Cattle Mutilation

There have been numerous reports of cattle mutilation -- that is, unexplainably dead cows turning up with odd wounds that look to be surgically precise. Their bodies have been split open, and the soft organs inside have been removed. Their eyes, tongues, genitals, and anuses may also have been removed. But the most unusual element of all, and the thing that really sets off the Crazy Alarms in people's heads, is that the bodies are always mysteriously drained of blood.

Clearly, it's vampires. Or else aliens are doing it to study the cows. Maybe satanic cults are committing ritualistic sacrifices. No, wait: It's unseen monsters like El Chupacabra that are feasting on the livestock!

Well, something is happening, goddamn it.

The Solution

In the 1970s, the ATF and even the FBI investigated the cattle mutilation phenomenon. Their results? They found no evidence of anything other than natural causes and the occasional psychopath. No cult activity, no aliens, no monsters.

Natural causes that appear as surgical wounds? What about the removed organs? How is that possible? In most cases, scavengers such as foxes, buzzards, and other critters that like beef au natural saunter by the decomposing corpse and have a bite or two -- thus the organ removal.

The surgical look comes later when insects chew at the edges of the wounds. See, flies like soft foods, because flies don't have teeth. Same reason we go to Taco Bell: no standards and less work. And also much like Taco Bell, they prefer the softer parts of the animal: eyes, tongues, genitals, anuses, and the rough edges of those aforementioned scavenger wounds. Also, if the animal's been lying around for long enough (or even short periods in the hot sun), it'll bloat and burst open, often with very clean, surgical-looking tears. And then come to the maggots, which eat anything they can get their little teeth on.

They'll chew up whatever's left of those organs and drink the animal's blood, which typically pools to the bottom of the corpse, giving it that nice, cleanly drained look. Look, don't believe us (we certainly don't make a habit out of it), but what better way to demonstrate than a little field experiment? In 1979, an Arkansas sheriff named Herb Marshall got a bunch of complaints about cattle mutilation in his jurisdiction. So he got the idea to take a dead cow, plop it down in a field, and film it for 48 hours in what was undoubtedly the worst two-day stakeout since Another 48 Hrs. After the elements and various creatures were done with it, the stakeout cow was indistinguishable from any other animal that had been "mutilated."