Mutilation Machinations

Just about everyone has heard about them. Reports of cattle (and other animal) mutilations have been around since the wide spread media interest in Skippy the Wonder Horse, found expertly mutilated on a ranch in Southern Colorado a few decades ago.

So widespread were mutilation incidents in New Mexico and Colorado in recent years that the subject attracted the attention of a former NASA astronaut-turned-Congressman, and caused a subsequent (and inconclusive) FBI investigation into the strange phenomenon.

But the American Southwest is not the only region haunted by such bizarre activity. A large number of cattle mutilation reports stream out of Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Utah, Nevada; even states of the Midwest and Canada, on a cyclic and regular basis. Global reports of similar mutilation activities drift in from the four corners of the world, perhaps more from South America than even the thousands of well-publicized incidents reported in North America.

A recent report from the Chilean newspaper La Estrella de Calama, (Jan 6, 2001 issue), is adding a wrinkle to worldwide mutilation theories. According to that report, an "unidentified agency or agencies" are offering local peasant farmers of the area "financial relief" in exchange for vows of secrecy concerning the surgical mutilation of their animals. Calama, a rural mountain village in Northern Chile, has attributed the widespread mutilation problem to a fabled mythological creature; the "Chupacabra". The region has also been a hotbed of UFO activity and reports of alien sightings in recent years. Steeped in ethnic superstition and driven by the bizarre reports of alien activity in the mountainous countryside, locals around Calama are voicing more than casual alarm.

According to the Calama newspaper, residents in and around the community can be found huddled close together after the sun goes down, often aware of strange noises on their rooftops, but too frightened to investigate. The report says neighborhood dogs whine and hide at the sounds, and even during the daylight hours, a strong smell "of death" lingers across the village.

Other South American communities in Argentina and Southern Brazil have reported similar mutilation terror in recent months. Is the focus of cattle mutilations moving from the American Southwest to our neighbors to the South? A quick review of recent reports from New Mexico and Colorado would seem to indicate that it has. While a few isolated mutilation reports have streamed out of Colorado's San Luis Valley in recent months, the large number of widespread incidents have decreased the last two years. While investigators are quick to point out that mutilations seem to run in cycles and that this period of slow activity could be followed by a volley of reports at any time, they admit there appears a lull in reports in recent years.

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