dark harvest
What do you think of cattle mutilations?
That’s a topic I’m not too sure about, myself, to be honest.
I mean, surely all those farmers didn’t do it themselves. And I can only imagine they have a feeling as to what normal decomposition and predation looks like (despite many attempts to claim that they simply aren’t familiar with how it looks out in the wild). And no, I do not believe the claims that were so prevalent during the height of the satanic panic are in any way true (there are no satanic cults roaming the countryside looking for things to sacrifice).
Whatever may be behind them (and figuring that out is not at all within the scope of this post), they’re definitely worth considering for a moment. Even the federal government has thought as much in the past.
In 1975, for example, the ATF (that’s the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for anyone unfamiliar with the acronym) launched an investigation into the phenomenon — only to drop it within four months when it became apparent they could find no probable cause and, whatever was behind it, it had nothing to do attempts to defame elected officials. (1)
By 1976, a handful of state governments became interested, eventually finding (in New Mexico) that at least five animals had been marked by an unknown entity with fluorescent material, radar chaff was often found near deceased animals, and that some mutilated animals could be found to have anticoagulants and tranquilizer still in their blood system. A renewed federal investigation in 1979 found that, as they entered different regions, reports of mutilation would dwindle down and seem to move to different areas. The 1979 study could find no clear culprit (reiterating the findings of other earlier reports (2)). Ultimately, this final examination of the phenomenon would determine that cattle mutilations were not a law enforcement problem and, since they could find no good reason behind it, further funding of future investigations would be pointless.
The Tennessee River Valley, though not quite as spoken about as the big waves of mutilation that affect the western states from time to time, has had its share of mutilations. That’s what we’re here to talk about today, really, just an interesting little bit of Huntsville history.
In 1993, a mere four years after the Fyffe UFO, Fyffe (and the surrounding area) would once again make headlines. Within a single week that year, at least twenty five allegedly mutilated animals were reported. (3) Skin and blood samples would be sent to Auburn University for study; the University would determine that no abnormal cause behind the animals’ deaths could be found. The group suggested that the animals had simply been predated upon and, given interest in the area due to the recent UFO sightings, most people were simply applying an altered line of reasoning to very normal occurrences.
A researcher who came to the state during the Fyffe flap would relate these mutilations (and their, according to them, mundane causation) to the Fyffe UFO saying that your average person simply wasn’t prepared to accurately examine something like this. Just as the Fyffe UFO was simply the uninformed seeing the planet Venus at its brightest (please read my recent blog post to learn why this is impossible), so too were these mutilations normal deaths featuring normal decomposition and normal predation.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t buy any of that.
Here’s a line I try very hard to toe: how far into any “conspiracy” I fall. While I do believe that your average person may not be able to tell the difference between a surgically mutilated animal and one that’s just come to look strange due to decomposition (I know I couldn’t; this is not at all my forte), I do believe that when someone who has worked even a portion of their life with cattle, when they say there’s something weird about this particular dead cow. that there must indeed be something weird about it. As always, I ask that you don’t fall too hard for one explanation over another. It’s probably not aliens, it’s probably not cultists, it’s probably not all decomposition and predation.
If you asked me what I think, I’d say that there’s probably something to it all (but that’s a given; despite my claims otherwise in one of my previous posts, I kind of believe in everything, I think). Consider, for me, the fluorescent markings discovered on some cattle, how so many of these sightings happen alongside encounters with unmarked, black helicopters (I haven’t mentioned this up to this point in this post but I assure you that these do happen alongside each other), and the governments many halfhearted investigations that say nothing and prove nothing.
I think it’s much more likely that, given our governments history of covert experimentation on its own people (MK Ultra was real, guys, the Tuskegee Experiments, too), the US has a tendency to do the same with its livestock. There’s a few different takes as to why. Colm Kelleher, a biochemist and former member of NIDS (the group that studied skinwalker ranch at the behest of Robert Bigelow in the nineties), suggests that it’s part of an undercover attempt (as to not spread fear, warranted or not) to track the transmission of prior diseases (like mad cow disease) among the population. Greg Valdez (the son of the lead investigator in the New Mexico study) believes that the government is systematically tracking and dissecting preselected animals to determine if there are any lasting affects on animals in the area from nuclear tests performed following the second world war. Something along the lines of these two suggestions, I believe, is probably accurate.
Cattle mutilations continue. There are no threats to the careers of any elected officials or any member of law enforcement so no governing body intends to pursue it any further.
I’d say it’s left up to us, but I’ll leave it to you guys. I don’t quite have the stomach for this particular type of investigation.
Stay weird,
Scott
(1) I find this incredibly interesting that the ATF was only involved as long as they believed that these mutilations were occurring as part of a wide-scale attempt by some counterculture group as to sow fear and discord and suggest that those in charge of the country were either unwilling or unable to protect us and our property. Once the ATF realized that there was no clear culprit, the money was pulled and the investigation left hanging with no clear conclusions made.
(2) They noted that some animals seemed to be dropped from midair and went to classify mutilations into three groupings: obvious predation, death by deviant (e.g. satanic cultist), and surgical mutilation. The 1979 report further stated that, upon comparing surgical mutilation cases from that year with earlier reports, the culprits had obviously become more adept at using their tools.
(3) I do want to note here that this was not, and is not, the only instance of cattle mutilation occurring in and around the Huntsville area. As recently as last summer I’ve received (albeit anecdotal) reports of mutilation among animals in the north western part of the state. These reports occurred alongside other strange happenings including, but not at all limited to: sightings of the white thang (the classic creature and the new pale white one), bigfoot sightings, UFO sightings, sightings of completely silent, unmarked helicopters, and (in at least one instance) a snake that disappeared in a flash of green light.