::Insert twilight zone music::

I think it's probably some person from some weird cult.

I think that a deranged, kosher, butcher wandering in the wilderness is extremely unlikely, but still a higher probability than aliens. Was a yarmulke found nearby? :-)

Chupacabras - Yeah, that's the ticket!

Sounds like a weird cult to me too! One thing for certain ....they are sick!!

Things like this have happened for generations and to my knowledge, the culprits have never been found. Very scary.

Check out THIS ARTICLE , just one of many.

Sick, sick, SICK! "Who knows what lurks in the heart of man, (or something like that). The Shadow knows. . . ." (Insert eerie background music.)

Yes, some weird, sick, and very scary cult.

Rusty

The X-Files used to refer to this on a regular basis:

MULDER: Are you at all familiar with the phenomena of cattle mutilations? Since 1967, over 34 states have reported unsolved cases of cattle mutilations. Trace evidence is remarkably similar. Incision marks of surgical precision. The area around the mouth and often the sexual organs have been removed. There's a substantial degree of blood loss but not a trace of blood at the scene.

SCULLY: How could that be?

MULDER: Exsanguination. If you were to stick a needle into the jugular of any living creature, the heart itself would act as a pump.

SCULLY: Mulder, why would alien beings travel light years through space in order to play doctor on cattle?

MULDER: For the same reason we cut up frogs and monkeys. Besides, they seem to have stepped up their interest.

Yeah that's weird but not as weird and frightening as this:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/human-foot-washes-ashore-canada-officials/story?id=61046556

Human feet have been eerily washing up on shorelines across Canada's westernmost province for over a decade.

On Monday, the British Columbia Coroners Service appealed for the public's help in identifying the latest foot, which was discovered inside a light gray Nike sneaker on a rocky beach in West Vancouver in September....

This is the 15th human foot found on the shores of British Columbia since August 2007, according to the coroners service. The feet were all clad in shoes, and most belonged to men.

Ten have been linked to missing persons in which no criminal involvement was suspected, while the other five remain unidentified, police said. Several have been confirmed as pairs, according to the coroners service.

My take - it's a slow news day.

Similar things happened to cattle in Dixie Valley, outside of Fallon NV in the 70s/80s? I dated a guy was friends with a kid who ranched out there with his family. He honestly thought it was either the Navy conducting experiments or aliens doing the same. All I remember was small holes found in the cattle...nothing else but I could be wrong, it was a long time ago. I now want to google "dead cows and Dixie Valley".

Couldn't find anything about Dixie Valley but did find some guy in TX with a perfectly good explanation for what happened to cattle down there. I'm at work and can't copy and past, though. Makes a lot of sense.

Occasionally, a group of cattle have been found dead from a lightening strike, but does not seem the case here. This smacks of a demented person with a sharp knife and the the blade does not have to be large; 6 to 12 inches will do. What is required is to know where the neck artery is located. Cut this artery, and the bull will go down shortly with a large amount of his blood vacating.

It was stated that poison was not used, but nothing was said about tests. In dry country, a bovine will readily drink after grazing dry grass and scrub. Offer a bovine a tub of water in dry country, and one animal will down several gallons; a very easy way to deliver poison.

No foot prints: These can be wiped and the evidence lost in a few days if the wind blows. The perpetrator wears a smooth soled shoe that leaves no distinct tread marks, and then, a swipe with a tree branch wipes out evidence of shoe size and shape. A few days of weathering and the evidence is gone. If the event happens on a rocky surface, there is no prints.

The animals could have been downed by tranquilizer darts. The dart puncture would be very hard to find after the carcass had lain for a few days.

The forgoing is all guess work. One factual item is that the animals had been cut/carved with a sharp instrument. This part is weird and upsetting.

Some of the reports mention that the animals are drained of blood with no blood in the surrounding area.

I was holding off reading this thread and just gave in. Very bizarre and yes @maifleur01 beyond the sickness the no blood is what makes it more loony. Cannot imagine what this is but it is disturbing.

If they drank poison or were darted, wouldn't they still have blood?

Thanks for the link, Rhizo. I had no idea this was such an ongoing phenomenon, although my link did mention one previous killing. Bookwoman, I keep meaning to give The X-Files a try, and you just turned that up a notch.

Elmer, I don't think we've had a slow news day since the presidential campaign of 2016. :-)

Alisande, I was a devotee of the show back in the '90s. It was a great combination of sci-fi, dry humor, and a quasi-love story. And David Duchovny used to set my heart a-flutter. ;-)

Bookwoman that was a favorite of mine too!

I brought this subject up up with my husband last night; he says that there were a few incidents in this area before I moved here. He described them exactly as the rest of the mutilations.

Then, I found Stalking The Herd: Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery by Christopher O'Brian; there is an expansive Google reprint online. I don't think it's the whole book but a good deal of it.

One little factoid that I gleaned from the parts I skimmed was that these carcasses had not been ravaged by any scavengers even though many were clearly days old. No coyotes, buzzards, rodents, etc. That's another layer of weirdness to this whole thing.

I really enjoyed the X-Files, Alisande. Haven't watched it in years, though.