Mystery of the Eastern Oregon Cattle Mutilations

In 1967, a three-year-old horse named Snippy was found stripped to the bone with no blood, no tracks, and no explanation, kicking off decades of unexplained livestock mutilations across the American West. By the 1970s, ranchers in Eastern Oregon were finding cows in similar manners: reproductive organs removed, tongues gone, no blood at the scene, and scavengers mysteriously avoiding the bodies.

In this episode we dig into the history of cattle mutilation reports, the FBI investigation that went nowhere, and the modern-day cases from 2019–2022 that reignited the mystery and became the subject of an Unsolved Mysteries episode. Aliens, satanic cults, government cover-ups, or just nature doing what nature does? 

Have an eerie PNW encounter of your own or a case you want us to look into? Share it it with us eerilybelovedpodcast@gmail.com

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Intro music by Don Edwards

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, welcome back to the podcast and early beloved, we are gathered here today with Mom, Morgan.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Chevy.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Yay! It's Chevy's first podcast episode. He's a huge fan. He's listening to him. He's listened to all of them. Oh yeah. Okay, wow. Okay. So today we're gonna be talking about cattle mutilations.

unknown 0:24

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

No way to no way to ease. No way to ease into that. But so I guess trigger wording if you it's kind of graphic too, so maybe don't listen to this one with your kids in the car. Planet Moon. Yeah. We want our cows. We want our cows back. We want our cows back. Yeah, that's basically the premise for this entire episode.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

All right. Yeah, let's get into it. You'll remember in episode 20, which is a wrath drum in the murders of Rita and Ron Markison, rumors of a cult operating in the area of eastern Oregon over the border into Idaho were exacerbated when in 1972 Silt Ranch discovered many of their cows dead, but not from natural causes. Reports of cattle mutilations weren't reserved for Oregon alone, and by the end of the 70s, nearly every state had become a victim of what some were calling mass hysteria. So as the aliens, cults, a government conspiracy, or sensationalized reporting. Dun dun dun. So the first widely publicized report of animal mutilation happened on September 7th, 1967. In Alamosa, Colorado, a three-year-old saddlepony named Snippy failed to return to the stables. Two days later on September 9th, ranch owner Henry Knight made an unfortunate discovery. Snippy met her untimely demise only a quarter mile from the ranch house. According to Henry King's account given to the newspapers, the neck and head had been completely stripped of flesh, leaving nothing but bare, seemingly sun-bleached white bone, while the remainder of the horse remained unscathed. The cut around the neck was smooth, not done with a serrated object or teeth, and the horse had no blood surrounding the areas where the body lay, or on the body.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Creepy.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Photos of the scene confirm this report. There are pictures. There are pictures of it? Yes. If you look up Snippy the Horse. It's it's it's bad. Like it's Yikes.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

So the neck and the head, all this was just all the flesh was gone.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

All the flesh, all the muscle, nothing was left.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

What? Isn't that horrific? That is so gross. Did you look it up, Mom? It was so disgusting. Disturbing. Oh. And you said there was no blood surrounding the body or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Nope. Additionally, other reports state that her brain was missing, but the skull was completely intact. And the Unsolved Mysteries episode on the mystery mutilations, which is the main source material for this episode, stated that her spine had been removed, but they couldn't figure out how.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

And there was no other cuts on the body. They was just like Yep. They just like sheared off.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Oh, that's so weird.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

About a hundred yards away was a small circle of hoof prints, like the horse was walking in a circle and then somehow ended up a hundred yards away.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

So she was So there was no like there's no Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

No blood, no trail, no.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Nope. No other animal tracks, tire prints, or human footprints were at the scene. But there did dip there did appear to be what looked like scorch marks, which is like that dark, that dark stuff underneath the horse in the picture. Yeah. Which it it does kind of look like blood, but I guess they're scorch marks. Interesting. Mrs. Lewis, odor owner of the young saddlepony, attempted to have authorities investigate the weird scene. But all they offered was that it looked like she was struck by lightning.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Uh what?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Not one of them, not one of these officers visited the area. Someone who did visit the area was a forestry official armed with a Geiger counter. Reports say that the horse wasn't found to be radioactive, but the apparent scorch marks were. Yeah, in the middle of in the middle of Colorado.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

So by October of 1967, newspaper headlines reading, Flying Saucers Killed My Horse dominated front page news across the country. The untimely death of a beloved horse via aliens was just the tip of the iceberg for mysterious livestock mutilations. And I actually read her name was not Snippy, it was Lady, but they called her Snippy because of what happened to her.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

No lady, no. Snippy, that's horrible.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

I know.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yikes, dude.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Okay, but didn't they also at that point um didn't something fuel it back in the day that there was like um exhaust or you know other marks that look like that maybe something had landed right after the lady reported that she had seen something?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, the scorch marks. People were saying that it could have been like an alien beamed her up, and so like that's what the scorch marks were from.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Because there was under her, under the body. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

No, like near, I think the bushes, right? Something about the but there there was like bushes, so like they I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

No? Okay. I don't think so. Not in this one. But people did think that the scorch marks could have been poor snappy. I know. Of course. Sadden. Well, it's gonna get sadder, unfortunately. Oh the wave of theories that followed was bolstered by countless reports of cows turning up dead in a similar mysterious manner. Ranchers across the country reported finding cows with surgical-like incisions, specifically around reproductive organs, which were then removed with precision. Their lower jaw was stripped of their flesh down to the bone, with their tongues, eyes, and sometimes ears removed. The area they were found in would be devoid in any tracks from tires, animals, or humans, and scavenger animals like vultures would avoid the area and uncharacteristically leave the animals alone. No blood would be found on the animal despite removal of organs or in the surrounding area, which you would expect was such a large animal.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

I mean, yeah, you can't cut into something and remove it without like leaving any trace.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Well, in a cow is not small. No. Cow's not gonna have no blood, like a fish or something.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Right. And the turkey vultures won't go near it. I mean, it's like the energy is like off. The animals know.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Or it's sick, or it's you know, like when animals are sick, they don't want to eat them.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

That's so odd.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

What do you think, Chevy? Are you buying these? He's taking it all in.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

I don't know. I'm trying to wrap my head around it, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

That's a lot. Like zero. Like they said very, very small incisions around the reproductive organs, so they're like taking things from the body, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:11

Like killing the animal and cutting them, cutting things up and then without any blood afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

And just like leaving them, and there's no trace of anybody or anything being there or no signs of a struggle, nothing. No, and you can't just like pick up a cow. It's not like you can just be like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

No, yeah. And one person can't take on a cow. Like that's you know. So on August 26th, 1975, the Satan cow killings, according to the headline, had made its way into Oregon. At this point, most of the cattle mutilations were clustered in the western U.S. with a few outliers. Harney County was the latest area to be plagued by the mysterious mutilations. Sheriff Frank Hickey of the Harney County Sheriff's Department was called to the Hotchkiss Ranch in the Emigrant Creek area after the discovery of a two-year-old cow. Similar to the other cases, the udder and external reproductive organs had been surgically removed. Sheriff Frank Hickey said the animal is completely devoid of all blood, not so much as one drop of blood was found around the surgical cuts, and the animal was not killed at Hotchkiss Ranch or wasn't transported here by any type of ground vehicle. Additionally, where the cow was found was in an area of tall grass, which easily could have shown any vehicle or human activity. This report also included that this animal appeared to be completely drained of blood, but I don't know if that was ever confirmed via necropsy, or if they just assumed so since there was none at the scene. So some of the things say, oh, the cow was drained of blood because there was no blood from the cow at the scene. Well, yeah, they're not bleeding. Yeah, they're not like actively bleeding, and so they would say, Oh, they're drained of blood, but like that that wasn't the case.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Okay. But you cut you cut off your arms and legs, you're going to bleed.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Right? I mean, that's just common sense.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

So the working theory that law enforcement had at this point was that the mutilations were being performed by a satanic cult for ritualistic purposes and then returned by air in a helicopter, which explained the bloodless scenes.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

And that was the object that was flying around in the what are we talking about? But nobody weared a helicopter.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

How many satanic groups own helicopters? Okay, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Or know how to fly a helicopter. Let me just get my helicopter. I was just gonna say I'll grab one. Not everyone can just get in and drive. And they're loud. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Yeah, I was gonna say, like nobody's hearing that, nobody's seeing that, nobody's yeah. What? What are we talking about?

SPEAKER_03 9:33

And how many where's the closest helicopter pad to that? In Harney County? Come on. Harney County, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Middle of the field.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

But it was tall grass.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

So that doesn't even make sense.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Mm-hmm. Nope. By September 5th, two more cows for a total of three were found all in the Burns area on separate ranches miles apart from each other, with a similar manner of mutilation. No further evidence could be gathered from these scenes either. By September 17th, Harney County had lost eight cows, and according to Sheriff Hickey, all identical with their utter sexual organs and tongue missing and no blood on the animal or on the ground.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

And also weren't they placed in like a certain way, like they were more like like they had just like died, you know, nicely. There were it wasn't violent, right? They were just like laying. So like you were like positionally. And in a position that they the cows couldn't get to in their own. Yeah. Right, because of their size, because if they got there, they couldn't get up.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Right. Whether it was intentional or not, only two bulls or male male cows were killed anywhere since the killings were first reported in 1967. So what do people want female cow organs for?

SPEAKER_03 10:43

I don't know. Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

That's what I'm like. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

And so one of these one of these gr in the group of eight that were killed in Oregon was a male cow. And so they're like, oh, that's interesting. All the other ones everywhere were female cows.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yep. Following these deaths, Harney County District Attorney Ritney Seeger claimed that the cows the cows found were actually victims of coyotes who would often go after the softest flash on an animal, which would be the utter and sexual organs, and not knife-wielding humans or laser beams from aliens.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Okay, so how is a cow not gonna A run away from a coyote and B, how's it gonna die and lay down and die and be missing a tongue? It's not like a scared ghost where it's just right, and no kerfuffle.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Like what are we talking about? Like coyotes are sucking them clean of their blood and then just leaving them there. That's a vampire coyotes?

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah, vampire coyotes.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

That that's my theory.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Hey, I don't know what's going on in Eastern Oregon then, maybe. Maybe. So despite this conclusion, the Oregon Cattlemen's Association Association offered a thousand dollars to anyone that had information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the individual as possible. So they're like, we know it's not coyotes. What doesn't even make sense? It's too it's just dumb. It's just dumb. Why would you even say that? So in 1975, after Colorado alone had 200 cases between April and October, and local law enforcement had no leads, Colorado Senator at the time, Floyd Haskell, requested help from the FBI. Ranchers were taking things into their own hands and arming themselves, going as far as even shooting at any unmarked planes or helicopters overhead for fear that their cows would be taken and killed. We want our cows because this guy was like, We need some help, please, because something is gonna happen if this isn't stopped or there's not a solution found.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

But send an FBI like Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Despite this, the Bureau lacked jurisdiction since no federal statute covered the crimes described and they were unable to help. We just can't do anything. What do you want to say? Yeah, exactly. Thousands of reports across North America even had the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, involved with its own investigations into their dead cows happening across the border in Canada. In 1979, at the request from U.S. Senator Harrison Schmidt, who had a PhD in geology from Harvard and had walked on the mood as an Apollo 17 astronaut, and after millions of dollars of livestock were lost at this point, the DOJ allowed the FBI to open an investigation where they actually had jurisdiction. Because some cattle mutilations had occurred on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. Okay. So they were able to look into the 15 cases that had occurred there. So Operation Animal Mutilation started in April 1979, led by retired FBI agent Kenneth M. Rommel Jr. Unfortunately, no new cases had appeared in their jurisdiction after a cluster that happened in March of 1979. So they didn't have any new cases to investigate. Momentum in any new leads led to the operation quietly sizzling out, with the case closed at the end of 1979.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

So they just didn't do anything?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

No. According to Operation Animal Mutilation, the FBI came to the conclusion that none of the reported cases had involved what appeared to be mutilations by anything other than common predators.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

A coyote with a scalpel. Like the monster. Like what are we talking about? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

For real.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Like a bird with a knife or something.

unknown 14:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

So recently there's been an increase in this type of activity where it's been sporadic over the years and not as sensationalized as it was in the 70s. The news cluster in eastern Oregon was a subject of Unsolved Mysteries in an episode titled Mysterious Mutilations, spanning from 2018 to 2022. Ranches in eastern and central Oregon found themselves leaving losing cows at an alarming rate due to alarming reasons.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

It's a really interesting episode.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah, I watched it last night. It was it's kind of spooky. But like the the ranch, the ranch guys are cool. Yeah. They're wearing bandanas and they have glasses and hats on. It's like okay, it's fully fitted.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

But they do talk about like uh seeing extraterrestrial types of you know um things in the sky or weird things happening to their power going out or other things that they can connect to times around when the animals are then found, right? Because they don't know. Yeah. And then and they don't like track their cattle, I guess, every day, right? They so it it it takes so it's at one point a guy says, like, look, I don't know, maybe it's been a week since, right? This uh all the cows checked in. Yeah. So they they go looking and find them up on the on a ridge and just like in this little peaceful manner, but yeah, it's weird that they're returned.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Like if they're actually taken somewhere, like why return them? Why return them and put them like that?

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Well, the amount of effort it would take to take a cow and then again return it, like why would you uh it just doesn't make any sense? We're not taking a cow. It doesn't make any sense. Well, and to your point, when they wouldn't find them for multiple days, if they can't test the flash or like do any of those tests because everything's already decomposed. So like past 24 hours and like rigor mortis has already k started, you can't really take a sample of anything. And most of the samples they tried to take were already run, like by the time they got to a lab or anything like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Or if it's hot outside.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah, just because it's like in the elements and and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

They weren't the ranchers weren't like going out every day and trying to like keep track of their cattle.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

We don't have time for that.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

No, so they're just like, if you're not here at night, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Good luck to you.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Sylvis Valley Ranch, located in Harney County, the same county that was a victim of the cow mutilations in the 70s, made their first discovery in July 2019. The following day, ranch hands discovered four more cows. All at once. So you had one cow, and then the next day, five cows or four cows. So for a total of five cows.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

All had their tongues missing and their genitals excised with no signs of a struggle. Such a large amount showing up with 24 hours triggered a multi-agency investigation, but no leads or cause of death has yet to be determined. They don't know how these cows have died ever.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Are we putting cameras up? It's like what are we doing? Put the security team out there. I mean, this is like they own hundreds of acres. You know, like so it's big, big ranches in in eastern Oregon. So they're not able to Well, and it's like rugged terrain. There's hills and valleys and but that's also why they they don't think like the cows aren't being no one's picking up the cows and leaving them.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah, because they're in the middle of nowhere, they don't think that someone's gonna come out there. And then also you have to track track the cows to find out where they are that day.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Yeah. We're putting tracking on the cows. Um put an air tag on my cow, make sure you don't escape, right? Go somewhere crazy.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Hey, no, you're actually that's a great thought. Put air tags on the cow like in the little ear tag and then determine or not whether or not they're being abducted by an alien invading.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

It's like one just like goes out and you're like, whoa, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Using the cows as bait.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Why is my cow in Nebraska?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

What's going on?

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Seriously. Seriously, we need some tracking on these guys. I mean, you're saying this is happening. What year was this? This is 2019. I was just gonna say. So this is like there is the technology that could be used now that wasn't duct taping my Apple iPhone to my cow and putting it on its way.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

This is uh unsolved mystery. Right. This is not the like the the main focus of the unsolved mystery. I mean, for the for the Oregon port.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

It's crazy, it's still happening and we haven't figured that out.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

It's so weird the amount of technology and things that we have.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

I think the issue is they just want to explain it away, right? They don't want to actually probably know. Like lightning strike.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Clearly, the horse wasn't killed by a lightning strike. Or coyotes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Coyote isn't gonna leave the rest of the cow and only take a lightning bolt, isn't gonna take your genitals, you're done. No, no, no, in your brain.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, unless you're Zeus or something. Crazy.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah, Zeus crazy work. All right.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

That's you got your hands and feet, but everything else missing. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Okay, okay. Colby Marshall, vice president of the Sylvis Valley Ranch, said that these deaths are particularly bizarre because if money was what the individuals were after, these cows were worth about $7,000 each. Yeah. And that they would have sired at least a hundred cows, calves, each over the remainder of their lives.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

So they're worth way more alive than they are doing.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

And these were all bulls or male cows.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

But they're worth way more alive than they were, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

David Bonnard, a professor at Oregon State University who studies beef cattle. Crazy. Okay. Stated that statistically it's unlikely that all cows killed of natural causes were bulls, as they only make up four to five percent of the herd. So like that would have had to be targeted. Yes, intentional. But why? If you're I know there's no answer, but like why what are you doing with their gen like Rocky Mountain oysters? Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Oh no. No.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

I mean, no, but you just get a cow. Steal the cow and take the cow. Rocky Mountain oysters.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Why would they that's the thing, is like I don't understand them giving it back and then giving some sort of like take the cow. What are we doing? Just take the cow, bro. Just take it.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Well, it's not environmental group, so it's too wasteful.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Oh, right. Of course. Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

It's not Pita. Jeez. On September 18, 2019, another cow was found near Hampton, Oregon in Lake County. This cow is missing her utter general's tongue, heart, and blood. Lightning. Frida. Friday from the inside? Yeah, seriously. Rancher Stephen Ross says that the area was incredibly remote and that it takes an hour to get where this cow is located via truck or a TV. It's not like they're on the side of the road in the middle No, they're literally in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

I mean Lake County, there's nothing there's nothing there.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

With no help from the Oregon State Police, Harney Lake or Deschute Sheriff's Office offices, he employed the help of longtime friend Gary Bishop, who had served in the U.S. Air Force in a tactical reconnaissance unit. He said, It's obvious an animal didn't do it. I think whoever is responsible rely on the fact that we're so rural that they can't get the animal to a vet for forensic exam fast enough. Odd coincidence or a confirmation of potential occult activity, the ear tag on this specific cow was 1313. And she was found on Friday 18th, just a few days after Friday the 13th. Just side note.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

Okay, but who's monitoring a cow's tag?

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Mom, I don't know. I don't know. And how would they have that?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

It's a it's a terrorist Easter egg.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Debut Easter egg. I knew it.

unknown 21:53

I knew it.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

No. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

One of the ranch transport is saying to be able to cut through the skin and hide. Without getting into the belly takes a lot of skill and precision. It kind of creeped me out. I definitely think it was someone, a pretty sick person. It wasn't an animal. No animal can cut skin around the belly like that. It's like in regards to the other situation.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Well, and you said the heart was removed too.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

So how does that work? I don't know. How does that work?

SPEAKER_03 22:19

To know where all these things A are located, but but then they're already done with surgical precision.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Right. How is the cow dying?

SPEAKER_03 22:27

This has to be dead when you do that.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Following spring in March 2020, another bull was found dead in Condon, Oregon, in a similar state as all the others. He was on a side with reproductive organs and tongue cut out. Despite this, the rancher even pointed out that he had no belly on his white underbelly. So sometimes I like black cows or brown cows, but this cow had a white, cute little white tummy, and there was no blood on it. So he was like, oh.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Cleaning them up. It's kind of like serial killer vibes, you know, like you know how they pop since the 70s. I yeah, I don't know. Well, passed down through generations. I well, just like them setting it up to look nice and peaceful. It's very like it's not like a mess of a scene.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Yeah. You know, I Well, it's definitely not like rush, like get in, get out, right? Someone's watching.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Yeah, they definitely so that's why I think it that's why the unsolved mysteries it gets to like the extraterrestrial or the something non-human. Yeah. Because they don't have the instincts of like if you're gonna go do you know, people usually when they're doing something bad are typically in a rush because they don't want to get caught.

SPEAKER_04 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

It's a bank robbery.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Or like as you as you go on, you get more and more sloppy because you get more and more confident with what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

So but that's just not well, and this cannot be the same person, for goodness sake. Right. Well, you can't lift up a cow.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

You can't one person, one person, like as a fit something, something year old, cannot lift up a cow. No. Unless you're a bodybuilder or something crazy.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

But well, not a dying cow, literally dead weight, right? That's why they call it that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

So only a few months later in July of 2020, a cow was discovered outside Fossil, Oregon in Wheeler County. This one stood out to many because unlike other cows found around the state, this cow was fully sitting up with its legs tucked under her and her head was off the ground, like in a loaf position.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Like it got uh cemented that way, right? It's joints got hardened.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Yeah, because once it was like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Like you can look up a picture of that one too.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Yeah, in a sitting position. Rather than write everything as it crumples, so when you die, you know this is actually erect.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

So this cow's tongue and genitals were removed, and there was no blood at the scene, no evidence of the struggle. The person the guy who even found it, it was sitting underneath a juniper tree. He was like, Oh, the cow's just sitting down, like cowing around. But it wasn't responsive. But it wasn't responding, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

And again, no turkey vultures, no nothing, no other animals would go near it.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

That's so odd. So they're doing they're doing are they doing autopsies? I understand that like it's been, you know, it takes whatever. Um they doing autopsies like checking to see if there's anything in the cow's system, like are they tranquilizing these cows?

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Are they that's kind of the issue because if they don't find them until one day, two days, three days later, then there's nothing in their there would be nothing in their system and their body is already like fully decomposing.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

That's so these people they really know what they're doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

If they're people are the precision of the removal didn't even have investigators try to say it was done by an animal. They're like, eh, we're not even we're not gonna lie. We're not gonna lie. Yeah, we're not gonna say it to someone.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

We're not gonna lie this time like we did last time and say it was a coyote. No coyote has that terrible.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Surging coyote setting up the cow, like, oh, you're gonna look so cute under this church.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Scrubbing in. Wheeler County Sheriff's Deputy Jeremiah Holmes said it was a clean cut, so it wasn't wildlife. So finally we have someone that's like like acknowledging that this is we don't knew.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Well, and now we're in the 2020, so we're pretty we're pretty current. So we're gonna go to the city.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Well, at this point, we can't Ranchers have heard ranchers have heard of this, so they're aware of like what this is and what happens when they find a cow like this. So it's crazy that law enforcement isn't like, hmm.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

But don't don't they have a coalition where they report them now, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:25

They like radio like so everyone knows like I think they they attempted to or they wanted to because they're like So something happened at my ranch, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:33

I could I could call Morgan and Chevy and say, hey, just so you know, go out and check your cows, right? Yeah. So then they go and check their cows. And not laying down out there.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yeah, after the this discovery, there were talks of creating a task force to help investigate the statewide cases. But because the area is so rural and people's ranches are so big, yeah, that like hundreds of acres that it's just hard to to account for everything that's happening every day. And yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

Well, and they're roaming, right? The kid, the cows are roaming, so it's like sometimes like they travel, they travel travel miles a day. It takes them hours to get there. Yeah, yeah. And so if you gotta have to go back to that area, and that's what you know, when they have to go back to these areas, sometimes it's it's hours and hours before they can even get back there.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yeah. Grant County was next to lose their cows in June of 2020. Run. Rancher MT Anderson discovered his cow with her lower jaw skinned to the bone, her tongue removed, and a straight incision just behind her shoulder. Anderson had never seen anything like it, but police had an answer. Their conclusion, we've determined that that heifer was killed by a bear. A bear is a surgeon.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

But this is different. Okay. But the jaw skin, but the bear wasn't gonna eat it.

unknown 27:42

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

The bear would love to eat a cow, wouldn't it? Right. Like, I mean, if it could, I mean it wouldn't kill a cow, but wouldn't wouldn't it eat meat? Bears like meat? What was removed what was removed? Just the tongue? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Just the tongue. The tongue. There was an incision.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

And then there was like a a straight cut on the glass shoulder. They got scared or something and then they or they were trying to get something and maybe got spooked and so they couldn't. Oh, again, it's worth more alive than it is unalive.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Are they selling it on like the dark web or whatever? Like a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Well, wouldn't you rather sell like a $7,000 cow?

SPEAKER_02 28:17

I don't know. I don't know. If I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

I've never Chevy, would you rather shell sell a cow or I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

What are these tongues going for? Maybe I need to get into this business.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Maybe it's a delicacy that we're just unaware of.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

They're used somebody's using it for something.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

No, like something's going on. Like I'm sure that there's some sort of market for that kind of stuff. Maybe. I mean, they're they harvest those types of things for experiments. And I mean, remember we looked at a c cow eyeball when we were I guess, but take the whole cow.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Like, why are you on? Yeah. I don't know. I mean beef cheek is very popular. Yeah. I was gonna say, I feel like And there's a lot of collagen. You know, maybe we have someone into makeup. I'm just Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Oh and you know, because the because the government is like very much like trying to like stay out of it and be like, it's this, it's this, it's this, and not trying to research any any of it, it's very much like it gives like billionaires paying people off and don't tell anybody that I'm doing this.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

If you have the money, get your own cow farm. Do do your own ranch well then buy a ranch.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

I don't know. I I know they'd rather just be like, well, let's let the people think that it's this.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yeah. So in response to this on the Unsolved Mist Mysteries episode, the rancher guy, MT Anderson, said, We've never had anything killed by a bear ever. We do have bears around here, but it's almost a surgical-like cut. I mean, it's like a two-foot cut and a perfectly straight line right behind her shoulder. Bears like last I checked, don't pack knives. Or sc Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

I like his sense of humor.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

He was dressed nice in the episode too. He was fitted. Oh my gosh. So significant monetary awards have been offered over the years for anyone that has information, but no one has ever been arrested or tried for cattle mutilation. Ever. And everyone has their own theories, but many say that the nature of the killings are totally explainable. One veterinarian from the earlier cases back in 1975 said that after the animal has been dead for approximately eight hours, the blood coagulates in clots, thus allowing the removal of sexual organs without drainage of blood. Additionally, blood pooling in the lowest point of the body cavity due to gravity would result in a relatively bloodless scene. To them, this debunks the theory that they were killed elsewhere and then dumped. Also, in these early reports, it was assumed that karautes could be blamed for the removal of reproductive organs, but this was dismissed when they realized the cows had received complete hysterectomies. So it wasn't just like the outer organs, it was everything on the inside too.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

They're cleaning up like afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Like it's And I was like, and mom would relate to this.

SPEAKER_03 31:09

I mean, that doesn't even make sense.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

I know.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

What are you doing with the I need to complete complete hysterectomy on a cow?

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Are they using I don't know, but even like on the Unsolved Mysteries episode, one rancher was like the way that the perfect circle was cut around like her backside to extract what they needed to extract? Yeah, was crazy.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

I mean, are they making cow babies? Like, are they taking it and then making these but it's dead, so like it wouldn't be effective, right? I don't I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how that works.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Taking the tongue over DNA and then taking the root.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Maybe like it's very I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

But if you need cow DNA, you wouldn't need the whole like reproductive track.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Well, it's weird that they're taking And but they're taking the anus, too.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

So like Well, and you can't get that from blood, right? And you could do a blood sample when you have them in for But they can't do blood sample because they're dead.

unknown 32:10

Dr.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Julius Berry, a bovine veterinarian who's featured in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, was called to do a necropsy on a cow in Colorado who died under similar circumstances. She pointed out that after death and due to rigor mortis, it was nearly impossible to remove the tongue due to the jaw being stuck shut, which is something an animal alone would be unable to do. So the muscles would freeze up, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

So when they die, their jaw goes clamped. So how are these how are they getting the tongues out of the cows after they die?

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Can that kill a cow? That can't kill a cow. Would that kill a cow?

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Well, the cow's not gonna sit still.

unknown 32:44

Right.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Well, how how are you gonna get your hand in the mouth to cut the tongue out? Yeah, that's true. How do you here just open your mouth and let me excuse me, I just I need to look at something. And you would need a big open what? You would need a big knife for that.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yeah, it's a cow tongue is long, right? Big.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

So that doesn't make sense either.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

What in the world?

SPEAKER_00 33:04

So a study published in the Canadian Veterinary Journal for the September 1989 issue titled Maggots, Mutilations, and Myth: Patterns of Post-mortem Scavenging of Bovine Carcasses, evaluated natural scavenging patterns against the evidence that was being reported in the mutilation cases. This study specifically looked at the ones that had happened in Alberta, Canada. It found that the pattern of soft tissue removal seen in mutilated cattle, the missing eyes, ears, tongue, genitals, udder, etc., closely matches the natural, predictable order in which scavengers, like insects, bowflies, and maggots, along with birds, consume a carcass. Soft, moist tissue is simply what scavengers go for first, and it can leave edges that look clean or precise to an untrained eye, especially once maggot activity has smoothed the rounded wound edges. The authors went on to kind of criticize investigators, claiming that they needed to fully root rule out natural causes, which is something that these cases had only briefly looked into before jumping to human involvement. Like it was an old cow. Yeah. Well, none of them were old cows, but yeah, exactly. They just didn't even consider it. They concluded mutilations were just the result of early decomp and small scavengers.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

In that episode, they didn't find maggot activity on the on the one horse or the one cow. There was no maggot activity. No. Right? It was too new to actually even have started that. They remember there was I was gonna say it would be way too. It was too too soon because that's what they looked for, and that's how they knew that the other vultures and other things weren't interested in it because they were having trouble even understanding. Well, it couldn't be so old because there wasn't even like the fly larvae activity.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yep. Well, and even on some some weren't perfect circles like the cutouts, some are like cookie-cutter or serrated.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

So it looked very unnatural, not something that no animal. Yeah, not something with something with jagged teeth or yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's taken from yeah, that doesn't course alien abduction was the main theory since there were so many unexplainable elements to the to these mutilations, mainly the why. Like no one why or what's the reason? No one no one knows. While cattle wrestling was a real thing that ranchers had to deal with, which we also talked about in episode 20. There was no rhyme or reason why someone would do that to a cow. The parts that were being removed had no black market value, and certainly other more usable parts of the cow would be lucrative if monetary gain was the goal.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Yeah, because they're not taking anything else. They're literally just it's very like it's giving experiment. It's giving like, oh, I wanna I'm gonna take this and I'm yeah. I'm gonna do some crazy stuff with it.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Allegedly, according to Terrence Mitchell, a UFO lecturer who worked at the University of Minnesota, there have been links between reports of UFO phenomena and cattle mutilation since 1897. According to Mitchell, incredible as it seems, there was a story in the St. Louis Globe Democrat who told about a farmer claiming that an airship stole one of his cows. The airship appeared in plain view of the farmer, Alexander Hamilton. Crazy. Um and his family and frightened them out of their wits. The captain of the vessel had to nur had the nerve to swoop down upon the cow lot and steal a two-year-old heifer, and a dozen well-known citizens testified to his truth and verocity.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

The nerve. The nerve are cows, bad. Not Alexander Hamilton.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

You know. Even in modern-day cases, ranchers aren't quick to write off the UFO alien theories. The undisturbed area they they seem to be founded, and their positioning, often on their sides or their backs, could make sense if you believe they were dropped by a UFO. So some think that if they were dropped from like really high up, that that's how they would land. Like dead bug style.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Right. The government cover-up conspiracy also could hold some weight if you replaced the UFO with a helicopter, like the ones reported being seen around the site during the earlier cases. Some in the same camp suggest that cows are being used as subjects to help test biological weapons. Even with scientific evidence that this totally could be scavenger activity. Distrust in law enforcement led people believing that this was another government cover-up and a blanket explanation.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

Okay, but just go raise cows and do your experiments. You don't need to go take someone's cow. And then like everyone make us think of it.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

And everyone's talking about it and everyone knows about it. Like there's just cryptids like Sasquatch and other mic mystical creatures like a chupacabra were also considered due to the strangeness of these cases. Sasquatch in some stories is known to drain blood from livestock. That's like mainly where I came from. Sasquatch. I don't know, Garrett's favorite. The satanic cult theory is widely accepted by those who don't believe in the scientific explanation and refuse to even consider UFOs abduct abducting cows. We saw a dead livestock and cycle further panic during the 80s in the Rita and Ron Markison case in episode 20. The reports popping up all over the country led many to think that the cult was moving through the area and using organs for rituals.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

Okay, but they're going up and down from Colorado to rural places that like Nevada and they're on Indian reservation.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

It would be super, it'd be super obvious if you saw strange people like coming through your area. Regardless of the reason, since the 1970s, over 10,000 cases of mutilated cattle have appeared in the U.S. Many say this number is a low estimation due to the likelihood that only one in ten cases of cattle mutation mutilation is actually reported.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

Reported. Yeah, because we did see that also on the episode that people are they don't want to report it because they don't want to be seen as crazy. Yeah. Right? Because they get kind of outcast in the community, like you're just uh it's it's a pride, it's a pride thing. Yeah, you're crazy like that. Doesn't happen on my land. Yeah. And because you want people to buy your cattle and use it for, you know, whatever it's being used for. And so nobody wants to go to the crazy folks farm. Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Yeah, and it's still happening today. So I guess whatever explanation you choose to believe in is there okay, I have a question.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Because I feel like I've heard of this before where people use like livestock to replace their own like body parts, you know what I'm talking about? Like people use like pig hearts or pig whatever that you can replace certain things. The cow heart thing was really weird. I like I'm just curious how to do it.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

Do you like a cow uterus?

SPEAKER_02 39:18

No, I just like I'm like, what what other explanation would there be to take that?

SPEAKER_00 39:24

That is odd. If you're gonna take like organs from cows, wouldn't you want them to be super healthy? Like super You'd want to know what they ate, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

I don't I don't think there's no. But there's also, I mean, they could be taking them to another country and like doing some crazy. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

Well, these aren't wagyu. I mean, right? They're you know, like this they're organ cows. These are yeah, these are so and and young cows, right? And they're not like fattened up or used for their meat. So it it just doesn't it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Super spooky doesn't make any sense. Actually, the number I think is staggering, the 10,000. Just to even think about that, is that is a a lot of cows. And if you We want our cows back. We want our cows back. If you if you were on a farm and you know you found an animal, that would be really spooky. And I think I'm glad those people have been reporting it, but we also know that's why the numbers are going up now, is because they're trying to get people to report it so they can try and find patterns. Right. Because now we have technology now. I think we could we could probably figure this out, folks. Come on, guys. Let's let's put Apple AirTags. I think we should, I think let's call Apple and let's let's see if we can get these farmers.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

We want our cows back.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Our cows back. Operation we want our cows back. Right. Yes, right. Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

All right, so let's do creepy and believability score for this one.

SPEAKER_03 40:51

Okay, so let's remind Chevy. It's one to ten. It's one to ten. And we rate let's do first creepy.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Okay, wants to go first.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

I think Chevy should go first. Okay, Chevy.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

How how creepy do you think this is?

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Creepy? I'd probably say like a four.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Okay. Not really that creepy.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

It wouldn't bother you being on you going outside and seeing a a dead cow and like being like shocked at what these full-grown ranchers were saying like even talking about it today still gives them chills and like their hair.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

It doesn't seem creepy to me though. Like it doesn't seem like like it's weird. Yeah, it's cool. Like it's more like, oh, well, imagine finding the horse.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

So you have more questions than now if there was like a like a satanic thing around it, then it'd be a little more creepy.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yeah, if if there were evidence, yeah, I think it was just how you're saying it.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

It's like, yeah, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:45

So yeah, I kind of agree. I mean, until we kind of know more in what it is, um, although I think it's totally creepy. Like I I would not I mean, I'm not gonna be going out into you know the rural parts of Oregon and be hanging out just to see if I hear a spaceship.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Yeah, well, and because the issue is if these people, if these people, if they are people, are killing cows, then that means they'd probably have the capacity to hurt people too. Like what if you stumbled upon them?

SPEAKER_03 42:11

I mean, nothing nothing good's happening, right? In the middle of the night, which we say that all the time. We know between the hours of like midnight and four, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing good happens in the middle. It's happening then. I think for me, uh uh creepy as I'm just a little higher. I mean, I'm it would creep me, it doesn't creep me out. I'm a city girl, but I think I'll I'll still put my creepy factor up there because it is so unexplainable and gone on for so long. Yeah, so I'll put my creepy factor like more at eight. Well, yeah, I was gonna say probably a seven or an eight for me too.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Yeah, yeah. Just like uh bizarre, yeah, so bizarre. Like it gives me the heebie jeebies. I don't want to I don't want to see that. Like 50 years of this going on, like right, and recorded, but there's no explanation of yeah, of anything.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Okay, so believability, I guess let's do believability. I don't know. Do you believe that it was not done by a coyote? How much how much because like we do know this is happening, like that's yeah, that's not an argument, but is it being done by natural causes, natural like an animal or other reason like that, or is it being done by aliens? I don't know. Sask Sasquatch.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

What's the theory that you that you most resonate with?

SPEAKER_01 43:22

I don't I don't know. I definitely think it's something I think it I think it'd be something more like like not an animal, not a person. I think it's something more supernatural, like the fact there's no blood and there's no trace, that's like in and out type situation. I don't think it does kind of I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

He's believing it's a special kind of lightning. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Yeah, it's yeah, probably so lightning is mine. Pachow.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

It's like only targets cows. That's crazy. I um believe a bit I don't think it's an animal, but I mean, no way. And I've seen the I've read about it and I've seen the United Mysteries. So I um I've I like firmly believe those ranchers were like legit uneasy even talking about it, like looking around.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Well, and they're definitely like the grown macho men, like they're not well yeah, they've probably seen something.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. And so I and I told and so I totally believe them 100% that it's not it's not something, you know, it's not something they've encountered before. There there has to be a way to explain it, and and to this day it hasn't been explained. So I I I'm I'm I stand with the Rangers.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

The Rangers and Lindy. You didn't see it, but Wendy did raise her left hand as she said. I stand with the Rangers.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

I lie.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

I I'm I really want to say it's some weird government like crazy. It totally could be like undercover, they're doing some weird experience.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Like makes you think, oh, that's not true.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

I don't understand why there's not more like people aren't reporting it. Uh and they're not doing anything about it. And the g like the police aren't doing anything about it, which I think is so odd. Because I mean there is a lot of money in that space and there's no yeah, but they're treating it like a stolen tire.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

Right. Or, you know, like something something like tire? Like something's not a stolen person. Very small, you know, but just something, you know, like insignificant, like this is just uh you have 300.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

What what does it matter? Yeah, right, right, right. They're like you have a bunch of cows, so what is it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

That could be the case. That could be the case. That could be. Yeah, we we want our cows back.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

So you have our information about the cows. I was just telling Madeline that when she said she was gonna do this episode that they have just they just did a like a five-year update, you know, because this is yeah, you didn't send it to me. And so I think it'd be good for us to check out the five-year update and see if there's there's anything.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Well, I recently saw that there was a lawsuit because one of this this family's ranch or farm or something like that, they had a ton of cows die, and the reason was because the water was poisoned. That there was like a lead something, something in the water that killed all the cows. So I wonder if that could be But that wouldn't take your tongue. I know.

SPEAKER_03 46:11

And your uterus.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

And it wouldn't only tar I under I understand. And it wouldn't only target one cow.

SPEAKER_04 46:16

The leaders are cows, uterus is I'm wearing four cows.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Uterite. Yeah, uterite. I know who's performing hysterectomies on a cow.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

What is going on with that?

SPEAKER_00 46:28

You're sick and twisted.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

Sick and twisted.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Okay, well, thank you for listening to this episode. Follow us on Instagram, all the places, early beloved podcast. Email us creepy stories or something that you want us to look into, like cattle mutilations. Preferably not this gory, though. Um, early belovedpodcast at gmail.com. And we will see you. Nope, you will hear from us next week. Bye. Bye bye.