Question and Answer session on Straight Dope in 1984 should straighten out some crooked thinking about cattle mutilations:
Letter to Straight Dope:
Dear Cecil:
The “whisperized” helicopter in the movie Blue Thunder called to mind reports of ranchers having seen silent aircraft over areas where mutilated cattle were subsequently found.
Do the facts to date point to any conclusions on who could afford to do these strange mutilations for so many years and yet remain so close to committing the perfect crime?
Is there any similar crime in history that appears to be so big, widespread, and yet so steadfastly ignored? (Ranchers seem to fall silent out of some feeling that “the walls have ears.”) –Rob T., Baltimore
|
Answer to Cecil:
Dear Rob:
Whenever I start to fret that earthlings are becoming so intelligent and sophisticated that I will soon be out of a job, something like cattle mutilation comes along to convince me I’m going to be in business for the next two million years.
Every year thousands of cattle die on North American ranges, the victims of diseases, parasites, predators, accidents, weirdo pranksters, and Lord knows what else. In most cases the cause of death is obvious, but sometimes it’s not.
Since everybody loves a mystery, especially if it involves mysto paranormal conspiracies, an incredible legend has sprung up about a strange force that goes around cutting the gonads off the nation’s moo-cows. Cooler heads, it is safe to say, regard such talk as the nonsense it undoubtedly is.
That’s how the article begins and let’s give you the sweetest abstracts:
“Innumerable evil agencies have been blamed for cattle mutilation. UFOs were a common target for a while, particularly since reports of mutilations often coincided with reports of unidentified aircraft.
Later it became popular to attribute the crimes to gangs of secret marauders in helicopters–maybe even U.S. government helicopters, since several outbreaks occurred near large military bases.
Other alleged perpetrators that have been fingered from time to time include: (a) Satanists, who use the cattle in some unspeakable ritual; (b) Big Oil, which uses the missing cattle organs to detect the telltale signs of nearby petroleum deposits (yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either); and perhaps best of all (c) the unconscious manifestations of the Mass Mind.
This last theory is the invention of one Thomas Bearden, a retired army officer in Alabama, who believes as follows (I quote from Maclean’s magazine):
“The mutilations are the physical manifestation of the whole human unconsciousness which is somehow aware that the Soviets will, probably within three years, invade and destroy the Western world…. Cattle are female symbols representing the U.S., and the surgical precision of the mutilations indicates the precision of the military operations to come.
“The removal of genitals and organs signifies the end of children in the Western world and the cutting off of ears and tongues predicts the end of free speech.” You bet, Tom.”
Sensible people, such as (one presumes) anyone reading this column, generally believe that the mutilations are the result of natural predators. A minority of cases are the work of brain-damaged farm boys who get ideas after reading about mutilations in the papers.