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and that said, let's begin.
If you're a regular viewer on this channel,
then you're probably wondering
why I'm even covering this topic, so let me explain.
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting around stewing
in the chaos that is modern-day America,
wondering how conspiracy theories became so mainstream.
I thought back to the good old days
when conspiracy theories were mostly harmless
and that's when I thought,
whatever happened to the whole cattle mutilation thing
that used to happen in like the '60's.
You know, the whole phenomenon
where farmers would find their cows dead,
supposedly killed, and subsequently dismembered
by any number of things
ranging from aliens all the way to cults.
To answer this question, I saw the knowledge of elders,
which these days means a quick search on google.com,
and what I found really wasn't what I was expecting.
First off, my idea that this phenomenon was a product
of the past was actually wrong.
I went to Google expecting the first several results
to be fun write-ups looking back at the goofy idea
that extra-terrestrial beings
might have an unusual interest in our bovine brethren,
but instead I found stuff like this.
These articles are incredibly recent
with stuff like rancher reports mutilated cow
and the ominous detail, "Not One Drop of Blood."
I, and I assume that this applies to everyone else too,
thought that these things weren't still going on
or at least that they had been debunked
to the point where people no longer believe
that there was anything fishy happening.
Again, I was wrong.
And after that initial Google search,
I also discovered that at one point
the FBI got involved in all of this, yeah, I know.
But anyway, before I explain the FBI's involvement
in all of this, let's take a step back.
When exactly did this phenomenon start
and what are its characteristics?
If we're strictly going for the term cattle mutilations,
then we can assume that technically it's been going on
as long as agriculture itself.
Newspaper archives from as far back as the 1800s,
mentioned the mutilation of cattle
both unsolved and with explanation.
And I'm sure records from before that
would mention similar instances as well.
If we're about modern history, however,
then we might be able to attribute
the cattle mutilation phenomenon
to one specific unsolved death.
That of a horse by the name of Lady.
Lady lived on a ranch in Colorado
up until she was found dead by her caregiver in 1967.
According to Alamosa News, the caregiver found Lady
on her side with her head, "stripped bare to the bone."
The cuts were described as precision
and not being the result of the chewing
and gnawing of animals such as coyotes, even stranger.
A potent chemical odors said to be similar to acetone,
surrounded the area.
And somehow no blood was found at the scene.
Once the story made its way to the public,
it became infamous,
and the Alamosa News claims that both visitors
and locals alike began reporting strange phenomenon,
usually involving being stalked
by what they described as strange objects.
Of course, there's much more to the story here
but for the sake of getting back to the topic at hand,
I'm just going to let that go for now
and say that the takeaway here
is that the story of Lady is a pretty good example
of most cattle mutilation claims.
In nearly every case, a farmer will claim
to have found any number of cattle dead
with cuts made to the body
that seem almost surgical in nature.
Oftentimes this will also involve the removal
of the animal sex organs or other soft tissue
and keep in mind, somehow this all happens
without any blood being left at the scene.
In 2019, it was like deja vu,
five bulls were found dead in Oregon,
and according to NBC News, "There was no indication
it had been shot, attacked by predators
or eaten poisonous plants.
The animal's sex organs and tongue had also been removed.
All the blood was gone."
Now these are the base attributes of this phenomenon
and with all that said, how common is it actually?
My initial assumption about cattle mutilations
was that it was a result of a few isolated cases
and the rest were either embellishments
or straight of folklore,
but nope I was wrong again, sort of.
There obviously isn't a centralized
cattle mutilation reports archive,
but there were definitely more
than just the few cases I initially expected.
Penning down at just how many, however,
is when problems arise.
If you look into news reports alone,
you're bound to find dozens, even hundreds of cases,
but some other sources will claim
that that number is as high as 10,000
over the last several decades.
Keep in mind, that's just an estimate and I will add
that it tends to be a commonly parroted number
amongst less credible sources,
so take that with a grain of salt.
A couple hundred to several thousand
is obviously a massive discrepancy.
So it is worth noting
that this isn't a uniquely American thing.
In 2018, an Australian couple found one of their cows dead,
and yes, you guessed it, it had its outer ears
and tongue seemingly surgically removed.
Last year, the BBC reported on incidents
of cattle mutilation in France,
where again, things such as ears and genitals
had been removed from the animals.
And by the time of the report, 150 cases
were being actively investigated by local authorities.
Like I said earlier, the FBI did get involved
in investigating cattle mutilations in the U.S.
specifically in the late '70s,
which is hilarious to think about.
Till this day the FBI website lists animal mutilation
under unexplained phenomenon
and even provides documents relating to their investigation.
One of the first bits of correspondence features a letter
to the FBI from then Nebraska Senator,
Carl T. Curtis regarding,
"A series of incidents stretching from Oklahoma to Nebraska
in which cattle have been dismembered
in some kind of strange witchcraft cult."
There were questions about whether or not
the FBI should even be investigating something like this,
whether it was their department or not.
But Senator Curtis wasn't the only member of government
asking for the organization's involvement.
Despite all this, however,
the investigation was ultimately inconclusive.
Certain reports push the idea of these mutilations
being the result of natural predation,
based on veterinary testimony and in the end,
that's more or less what the FBI stance ended up being.
The logic here being that the animal died naturally,
which is a thing that happens,
and then decomposition along with various insects
cause the soft tissue, ie, tongues,
eyes, sex organs et cetera, to go first.
As for the lack of blood,
science would traditionally explain that with gravity
since once your heart stops,
there's nowhere for your blood to go but down pooling
within the confines of the corpse.
There was also never any solid evidence
connecting these events to any kind of cult,
and investigators weren't exactly entertaining
the more outlandish theories.
Still it's amusing to think that this whole thing
even made it that high up the ladder,
but of course, if we consider the economic aspect
and how expensive livestock can get,
then it actually makes a fair bit of it sense.
So where does this leave us?
Technically speaking, cattle mutilations to this very day
are considered unsolved both by the FBI like I said,
and as a cultural phenomenon.
If you ask around people will swear up and down
that they have the definitive answer
to why these things occur, be it aliens, cults,
(indistinct), government experimentation,
or just plain animal cruelty, or natural death.
And yes, people still do believe
in the culture aliens angle in 2021.
Normally, I'd probably be the type to be a smart ass
and poke fun at the people who think that ET is doing this,
but you know what?
I'm not going to do that.
We live in a world where people
believe far crazier shit these days,
so yeah, I support the aliens all day.
But taking it back for a second, I just wanna close this out
by saying that given the sheer amount of cases
and just how widespread they are,
there isn't any one answer.
In case you've never heard of it,
the one cause fallacy is when we take a complex issue
and assign it a singular cause,
when in reality it's probably attributed
to a number of different factors.
What I mean is sure,
maybe someone back in the '70s killed a cow
because they thought that they were going to summon a demon.
This doesn't mean that the next case
wasn't a completely natural death
with decomposition as its culprit.
Help cow-tipping is apparently a thing
amongst bold, rural kids,
so maybe that has to do with it too, who knows?
Maybe the aliens were the ones actually tipping cows.
But anyway, thank you guys so much for watching.
If you're still listening, then you are amazing
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