Cattle Mutilations

Although accounts of livestock mutilations date back as far as the seventeenth century globally, the reports from the United States in the 1970s are the most famous. During this period, midwestern cattle ranchers provided substantially similar reports of livestock with ears, eyes, udders, sex organs, and anuses removed with apparent surgical precision. Frequently, it appeared that the animal’s blood had been drained. Reports of cattle mutilations emerged throughout Arkansas, peaking in the late 1970s, and drew serious attention from state and local law enforcement agencies, including the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. The supposed mutilations were eventually explained as typical cattle deaths, decomposition, and scavenger activity.

Given the significant role of livestock in the state economy, the deaths of cattle under seemingly strange circumstances concerned Arkansas ranchers and garnered substantial media attention. In Arkansas, the first cattle mutilation was reported in the fall of 1977. State police records indicate that from April 1978 to September 1979, there were thirty-nine reports of unexplained cattle deaths in the state, twenty-three in northwestern Arkansas and sixteen in north-central Arkansas.

Between 1978 and 1991, Carroll County cattle farmer James Thorne lost five cows under mysterious circumstances, all being found with precise cuts, no blood, and missing organs. In 1991, news about Thorne’s fifth dead cow spread quickly, and the sheriff, a local veterinarian, and two Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) investigators from Missouri inspected the cow. The farmer remarked that the UFO investigators were professional and thorough, positing that the animal had been killed by aliens that used a laser to remove the organs with extreme precision.

From May to August 1979, reports of mutilations emerged from Heber Springs (Cleburne County), Mulberry (Crawford County), Ozark (Franklin County), Morrilton (Conway County), Ashdown (Little River County), and Van Buren (Crawford County). Some reports, like those in Heber Springs and Morrilton, were dismissed as shootings or the work of scavengers. Others remained unexplained, prompting seventy-five cattle ranchers to offer a $1,200 reward for the arrest and convictions of any cattle mutilators. The Humane Society called on Governor Bill Clinton to appoint a task force to study the mutilations.

In the summer of 1979, Lieutenant Don Rystrom with the Benton County Sheriff’s Department and Sergeant Doug Fogley with the Arkansas State Police joined law enforcement officials from thirteen states to discuss cattle mutilations. At the meeting, Rystrom and Fogley presented data from a mutilation event near Bentonville (Benton County) that showed PCP, mescaline, and santonin (a discontinued worming agent) in the cow’s bloodstream. PCP, or phencyclidine, is a dissociative anesthetic that was developed in the 1950s for veterinary surgery. The drug became popular for recreational use in the 1970s. Mescaline is the active ingredient in a small cactus called peyote that causes hallucinations.

Rystrom and Fogley also showed photos of crude stone altars and a cow skull found near the animals, insinuating some ritualistic aspect to the Bentonville killings. One stone was inscribed with the words “Zytos wrath is upon you.” Physical anthropologist Jerome Rose at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) claimed the animal sacrifices were “consistent with somebody trying to practice witchcraft.”

UA anthropology professor Paul Hooks was skeptical of the satanic cult connection commonly theorized by the media. He knew of no active, organized cults in the state. He proposed, however, that Arkansans may tend to entertain a satanic cult explanation due to the strong Christian fundamentalist influence throughout the state. Some in the Ozark Mountains blamed local cattle mutilations on Momo (a.k.a. the Missouri Monster, or Bigfoot) a tall, hairy creature that supposedly lurks in the Ozark forests and leaves behind a horrible stench.

In September 1979, Nancy Owen, an anthropologist at UA, received a grant from the Arkansas Endowment for the Humanities (now HumanitiesAR) to research the state’s cattle mutilations. Owen concluded that the events were consistent with scavenger activity.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Department conducted an experiment to prove that the reports were consistent with decomposition and scavenger activity. In the experiment, a local rancher donated a heifer that was euthanized and placed in a ravine. Officers watched the corpse and took notes and photographs showing typical scavenger activity. After thirty hours, officers recovered the carcass and found the exact conditions reported with mutilations. They also had proof that only scavengers touched the cow. Despite this evidence, reports of mutilations across the state continued well into the 1980s and beyond, including reports in Berryville (Carroll County) and Hope (Hempstead County).

For additional information:
Goleman, Michael J. “Wave of Mutilation: The Cattle Mutilation Phenomenon of the 1970s.” Agricultural History 85 (Summer 2011): 398–417.

O’Brien, Christopher. Stalking the Herd: Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery. Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2004.

Owen, Nancy H. Preliminary Analysis of the Impact of Livestock Mutilations on Rural Arkansas Communities. Little Rock: Arkansas Endowment for the Humanities, 1980.

Richard, Eugene. “Those Mysterious Animal Mutilations: What Person or Thing Is behind Them?” Arkansas Times, October 1979, pp. 32–35, 38.

Tyler, Mike. “Traces of the Occult on a Farm Pose Mystery for Arkansas Town.” New York Times, June 30, 1978. https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/30/archives/traces-of-the-occult-on-a-farm-pose-mystery-for-arkansas-town-a.html (accessed January 14, 2025).

Kylee Taylor Cole
Fayetteville, Arkansas

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