Cattle Mutilations
Underground detonations and alien base rumors aside, Dulce has also become notable for another reason — and it’s one of a decidedly grisly nature. Between 1975 and 1978, the town of Dulce became a hotbed of reports of cattle mutilation, a gruesome activity that has plagued North America for more than four decades: An uninvited, unwelcome guest roams the countryside stealthily by night, performing terrible acts of mutilation on cattle. Organs, blood, and glands are removed in ways that suggest a superior technology is the culprit. In many instances of such mutilation, unidentified aerial lights are reported in the same locales, implying that the two occurrences are somehow deeply interconnected.
Black, unmarked, military helicopters are also often seen in the vicinity of these mutilation incidents, and stories abound of witnesses being threatened into silence by dark, governmental forces. Who, or what, is responsible for these horrific acts of butchery is a topic that has provoked intense debate. Wild predators, devil-worshipping cults, UFOs, and covert biological-warfare operations undertaken by secret arms of the government have all been suggested as the guilty parties. The macabre mystery, meanwhile, continues to rage. And the mutilators silently continue without interruption.
For the men and women of the FBI assigned to deal with the cattle mutilations in and around Dulce in the 1970s, the first step was to review the files of Police Officer Gabe Valdez, of the nearby city of Española. Between August 1975 and the summer of 1978, almost 30 cases of cattle mutilation were recorded by Valdez in the Rio Arriba area, with many indicating that the attacks were the work of a well-equipped, highly advanced intelligence. One report, filed by Valdez in June 1976, stands out in particular. At 8 p.m. on June 13, Valdez was contacted by a rancher named Manuel Gomez and advised that Gomez had found a 3-year-old cow on his ranch that bore all the classic signs of mutilation. As Valdez listened carefully, Gomez stated that the cow’s left ear, tongue, udder, and rectum had been removed with what appeared to be a sharp instrument. Yet there was absolutely no blood in the immediate vicinity of the cow, nor were any footprints in evidence. There were, however, marks of some sort…they were marks that gave every impression that some form of unknown aerial object had landed and carried out a grisly attack on the unfortunate animal.
At 5 a.m. on the following day, Valdez set off for the Gomez ranch, along with Paul Riley, of the New Mexico Cattle Sanitary Board. On arriving, Officer Valdez and Riley were confronted by a scene of complete carnage. The cow was just as Gomez had described, lying on its right side, vital body parts having been removed with the utmost precision. But that was not all. There were also strange landing marks. Valdez recorded the details in a two-page report written shortly afterward, now declassified by the FBI.
The document might have read like science fiction, but it was just about as far removed from fiction as you could imagine. Investigations at the site, led by Valdez, revealed that some form of aircraft had landed at least twice, in the process depositing three pod marks positioned in a triangular shape. Further, careful investigation at the scene demonstrated that the tripod markings had pursued the cow for approximately 600 feet. Other evidence showed that grass around the areas on which the tripods had landed was inexplicably and significantly scorched. Also, a yellow-colored, oily substance was located in two places under the small tripod patterns. On this latter point, Valdez wrote in his report that the substance was dispatched to a forensic lab of the New Mexico State Police. The outcome? The staff was unable to offer any meaningful explanation regarding the nature of the substance.
Three days later, Valdez contacted Dr. Howard Burgess, a retired scientist from Sandia Laboratories, and asked him to conduct a radiation test at the scene. The results were astounding. All around the tripod marks and in the immediate tracks, the radiation count was twice that of normal. Valdez came up with an intriguing hypothesis for this revelation: It was his opinion that someone was deliberately leaving the radiation traces as part of a concerted effort to confuse and hinder those working to resolve the cattle mutilation controversy.
Valdez discovered something else too. In the days between his first visit to the Gomez ranch and his second visit with Dr. Howard Burgess, the mysterious aerial object had returned. This led to a distressing discovery: “There was also evidence that the tripod marks had returned and removed the left ear. Tripod marks were found over Mr. Gomez’s tire tracks of his original visit. The left ear was intact when Mr. Gomez first found the cow. The cow had a 3-month-old calf which has not been located since the incident. This appears strange since a small calf normally stays around the mother even though the cow is dead.”[28]
Valdez noted in his report that this incident was typical of those he had investigated throughout the course of a 16-month period. Perhaps most pertinent, Valdez had been able to determine that in at least one case, the animal in question was found to have a high dose of a particular tranquilizing agent in its bloodstream. There was also major concern on the part of Valdez that government-associated laboratories were not reporting complete findings on the controversy. For that reason, Valdez ensured that samples from the slain cattle were later submitted to private chemists for separate, independent analysis. Valdez was fully aware of the theories that all of the mutilations were the work of either satanic cults or natural predators, but he dismissed them: “Both [theories] have been ruled out due to expertise and preciseness and the cost involved to conduct such a sophisticated and secretive operation. It should also be noted that during the spring of 1974 when a tremendous amount of cattle were lost due to heavy snowfalls, the carcasses had been eaten by predators. These carcasses did not resemble the carcasses of the mutilated cows.”[29]
Another FBI document from May 1978, the content of which is also based upon the investigations of Valdez, refers to a second incident when abnormal radiation traces were found: “It is believed that this type of radiation is not harmful to humans, although approximately seven people who visited the mutilation site complained of nausea and headaches. However, this writer has had no such symptoms after checking approximately 11 mutilations in the past four months. Identical mutilations have been taking place all over the Southwest. It is strange that no eyewitnesses have come forward or that no accidents [have] occurred. One has to admit that whoever is responsible for the mutilations is very well organized, with boundless financing and secrecy.”[30]
Strange landing-marks, elevated radiation readings, and tranquilizing drugs…upon what had Officer Valdez stumbled? Was this a highly secret government-sponsored or military-controlled operation, perhaps centered on germ-warfare testing, or maybe something even more bizarre? FBI documentation generated as a direct result of Valdez’s police reports suggests that the Bureau took very seriously the evidence and official testimony that the officer had collected: “Officer Valdez stated that Colorado probably has the most mutilations occurring within their State and that over the past four years approximately 30 have occurred in New Mexico. He stated that of these 30, 15 have occurred on Indian Reservations but he did know that many mutilations have gone unreported which have occurred on the Indian reservations because the Indians, particularly in the Pueblos, are extremely superstitious and will not even allow officers in to investigate in some instances. Officer Valdez stated since the outset of these mutilations there have been an estimated 8,000 animals mutilated which would place the loss at approximately $1,000,000.”[31]