February 12, 2016 • 55 mins
Are nefarious forces really moving through ranches in the night, mutilating livestock? How? Why?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello there,
(00:21):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, and I am Ben. You are you
that it makes this stuff they don't want you to know? Uh, guys,
we had a we had a pretty cool response to
our shout out corner. Really yeah, it was it people
asking for shout outs. It was, in fact, it is
(00:42):
Uh do do we want to do it one more time?
Chat at corners? A nice guys, Yeah, that was good.
We're still feeling out the theme song. So our first
shout out today goes to Jeremy Seth Brauner. Uh. Jeremy said,
could you guys of an on air shout out to
my wife and I Jeremy and Chantell, who just celebrated
(01:05):
our one year wedding anniversary. Very nice. Congratulations Maybe a year,
that's that's not an easy accomplishment, guys, did small businesses
I think can't make it a year, especially restaurants, restaurants,
it's a cutthroat industry. But congratulations Jeremy. Congratulations shantell. And
(01:26):
we've got another shout out fresh out of corner. This
one is to j Collins. Uh, he says, conspiracy stuff.
When you asked your listeners for what kind of skinwalker
they'd want to be, I'm the one who said a
duck hashtag shout at coining. The next one goes out
to Holly a k A Kawaii five a girl ghost
(01:50):
shout out to you, Holly, uh yeah. And also, Holly,
you bribed us. You said I will send you boys
a gift for the studio if I guess if we
give you a shout out, so the balls in your court,
my friends shout out as currency. I like it, shout
out as currency, you guys. This might be as big
as ben Bucks, which I'm still working on right So,
(02:12):
thank you so much, Tollie. That's very nice for you,
and it would be cool. I don't know what you
guys want. I've had a couple of things on my mind.
I want to just a surprise. Yeah, okay, surprise is
kid by which I don't mean like feces in a
box or something. I mean like that would be awful.
Thanks for showing me out. Here's some poop. Well you know,
it's a big world, Matt. People have different values. But actually,
(02:35):
on a serious note, we're not expecting anything. We give
a shout out. It's just a shout out corner. It's
just a chance for us to introduce on air listeners
to each other. It's just a fun thing we like
to do. That's right, And one day I will get
my boat back, Thank you, thank you. And speaking of
oh yeah, that's right, they did treat that as well.
(02:56):
And speaking of fun times and astonishing segues, have you
guys ever spent time on a farm or visited or
you know, mine's probably the weakest of of of our stories,
but I did take a field trip when I was
an elementary school to a dairy farm, and I don't know,
I just remember thinking that cows were very strange creatures
(03:19):
to be close to, because it's like, on the one hand,
you think they're dumb and they don't really care about
what's going on as long as they've got what is
it cut, you know, something to to choose some grass
with on which too much um. But then you look
at him and sun and you get the sense that
there might be something going on. You know, they might
know something that we don't know. That's that's really interesting.
(03:41):
Stayed with me. I'm not kidding, no, I would agree
with you. As a kid, I had an elementary school
friend who his grandparents lived in a very rural area
in Georgia here and there were just there's just farmland
that just not even formally just pastures really and they
would just expand out and what we would do is
go grabb like makeshift swords out of wooden sticks and
(04:03):
stuff and just kind of travel along around on this
huge acres and acre just sounds like you had a
magical childhood. Man, it was pretty dope. Got I mean
no nothing uh technological to ground me while I'm out
there exploring. It was cool. But one of the things
one of the other areas of land that was there
somebody else's land. They had cows, they had there were
(04:23):
a couple of horses and stuff like that. They were
just roaming around. And one of the things that struck
me when we were talking about this is what you
just said. Uh, they seemed to be extremely gentle. I
never actually got close enough to touch them, but they
would just kind of hang out by the fence and
like look at you. But they would look at you,
you know, and just kind of like, you know, cows
(04:44):
only move out of distress. And apparently I read this
somewhere and maybe I heard it as a sinister thing
a serial killer character said in a television show. Not
a percent sure, but apparently one reason that they move
is their mourning are slaughtered children. Who well, cow's our sapiens.
(05:06):
Do you have intelligence? Uh? Maybe not necessarily wisdom. I
have a similar experience in my personal life, which, as
you guys know, rarely talked about on air. But this
might be enjoyable. Uh So, in one of the places
I was living, it was adjacent to a fairly small
(05:26):
cattle operation, but when you're a kid, everything is bigger.
So we jumped the fence and go exploring in that
area and sneaking into the farm late at night. I
don't know what the statute of limitations is on this,
but we never caused any physical damage, right, and I
think how tipping is It is a dangerous thing for
(05:48):
the cow. But we had invented a sport we called
cow fishing, which is that we would go into um
into where the cattle were set up for the night,
get onto the second floor, and then take an ear
of corn and tie fishing line around it and then
tie it to a stick, and then we would go
(06:09):
to them. We would lean over where the you know,
the cow was sleeping, and then we would sort of
tap it on its head and it would look left
and it would look right, and we're trying to figure
out if they could look up. We didn't know much
about cows. And then we would extend this ear of
corn in front of the cow's face so that the
cow could see it. And listeners, you probably, unless you
(06:32):
have psychic powers, can't see it right now, but I'm
gesticulating this thing. I'm explaining it nonverbally as well to
our friends Knell and Matt here. So I would extend
this ear of corn out where the cow could see it. Now,
keep it far away, because I was a stupid kid,
and I wanted to see what they would do. And
that's how I discovered that cows have disturbingly long, almost
(06:54):
prehensile tongues, because the tongue comes out and then it wraps.
I see it like wrap around this ear of corn,
and I freak out and I dropped the thing and
I ran away, and I haven't been back since, you know,
that's how in the game Minecraft you are able to
ride animals, which consist of pigs and cows and horses.
(07:14):
I think, um, you have to fashion a fishing pole
and put a carrot on the end of it, and
then you mount the farm animal and you you fish.
I had no idea, It's true. I have never played
Minecraft's good like. I just have to say, I can
imagine that being terrifying. Uh, the a cow doesn't seem
(07:35):
like an animal that would have a tongue like that,
I guess in your mind, maybe especially as a kid.
I'm not like a you know, a cow, professor. It's
also real purple and spitty. I mean, it's it's a
it's a pretty intense thing. Looks like some sort of
like mutant slug from like a sci fi movie. But
but we do know that cattle are intelligent. That's one
thing is coming up in all three of our stories.
(07:55):
We do know that these animals have the ability to
have their own personalities, right to remember other members of
their of their pure group or if you want to
see their family structure, their their tribe. And we know
that there are a heck of a lot of them.
Do you know how many yeah, thanks for asking. As
(08:17):
of January one, two thousand fifteen, according to the National
Cattleman's Beef Association, there are eighty nine point eight million
cows in the US. That's actually up from January a
whole percent, a whole one percent. Uh. This this translates
to a forty four billion dollar industry. This also means
(08:40):
that you know, these cows are broken up. Some are
milk cows, most are beef cows. Right. And you can
clearly listeners tell because after all, it is what's for dinner.
It is his you mean, the beef, right, and nut milk,
the beef milk. It's what's for dinner. That's all. We have, bread,
milk stick. It grows. So with this huge industry, with
(09:04):
this livestock we are I don't want to enter into
too much of the argument over whether or not it's
right to eat animals. That's maybe a different show. But
we're just establishing that these things are everywhere. You, if
you live in the US, have probably at some time,
at the very least gone by a cow field like
(09:25):
cow pastor right. Uh. And the funny thing is that
every so often on these ranches in these pastors when
they call the cows home and all of them show up.
And that is what today's episode is about. For anyone
who just didn't read the title of the episode, it's
(09:47):
about the cattle to get maybe stranded or just one
straight a little too far away from the herd. And
then it's like Homeward Downd the movie, but with like
a cow, I would love that? Who would have trying
to find its a home? Who would it? Would be
a precocious pig and a perhaps a fox um, all
(10:09):
with celebrity voices. The only difference in the Homeward Bound
version of that, and then the one that we're going
to describe today is that it ends in invisceration, exanguination,
and uh, the death of the main character. Yes, so
what is cattle mutilation? Well, the typical definition of cattle
(10:29):
mutilation is the killing um and disfigurement, disembowelment, evisceration, shall
we say, of cattle under anomalous or you know, unusual
kind of suspect circumstances, Well, they often appeared to be
partially skinned, or they have incisions that appear to have
(10:49):
been done with surgical precision, which is pretty unusual. And
often these animals are reported to have been exanguinated or
drained entire hirely of blood. Um, they're soft parts, the eyes,
their organs, all the good guscy stuff. Yeah, the hind
cores are missing. Yeah, they're sexual organs as well. Yeah,
(11:12):
it's a pretty gruesome thing to have happened to anything
any living being. Um, it's it's crazy too. It's not
just we've been talking about cows this whole time. It's
not just that cattle. Other livestock have experienced this kind
of thing. You'll you'll see it in I know, sheep
and goats have been it's been reported in those two,
in particular, horses as well. Yeah, we we've also there's
(11:37):
one case that we might get to today in which
is an excellent example of this. But but here's the deal.
You've probably heard of cattle mutilations, right, listeners, I mean,
the X files is back on, people are people are
more likely now to check it out than they were previously.
(11:57):
And we've often heard what what are the initial reports
We've always heard, right, We've always heard like, oh, it's
uh aliens. No no, no, my friend, that's a coyote.
No no, no, no, no, no no, it was somebody else yeah,
that was a human. Yeah. I mean, I think something
that distinguishes these cases from just a typical um animal
(12:19):
malling or an animal attack is the nature of some
of the wounds. I mean, I think, you know, a
typical cattle rancher farmer is experienced with wild animals and
probably be aware of what it would look like if, say,
a coyote had attacked one of their animals, right, Yeah,
and that that's a good point because ranchers see a
(12:40):
lot of stuff and uh vets who work on on
animals with animals also see a lot of stuff. And
that's one of the big arguments will be getting to.
So the various biologists and experts and law enforcement officers
and ranchers investigating this over time have a number of
like oculative causes, right and um, they're pretty much exactly
(13:05):
what you're naming natural predation, scavenging, human intervention like loan
killers a k A. Board teenagers you're write a k A.
Future Dahmers, you know, or what was that got ed
geen gang? Yeah, the real life inspiration for the Texas
chainsaw massacre. Very disturbing stuff. Would love to do a
(13:27):
show about that. And then there are the ideas of
maybe humans, but not just some loan unhappy kid. Uh
who you know what. On a side note, you would
have to be a very very very strong, loan unhappy
kid to take that. To do your homework, man, I mean,
you can't just go in half cocked and just you know,
(13:48):
knock out a cow and then go to town on
in soft parts. I mean you really have to come
with a taser or some kind of like a mall
one of those air guns. You'd probably be the best movie,
like one of the air guns they that the guy
used in um No Country for Old Men. Yeah. Well,
as as we're going to find a little later that
(14:08):
the the idea of any medicinal smell around one of
these animals that's experienced this, or some kind of the
surgical cuts. Perhaps even I don't know, man, there might
be people working together on this. It might not be
a lone person, right. What if it's a cult. What
if it is some sort of government agency or affiliated
thing operating in secret exciting stuff And we'll get to
(14:32):
it at this time. We have to say though, that
the mainstream news and most of the stuff you're going
to read or encounter when you look this up is
going to argue that this is the result of what
do we in the video? We had a good line, um,
Mankind's original and most brutal enemy nature, Right, Yeah, the
(14:52):
the the first antagonist for this species. But let's look
at the timeline because although we might associate in here
in the US cattle mutilation with something from the seventies
or whatever, the story of mutilating animals dates back, way, way, way,
(15:15):
way further. Can you hear me going back? Yeah? You
went so far back there. And the reason it goes
back so far is because it isn't necessarily the slaughtering
of an animal like this wasn't necessarily historically always for food, right,
there was another reason. Sometimes you would slaughter an animal
(15:36):
in a ritualistic manner to appease perhaps a god or
God's Did you guys ever watch the HBO series Rome.
I have not. It's actually pretty good. Um. There's a
scene though, where one of the main female characters, who
is very wealthy head of a family, UM, is trying
to curry favor from the gods. I believe to have
(15:58):
her son, the life of her son spared UM in battle,
and she goes into this temple where a priest conducts
this ritual wherein a bull is walked out onto a
metal grate and um basically slaughtered and gutted, and the
blood pours down through the grates onto the character and
(16:20):
she has drenched in it and then walks up the
priest and says, your son will be spad. That's hot,
but blood fresh blood is pretty hot. I guess yes,
and several levels. So we're we're both agree. And it's
fascinating that you say that, because this this is exactly
what we're talking about when we're talking about sacrifice right
(16:41):
um to gain fertility, right for the gods to look
favorably upon your next endeavor in war, or you want
to save your son right. And we know that this
exists across multiple religions, multiple places. As Matt said earlier,
we have some specific examples. One is practice that was
(17:01):
called October horse or equas October an ancient Roman religions.
What what would happen is there would be these three
uh days of like racing, chariot racing, and during one
of these races, which always occurred on the IDEs of
October October UH, the winners of the two horse chariot race,
(17:24):
which sacrifice their right hand horse, and this was propitiation
to believe the god. Mars strange, but that's not the
only thing. And this is why, no, your example of
the show room is so good because it's based on
some real life stuff that happened in Rome. Right. Our
(17:45):
next example is that in the age of the Roman Empire,
worshipers also sacrificed bulls, stub balls, stubb bulls. And they
did this so often that we even have a word
for it, and it is our word of the day,
or I guess word of the week since it is
a weekly podcast. Taro boleum more like whoa yeah, yeah,
(18:12):
because every time say you gotta go crazy, but that
was the bullgoing crazy and then getta. That's strange to
me that that's a lot of street cred when something
happened so often that there is a specific word for it. Well,
maybe listeners throughout this podcast, uh, you know, you can
play along at home and when we say tarot bolium cool.
(18:38):
That was great. And also this sacrificial right, it kind
of carried on in several other religions. In Judaism, you
had the corbon, which was a whole set of sacrificial
offerings Uh, that are they're they're also in I believe
in Christianity and Islam, there are different there are different offerings.
Some of them are sacrificial in chu or some of
(19:00):
them are symbolically sacrificial in nature. Um. You know, if
you go back to the Little Testament, specifically in Christianity,
you can find some sacrifice and going on. And there
was a lot of specifics to like. I mean, you
would sacrifice the lamb for a certain type of favor,
and you know, a goat perhaps for another. It's interesting
the language of sacrifice. I like the title of that.
(19:23):
That that could be the title of something, the Language
of Sacrifice, not as a book, but what an album
that would be. Uh. And I wonder if in case
you're listening to the show Radiohead, you're welcome. Uh. So
the this is a great point that you're making old
because anytime this had a religious angle to it, it
(19:44):
wasn't just that I'm killing the right animal, well, it
was super super important. It was also what day, what
time am I killing this animal? How right am I
saying the right words? Are we wearing the correct vestments?
Highly ritualized? Highly ritualized? And this is important. The reason
we're talking about this today is because as we look
at modern cattle mutilation, this is one way in which
(20:07):
we could differentiate between the random acts of a predator
and the purposeful, stylized even um machinations of a human
being or a group of or a group of human
beings or a group of extraterrestrial spoiler alert. So early
(20:29):
reports just go through this this part pretty quickly. Earlier reports. Uh.
If you like our show, you may also be a
fan of a magazine called The fourteen Times forty Times,
which is magazine reporting on fringe theories and the paranormal
is named after a guy named Charles Fort who was
an early paranormal researcher, and he actually conducted a little
(20:52):
bit of cursory research into mutilations of livestock in the US,
which is how we know that these kind of reports
date back as far back as the late nineteenth century.
And that's fascinating to to have it go back that far.
I didn't know much about Charles Fort in the forteen Times. Unfortunately,
I have seen it. Unfortunately, yes, but I've I've seen
(21:16):
it all over the place, and it mentioned specifically the
forum the fourteen Times, where people will discuss the topics
that we are generally looking up. But I had no
real understanding of the back story, but we did in
in making this video for this week, I found some
old books, and one in particular that that is referenced
here is called low l O exclamation mark, Yes, precisely,
(21:41):
and it has several several different topics that it goes through.
And one of the coolest things the chapters are full
on sentences, which is kind of neat. I appreciated that
a lot. And we we know that despite these reports,
this was not an issue of national concern for wild
that this would be instead a lurid story that's in
(22:02):
a on the below the fold in your newspapers, that
is until in nineteen sixty seven. So in nineteen sixty
seven this phenomenon reached the mainstream when um a lady
by the name of Agnes King and her son Harry
found that their mayor lady had been gruesomely murdered, mutilated,
(22:27):
partially skinned uh de fleshed shall we say, around the
neck and head, and lady had also been exanguinated drained
of all of her blood, the classic version of a
cattle mutilation. In nineteen sixty seven. Yeah, it's too bad. Uh.
And it occurred just for everyone's curious, it occurred in
(22:48):
September of sixty seven. So this is not doesn't have
a one on one connection with the old practice of
the october horse. But that's a question that you probably
had as well. This garnered this attention. It was reported
in the Pueblo Chieftain. It was in Colorado, and after
this reported, this is where Agnes's son, Harry, is the
(23:10):
one who reported that strong medicinal odor, which will come
into play later. Concerns over these so called mysterious mutilations
of livestock went on as the years grew, and eventually
it reached the ears of representatives of the government. So
in nineteen five, a guy UH named Floyd K. Haskell,
(23:32):
Colorado Senator, reaches out to the FBI for help. He said,
there have been reports of mutilations in nine states, and
as far as he could tell, there were a hundred
and thirty cases of livestock mutilation in Colorado. Now, this
is something our timeline gets a litt fuzzy here because
I'm not sure how aware UH Senator has Skeol was
(23:52):
at the time that the a t F the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacquo and Firearms had conducted a study to
see if there was any truth of rasty to cult involvement.
And keep in mind, this is during a time when
there was a burgeoning panic over possible Satanic colds in
the US, right, the Satanic panic, the Satanic panic, precisely, No,
(24:14):
and this this a t F thing found that there
there really wasn't enough evidence to draw some kind of
link like that. They just needed to know, and state
level investigations differed, but also had also had a lot
of a lot of disturbing numbers. Right. So for instance,
(24:35):
we get a lot of information from the New Mexico
State Police's investigation, wherein they found that there might be
as many as eight thousand and estimated eight thousand cattle
mutilations in Colorado. And they know for sure because again
this New Mexico State Police. But in nineteen seventy nine,
(24:56):
the FBI compiles a lot of this stuff and based
on Haskell's recommendation, launches a project called Operation Animal Mutilation. Yeah,
and they filed a report that was a full on
two and nineties seven pages long, and there are little
excerpts of it that you can find online through the
Freedom of Information Act. Fascinating stuff. It's just a lot
(25:20):
of it are just reports from a rancher or someone
who owns cattle. Why can't you get the whole thing?
I think? Is it redacted? I have not seen the
entire report in itself, but I have seen excerpts. You
can view a lot of it online at the FBI's
vault website, which is super useful but also super irritating
(25:41):
because they've just taken scans that in many cases are
not very well done and just take a scan and
posted Yeah, and you can't search them my keyword. But
I you know, they're in a pickle of some sort
because if they were just to type out or transcribe
all of that necessary searchable format, then I don't know
(26:01):
about you guys. My first question would be, what did
you leave out there basically meeting the minimum compliance level
of compliance? Yeah, it's tax dollars. You have to pay
some in turn or some person like us to go
through and actually write out the entire document. So where
does this leave us? The guy who was in charge
(26:22):
of this is fellow him Kenneth Rommel, and he concluded,
let me make sure praise this correctly, gentleman. He concluded
that the vast majority, pretty much all of these mutilations
came from natural sources, predators, and then later scavengers. There
it's sort of the short round to the indie in
(26:43):
terms of predators. Yeah, and I guess we're gonna get
into that a little later. Just that concept of when
a what happens to a body when a predator attacks it.
We're going to tackle that later, right, yes, Okay, well
we'll hit we'll hit on that in a minute. Okay,
So one other thing, just want to mention this is
a little bit gruesome, and I was on the fence
(27:04):
about including it. Uh in n There was a mutilation
case that was a little bit different. This stuff continues today.
There was a mutilation case is very similar to cal mutilation.
However it involved a human being. This is a disturbing case.
(27:24):
We're going to let you know where you can learn more,
but we're not going to spend too much time on it.
What they found is that there were various signs of
this uh of this body discovered that had that that
were indicative of the same kind of mutilation conducted on cattle.
(27:44):
So cut at the base of the ear signs of
brain removal, UH, both eyes plucked out, UH, cuts under
the skin, removal of uh, sexual organs, uh incisions into
body to take various extremities or oregan samples and Matt
(28:06):
you have you have a place to point people. Yeah,
there's a gentleman that you may already know named Richard D.
Hall who has covered the specific case before pretty extensively,
made a documentary length fell like a full length documentary
about this case and some of the surrounding things that
I guess I'll run on the fringes of it and
you can find that online. How I would go to
(28:28):
the YouTube channel rich rich r a c H Planet UK.
That's where I found a couple of clips and the
full length documentary is available. He's got a website you
can go to and check that out. Also. Uh, I
can't believe I forgot to mention this body was found
on a small island in the Guara Puranga Reservoir, which
is in the southern, uh southern part of Sal Paulo, Brazil.
(28:53):
So makes you wonder and it leads us to it
leads us to the big thing, the question of the week, right,
the causes. So I'll start. I'll start with the easy one.
Nature predators, right, coyote primarily, wolves, bears, et cetera. Yet
here's the thing. According to the Department of Agriculture, at
(29:14):
least here in the US, only about point to three
percent of cattle loss can be attributed to predation. That
means that zero point to three zero less than one
quarter of one percent. And we're saying is that this
is kind of an infrequent, an infrequent thing already. So
(29:38):
the mundane cause is already infrequent. The inexplicable stuff is
a smaller part of an even of a very small subset,
especially when you consider we're looking at ninety million cattle. Yeah,
and especially if most of those cattle are in very
controlled areas right there there are grouped together in large
numbers many times. And there is that this the truth
(29:58):
to safety and numbers. When you have a large animal
like a cow. And then let's see though, let's that's
that's a great point. Let's say cow does get taken down,
wolf bear, mountain lion, I don't know. Let's just have
a predator for the sake of argument. You got one,
awesol lot. Okay, Let's say for some reason, a particularly
(30:20):
vicious awfol Lotu manages to bring down the cow and
it's just a it's a rage kill, lost kills it
eats a little bit and then leaves to reek further
awesol lot related havoc. Then the next step, however, are
the scavengers. You know, the bizzards, the rats, the insects,
the coyote. You show up late to the party, And
(30:42):
it's interesting how these these different scavengers will not just
work alone, right, and you're not just gonna have buzzards
attacking something. You may they might finish the whole job,
but there's probably gonna be some meat left. Then get
the rats, who yeeah exactly. And then well it's interesting
too because some of the ranchers that have been interviewed
(31:03):
about cattle mutilation, some of them maintained that the weirdest
thing is that scavengers won't touch the bodies, which is
an interesting proposition and not everybody says that, but it
leads us to some of the weirder alleged causes. And
the last thing that I just have to bring up
(31:24):
here are the bacteria, the micro organisms that go to
town after an animal has died like that, especially when
you've got, you know, the bowels of an animal that
kind of begin eating itself from the inside out. It occurs,
like sadly, very quickly after the point of death, the
body begins to deteriorate interiorly. Um. And that's one of
(31:47):
the reasons that you see, you know, when people talk
about how the sex organs and the butt was, it
was all just completely gone and eaten out in the
face and the mouth where all the bacteria grows. It's
just an interesting thing to point out it does occur naturally.
I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's a valuable point
to make. The Let's go straight to the weird stuff,
(32:09):
all right, Aliens extraterrestrials et flying across the passable chasm
of time and space to this tiny little mode of
dust that's just flying around two uh. I guess for
the sake of science, evis rates some animals. I mean, yeah,
(32:30):
you gotta find out what's going on down here. It's
it isn't It would be incredible to find life on
a planet. If you're just flying around the cosmos looking
for life and all of a sudden, oh my gosh,
there is one that's a you know what That's a
really good point because it makes me think that of
what we as humans would do. We're traveling to another
planet and we encounter another life form, probably not on purpose,
(32:55):
but definitely it's in the cards that we would just
killed it out of it. Remember that episode of The
Twilight Zone where there are these like benevolent alien overlords
that come to Earth and they're taking groups of humans
up to their home planet little by little, and there's
(33:17):
the one guy who's like against it, and he thinks,
you know, something fishy is going on. And it turns
out that they're actually sending humans to their home planet
so that they can harvest them or like you know,
what's the word, uh, you know, like cattle. Basically, like
they used them as a fat source. That blew my
(33:38):
mind because there's a good twist. No, look, we had
a we had a letter before where somebody, um, somebody
freaked out a little bit because they thought we were
giving them spoilers for a show. So before I say
anything else, if you somehow think that it would be
wrong to discuss an episode of The Twilight Zone from
(34:00):
back before television was in color, then please pause for
the next two minutes while we talked about something that
I assure you everyone else already already spoiled it, though. Well,
the great thing is that that particular episode has been
kind of echoed throughout the popular kidding like Twilight Zone,
invented like almost every like Shamanian twist. You know, there's
(34:25):
so many, there's so many great The reason I bring
that up, though, is if there were aliens involved, or
some sort of extraterrestrial and you know, it's easy to
be flippant and say, oh, well, if there are these
highly evolved, technologically advanced extraterrestrials, why would they bother flying
you know, millions of miles to Earth just to you know,
(34:47):
cut up some cows. You know what, if they're fascinated
by the fact that we have these animals that we
use for no other reason than to keep them in
a p and fatten them up and use them to
you know, subsist on, maybe they're kind of trying to
figure out how to do that for themselves. You know,
maybe there's something they lack in their society that they require,
(35:12):
you know, some version of what we have as a species.
You know, yeah, that's a good angle. We need cattle,
and it makes it It makes me think also as well.
One of the old problems often encountered in science fiction speculation, right, speculation,
Alien life is technology and technological evolution. So what if
(35:36):
there are what if there is some sort of life
for there that is just streets ahead of us, galaxies
ahead of us maybe in terms of space travel, but
in other ways doesn't have technology that we would consider
rather elementary. I mean, not fire. Maybe they don't have fire.
That's that's a pretty basic one. And and and maybe
(35:57):
maybe they're cutting them open and taking the parts back
so that they can test them and see if it's
something that they could even survive on. It's just a thought.
I'm just you know, and here, Yeah, that's I mean,
that's a good point. What do you think about cryptids? Though?
The idea that some as of yet unidentified animal could
be responsible for this certainly would account for why we
(36:19):
don't recognize the means of um of the kill, the meat,
the way that the animal is killed, that it's trained
of blood, and that is not something we typically see
in animals that we are scavengers or predators that were
aware of Yeah, you know what I mean. One Ranchers
said that place one Ranchers said that, uh, the cow,
(36:39):
the cow that he discovered killed, had about eleven pounds
of blood. How would a predator eat eleven pounds of
blood by like, by itself or get rid of all
of it? You know, Well, maybe he was a goat sucker.
Maybe that's maybe that's what it specializes in. That's that's
(37:00):
what I'm saying. I mean, if if it's some as
yet unidentified creature, it would likely have equipment, shall we
say that we are not familiar with, you know, and
something that would that would take to drain a large
animal of all of its blood would certainly be something
outside of a coyote or a fox or you know,
a typical straw. Yeah, that sounds like some real coy boy.
(37:27):
So yeah, yeah, as you're saying, okay, guys, uh, here
we go. We're doing the turn now. As much as
I love speculating about this stuff and about the possibility
of aliens and why they would want to come down
and study cows because perhaps they are a higher advanced
bovine version, maybe that's what the aliens are, I have
(37:48):
to say, and we have to move on to the
idea that there's a human element somehow involved here because
I think it's a little more plausible humans know how
to drink milkshakes. I've been in this room the entire time. Hello, Hello,
I just want to establish that. So that's I mean,
that is a great point though, because we know it's
(38:10):
completely not only is it plausible, but it has happened before.
We have an industry built on the practice of humans
killing and mutilating animals. These are this is uh, the
cattle mulation that occurs now is different because it is
not part of that system, and it also doesn't seem
(38:33):
to be I mean, it's certainly not beneficial to the
cattle or the ranchers, possibly the animals doing it. But
we the point is, we do know that humans have
the ability to kill, to kill livestock, and to do
so in a variety of ways. We talked about the
virgin and serial killers, and it led me to a
(38:54):
question I wanted to ask you, guys, do you think
it would be possible to explain some of these things
by checking for areas known for cattle mutilation and seeing
if they correlate to the stomping grounds of serial killers
or the hometowns of people who would later become killers.
That's fascinating. Yeah, but it's such a needle in a
(39:14):
haystack because there's so few apprehended serial killers. Yeah, we
have no idea where they're lurking. Well, it's also one
of those things where, um, a burgeoning serial killer, shall
we say, um, who knows how long they might just
mutilate animals before they actually move on to actually killing
you know, humans. They could do it for years, just
(39:35):
just to practice. Just maybe they're trying to, um, not
take it to the next level, and so they're you know,
satisfying that urge just by killing animals in this way.
Dark Passenger kind of that's exactly, especially the ones with
the surgical incisions and that whole medicinal smell thing wears
me out so much. It makes me think there's someone
(39:56):
practicing not necessarily even killing, like serial killing, but wanting
to practice some kind of medical I don't know, I
was gonna say, I was gonna say maneuver quite the
right word, but just procedure. Well, yeah, I guess it
would be a procedure. Practicing a procedure on account. Well,
(40:17):
this is this is interesting because from the skeptical side
of it, what I've seen is that numerous people say
the effects of scavengers or bloating and dehydration can cause
the skin to split in a way that looks as
if it were an extremely clean cut. However, the ranchers
who you know own these these cattle will say that
(40:41):
they've seen a lot of stuff and that they know
the difference between somebody with a hunting knife or an
animal attack or a scalpel. And you can see people
trying to reproduce the effects of this and not doing
the best job, which is why we hear the old
stories about lasers, which has not been proven. But it's
(41:02):
all it's another one of those weird things where you
hear about increased signs of heat, like there was a
heat sourcer in the cattle, or that there was a
even readings of radiation slightly higher radiation And wouldn't a
laser caught her eyes as it cuts? Yeah, so it
burned a little. Yeah, that's a really good point. Um.
I don't know, I haven't seen any confirmation of that,
(41:24):
but we do need to put that idea in this show.
What I have seen a little bit more credible confirmation
or allegation rather is in the state level enforcement reports.
They do talk a little bit about cults. Yeah, they do.
They talk about hooded figures. I think one one person
in particular discussed how they or they made an official
(41:48):
report of how they were stopped in the road. There's
a roadblock with fifteen or so hooded people in black
hoods in particular October, and they had to turn around
and go in and they just so happened that this
was an area where cattle mutilations have been reported at
a higher than regular And in September the same year,
(42:09):
another resident of Idaho, a Blaine County Forestry Service employee,
also reported seeing a group of figures in black hooded robes.
The next day they found several mutilated cattle. Dude, this one,
I love this one. Well. What's interesting is that these
are reports were made to law enforcement. So this is
(42:30):
not just some Internet story that people are telling each other.
It's not a spooky story to tell them the dart.
We do have to keep in mind though, that there
was widespread I don't want to say hysteria, it's satanic.
Panic is the perfect phrase, uh, to to use your
earlier phrase, nol. But it doesn't necessarily mean the recults.
(42:52):
But it is very strange. It's anomalous. Yeah, I I
don't know, the thought of a group of people getting
together who have decided that they want to I don't know,
practice a religion and older religion, perhaps in the middle
of Idaho in the country. I mean that that sounds
(43:13):
fun to me. I know that sounds awful, probably even
me saying that too many of you, But really it
sounds fun. Yeah, I think that's okay. Not necessarily the
animal sacrifice angle or that segment of it, but the
idea of having an older religion kind of revived. Know,
it feels very twilight zony to me, and I love it.
(43:33):
Very close to Bohemian grove. Yes, I want to go
so bad. Secremation of Care is that the name they're
They're weird owl effigy burning thing. It is, Thank you
Alex Jones. We're getting video of that. Yeah, that was
That was a good movement. Is where it was very
strange to see that. It makes me think of, um,
you know, I did this documentary about the Georgia Guide
(43:55):
Stones is a topic that we have yet to really unravel.
I don't think we can't wait too needs to have Yeah,
well no, we should. Um but anyone who doesn't know.
The Guide Stones are sort of a Stonehenge esque array
of granite slabs that are inscribed with these sort of
commandments for kind of like a new world order, like
a post apocalyptic rallying point, shall we say, in this
(44:17):
meadow um in Elberton, Georgia, which is not terribly far
from where we are in Atlanta. But um. One of
the theories about these stones, since the person who financed
and had them erected uh maintained his anonymity throughout the
whole process. Mr. Christian, Mr rc Christian. But there were
stories about how you know, and as tends to happen
(44:40):
when their secrecy involved, people's imaginations run wild, and there
were a lot of accounts of animal sacrifice. I actually
interviewed a pastor at a nearby church for the documentary,
and he swears up and down that there he rode
by the site and saw people in hooded you know,
hooded figures um, laying down rose petals and lighting candles
(45:03):
and doing these like saltsticey type rituals. And he said
that Um, when he started speaking out about it in
his community at his church, people would place slaughtered goat
carcasses at his uh you know, doorstep at his home
and at the church, etcetera. Um. But point being, I
think he was a little bit shall we say, exaggerative
(45:26):
in his accounts, and I think it's probably very likely
that he did see some hooded figures, but they were
probably like you say, some folks kind of practicing sort
of like a neo pagan kind of religious uh you know,
um ritual, I could said. And you know, I mean
it happens even here in you know, in in Georgia
and in rural areas. They're very attractive to folks that
(45:48):
are wanting to do that because they want to go
out and be close to nature and where there aren't
many people around. And so I mean I could imagine
people did see hooded figures associated with some of these things.
And you know, I mean there's always more insidious versions
of these kind of rituals, and perhaps there was some
animal sacrifice involved, as we talked about with Rome, you know, like,
(46:09):
why is that any less likely that a newer version
of a pagan religion like what they practiced in Rome
wouldn't do the same thing. Are we profiling cults? You guys?
Kind of I guess we are. I think the term
cults is sort of like a odd catch all too,
because of majority. Right, absolutely, Because again, if we're talking
about is if you're a Pagan, are you in a
(46:31):
cult anymore than if you're a Christian? Yeah, one person's
cult is another person's true religion. Right. Uh. And I
think the you know, we've talked a little bit about this,
just to reiterate with a word like cult, one of
the things that happens it is a word that springs
up in opposition to something else. So cults are usually
(46:53):
depicted as being in opposition to a larger religious doctrine,
somehow underground. So is it possible is it possible that
there is a group of people or several groups of
people ritualistically murdering animals as part of a religious practice.
If that's true, If that's the case, and if they
(47:16):
own the cattle, then legally is a very interesting situation
because is it a right to practice religion? Is it
animal cruelty? Does you know what I mean? Yeah? Where
does it? Where does it fall amongst all of these
different categories? And what's with the secrecy? I want to know?
But there there's another group that some people might also
(47:37):
call a cult that have been alleged to participate in this,
and that is the Church of Uncle Sam and for
a fascinating reason. Okay, so it's been alleged that perhaps
the United States government some facet of it is sacrifice.
Not they're not sacrificing. They're killing these animals in order
to conduct experiments to track disease, in particular bovine sponge
(48:02):
of form and cephalopathy or ned cow disease, which took
me which which took me forever to pronounce correctly in
the in our video. It's great face something. I just
why would the government creep in in the night and
do this to some poor rancher without compensating him for
(48:25):
the loss of his his livestock. I mean, we have
things like the c d C. You know, we have
the U s d A. They have facilities where they
can test animals and they can take samples, and they
send out, you know, representatives that will take samples or
if they you know, need to test a specific cow
in a specific area from a specific herd, I can't
(48:46):
imagine they wouldn't clear it with the owner. And you know,
these are good questions. But then also to add some
to ask some more questions to uh the fire we're
building for our own weird podcast. God here, let's also consider, um,
let's if this were true, why would they do it
in secret? That's that's the big question to me. Would
(49:06):
it be because there would be at a public panic
if they said, Hey, we're like one missed cow mutilation
away from an outbreak of this this terrible disease. I
think we all remember the mad cow disease. There were
freakouts that happened quite frequently in the nineties. Do you
(49:27):
guys remember that? Yeah? And I guess maybe you know
to your point, it would be more effective to pull
out the bits on site rather than to load up
the whole cow. Right right. Again, they have trailers for
these kind of things they do. They have unidentified black helicopters,
which several police officers in New Mexico and Utah have
(49:47):
also reported seen or unidentified craft. But here's here's the
thing that I can't get past. If it is the government,
if it if it is Big Brother conducting this kind
of research, then what about the mutilations that occur in
other countries, in other parts of the world. What, um,
you know, what is the incentive for Uncle Sam in
(50:09):
the various other governmental authorities to conduct these experiments. I mean,
all the questions that you ask are still the ones
that are stuck in my head. I'm I'm convinced based
on what based on what a lot of these ranchers
have said, I'm convinced that there is something anomalous. Whether
(50:30):
that is a perfect storm of predation, scavenging and circuitan environment,
or whether that is some you know, group of really
screwed up college kids. What if it's a combination of
all of the things we've touched on except from except
(50:50):
aliens aliens. Maybe you can't say all the things right,
all the things and aliens. But what if it's like
happening here and there, you know, because if it's happening global,
then it's probably not just one cause. What if the aliens,
the serial killers, and the government are all working together,
(51:11):
them cows and they're the cult worships the same thing,
and then it's all I like. I like picturing it
instead like an awkward meeting where people are expecting to
run into each other, so you know, a picture like
a far side cartoon cow since in the field and
realize it's it's alone, and then like a mountain nine
comes out, and then like three people in black robes
(51:32):
come out, and an alien lands and then Uncle Sam
like in the red, white and blue outfit. Dude, she
gotta draw that. I know't now, I know. I don't
want to tell on you, but you're quite the cartoonist.
I think you should draw them. Eric Larson or has
some fantastic images with aliens and cows. But can you
imagine they all ran into to each other when you
(51:54):
gave the same cow. How do you decide that? So good?
Everybody's just playing rock paper scissors the past. Oh man,
Since it feels like we're wrapping up, I just in
the interest of continuing with the iconic nineties cartoon talk, Um,
I just wanted to mention a comic series that we've
mentioned several times, the Lock and Key series by Joe
(52:14):
Hill and illustrated by Gabrielle Rodriguez. There is an issue
and I believe the fourth trade collection where um the
artist who drew and created Calvin and Hobbs series, Bill Waterson,
does a kind of alternate reality version of the story
and it alternates between his art and Rodriguez's art and
(52:35):
it's just it works so beautifully and I can't recommend
that series enough. Then I bought the whole thing and
I've been kind of borrowing them from him here and there,
and I'm working my way through it and it's just
so good. Can't recommend it. And I love that some
some folks, uh you out there in podcast land have
commented on our love of comics and graphic novels. Please,
(52:58):
if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them
to us. Guys, if you're okay with it, let's end
on listen on a local note for us. In January
this year, mutilation in Jackson County, which is uh close
to some stomping grounds of Athens, Georgia. They reported a
(53:20):
series of mutilations two cows right now. The Sheriff's office
say says that in at least one cow, they think
um scavengers cause the wounds, but they're not sure about
the other one. So this remains something that people still
talk about. There's a lot of stuff we didn't touch
on today, but you can see some more in our video.
(53:40):
You can also hear some more in the documentary that
Matt recommended. Furthermore, if you want to learn more about this,
you can check out our podcast on skin Walker Ranch.
The podcast and the video very good stuff. And please
don't forget to check out our videos on cryptids. If
you want to learn more about that angle. We've got
the cult angle covered for you. It's all on our
(54:03):
YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. And if
none of that strikes your fancy and you want to
just send a good old fashioned electronic message, you can
do so by writing to conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com. One last note, you guys, speaking of things
that happened this past January. Everyone out there listening, all
(54:24):
three of us here, our podcast got over one million
downloads throughout January. Really how cool is that? I just
wanted to say thank you for listening to us. Uh,
you know, sit around this table and we enjoy it
so much, and you know, I hope that you enjoyed
as much as we do here here. Yeah, thank you
(54:45):
for your time. And remember this is your show. And
at the end of our episodes, when we asked send
an email or something, we can't always respond as efficiently
as I would like, but we do read everyone, and
you can always tell because our best episode ideas come
from you, and people say this is a free show,
but it is not. I've said it before, I'll say
it again. You're paying us with the most important currency
(55:07):
that exists, your time, your tention, and your support. We
cannot thank you enough, but we are sure gonna try.
Thank you from more. On this topic, another unexplained phenomenon,
visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy. You can also get
(55:29):
in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello there,
(00:21):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, and I am Ben. You are you
that it makes this stuff they don't want you to know? Uh, guys,
we had a we had a pretty cool response to
our shout out corner. Really yeah, it was it people
asking for shout outs. It was, in fact, it is
(00:42):
Uh do do we want to do it one more time?
Chat at corners? A nice guys, Yeah, that was good.
We're still feeling out the theme song. So our first
shout out today goes to Jeremy Seth Brauner. Uh. Jeremy said,
could you guys of an on air shout out to
my wife and I Jeremy and Chantell, who just celebrated
(01:05):
our one year wedding anniversary. Very nice. Congratulations Maybe a year,
that's that's not an easy accomplishment, guys, did small businesses
I think can't make it a year, especially restaurants, restaurants,
it's a cutthroat industry. But congratulations Jeremy. Congratulations shantell. And
(01:26):
we've got another shout out fresh out of corner. This
one is to j Collins. Uh, he says, conspiracy stuff.
When you asked your listeners for what kind of skinwalker
they'd want to be, I'm the one who said a
duck hashtag shout at coining. The next one goes out
to Holly a k A Kawaii five a girl ghost
(01:50):
shout out to you, Holly, uh yeah. And also, Holly,
you bribed us. You said I will send you boys
a gift for the studio if I guess if we
give you a shout out, so the balls in your court,
my friends shout out as currency. I like it, shout
out as currency, you guys. This might be as big
as ben Bucks, which I'm still working on right So,
(02:12):
thank you so much, Tollie. That's very nice for you,
and it would be cool. I don't know what you
guys want. I've had a couple of things on my mind.
I want to just a surprise. Yeah, okay, surprise is
kid by which I don't mean like feces in a
box or something. I mean like that would be awful.
Thanks for showing me out. Here's some poop. Well you know,
it's a big world, Matt. People have different values. But actually,
(02:35):
on a serious note, we're not expecting anything. We give
a shout out. It's just a shout out corner. It's
just a chance for us to introduce on air listeners
to each other. It's just a fun thing we like
to do. That's right, And one day I will get
my boat back, Thank you, thank you. And speaking of
oh yeah, that's right, they did treat that as well.
(02:56):
And speaking of fun times and astonishing segues, have you
guys ever spent time on a farm or visited or
you know, mine's probably the weakest of of of our stories,
but I did take a field trip when I was
an elementary school to a dairy farm, and I don't know,
I just remember thinking that cows were very strange creatures
(03:19):
to be close to, because it's like, on the one hand,
you think they're dumb and they don't really care about
what's going on as long as they've got what is
it cut, you know, something to to choose some grass
with on which too much um. But then you look
at him and sun and you get the sense that
there might be something going on. You know, they might
know something that we don't know. That's that's really interesting.
(03:41):
Stayed with me. I'm not kidding, no, I would agree
with you. As a kid, I had an elementary school
friend who his grandparents lived in a very rural area
in Georgia here and there were just there's just farmland
that just not even formally just pastures really and they
would just expand out and what we would do is
go grabb like makeshift swords out of wooden sticks and
(04:03):
stuff and just kind of travel along around on this
huge acres and acre just sounds like you had a
magical childhood. Man, it was pretty dope. Got I mean
no nothing uh technological to ground me while I'm out
there exploring. It was cool. But one of the things
one of the other areas of land that was there
somebody else's land. They had cows, they had there were
(04:23):
a couple of horses and stuff like that. They were
just roaming around. And one of the things that struck
me when we were talking about this is what you
just said. Uh, they seemed to be extremely gentle. I
never actually got close enough to touch them, but they
would just kind of hang out by the fence and
like look at you. But they would look at you,
you know, and just kind of like, you know, cows
(04:44):
only move out of distress. And apparently I read this
somewhere and maybe I heard it as a sinister thing
a serial killer character said in a television show. Not
a percent sure, but apparently one reason that they move
is their mourning are slaughtered children. Who well, cow's our sapiens.
(05:06):
Do you have intelligence? Uh? Maybe not necessarily wisdom. I
have a similar experience in my personal life, which, as
you guys know, rarely talked about on air. But this
might be enjoyable. Uh So, in one of the places
I was living, it was adjacent to a fairly small
(05:26):
cattle operation, but when you're a kid, everything is bigger.
So we jumped the fence and go exploring in that
area and sneaking into the farm late at night. I
don't know what the statute of limitations is on this,
but we never caused any physical damage, right, and I
think how tipping is It is a dangerous thing for
(05:48):
the cow. But we had invented a sport we called
cow fishing, which is that we would go into um
into where the cattle were set up for the night,
get onto the second floor, and then take an ear
of corn and tie fishing line around it and then
tie it to a stick, and then we would go
(06:09):
to them. We would lean over where the you know,
the cow was sleeping, and then we would sort of
tap it on its head and it would look left
and it would look right, and we're trying to figure
out if they could look up. We didn't know much
about cows. And then we would extend this ear of
corn in front of the cow's face so that the
cow could see it. And listeners, you probably, unless you
(06:32):
have psychic powers, can't see it right now, but I'm
gesticulating this thing. I'm explaining it nonverbally as well to
our friends Knell and Matt here. So I would extend
this ear of corn out where the cow could see it. Now,
keep it far away, because I was a stupid kid,
and I wanted to see what they would do. And
that's how I discovered that cows have disturbingly long, almost
(06:54):
prehensile tongues, because the tongue comes out and then it wraps.
I see it like wrap around this ear of corn,
and I freak out and I dropped the thing and
I ran away, and I haven't been back since, you know,
that's how in the game Minecraft you are able to
ride animals, which consist of pigs and cows and horses.
(07:14):
I think, um, you have to fashion a fishing pole
and put a carrot on the end of it, and
then you mount the farm animal and you you fish.
I had no idea, It's true. I have never played
Minecraft's good like. I just have to say, I can
imagine that being terrifying. Uh, the a cow doesn't seem
(07:35):
like an animal that would have a tongue like that,
I guess in your mind, maybe especially as a kid.
I'm not like a you know, a cow, professor. It's
also real purple and spitty. I mean, it's it's a
it's a pretty intense thing. Looks like some sort of
like mutant slug from like a sci fi movie. But
but we do know that cattle are intelligent. That's one
thing is coming up in all three of our stories.
(07:55):
We do know that these animals have the ability to
have their own personalities, right to remember other members of
their of their pure group or if you want to
see their family structure, their their tribe. And we know
that there are a heck of a lot of them.
Do you know how many yeah, thanks for asking. As
(08:17):
of January one, two thousand fifteen, according to the National
Cattleman's Beef Association, there are eighty nine point eight million
cows in the US. That's actually up from January a
whole percent, a whole one percent. Uh. This this translates
to a forty four billion dollar industry. This also means
(08:40):
that you know, these cows are broken up. Some are
milk cows, most are beef cows. Right. And you can
clearly listeners tell because after all, it is what's for dinner.
It is his you mean, the beef, right, and nut milk,
the beef milk. It's what's for dinner. That's all. We have, bread,
milk stick. It grows. So with this huge industry, with
(09:04):
this livestock we are I don't want to enter into
too much of the argument over whether or not it's
right to eat animals. That's maybe a different show. But
we're just establishing that these things are everywhere. You, if
you live in the US, have probably at some time,
at the very least gone by a cow field like
(09:25):
cow pastor right. Uh. And the funny thing is that
every so often on these ranches in these pastors when
they call the cows home and all of them show up.
And that is what today's episode is about. For anyone
who just didn't read the title of the episode, it's
(09:47):
about the cattle to get maybe stranded or just one
straight a little too far away from the herd. And
then it's like Homeward Downd the movie, but with like
a cow, I would love that? Who would have trying
to find its a home? Who would it? Would be
a precocious pig and a perhaps a fox um, all
(10:09):
with celebrity voices. The only difference in the Homeward Bound
version of that, and then the one that we're going
to describe today is that it ends in invisceration, exanguination,
and uh, the death of the main character. Yes, so
what is cattle mutilation? Well, the typical definition of cattle
(10:29):
mutilation is the killing um and disfigurement, disembowelment, evisceration, shall
we say, of cattle under anomalous or you know, unusual
kind of suspect circumstances, Well, they often appeared to be
partially skinned, or they have incisions that appear to have
(10:49):
been done with surgical precision, which is pretty unusual. And
often these animals are reported to have been exanguinated or
drained entire hirely of blood. Um, they're soft parts, the eyes,
their organs, all the good guscy stuff. Yeah, the hind
cores are missing. Yeah, they're sexual organs as well. Yeah,
(11:12):
it's a pretty gruesome thing to have happened to anything
any living being. Um, it's it's crazy too. It's not
just we've been talking about cows this whole time. It's
not just that cattle. Other livestock have experienced this kind
of thing. You'll you'll see it in I know, sheep
and goats have been it's been reported in those two,
in particular, horses as well. Yeah, we we've also there's
(11:37):
one case that we might get to today in which
is an excellent example of this. But but here's the deal.
You've probably heard of cattle mutilations, right, listeners, I mean,
the X files is back on, people are people are
more likely now to check it out than they were previously.
(11:57):
And we've often heard what what are the initial reports
We've always heard, right, We've always heard like, oh, it's
uh aliens. No no, no, my friend, that's a coyote.
No no, no, no, no, no no, it was somebody else yeah,
that was a human. Yeah. I mean, I think something
that distinguishes these cases from just a typical um animal
(12:19):
malling or an animal attack is the nature of some
of the wounds. I mean, I think, you know, a
typical cattle rancher farmer is experienced with wild animals and
probably be aware of what it would look like if, say,
a coyote had attacked one of their animals, right, Yeah,
and that that's a good point because ranchers see a
(12:40):
lot of stuff and uh vets who work on on
animals with animals also see a lot of stuff. And
that's one of the big arguments will be getting to.
So the various biologists and experts and law enforcement officers
and ranchers investigating this over time have a number of
like oculative causes, right and um, they're pretty much exactly
(13:05):
what you're naming natural predation, scavenging, human intervention like loan
killers a k A. Board teenagers you're write a k A.
Future Dahmers, you know, or what was that got ed
geen gang? Yeah, the real life inspiration for the Texas
chainsaw massacre. Very disturbing stuff. Would love to do a
(13:27):
show about that. And then there are the ideas of
maybe humans, but not just some loan unhappy kid. Uh
who you know what. On a side note, you would
have to be a very very very strong, loan unhappy
kid to take that. To do your homework, man, I mean,
you can't just go in half cocked and just you know,
(13:48):
knock out a cow and then go to town on
in soft parts. I mean you really have to come
with a taser or some kind of like a mall
one of those air guns. You'd probably be the best movie,
like one of the air guns they that the guy
used in um No Country for Old Men. Yeah. Well,
as as we're going to find a little later that
(14:08):
the the idea of any medicinal smell around one of
these animals that's experienced this, or some kind of the
surgical cuts. Perhaps even I don't know, man, there might
be people working together on this. It might not be
a lone person, right. What if it's a cult. What
if it is some sort of government agency or affiliated
thing operating in secret exciting stuff And we'll get to
(14:32):
it at this time. We have to say though, that
the mainstream news and most of the stuff you're going
to read or encounter when you look this up is
going to argue that this is the result of what
do we in the video? We had a good line, um,
Mankind's original and most brutal enemy nature, Right, Yeah, the
(14:52):
the the first antagonist for this species. But let's look
at the timeline because although we might associate in here
in the US cattle mutilation with something from the seventies
or whatever, the story of mutilating animals dates back, way, way, way,
(15:15):
way further. Can you hear me going back? Yeah? You
went so far back there. And the reason it goes
back so far is because it isn't necessarily the slaughtering
of an animal like this wasn't necessarily historically always for food, right,
there was another reason. Sometimes you would slaughter an animal
(15:36):
in a ritualistic manner to appease perhaps a god or
God's Did you guys ever watch the HBO series Rome.
I have not. It's actually pretty good. Um. There's a
scene though, where one of the main female characters, who
is very wealthy head of a family, UM, is trying
to curry favor from the gods. I believe to have
(15:58):
her son, the life of her son spared UM in battle,
and she goes into this temple where a priest conducts
this ritual wherein a bull is walked out onto a
metal grate and um basically slaughtered and gutted, and the
blood pours down through the grates onto the character and
(16:20):
she has drenched in it and then walks up the
priest and says, your son will be spad. That's hot,
but blood fresh blood is pretty hot. I guess yes,
and several levels. So we're we're both agree. And it's
fascinating that you say that, because this this is exactly
what we're talking about when we're talking about sacrifice right
(16:41):
um to gain fertility, right for the gods to look
favorably upon your next endeavor in war, or you want
to save your son right. And we know that this
exists across multiple religions, multiple places. As Matt said earlier,
we have some specific examples. One is practice that was
(17:01):
called October horse or equas October an ancient Roman religions.
What what would happen is there would be these three
uh days of like racing, chariot racing, and during one
of these races, which always occurred on the IDEs of
October October UH, the winners of the two horse chariot race,
(17:24):
which sacrifice their right hand horse, and this was propitiation
to believe the god. Mars strange, but that's not the
only thing. And this is why, no, your example of
the show room is so good because it's based on
some real life stuff that happened in Rome. Right. Our
(17:45):
next example is that in the age of the Roman Empire,
worshipers also sacrificed bulls, stub balls, stubb bulls. And they
did this so often that we even have a word
for it, and it is our word of the day,
or I guess word of the week since it is
a weekly podcast. Taro boleum more like whoa yeah, yeah,
(18:12):
because every time say you gotta go crazy, but that
was the bullgoing crazy and then getta. That's strange to
me that that's a lot of street cred when something
happened so often that there is a specific word for it. Well,
maybe listeners throughout this podcast, uh, you know, you can
play along at home and when we say tarot bolium cool.
(18:38):
That was great. And also this sacrificial right, it kind
of carried on in several other religions. In Judaism, you
had the corbon, which was a whole set of sacrificial
offerings Uh, that are they're they're also in I believe
in Christianity and Islam, there are different there are different offerings.
Some of them are sacrificial in chu or some of
(19:00):
them are symbolically sacrificial in nature. Um. You know, if
you go back to the Little Testament, specifically in Christianity,
you can find some sacrifice and going on. And there
was a lot of specifics to like. I mean, you
would sacrifice the lamb for a certain type of favor,
and you know, a goat perhaps for another. It's interesting
the language of sacrifice. I like the title of that.
(19:23):
That that could be the title of something, the Language
of Sacrifice, not as a book, but what an album
that would be. Uh. And I wonder if in case
you're listening to the show Radiohead, you're welcome. Uh. So
the this is a great point that you're making old
because anytime this had a religious angle to it, it
(19:44):
wasn't just that I'm killing the right animal, well, it
was super super important. It was also what day, what
time am I killing this animal? How right am I
saying the right words? Are we wearing the correct vestments?
Highly ritualized? Highly ritualized? And this is important. The reason
we're talking about this today is because as we look
at modern cattle mutilation, this is one way in which
(20:07):
we could differentiate between the random acts of a predator
and the purposeful, stylized even um machinations of a human
being or a group of or a group of human
beings or a group of extraterrestrial spoiler alert. So early
(20:29):
reports just go through this this part pretty quickly. Earlier reports. Uh.
If you like our show, you may also be a
fan of a magazine called The fourteen Times forty Times,
which is magazine reporting on fringe theories and the paranormal
is named after a guy named Charles Fort who was
an early paranormal researcher, and he actually conducted a little
(20:52):
bit of cursory research into mutilations of livestock in the US,
which is how we know that these kind of reports
date back as far back as the late nineteenth century.
And that's fascinating to to have it go back that far.
I didn't know much about Charles Fort in the forteen Times. Unfortunately,
I have seen it. Unfortunately, yes, but I've I've seen
(21:16):
it all over the place, and it mentioned specifically the
forum the fourteen Times, where people will discuss the topics
that we are generally looking up. But I had no
real understanding of the back story, but we did in
in making this video for this week, I found some
old books, and one in particular that that is referenced
here is called low l O exclamation mark, Yes, precisely,
(21:41):
and it has several several different topics that it goes through.
And one of the coolest things the chapters are full
on sentences, which is kind of neat. I appreciated that
a lot. And we we know that despite these reports,
this was not an issue of national concern for wild
that this would be instead a lurid story that's in
(22:02):
a on the below the fold in your newspapers, that
is until in nineteen sixty seven. So in nineteen sixty
seven this phenomenon reached the mainstream when um a lady
by the name of Agnes King and her son Harry
found that their mayor lady had been gruesomely murdered, mutilated,
(22:27):
partially skinned uh de fleshed shall we say, around the
neck and head, and lady had also been exanguinated drained
of all of her blood, the classic version of a
cattle mutilation. In nineteen sixty seven. Yeah, it's too bad. Uh.
And it occurred just for everyone's curious, it occurred in
(22:48):
September of sixty seven. So this is not doesn't have
a one on one connection with the old practice of
the october horse. But that's a question that you probably
had as well. This garnered this attention. It was reported
in the Pueblo Chieftain. It was in Colorado, and after
this reported, this is where Agnes's son, Harry, is the
(23:10):
one who reported that strong medicinal odor, which will come
into play later. Concerns over these so called mysterious mutilations
of livestock went on as the years grew, and eventually
it reached the ears of representatives of the government. So
in nineteen five, a guy UH named Floyd K. Haskell,
(23:32):
Colorado Senator, reaches out to the FBI for help. He said,
there have been reports of mutilations in nine states, and
as far as he could tell, there were a hundred
and thirty cases of livestock mutilation in Colorado. Now, this
is something our timeline gets a litt fuzzy here because
I'm not sure how aware UH Senator has Skeol was
(23:52):
at the time that the a t F the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacquo and Firearms had conducted a study to
see if there was any truth of rasty to cult involvement.
And keep in mind, this is during a time when
there was a burgeoning panic over possible Satanic colds in
the US, right, the Satanic panic, the Satanic panic, precisely, No,
(24:14):
and this this a t F thing found that there
there really wasn't enough evidence to draw some kind of
link like that. They just needed to know, and state
level investigations differed, but also had also had a lot
of a lot of disturbing numbers. Right. So for instance,
(24:35):
we get a lot of information from the New Mexico
State Police's investigation, wherein they found that there might be
as many as eight thousand and estimated eight thousand cattle
mutilations in Colorado. And they know for sure because again
this New Mexico State Police. But in nineteen seventy nine,
(24:56):
the FBI compiles a lot of this stuff and based
on Haskell's recommendation, launches a project called Operation Animal Mutilation. Yeah,
and they filed a report that was a full on
two and nineties seven pages long, and there are little
excerpts of it that you can find online through the
Freedom of Information Act. Fascinating stuff. It's just a lot
(25:20):
of it are just reports from a rancher or someone
who owns cattle. Why can't you get the whole thing?
I think? Is it redacted? I have not seen the
entire report in itself, but I have seen excerpts. You
can view a lot of it online at the FBI's
vault website, which is super useful but also super irritating
(25:41):
because they've just taken scans that in many cases are
not very well done and just take a scan and
posted Yeah, and you can't search them my keyword. But
I you know, they're in a pickle of some sort
because if they were just to type out or transcribe
all of that necessary searchable format, then I don't know
(26:01):
about you guys. My first question would be, what did
you leave out there basically meeting the minimum compliance level
of compliance? Yeah, it's tax dollars. You have to pay
some in turn or some person like us to go
through and actually write out the entire document. So where
does this leave us? The guy who was in charge
(26:22):
of this is fellow him Kenneth Rommel, and he concluded,
let me make sure praise this correctly, gentleman. He concluded
that the vast majority, pretty much all of these mutilations
came from natural sources, predators, and then later scavengers. There
it's sort of the short round to the indie in
(26:43):
terms of predators. Yeah, and I guess we're gonna get
into that a little later. Just that concept of when
a what happens to a body when a predator attacks it.
We're going to tackle that later, right, yes, Okay, well
we'll hit we'll hit on that in a minute. Okay,
So one other thing, just want to mention this is
a little bit gruesome, and I was on the fence
(27:04):
about including it. Uh in n There was a mutilation
case that was a little bit different. This stuff continues today.
There was a mutilation case is very similar to cal mutilation.
However it involved a human being. This is a disturbing case.
(27:24):
We're going to let you know where you can learn more,
but we're not going to spend too much time on it.
What they found is that there were various signs of
this uh of this body discovered that had that that
were indicative of the same kind of mutilation conducted on cattle.
(27:44):
So cut at the base of the ear signs of
brain removal, UH, both eyes plucked out, UH, cuts under
the skin, removal of uh, sexual organs, uh incisions into
body to take various extremities or oregan samples and Matt
(28:06):
you have you have a place to point people. Yeah,
there's a gentleman that you may already know named Richard D.
Hall who has covered the specific case before pretty extensively,
made a documentary length fell like a full length documentary
about this case and some of the surrounding things that
I guess I'll run on the fringes of it and
you can find that online. How I would go to
(28:28):
the YouTube channel rich rich r a c H Planet UK.
That's where I found a couple of clips and the
full length documentary is available. He's got a website you
can go to and check that out. Also. Uh, I
can't believe I forgot to mention this body was found
on a small island in the Guara Puranga Reservoir, which
is in the southern, uh southern part of Sal Paulo, Brazil.
(28:53):
So makes you wonder and it leads us to it
leads us to the big thing, the question of the week, right,
the causes. So I'll start. I'll start with the easy one.
Nature predators, right, coyote primarily, wolves, bears, et cetera. Yet
here's the thing. According to the Department of Agriculture, at
(29:14):
least here in the US, only about point to three
percent of cattle loss can be attributed to predation. That
means that zero point to three zero less than one
quarter of one percent. And we're saying is that this
is kind of an infrequent, an infrequent thing already. So
(29:38):
the mundane cause is already infrequent. The inexplicable stuff is
a smaller part of an even of a very small subset,
especially when you consider we're looking at ninety million cattle. Yeah,
and especially if most of those cattle are in very
controlled areas right there there are grouped together in large
numbers many times. And there is that this the truth
(29:58):
to safety and numbers. When you have a large animal
like a cow. And then let's see though, let's that's
that's a great point. Let's say cow does get taken down,
wolf bear, mountain lion, I don't know. Let's just have
a predator for the sake of argument. You got one,
awesol lot. Okay, Let's say for some reason, a particularly
(30:20):
vicious awfol Lotu manages to bring down the cow and
it's just a it's a rage kill, lost kills it
eats a little bit and then leaves to reek further
awesol lot related havoc. Then the next step, however, are
the scavengers. You know, the bizzards, the rats, the insects,
the coyote. You show up late to the party, And
(30:42):
it's interesting how these these different scavengers will not just
work alone, right, and you're not just gonna have buzzards
attacking something. You may they might finish the whole job,
but there's probably gonna be some meat left. Then get
the rats, who yeeah exactly. And then well it's interesting
too because some of the ranchers that have been interviewed
(31:03):
about cattle mutilation, some of them maintained that the weirdest
thing is that scavengers won't touch the bodies, which is
an interesting proposition and not everybody says that, but it
leads us to some of the weirder alleged causes. And
the last thing that I just have to bring up
(31:24):
here are the bacteria, the micro organisms that go to
town after an animal has died like that, especially when
you've got, you know, the bowels of an animal that
kind of begin eating itself from the inside out. It occurs,
like sadly, very quickly after the point of death, the
body begins to deteriorate interiorly. Um. And that's one of
(31:47):
the reasons that you see, you know, when people talk
about how the sex organs and the butt was, it
was all just completely gone and eaten out in the
face and the mouth where all the bacteria grows. It's
just an interesting thing to point out it does occur naturally.
I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's a valuable point
to make. The Let's go straight to the weird stuff,
(32:09):
all right, Aliens extraterrestrials et flying across the passable chasm
of time and space to this tiny little mode of
dust that's just flying around two uh. I guess for
the sake of science, evis rates some animals. I mean, yeah,
(32:30):
you gotta find out what's going on down here. It's
it isn't It would be incredible to find life on
a planet. If you're just flying around the cosmos looking
for life and all of a sudden, oh my gosh,
there is one that's a you know what That's a
really good point because it makes me think that of
what we as humans would do. We're traveling to another
planet and we encounter another life form, probably not on purpose,
(32:55):
but definitely it's in the cards that we would just
killed it out of it. Remember that episode of The
Twilight Zone where there are these like benevolent alien overlords
that come to Earth and they're taking groups of humans
up to their home planet little by little, and there's
(33:17):
the one guy who's like against it, and he thinks,
you know, something fishy is going on. And it turns
out that they're actually sending humans to their home planet
so that they can harvest them or like you know,
what's the word, uh, you know, like cattle. Basically, like
they used them as a fat source. That blew my
(33:38):
mind because there's a good twist. No, look, we had
a we had a letter before where somebody, um, somebody
freaked out a little bit because they thought we were
giving them spoilers for a show. So before I say
anything else, if you somehow think that it would be
wrong to discuss an episode of The Twilight Zone from
(34:00):
back before television was in color, then please pause for
the next two minutes while we talked about something that
I assure you everyone else already already spoiled it, though. Well,
the great thing is that that particular episode has been
kind of echoed throughout the popular kidding like Twilight Zone,
invented like almost every like Shamanian twist. You know, there's
(34:25):
so many, there's so many great The reason I bring
that up, though, is if there were aliens involved, or
some sort of extraterrestrial and you know, it's easy to
be flippant and say, oh, well, if there are these
highly evolved, technologically advanced extraterrestrials, why would they bother flying
you know, millions of miles to Earth just to you know,
(34:47):
cut up some cows. You know what, if they're fascinated
by the fact that we have these animals that we
use for no other reason than to keep them in
a p and fatten them up and use them to
you know, subsist on, maybe they're kind of trying to
figure out how to do that for themselves. You know,
maybe there's something they lack in their society that they require,
(35:12):
you know, some version of what we have as a species.
You know, yeah, that's a good angle. We need cattle,
and it makes it It makes me think also as well.
One of the old problems often encountered in science fiction speculation, right, speculation,
Alien life is technology and technological evolution. So what if
(35:36):
there are what if there is some sort of life
for there that is just streets ahead of us, galaxies
ahead of us maybe in terms of space travel, but
in other ways doesn't have technology that we would consider
rather elementary. I mean, not fire. Maybe they don't have fire.
That's that's a pretty basic one. And and and maybe
(35:57):
maybe they're cutting them open and taking the parts back
so that they can test them and see if it's
something that they could even survive on. It's just a thought.
I'm just you know, and here, Yeah, that's I mean,
that's a good point. What do you think about cryptids? Though?
The idea that some as of yet unidentified animal could
be responsible for this certainly would account for why we
(36:19):
don't recognize the means of um of the kill, the meat,
the way that the animal is killed, that it's trained
of blood, and that is not something we typically see
in animals that we are scavengers or predators that were
aware of Yeah, you know what I mean. One Ranchers
said that place one Ranchers said that, uh, the cow,
(36:39):
the cow that he discovered killed, had about eleven pounds
of blood. How would a predator eat eleven pounds of
blood by like, by itself or get rid of all
of it? You know, Well, maybe he was a goat sucker.
Maybe that's maybe that's what it specializes in. That's that's
(37:00):
what I'm saying. I mean, if if it's some as
yet unidentified creature, it would likely have equipment, shall we
say that we are not familiar with, you know, and
something that would that would take to drain a large
animal of all of its blood would certainly be something
outside of a coyote or a fox or you know,
a typical straw. Yeah, that sounds like some real coy boy.
(37:27):
So yeah, yeah, as you're saying, okay, guys, uh, here
we go. We're doing the turn now. As much as
I love speculating about this stuff and about the possibility
of aliens and why they would want to come down
and study cows because perhaps they are a higher advanced
bovine version, maybe that's what the aliens are, I have
(37:48):
to say, and we have to move on to the
idea that there's a human element somehow involved here because
I think it's a little more plausible humans know how
to drink milkshakes. I've been in this room the entire time. Hello, Hello,
I just want to establish that. So that's I mean,
that is a great point though, because we know it's
(38:10):
completely not only is it plausible, but it has happened before.
We have an industry built on the practice of humans
killing and mutilating animals. These are this is uh, the
cattle mulation that occurs now is different because it is
not part of that system, and it also doesn't seem
(38:33):
to be I mean, it's certainly not beneficial to the
cattle or the ranchers, possibly the animals doing it. But
we the point is, we do know that humans have
the ability to kill, to kill livestock, and to do
so in a variety of ways. We talked about the
virgin and serial killers, and it led me to a
(38:54):
question I wanted to ask you, guys, do you think
it would be possible to explain some of these things
by checking for areas known for cattle mutilation and seeing
if they correlate to the stomping grounds of serial killers
or the hometowns of people who would later become killers.
That's fascinating. Yeah, but it's such a needle in a
(39:14):
haystack because there's so few apprehended serial killers. Yeah, we
have no idea where they're lurking. Well, it's also one
of those things where, um, a burgeoning serial killer, shall
we say, um, who knows how long they might just
mutilate animals before they actually move on to actually killing
you know, humans. They could do it for years, just
(39:35):
just to practice. Just maybe they're trying to, um, not
take it to the next level, and so they're you know,
satisfying that urge just by killing animals in this way.
Dark Passenger kind of that's exactly, especially the ones with
the surgical incisions and that whole medicinal smell thing wears
me out so much. It makes me think there's someone
(39:56):
practicing not necessarily even killing, like serial killing, but wanting
to practice some kind of medical I don't know, I
was gonna say, I was gonna say maneuver quite the
right word, but just procedure. Well, yeah, I guess it
would be a procedure. Practicing a procedure on account. Well,
(40:17):
this is this is interesting because from the skeptical side
of it, what I've seen is that numerous people say
the effects of scavengers or bloating and dehydration can cause
the skin to split in a way that looks as
if it were an extremely clean cut. However, the ranchers
who you know own these these cattle will say that
(40:41):
they've seen a lot of stuff and that they know
the difference between somebody with a hunting knife or an
animal attack or a scalpel. And you can see people
trying to reproduce the effects of this and not doing
the best job, which is why we hear the old
stories about lasers, which has not been proven. But it's
(41:02):
all it's another one of those weird things where you
hear about increased signs of heat, like there was a
heat sourcer in the cattle, or that there was a
even readings of radiation slightly higher radiation And wouldn't a
laser caught her eyes as it cuts? Yeah, so it
burned a little. Yeah, that's a really good point. Um.
I don't know, I haven't seen any confirmation of that,
(41:24):
but we do need to put that idea in this show.
What I have seen a little bit more credible confirmation
or allegation rather is in the state level enforcement reports.
They do talk a little bit about cults. Yeah, they do.
They talk about hooded figures. I think one one person
in particular discussed how they or they made an official
(41:48):
report of how they were stopped in the road. There's
a roadblock with fifteen or so hooded people in black
hoods in particular October, and they had to turn around
and go in and they just so happened that this
was an area where cattle mutilations have been reported at
a higher than regular And in September the same year,
(42:09):
another resident of Idaho, a Blaine County Forestry Service employee,
also reported seeing a group of figures in black hooded robes.
The next day they found several mutilated cattle. Dude, this one,
I love this one. Well. What's interesting is that these
are reports were made to law enforcement. So this is
(42:30):
not just some Internet story that people are telling each other.
It's not a spooky story to tell them the dart.
We do have to keep in mind though, that there
was widespread I don't want to say hysteria, it's satanic.
Panic is the perfect phrase, uh, to to use your
earlier phrase, nol. But it doesn't necessarily mean the recults.
(42:52):
But it is very strange. It's anomalous. Yeah, I I
don't know, the thought of a group of people getting
together who have decided that they want to I don't know,
practice a religion and older religion, perhaps in the middle
of Idaho in the country. I mean that that sounds
(43:13):
fun to me. I know that sounds awful, probably even
me saying that too many of you, But really it
sounds fun. Yeah, I think that's okay. Not necessarily the
animal sacrifice angle or that segment of it, but the
idea of having an older religion kind of revived. Know,
it feels very twilight zony to me, and I love it.
(43:33):
Very close to Bohemian grove. Yes, I want to go
so bad. Secremation of Care is that the name they're
They're weird owl effigy burning thing. It is, Thank you
Alex Jones. We're getting video of that. Yeah, that was
That was a good movement. Is where it was very
strange to see that. It makes me think of, um,
you know, I did this documentary about the Georgia Guide
(43:55):
Stones is a topic that we have yet to really unravel.
I don't think we can't wait too needs to have Yeah,
well no, we should. Um but anyone who doesn't know.
The Guide Stones are sort of a Stonehenge esque array
of granite slabs that are inscribed with these sort of
commandments for kind of like a new world order, like
a post apocalyptic rallying point, shall we say, in this
(44:17):
meadow um in Elberton, Georgia, which is not terribly far
from where we are in Atlanta. But um. One of
the theories about these stones, since the person who financed
and had them erected uh maintained his anonymity throughout the
whole process. Mr. Christian, Mr rc Christian. But there were
stories about how you know, and as tends to happen
(44:40):
when their secrecy involved, people's imaginations run wild, and there
were a lot of accounts of animal sacrifice. I actually
interviewed a pastor at a nearby church for the documentary,
and he swears up and down that there he rode
by the site and saw people in hooded you know,
hooded figures um, laying down rose petals and lighting candles
(45:03):
and doing these like saltsticey type rituals. And he said
that Um, when he started speaking out about it in
his community at his church, people would place slaughtered goat
carcasses at his uh you know, doorstep at his home
and at the church, etcetera. Um. But point being, I
think he was a little bit shall we say, exaggerative
(45:26):
in his accounts, and I think it's probably very likely
that he did see some hooded figures, but they were
probably like you say, some folks kind of practicing sort
of like a neo pagan kind of religious uh you know,
um ritual, I could said. And you know, I mean
it happens even here in you know, in in Georgia
and in rural areas. They're very attractive to folks that
(45:48):
are wanting to do that because they want to go
out and be close to nature and where there aren't
many people around. And so I mean I could imagine
people did see hooded figures associated with some of these things.
And you know, I mean there's always more insidious versions
of these kind of rituals, and perhaps there was some
animal sacrifice involved, as we talked about with Rome, you know, like,
(46:09):
why is that any less likely that a newer version
of a pagan religion like what they practiced in Rome
wouldn't do the same thing. Are we profiling cults? You guys?
Kind of I guess we are. I think the term
cults is sort of like a odd catch all too,
because of majority. Right, absolutely, Because again, if we're talking
about is if you're a Pagan, are you in a
(46:31):
cult anymore than if you're a Christian? Yeah, one person's
cult is another person's true religion. Right. Uh. And I
think the you know, we've talked a little bit about this,
just to reiterate with a word like cult, one of
the things that happens it is a word that springs
up in opposition to something else. So cults are usually
(46:53):
depicted as being in opposition to a larger religious doctrine,
somehow underground. So is it possible is it possible that
there is a group of people or several groups of
people ritualistically murdering animals as part of a religious practice.
If that's true, If that's the case, and if they
(47:16):
own the cattle, then legally is a very interesting situation
because is it a right to practice religion? Is it
animal cruelty? Does you know what I mean? Yeah? Where
does it? Where does it fall amongst all of these
different categories? And what's with the secrecy? I want to know?
But there there's another group that some people might also
(47:37):
call a cult that have been alleged to participate in this,
and that is the Church of Uncle Sam and for
a fascinating reason. Okay, so it's been alleged that perhaps
the United States government some facet of it is sacrifice.
Not they're not sacrificing. They're killing these animals in order
to conduct experiments to track disease, in particular bovine sponge
(48:02):
of form and cephalopathy or ned cow disease, which took
me which which took me forever to pronounce correctly in
the in our video. It's great face something. I just
why would the government creep in in the night and
do this to some poor rancher without compensating him for
(48:25):
the loss of his his livestock. I mean, we have
things like the c d C. You know, we have
the U s d A. They have facilities where they
can test animals and they can take samples, and they
send out, you know, representatives that will take samples or
if they you know, need to test a specific cow
in a specific area from a specific herd, I can't
(48:46):
imagine they wouldn't clear it with the owner. And you know,
these are good questions. But then also to add some
to ask some more questions to uh the fire we're
building for our own weird podcast. God here, let's also consider, um,
let's if this were true, why would they do it
in secret? That's that's the big question to me. Would
(49:06):
it be because there would be at a public panic
if they said, Hey, we're like one missed cow mutilation
away from an outbreak of this this terrible disease. I
think we all remember the mad cow disease. There were
freakouts that happened quite frequently in the nineties. Do you
(49:27):
guys remember that? Yeah? And I guess maybe you know
to your point, it would be more effective to pull
out the bits on site rather than to load up
the whole cow. Right right. Again, they have trailers for
these kind of things they do. They have unidentified black helicopters,
which several police officers in New Mexico and Utah have
(49:47):
also reported seen or unidentified craft. But here's here's the
thing that I can't get past. If it is the government,
if it if it is Big Brother conducting this kind
of research, then what about the mutilations that occur in
other countries, in other parts of the world. What, um,
you know, what is the incentive for Uncle Sam in
(50:09):
the various other governmental authorities to conduct these experiments. I mean,
all the questions that you ask are still the ones
that are stuck in my head. I'm I'm convinced based
on what based on what a lot of these ranchers
have said, I'm convinced that there is something anomalous. Whether
(50:30):
that is a perfect storm of predation, scavenging and circuitan environment,
or whether that is some you know, group of really
screwed up college kids. What if it's a combination of
all of the things we've touched on except from except
(50:50):
aliens aliens. Maybe you can't say all the things right,
all the things and aliens. But what if it's like
happening here and there, you know, because if it's happening global,
then it's probably not just one cause. What if the aliens,
the serial killers, and the government are all working together,
(51:11):
them cows and they're the cult worships the same thing,
and then it's all I like. I like picturing it
instead like an awkward meeting where people are expecting to
run into each other, so you know, a picture like
a far side cartoon cow since in the field and
realize it's it's alone, and then like a mountain nine
comes out, and then like three people in black robes
(51:32):
come out, and an alien lands and then Uncle Sam
like in the red, white and blue outfit. Dude, she
gotta draw that. I know't now, I know. I don't
want to tell on you, but you're quite the cartoonist.
I think you should draw them. Eric Larson or has
some fantastic images with aliens and cows. But can you
imagine they all ran into to each other when you
(51:54):
gave the same cow. How do you decide that? So good?
Everybody's just playing rock paper scissors the past. Oh man,
Since it feels like we're wrapping up, I just in
the interest of continuing with the iconic nineties cartoon talk, Um,
I just wanted to mention a comic series that we've
mentioned several times, the Lock and Key series by Joe
(52:14):
Hill and illustrated by Gabrielle Rodriguez. There is an issue
and I believe the fourth trade collection where um the
artist who drew and created Calvin and Hobbs series, Bill Waterson,
does a kind of alternate reality version of the story
and it alternates between his art and Rodriguez's art and
(52:35):
it's just it works so beautifully and I can't recommend
that series enough. Then I bought the whole thing and
I've been kind of borrowing them from him here and there,
and I'm working my way through it and it's just
so good. Can't recommend it. And I love that some
some folks, uh you out there in podcast land have
commented on our love of comics and graphic novels. Please,
(52:58):
if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them
to us. Guys, if you're okay with it, let's end
on listen on a local note for us. In January
this year, mutilation in Jackson County, which is uh close
to some stomping grounds of Athens, Georgia. They reported a
(53:20):
series of mutilations two cows right now. The Sheriff's office
say says that in at least one cow, they think
um scavengers cause the wounds, but they're not sure about
the other one. So this remains something that people still
talk about. There's a lot of stuff we didn't touch
on today, but you can see some more in our video.
(53:40):
You can also hear some more in the documentary that
Matt recommended. Furthermore, if you want to learn more about this,
you can check out our podcast on skin Walker Ranch.
The podcast and the video very good stuff. And please
don't forget to check out our videos on cryptids. If
you want to learn more about that angle. We've got
the cult angle covered for you. It's all on our
(54:03):
YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. And if
none of that strikes your fancy and you want to
just send a good old fashioned electronic message, you can
do so by writing to conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com. One last note, you guys, speaking of things
that happened this past January. Everyone out there listening, all
(54:24):
three of us here, our podcast got over one million
downloads throughout January. Really how cool is that? I just
wanted to say thank you for listening to us. Uh,
you know, sit around this table and we enjoy it
so much, and you know, I hope that you enjoyed
as much as we do here here. Yeah, thank you
(54:45):
for your time. And remember this is your show. And
at the end of our episodes, when we asked send
an email or something, we can't always respond as efficiently
as I would like, but we do read everyone, and
you can always tell because our best episode ideas come
from you, and people say this is a free show,
but it is not. I've said it before, I'll say
it again. You're paying us with the most important currency
(55:07):
that exists, your time, your tention, and your support. We
cannot thank you enough, but we are sure gonna try.
Thank you from more. On this topic, another unexplained phenomenon,
visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy. You can also get
(55:29):
in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.
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