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August 29, 2025 12 mins
Original Article: https://weirddarkness.com/utah-bull-mutilation-reproductive-organs-2025/

In July 2025, a Utah rancher discovered his prized bull lying dead in a remote field, its body intact except for one disturbing detail that would reignite decades of speculation about one of the American West’s most enduring mysteries.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Darren Marler and this is a weird darkness bonus bite.
Paul Martinez was making his regular rounds on July third,
twenty twenty five, dropping off supplemental feet for his cattle
grazing on Bureau of Land Management land in Carbon County, Utah.
The afternoon sun beat down on the range land as
he noticed one of his animals was down. What he

(00:26):
found next made him immediately call law enforcement. His bull
lay dead in the field shot from what investigators would
later estimate was a six hundred yard distance. The animal
appeared to have died instantly, with minimal ground disturbance around
the carcass. The truly unsettling detail came when Martinez examined

(00:47):
the body more closely. The bulls scrotum, and testicles had
been removed with surgical precision. The cuts were symmetrical, beveled
made with what appeared to be surgical grade instruments. East
Carbon Police Chief Sam Leonard arrived to find a single
set of ATV tracks leading from the range toward East Carbon.

(01:08):
One piece of the reproductive organ was discovered some distance
from the animal. The other piece was never found. No
other tracks surrounded the carcass. No signs of struggle, no
blood cooled on the ground. Director of Animal Industry a
Utah Department of Agriculture and Food Land Hunting would later
describe the circumstances as very suspicious. In her years investigating

(01:31):
livestock crimes across Utah, she rarely encountered cases where natural
explanations could be ruled out entirely. This was one of
those rare exceptions. Forensic investigators have long known that dead
cattle can appear mysteriously mutilated without any human intervention at all.
The reproductive organs, along with the eyes and tongue, represent

(01:52):
the softest tissue on a cow's body. Coyotes, boxes, and
even carrion birds naturally target these areas forms when feeding
on a carcass. The result can look disturbingly surgical to
an untrained observer. After death, gases build inside a cow's
body cavity. The pressure causes certain tissues to rupture or

(02:13):
slough away more cleanly than others. The genitals and anus,
being among the most delicate structures, often decompose or detach
in ways that create an unnaturally precise appearance, combined with
insect activity that can clean away blood and tissue fragments,
a naturally deceased cow can transform into something that looks

(02:33):
deliberately carved. Ranchers themselves sometimes contribute to the confusion. When
checking for disease, Veterinarians or livestock owners often make their
first incision in the genital area to examine reproductive organs
for signs of infection or abnormality. If this detail gets
lost in the retelling, a routine veterinary examination becomes a

(02:55):
mysterious mutilation. The Martinez bull defied all all these explanations.
The animal had been shot, ruling out natural death. The
surgical precision of the cuts, combined with the use of
apparent medical instruments, and the removal of only specific organs,
eliminated scavenger activity. The lack of other tracts or disturbance

(03:17):
suggested whoever did this worked quickly and methodically. Since the
nineteen sixties, cattle mutilations focusing on reproductive organs have spawned
theories ranging from government conspiracy to extraterrestrial harvest. The specificity
of targeting genitals feeds directly into each narrative. UFO researchers

(03:38):
point to reproductive organs as the logical target for alien
species studying Earth's biology. The organs contain concentrated genetic material
or non production centers, and the biological machinery of reproduction itself.
If it advanced to civilization wanted to understand or replicate
terrestrial life, these tissues would provide the most information in

(04:00):
the smallest sample. Occult investigators suggest reproductive organs hold special
significance in fertility rituals and blood magic. Historical accounts of
animal sacrifice across cultures often emphasize the power attributed to
these particular body parts. Modern reports of Satanic activity, whether
real or imagined, frequently mentioned the collection of reproductive tissues

(04:23):
for ceremonial purposes. The government experiment theory focuses on the
organ's biological significance from a different angle. Reproductive tissues are
highly vascularized, meaning they contain extensive blood vessel networks. Any
environmental contaminant, radiation exposure, or biological agent would concentrate in

(04:43):
these areas. Secret monitoring programs could theoretically track contamination levels
by sampling cattle reproductive organs across grezing lands near military
installations or chemical testing sites. The reproductive system also serves
as an early warning system for environmental toxins. Many chemicals
that barely affect adult animals can devastate fertility and offspring development.

(05:08):
By monitoring these organs specifically, researchers could detect contamination before
it manifests in human populations sharing the same environment. The
Martinez case eerily echoes a wave of similar incidents that
terrorized Western ranchers in the mid nineteen seventies. Between nineteen
seventy four and nineteen seventy six, an estimated three thousand

(05:30):
cattle mutilations were reported across twenty two states, with Wyoming
experiencing some of the most disturbing cases. Former Uanah County
under Sheriff Letard Heisel investigated mutilations for three years. During
that period, what he found challenged every natural explanation. One
rancher lost sixteen head of cattle, including six animals, in

(05:51):
a single night in one pasture. The carcasses showed the
same pattern reproductive organs removed with surgical precision, along with
sections of hide from the face, tongues extracted, and rectums
cored out in perfect circles. Heisel discovered evidence that pointed
towards something more organized than predators or pranksters around multiple carcasses.

(06:15):
He found rotor wash patterns in the grass and marks
consistent with helicopter landing skids. Local residents reported unmarked military
style helicopters flying without lights at dusk. On one occasion,
three such aircraft were spotted in different locations simultaneously. The
truly disturbing detail was how other animals reacted to the

(06:35):
mutilated carcasses. Predators that would normally strip a dead cow
clean refused to approach, Birds wouldn't peck at the bodies.
Even insects seemed to avoid the remains. Whatever happened to
these animals made them untouchable to nature's usual clean up crew.
In Keble County, Wyoming, a calf was found north of

(06:57):
Gillette with its sexual organs removed using what veterinarians described
as a sharp instrument. The Campbell County Sheriff's office labeled
it a confirmed mutilation after ruling out all natural causes,
no tracks, no signs of predation, no explanation. Sublett County
recorded ten cases, Uintah County documented sixteen. Reports came in

(07:21):
from Newcastle, the Bridger Valley, Carbon County, and Metitzi. Even
horses weren't spared. Several were found with the same surgical mutilations.
The response from state and federal agencies during the nineteen
seventies wave added another layer in mystery. Heisel recalled that
neither Wyoming nor Utah state crime labs would process evidence

(07:43):
from mutilation cases. When Nebraska Senator Carl Curtis wrote to
FBI Director Clarence Kelly in seventy four requesting federal investigation,
the response was that no federal laws had been violated.
The FBI finally investigated in nineteen seventy nine, but only
after New Mexico Senator Harrison Schmidt succeeded in getting the

(08:04):
Senate Appropriations Committee to mandated. Retired FBI agent Kenneth Rommel
concluded that predators were responsible for the mutilations on a
New Mexico reservation. His report attributed the damage to normal
predator and scavenger activity. Eisel dismissed this conclusion entirely. The
evidence he collected, particularly the helicopter landing marks and the

(08:26):
complete avoidance of carcasses by scavengers, contradicted any natural explanation.
He suspected something far more troubling, a government operation to
monitor contamination from a chemical or biological accident. His theory
wasn't without precedent. The Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, located
eighty five miles southwest of Salt Lake City, had been

(08:49):
testing chemical and biological weapons since time began. In nineteen
sixty eight, a nerve agent released from the facility killed
sixty four hundred sheep in surrounding areas. Defence Department initially
denied responsibility, but autopsies revealing the nerve agent VX forced
them to admit fault and compensate ranchers. After the sheep incident,

(09:11):
Dugway shifted to simulant testing, using supposedly safe substitutes for
deadly agents. A nineteen ninety four congressional report revealed that
over forty five years, the Army repeatedly discovered their safe
simulants weren't as harmless as believed. While the mass mutilations
of the nineteen seventies eventually ceased, isolated incidents continued to surface.

(09:36):
In April twenty twenty three, a six year old longhorned
cross cow was discovered in Madison County, Texas, with its
tongue removed by a straight, clean cut along the jawline.
Five additional cows in neighboring Brazos and Robertson Counties were
found with tongues, anuses, and sexual organs removed with similar
precision as in the historical cases. Scavenging animals refused to

(09:58):
touch the bodies. Eastern Oregon experienced a cluster of mutilations
in recent years that caught the attention of Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries.
The cases showed the same hallmarks surgical precision, focus on
reproductive organs and soft tissue, absence of blood, and avoidance
by scavengers. The July twenty twenty five mutilation of Paul

(10:21):
Martinez's bull adds another data point to this enduring mystery.
Martinez noted this wasn't his first encounter with cattle crimes.
Two years earlier, someone had killed and butchered one of
his cows on the spot. That incident made sense in
a brutal way as someone stealing meat. The bull mutilation
was different. Whoever shot that animal from six hundred yards

(10:44):
away and performed surgical removal of its reproductive organs left
valuable meat behind. They took only what they came for.
Carbon County investigators continue pursuing leads, offering rewards for information
leading to arrests. TAW Apartment of Agriculture and Food classifies
the case as a confirmed mutilation, one of the few

(11:05):
times they've been unable to attribute such damage to natural causes.
Martinez expressed hope the case would eventually be solved, but
history suggests otherwise. In nearly sixty years of documented cattle
mutilations across the American West, not a single case focusing
on reproductive organ removal has resulted in a conviction. No

(11:26):
group has claimed responsibility, no whistleblower has come forward, no
smoking gun has emerged. The cattle keep dying, the organs
keep disappearing, and ranchers like Paul Martinez are left standing
in their fields, staring at surgically altered carcasses, wondering who
or what finds such specific value in parts most people

(11:48):
never think about, in the vast emptiness of the Western Range,
under skies that might hide on marked helicopters or something stranger.
The surgical silence continued. If you'd like to read this
story for yourself, I've placed the link to the article
in the episode description, and you can find more stories
of the paranormal, true crime, strange, and more at Weird

(12:10):
Darkness dot com slash news
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