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3.9: What is causing the strange cattle deaths? (scientific skepticism)




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This article is from the Scientific Skepticism FAQ, by Paul Johnson Paul@treetop.demon.co.uk with numerous contributions by others.

3.9: What is causing the strange cattle deaths? (scientific skepticism)

Cattle and other animals have been found dead with strange
mutilations. Organs, especially genitals, have been removed "with
surgical precision" but no blood appears on the ground. These events
are also sometimes associated with reports of alien encounters and
UFOs.

However:

1) Cattle are very expensive. Each "head" is worth several thousand
dollars.

2) Insurance doesn't cover "range death" due to natural causes (e.g
falling and killing themselves).

3) Insurance does cover vandalism (eg. a vandal shooting a cow).

4) A space alien killing a cow will be covered by the insurance -
provided a cooperating policeman will write up the report that way.

5) Space aliens mutilating cows seem to respect county (police
jurisdiction) lines.

6) Relatively little blood leaks out of a dead animal (compared to a
live animal) when it is cut. The heart just isn't pumping.

The best source of information on cattle mutilations is the
book Mute Evidence by Ian Summers and Daniel Kagan, a couple
of investigative journalists who started out believing that
something mysterious was happening, but ended up skeptics.
SI has published James Stewart's "Cattle Mutilations: An Episode
of Collective Delusion" (way back in vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 55-66).
Stewart is a sociologist who examined the pattern of reports and
found that new reports were inspired by previous media coverage.
It came in "waves" or "flaps".

 

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