carcass that died under normal circumstances, as opposed to unexplained mutilation. As further discussed in ANIMAL MUTILATIONS: WHAT WE DON’T KNOW by Microbiologist George E. Onet.
• Total absence of tracks (no animal tracks, human tracks or vehicle tracks). No tracks appear from the animal itself, or any tracks indicating another animal predator, or human were present. Implying the animal is somehow picked up and put down, in some instance several hundred feet from where its own tracks stop. Some claims include remarks that the ground/grass around the carcass can seem unusual, scorched, discolored, dead.
• Seemingly surgical removal of the eyes, ears, mouth, lips, udders, anus, genitalia. In 2008, a Survey Among Bovine Practitioners Concerning Animal Mutilation sent out 3,849 letters of inquiry across all 50 states. From the 189 responses, they correlated this data. Stating that in 76.08% of the results they acquired, the mutilated animals vulva/vagina and rectum were the most frequently removed body parts.
• Last but certainly not least, unexplained livestock mutilations are alleged to occur on dates correlating with UFO (UAP) sightings. Also sightings of Black Hawk helicopters, further elaborated in Christopher O’brien’s book ‘Stalking the Herd‘.

“Marshall speculates the bulls were darted with a tranquilizer that knocked them out. While some people acted as lookouts, others bled the animals out by inserting a large-gauge needle into the tongue and into an artery, then removed the organs after the heart stopped beating, he surmised.”

—NYPOST.com, October 2nd, 2019 regarding Colby Marshall, Vice President of Silvies Valley Ranch

“A month-old calf was missing its spine from the hips to the skull and the brain was gone. It’s right front leg was also gone, and the vast majority of its ribs, both eyes, ears, intestines, reproductive tract, and lungs had been removed. Its rectum was also mutilated.”

—Christopher O’brien

(Illustration of El Chupacabra by Jeff Carter, Spanish for “the goat sucker”. A cryptid said to prey on animals, draining them of their blood. Sightings most prevalent throughout Southwestern United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico.)

(Map indicating cluster of cattle mutilations, by Christopher O’brien author of Stalking the Herd – Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery.)

One of the earliest known records of unexplained mutilation:

Year 1606 AD, London, England.

Alleged to be documented in the official records of the Court of James I of England. Though it should be noted, while this quote is mentioned consistently in articles written about cattle mutilation (and Wikipedia), I am unable to find a publicly available source definitively indicating the origin of this claim.

“About the city of London and some of the shires adjoining. Whole slaughters of sheep have been made, in some places to number 100, in others less, where nothing is taken from the sheep but their tallow and some inward parts, the whole carcasses, and fleece remaining still behind.”

Speculation & Summation

A great many unusual things occur, causing or contributing to the contortion and mutilation of a corpse during the various stages of decomposition. Something that can occur during the bloating stages of decomposition can cause the flesh (of some species) to split, giving the appearance of deep, surgical slices, as the decaying tissue ruptures due to the build up of internal gases (cadaverine, putrescine, indole, skatole, all contributing to the odorous smell of death).

Specific characteristics of decomposition, along with some of the most common body parts missing from the carcass being the primary choices of scavengers that feed on carrion, can lead one to believe the entire concept of unnatural cattle mutilation is purely built on misunderstanding a perfectly natural process. (Similar comparisons of misunderstanding the characteristics of death that once led to the belief in Vampires, mentioned in ᴛʜᴇ DARK ORIGIN ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ VAMPIRE).

But the sweeping generalization of “likely misunderstandings”, and that it is only inept individuals investigating these unusual events, is untrue. Private and government analysis of these unusual findings have taken place in multiple nations across the globe, continually drawing a blank. When our understanding of the laws of the natural world are defied, the supernatural comes to mind.

“The full necropsy yielded a heart that appeared “to have been blown apart.” The heart disintegrated when touched, although the pericardium (outer sac surrounding the organ) was intact. The decimated heart is a recurring factor in animal mutilation deaths that continues to puzzle researchers because the heart is normally the last organ to decay when an animal dies.”

—Lezlee E. Whiting, Deseret News, Jul 28, 1999

Are cattle mutilations just another form of “crop circles”? An elaborate means of arousing suspicion and intrigue? Likely perpetrated by individuals who for whatever reason, want to confuse and bewilder. There are a great many cases of animal mutilation where this is obviously the case. There are many groups of people in various nations that create crop-circles in an attempt to hoax extraterrestrial activity, some people genuinely enjoy mass deception.

Are governments around the world (or a separate group entirely) tampering/experimenting with livestock in various nations? In the brief research I’ve done for this topic, which almost solely comprises of events taking place in the U.S. and Australia there are not only mentions of UFO sightings, but the sightings of Black Hawk helicopters around events of cattle mutilation. Are experiments, possibly of a biological, neurological, pathological nature being undertaken without public knowledge? Are privately owned livestock of isolated individuals being used as test subjects, guinea pigs, without anyone knowing? Why would they primarily target cows, if it was some kind of experiment?

The average yearly consumption of meat per person:

• USA: 124 kg (273 lb)
• AUSTRALIA: 122 kg (269 lb)
• ARGENTINA: 109 kg (240 lb)
• NEW ZEALAND: 101 kg (223 lb)
• SPAIN: 100 kg (220 lb)

If it is a group orchestrating these mutilations, traveling to remote locations (in Black Hawk helicopters) secretly dissecting and taking certain pieces from livestock, what exactly are they hoping to achieve? What are they looking for? Are the domestic livestock of today similar to the 19th Century miner’s canary, first to be sacrificed to give someone somewhere a cellular indication that something is doing or not doing what it’s suppose to.

Lastly, the correlation of cattle mutilation and the sightings of UFO phenomena. When discussing cattle mutilation and the possible involvement of extraterrestrials, one of the first questions raised is, why would an advanced interstellar being take an interest in mutilating cattle? Another point you might raise is, if it is an advanced being mutilating cattle, why leave remains at all?

There’s actually quite a lot more to the long domesticated grass-fed cow than what meets the eye. A member of the domesticated ungulates, mankind over thousands of years has directly intervened in the development of the species.

“Since the 1950s, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a number of steroid hormone drugs for use in beef cattle and sheep, including natural estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and their synthetic versions. These drugs increase the animals’ growth rate and the efficiency by which they convert the feed they eat into meat.” —FDA.gov

So it isn’t a random analysis of a random animal at a random location, to analyze livestock on a cellular level, could potentially reveal a great deal about our own species. What we seek to consume, our understanding of biological manipulation. An interesting thought, on the matter of cattle mutilation and the primary characteristic, being the removal of genitalia (more often the vagina, than testicles) is that an alien race could be interested in one very specific detail about our meddling in the existence of other species. Similarly to the belief that UFO activity spiked around July 16th, 1945 with the first Atomic bomb tests. They could be assessing whether we begin mass cloning our major food resources.

“Almost 40 countries have conducted research on animal cloning. However, animal cloning mostly occurs in Argentina, Brazil and the USA in the agricultural sector.” —Foodstandards.gov.au

A plethora of misunderstandings, secretive sadists, our own government(s) or even curious visitors from another world. Whoever the culprit may be, they have not yet achieved what they seek to achieve, they have not yet found what they seek to find, because to this day, these curious and horrific mutilations continue.