Ongoing phenomenonCattle Mutilations
aka cattle mutilation · cattle mutilations · animal mutilation · Operation Animal Mutilation
A pattern of livestock found dead with apparently surgical excisions — typically the eye, jaw musculature, tongue, rectum, and reproductive organs — and unusually little or no blood at the scene. Documented in concentrated waves across U.S. western states 1973–1979 and recurrently since; investigated under "Operation Animal Mutilation," a 1980 FBI inquiry directed at the request of Sen. Harrison Schmitt of New Mexico.
What's documented
Reports of cattle, horses, and occasionally sheep found dead in pastures with characteristic incisions — clean-edged excisions of soft tissue (eye, ear, tongue, lower jaw musculature, rectum and reproductive tract) — and reported anomalies including unusual lack of blood at the carcass, no struggle marks, no tracks of predators or human intruders, and occasionally elevated radiation readings. Concentrated waves: Minnesota and Iowa 1973; Colorado and New Mexico 1974–75; the Great Plains broadly 1975–79; with smaller recurring waves into the 2010s and 2020s. Senator Harrison Schmitt (R-NM, formerly an Apollo 17 astronaut) requested a federal investigation. The U.S. Department of Justice funded “Operation Animal Mutilation” in 1979–80, conducted under former FBI Special Agent Kenneth Rommel through the First Judicial District Attorney’s office in Santa Fe, with Law Enforcement Assistance Administration funds (the LEAA grant docket is publicly catalogued). Rommel’s 297-page final report (June 1980) concluded that the mutilations were the result of natural predation and scavenging — soft tissues being the first eaten by birds and small mammals, with skin retracting in characteristic patterns that resemble surgical edges. The rural communities of the affected regions have not accepted this finding. The FBI’s Albuquerque field office FOIA-released file on cattle mutilations (released in stages 1978–2010) runs to several hundred pages. The mutilation phenomenon has continued — significant waves in Arkansas 2019, Oregon 2019–20 (eight bulls in Harney County), Texas 2023. The Oregon Wheeler County Sheriff’s office filed contemporaneous reports.