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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and it's time to go

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Speaker 2: into the vault for an older episode of the show.

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Speaker 2: This one originally published on October sixth, twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: It's the one we did on the cattle mutilation panic

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Speaker 2: of the nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 1: That's right, strange lights, black helicopters, and ultimately a skeptical

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Speaker 1: look at what was going on.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And hey, it's still October

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Speaker 2: here on the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. So

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Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about something weird. I mean,

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Speaker 2: we often talk about things that are weird, but I

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Speaker 2: guess we get even weirder this month. So, Rob, today

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Speaker 2: you picked out the topic of the cattle mutilation panic,

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Speaker 2: which I think is going to tie into a very

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Speaker 2: exciting weird house cinema movie that we're going to be

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Speaker 2: doing an episode on tomorrow. But this is something I've

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Speaker 2: been aware of my whole life, but never actually properly

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Speaker 2: looked into. It was just kind of one of those

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Speaker 2: things always in my peripheral vision. Yeah, somewhere out there,

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Speaker 2: this is a topic people care about, but I don't

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Speaker 2: know anything about it, and it actually, you know what,

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Speaker 2: it got more interesting the more I looked at it,

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Speaker 2: not because it's aliens or a government conspiracy, but I

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Speaker 2: don't know some of the smart takes you found about,

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Speaker 2: like the sociological phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I was pretty much in the same

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Speaker 1: boat concerning this topic. I knew it was something that

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Speaker 1: comes up in conspiracy circles and among UFO enthusiasts. I

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Speaker 1: knew that it was the kind of thing that might

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Speaker 1: pop up on saying an episode of the X Files

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Speaker 1: here or there, but I'd never really looked closely at it,

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Speaker 1: and I do want to Yeah, I do want to

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Speaker 1: tell everybody out there. Yeah. There will be maybe a

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Speaker 1: few little mentions of the grizzly details in this episode,

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Speaker 1: but for the most part, the really interesting stuff about

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Speaker 1: this is not what was allegedly done or not done

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Speaker 1: to cattle, but yeah, some of these other things surrounding it,

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Speaker 1: such as the idea of cattle mutilation as a panic

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Speaker 1: or a mild panic as an idea, as a script

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Speaker 1: for some sort of unexplained event, or as a script

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Speaker 1: into which one could pour one's anxieties and concerns, And

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Speaker 1: so we're going to be getting into a lot of that.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I think cattle mutilation is one of those

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Speaker 1: topics that, despite all of its grotesque and outrageous properties,

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Speaker 1: is easy to overlook and not to think about, especially

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Speaker 1: for those of us living outside of the times, and

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Speaker 1: this is generally like a mid mid nineteen seventies kind

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Speaker 1: of situation. We'll get into the dates in a bit,

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Speaker 1: also if you live outside of the places where the

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Speaker 1: phenomenon resonates the strongest, namely American cattle country and again

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Speaker 1: the mid nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 2: Though of course, there are still people who say that

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Speaker 2: the cattle mutilation phenomenon continues to this day, and it's

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Speaker 2: kind of hard to know whether to argue with that

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Speaker 2: or not, because, as what the social phenomenon, it does

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Speaker 2: seem to have peaked very much in the seventies. But

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Speaker 2: of course there are still like cattle carcasses that people find,

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Speaker 2: and sometimes they look strange, and sometimes people try to

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Speaker 2: categorize those along with whatever was being discussed in this

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Speaker 2: other phenomenon from the seventies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it seems to be the case when

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Speaker 1: you look at ufologists and conspiracy theory enthusiasts out there,

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Speaker 1: it seems like maybe they're more often drawn into more

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Speaker 1: human centric topics like UFO sightings, I saw something, this

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Speaker 1: person saw something, alien abductions in which you have a

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Speaker 1: personal testimony of beings from the outside, or stuff like

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Speaker 1: jfk assassination theories, and various modern trends and conspiracy circles.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I feel like for the rest of us

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Speaker 1: outside of those circles, outside of the world of American

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Speaker 1: cattle country in the mid seventies, it's easy to just

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Speaker 1: dismiss cattle mutilation as to the realm of hoax and

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Speaker 1: superstition without stopping to wonder why it emerged as an idea,

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Speaker 1: Like hoaxes and superstitions do not come about without some

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Speaker 1: sort of reasoning, without some sort of cause, Like they

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Speaker 1: are interesting effects, even in the creation of something that

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Speaker 1: is objectively not true. Because if the alleged mutilations were

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Speaker 1: not the result of secret government experiments or alien visitations

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Speaker 1: or the work of strange cryptids eating on cows, in

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Speaker 1: the night, Then what were they the result of. If

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Speaker 1: these are misinterpretations of actual physical evidence, then what is

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Speaker 1: being misinterpreted, Why is it being misinterpreted, what is fueling

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Speaker 1: the ensuing panic, and what does it mean? So these

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Speaker 1: are some of the topics we're going to be exploring

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Speaker 1: in this episode. Now, a couple of key sources that

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Speaker 1: I'll be referring to in this episode, and I think

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Speaker 1: we're going to throw a couple other things in there

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Speaker 1: as well. But one is an excellent twenty eleven paper

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Speaker 1: by Michael J. Goleman that was published in Agricultural History

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Speaker 1: titled Wave of Mutilation, The Cattle Mutilation Phenomenon of the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. And another paper I was looking at, a

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine paper titled Death by Folklore, Ostension, Contemporary

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Speaker 1: Legend and Murder by Bill Ellis published in Western States

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Speaker 1: Folklore Society.

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Speaker 2: Now, I know we said we're not going to dwell

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Speaker 2: more than we need to on the specific grizzly details, though,

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Speaker 2: I guess we do need to begin by sort of

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Speaker 2: describing what people are talking about when they talk about

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Speaker 2: cattle mutilation.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. Goleman in his paper points out that

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Speaker 1: among the ranchers that are reporting these cases, beginning in

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Speaker 1: earnest he says, during nineteen seventy three and continuing through

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Speaker 1: the end of the nineteen seventy uh. These are a

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Speaker 1: few of the the details we can generally tick check

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Speaker 1: off the list. First of all, the apparent removal of

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Speaker 1: an animal's eyes, ears, utters, anus, and sex organs. Not

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Speaker 1: only removal, but reports that the parts are are are

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Speaker 1: surgically removed, whether the cuts have surgical like precision, or

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Speaker 1: that there was some sort of coring methodology to their removal,

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Speaker 1: something that that, at least to the either to the

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Speaker 1: eyes of the witness or in the retelling of the event,

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Speaker 1: does not seem in keeping with with with the work

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Speaker 1: of of say animals.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they lean on this kind of detail a lot.

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Speaker 2: That the stories involve injuries or alterations to livestock animal carcasses,

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Speaker 2: uh that are that would that are not understood as

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Speaker 2: like the kind of ragged tearing one would expect to

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Speaker 2: see if say, a predator had had attacked an animal carcass,

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Speaker 2: but instead that they describe sort of clean cuts, surgical

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Speaker 2: precision incisions, or excisions as if made by a sharp

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Speaker 2: metal instrument.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and sometimes you also see it listed that there

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Speaker 1: was an apparent absence of footprints or tire tracks, thus

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Speaker 1: ruling out human interference. Also the apparent absence of usual

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Speaker 1: scavenger species playing into the argument, well, and the scavengers

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Speaker 1: couldn't have done this, there's no sign of the scavengers.

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Speaker 2: Another one of the claims I've seen emphasized pretty often

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Speaker 2: by the cattle mutologists is the idea that there was

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Speaker 2: not a single drop of blood on the site. I

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Speaker 2: watched one really stupid documentary about cattle mutilation that heavily

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Speaker 2: leaned on the alleged lack of blood, both in the

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Speaker 2: body and on the ground around the animal, sort of

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Speaker 2: trying to emphasize the idea that it is impossible that, say,

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Speaker 2: the soft tissue and the organs that you described earlier

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Speaker 2: could have been removed as they were without spilling blood

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Speaker 2: all over the place. So something is defying the laws

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Speaker 2: of physics here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Additionally, in some cases, according to Goldman, and

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Speaker 1: we'll get into some of this in a bed, there

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Speaker 1: were also reports of aerial activity of aerial phenomena happening

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Speaker 1: as well, such as strange objects seen in the sky

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Speaker 1: for days or weeks after the incident, or the sighting

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Speaker 1: of unmarked or black helicopters hovering over areas near known mutilations.

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Speaker 2: And those are common themes. But I would say it

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Speaker 2: doesn't stop there. Actually, it just seems that cattle mutilations

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Speaker 2: are often paired with other weird observances that might not

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Speaker 2: be like those things at all, Like it might be, oh,

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Speaker 2: there was a figure in a tree that had glowing

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Speaker 2: yellow eyes and it was staring at me.

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Speaker 1: Now at this point, regular listeners to stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind might realize, hey, this is very similar to

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Speaker 1: what we just talked about in a couple of episodes

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Speaker 1: on Elfshot. And indeed there is a lot of unexpected

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Speaker 1: synchronicity between these topics. The idea, like one of the

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Speaker 1: ideas I brought up was, you know, you go out

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Speaker 1: into the woods looking for star jelly, you will find

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Speaker 1: star jelly. You know, if your curiosity is heightened and

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Speaker 1: your awareness is heightened for the uncanny or for signs

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Speaker 1: of the uncanny, you can probably find something that the

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Speaker 1: mind will then interpret as the uncanny.

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Speaker 2: Right now, I guess from here, now that we've described

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Speaker 2: what some of these reports are like, it doesn't make

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Speaker 2: a lot of sense to like quibble over how accurate

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Speaker 2: the observational reports of these animal carcasses are, because probably

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Speaker 2: in some cases they're not reported totally. Right, But we

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Speaker 2: should just, I think, accept for the sake of argument

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Speaker 2: that basically there are cases in which some or many

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Speaker 2: or even all of these details have been observed and

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Speaker 2: work from there, right, like, assuming people did, at least

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Speaker 2: in some cases find livestock carcasses that had these features.

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Speaker 2: How to make sense of it? Now? Of course, some

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Speaker 2: people are going to go to, well, it was a

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Speaker 2: or it's cryptids, it's the chupacabra, or it's some kind

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Speaker 2: of weird government conspiracy. It's a cover up, they're doing

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Speaker 2: biological weapons experiments, the kind of things you already mentioned.

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Speaker 2: But what would the skeptical side tend to come back.

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Speaker 1: On, Well, I mean, on one level, what we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here, like the most logical path for understanding cattle

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Speaker 1: mutilation phenomenon of a cattle mutilation panic is that we're

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Speaker 1: talking about misinterpretation of the dead. And this is certainly

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Speaker 1: this would not be the first time in human history

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Speaker 1: that such misinterpretations played into folklore and superstition. We've talked

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Speaker 1: about various examples on the show before, for instance, the

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Speaker 1: misinterpretation of drowned bodies and the Japanese Kappa tales to oh,

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Speaker 1: the various misinterpretations of human decay that played into the

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Speaker 1: vampire legends of Europe, like casts gets open to reveal

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Speaker 1: blood bloated bodies supposedly, or fingernails that seem to have

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Speaker 1: kept growing after death, that sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which are actually just normal ways that a corpse

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Speaker 2: might appear due to the physical process of decomposition. But

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Speaker 2: people not understanding really what they were looking at that, Like,

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Speaker 2: a swollen corpse would be swollen because of its decomposition state,

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Speaker 2: not because it has recently engorged itself on a meal

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Speaker 2: of blood.

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Speaker 1: Right, but how often are you opening up caskets. You're

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Speaker 1: probably only opening up caskets of suspected vampires. So and

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Speaker 1: then when you open them up, this is what you see.

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Speaker 1: You probably don't have a lot to compare it to.

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Speaker 1: And therefore the Supernatural provides a script by which to

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Speaker 1: understand the strange and the uncanny.

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Speaker 2: Rob You just threw the comparison to our elfshot episodes.

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Speaker 2: But I also think of the story of the farmer

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Speaker 2: who has a calf dropped dead, and then opens up

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Speaker 2: the body and finds that it has a hole in

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Speaker 2: its heart, or so the farmer thinks. I mean, it's

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Speaker 2: not said in that story how much experience the farmer

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Speaker 2: had looking at calf hearts. I mean, maybe they had

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Speaker 2: a lot, maybe they had none. I don't know. But

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Speaker 2: in any case, this is interpreted as a fairy weapon,

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Speaker 2: because what else could explain it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Now this is probably a good time as any

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Speaker 1: to remind everybody and when when we when we talk

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Speaker 1: about phenomena like this, uh, situations where they're they're they're

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Speaker 1: very well, maybe some sort of a moral panic or

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Speaker 1: public panic in place, and there's some sort of a

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Speaker 1: uh you know, a paranormal angle. Uh. You know, it

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean by any by any stretch of the imagination

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Speaker 1: that you have just like dumb individuals falling for something

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Speaker 1: that that you know, that this is just like stupid

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Speaker 1: people making a stupid mistake. Uh, It's it's a lot

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Speaker 1: more complicated than that, you know. And once you're you're

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Speaker 1: you're in the middle of one of these situations, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you have you have various forces kind of

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Speaker 1: steering your mind towards the supernatural script and then the

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Speaker 1: interpretation of reality through that script. So I want to

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Speaker 1: drive that home because and and also it ultimately builds

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Speaker 1: up from there, because one of the things that Goldman

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Speaker 1: points out is that ultimately multiple local and state law

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Speaker 1: enforcement agencies open investigations into cattle mutilation. This includes the CBI,

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Speaker 1: the Minnesota Field Office of the ATF, as well as

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Speaker 1: federally funded investigations directed by the Northern New Mexico DA's office.

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Speaker 1: You had senators and congressmen raising questions about the phenomenon,

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Speaker 1: and Canadian reports were investigated by the Mounties. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have to be careful looking back at these events

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies with knowing what we know now.

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Speaker 2: Well and also being humble about what we know now

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Speaker 2: because while I think we can offer some very reasonable

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Speaker 2: guesses that would explain many of these cases, I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's totally possible that there are some cases, some reports

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Speaker 2: of cattle mutilation phenomenon that in fact we have no

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Speaker 2: idea what the explanation is. That doesn't mean you have

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Speaker 2: warrant to jump to conclusions of aliens or government conspiracies

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Speaker 2: or whatever. But we should be humble about our know

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Speaker 2: the limits of our ability to explain things. Sometimes the

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Speaker 2: cases are just underdetermined. We don't have enough evidence, we

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Speaker 2: don't know what happened.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course I think today's audience certainly realizes

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Speaker 1: the role the media can play in presenting conspiracy ideas

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Speaker 1: and in even paranormal ideas about what's going on in

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Speaker 1: the world. And yeah, at the time, Goldman points out,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just fringe and conspiracy reporting that was fueling this,

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Speaker 1: even though cattle mutilation is largely the domain of these

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Speaker 1: groups today. But at the time, the Associated Press and

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Speaker 1: Newsweek both covered cattle mutilation phenomena. There was even a

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Speaker 1: regional Emmy Award winning documentary in nineteen eighty, so you

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Speaker 1: had that going on as well to fuel the paranoia.

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Speaker 1: But while aliens and UFOs and ultimately I think cryptids

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Speaker 1: would play a part in the various interpret rotations and

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Speaker 1: stories about supposed cattle mutilations, the most pervasive version of

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Speaker 1: the cattle mutilation script during the nineteen seventies, the most

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Speaker 1: pervasive version that was being reported, reported to the media

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Speaker 1: and so forth, was that of a conspiracy theory concerning

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Speaker 1: the US government. And this is one of Goldman's key

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Speaker 1: points in his writings because while it's easy to dismiss

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Speaker 1: the cattle mutilation as being just a part of the

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Speaker 1: larger UFO hysteria gripping the country at the time, quote,

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Speaker 1: it reveals much about the socioeconomic condition of Midwestern ranchers.

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Speaker 1: It demonstrates the volatility of the cattle industry during the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and a growing distrust of the federal government

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Speaker 1: among many small scale ranchers who had limited holdings, worked

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Speaker 1: their ranch part time or relied on public land use

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Speaker 1: to sustain their cattle.

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Speaker 2: I think Goldman makes a great point that during the

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Speaker 2: seventies especially, there were multiple factors sort of working together

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Speaker 2: at the same time, a sort of dis bodied conspiracy

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Speaker 2: working to really put the pressure on Western ranchers in

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Speaker 2: the US.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, especially the smaller scale ranchers, which is something he

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Speaker 1: touches on again and again. The bigger ranchers they were

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Speaker 1: not reporting these incidents, and they seemed largely skeptical of

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Speaker 1: these reports. It was the smaller scale ranchers that were

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Speaker 1: reporting these Now, this period economically is often referred to

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Speaker 1: as the Great Stagflation, a time defined by high inflation,

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Speaker 1: high unemployment and economic stagnation, and heaponded that high food

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Speaker 1: prices a global food shortage, and so forth. Goldman provides

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Speaker 1: a great deal more insight on the economic and policy

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Speaker 1: details here, but one of the key details concerns what's

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Speaker 1: known in the cattle business and agricultural history at the times,

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Speaker 1: and also in the reporting of the time as the

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Speaker 1: wreck in nineteen seventy three. Now, again, this is just

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Speaker 1: the brief version. Goldman goes into a lot more. Basically,

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Speaker 1: President Nixon institutes a ninety day price freeze on certain

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Speaker 1: meats to halt inflation. Then the freeze is lifted on

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Speaker 1: everything except cattle. So cattle ranchers they hold off on

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Speaker 1: slaughtering their cattle till the freeze lifts. They know the

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Speaker 1: freeze is going to lift, so why slaughter and sell

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Speaker 1: now when they can wait until the prices go back up.

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Speaker 1: But this ends up impacting the meat packing industry, putting

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Speaker 1: people out of jobs, and this results also in a

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Speaker 1: nationwide beef shortage.

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Speaker 2: I think Goldman also makes the point that the ranchers

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Speaker 2: were sort of in a bind because so there was

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Speaker 2: a temporary freeze on the price of beef, but there

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Speaker 2: was but Meanwhile, inflation was still affecting, say, the price

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Speaker 2: of the grains that they would be using for feed

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Speaker 2: and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So they weren't completely insulated from everything either.

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Speaker 1: They were still filling the tough socioeconomic pressure as well.

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Speaker 1: So Goldman argues that the distrust ranchers held toward the

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Speaker 1: federal government during this time, coupled with the turbulent economic

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Speaker 1: conditions and government interference in the cattle industry, fed and

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Speaker 1: helped sustained cattle mutilation phenomena. The script of cattle mutilation

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Speaker 1: gave them a means of understanding certain cattle deaths, but

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Speaker 1: also a way to project their fears and insecurities into

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Speaker 1: this conspiracy. Goldman also links this atmosphere of hostility to

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Speaker 1: the Sagebrush Rebellion, in which Western state lawmakers attempted to

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Speaker 1: reclaim federally protected public lands for ranchers and miners, and

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Speaker 1: the libertarian movement of the sixties and seventies, and also

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Speaker 1: hostility towards nineteen seventies environmental regulations that had come online.

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Speaker 2: So, if I'm understanding Goldman's interpretation right, and if he's correct,

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Speaker 2: what he's saying is that there essentially were all these

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Speaker 2: real conditions that were making life very hard for ranchers

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Speaker 2: in the seventies, and some of those real conditions, at

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Speaker 2: least were perceived to be due to government influence. And

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Speaker 2: then you pair that with okay, maybe you have some

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Speaker 2: random cattle die offs that are due to a number

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Speaker 2: of different causes, perhaps, and you sort of project this,

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Speaker 2: this frustration and this unease onto the deaths of those cattle,

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Speaker 2: and imagine that the deaths of the cattle is actually

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Speaker 2: caused by the government, like directly in a violent way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, again, an anxious situation, very tense, especially

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Speaker 1: among these smaller scale ranches. And you already have a

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Speaker 1: very low opinion of the government, of the federal government

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Speaker 1: at the time, and then cattle mutilation provides a means

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Speaker 1: of unleashing all of these feelings onto an even more

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Speaker 1: diabolical vision of the US federal government, one that isn't

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Speaker 1: just restricting your freedoms or hurting your livelihood, but who

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Speaker 1: is actively and physically visiting your livestock and mutilating them

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Speaker 1: with bizarre methods for unfathomable ends. So you know, in

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Speaker 1: this strip, the agents of the government become virtually identify

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Speaker 1: call to imagine witches and wizards at black masses, you know,

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Speaker 1: engaging in bloody acts to a dark forces, and the

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Speaker 1: dead body of the cow becomes a kind of physical

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Speaker 1: evidence to back up one's view of the federal government.

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Speaker 1: So Goldman explains that in seventy three, in the aftermath

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Speaker 1: of the wreck, ranchers in Kansas and Nebraska began to

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Speaker 1: report cattle mutilations, and some also reported strange lights in

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Speaker 1: the sky, and the way Goldman describes it, ufologists or

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Speaker 1: UFO enthusiasts were quick to jump in and offer their

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Speaker 1: favorite explanation for the lights especially, but also the mutilations.

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Speaker 1: And apparently some ranchers described what they saw in those terms,

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Speaker 1: but others were more vague about it. They might say, well,

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Speaker 1: there's a big baalifier in the sky. But Goldman writes

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Speaker 1: that quote. Many more reported seeing strange, unmarked helicopters. So again,

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Speaker 1: for the most part, it doesn't seem like the individuals

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Speaker 1: that were reporting these in the seventies we're talking about UFOs,

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Speaker 1: most of them were drawing in these ideas that's some

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Speaker 1: sort of strange helicopter were seen nearby, Strange helicopters that

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Speaker 1: might well be the work of the government. Now, there

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Speaker 1: were other initial explanations for the helicopters. There is talk, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe it's cattle wrestlers, But then why would cattle wrestlers

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Speaker 1: kill a cow and only take like the eyeballs and

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Speaker 1: other strange parts, you know. Then there was also the

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Speaker 1: idea that it was some sort of military operation based

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Speaker 1: out of Fort Riley in Kansas, or that it was

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Speaker 1: indeed the work of some government secret government agency, and

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Speaker 1: the mutation the mutilations were the result of some sort

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Speaker 1: of biological weapons test program, And these ultimately become the

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Speaker 1: more widely circulated ideas.

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Speaker 2: And I think it is totally worth noting that while

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Speaker 2: I think you and I agree that government conspiracies do

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Speaker 2: not seem like a very good explanation for the alleged

377
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Speaker 2: cattle mutilation phenomenon, there actually almost certainly were some government

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Speaker 2: conspiracies at least one we know of, that did lead

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Speaker 2: to dead livestock in the years just before this, the

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Speaker 2: so called Dugway Sheep incident or the Dugway Sheep massacre.

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Speaker 2: Though I think there's some very important differences I want

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Speaker 2: to mention, but like that that does appear, I think

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Speaker 2: due to some document disclosures now to be pretty clearly

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Speaker 2: the fault of some government weapons testing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this was nineteen sixty eight, the Dugway sheep incident,

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Speaker 1: in which I think Goldman sites forty five hundred sheep,

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Speaker 1: but I've seen I've seen six thousand sited elsewhere, So

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Speaker 1: I'm going to go with Goldman on this one. But

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Speaker 1: perhaps the number has shifted at any rate. That's a

390
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Speaker 1: lot of sheep. Thousands of sheep were killed on ranches

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Speaker 1: near the US armies Dugway proven ground in Utah, and

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Speaker 1: accusations were made at the time against the Army, saying,

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Speaker 1: you guys did this, You did something with your weapons

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Speaker 1: tests and you killed all these sheep, and the Army said, no, no,

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Speaker 1: that's not true, we didn't do that. But then in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight these incidents were revealed to have been

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Speaker 1: caused by tests apparently of the nerve agent VX. So

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Speaker 1: Goldman points out that, yeah, the Dugway sheep incident could

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Speaker 1: have also contributed to the cattle mutilation script involving you know,

400
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Speaker 1: clandestine US military testing, and certainly may it seemed more possible,

401
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Speaker 1: like like here's this other incident, like you can't argue

402
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Speaker 1: with all the thousands of dead sheep, we think the

403
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Speaker 1: government had something to do with that, So perhaps it's

404
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: also they also had something to do with this cow

405
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Speaker 1: that was found on your land or this cow that

406
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Speaker 1: was found on a neighbor's ranch.

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Speaker 2: Though I think there are some very important differences, one

408
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Speaker 2: of which being that I think in the Dugway incident

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Speaker 2: there was some there was some additional evidence to confirm

410
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Speaker 2: that the government testing of nerve agents intended as weapons

411
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Speaker 2: had possibly been involved, Like there were some lab tests

412
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Speaker 2: that showed the presence of VX and some of these sheep.

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Speaker 2: Am I right about that?

414
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my understanding that there were clear signs that

415
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Speaker 1: a nerve agent of some sort of been used, and

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Speaker 1: there were, of course no signs of mutilation. These were

417
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Speaker 1: just sheep that were that were dying or dead all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden.

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Speaker 2: The other thing I would say is that while I

420
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 2: think it's always important to be modest about trying to

421
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 2: reason out, how you know, reason out what would have

422
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,399
Speaker 2: made sense to happen, because sometimes there are just situations

423
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Speaker 2: where you know, you don't know why something would have happened.

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Speaker 2: But given that caveat the alleged chain of events that

425
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Speaker 2: happened at Dougway makes sense. So this is a weapons

426
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Speaker 2: testing grounds, they're testing secret weapons programs, they're testing nerve gas.

427
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Speaker 2: There's a malfunction. It releases gas into a ranch populated

428
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Speaker 2: area nearby and poisons and kills a bunch of sheep

429
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Speaker 2: and I think also possibly affected some humans living there

430
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Speaker 2: as well. And while this could just be a failure

431
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Speaker 2: of imagination, again to be humble about that, I have

432
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Speaker 2: a hard time coming up with an equally logical chain

433
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Speaker 2: of events leading to a government conspiracy to mutilate random

434
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 2: cows and horses on people's ranch land and then cover

435
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 2: it up. Like if men in Sea Black helicopters needed

436
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 2: cow organs. This is often what is supposed that, Like

437
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 2: they're doing biological experiments and they need cow organs for them.

438
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 2: It seems like a really weird choice to source them

439
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:17,399
Speaker 2: by attacking other people's privately owned cattle herds in the

440
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: night and trying to keep it a secret. Like again,

441
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 2: you can't say that's impossible, but I'm just trying to

442
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 2: think why they would go that route instead of just

443
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 2: like buying or raising their own stocks of cattle to

444
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 2: run the tests on.

445
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially since the tests in question are supposed to

446
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 1: be secret. Yeah, you know, how are you going to

447
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 1: maintain secrecy by by by conducting your experiments on on

448
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,360
Speaker 1: on the land of others and then running away from

449
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: and just leaving all the evidence there?

450
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,919
Speaker 2: I mean, running a secret helicopter operation. That's got to

451
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 2: actually be expensive. It's hard for me. I'm not an

452
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 2: expert on the you know, agricultural pricing, but I would

453
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 2: think you could actually get the cows cheaper than like

454
00:25:57,600 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 2: running a helicopter program.

455
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: This is going to be mostly a discussion, will say,

456
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: for this week's Weird House, but I feel like the

457
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two Alan Rudolph film Endangered Species, which is

458
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:11,119
Speaker 1: not the main film we're gonna be talking about this Friday,

459
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 1: but it is a cattle mutilation film that involved that

460
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:18,679
Speaker 1: takes the conspiracy thriller route and has a government conspiracy

461
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: at the heart of things. This movie probably does as

462
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: logical and a good a job as you could possibly

463
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 1: do to bring that to life on the screen and

464
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 1: make it feel like it makes sense. And a big

465
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: part of how Rudolph pulls it off and the screenwriters

466
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: pull it off is by not filling in those blanks

467
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: by keeping the mystery there. Like you see government researchers

468
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: doing this, collecting cattle and talking about it. I mean

469
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: they're just kind of like talking shop, like, well, should

470
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 1: we go out and get one more before we have

471
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,360
Speaker 1: to clear out of here for secret reasons, And they're like, yeah,

472
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 1: we'll do it. And you buy into it because it's

473
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: well constructed and well presented on the screen. But they

474
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: don't actually explain. They don't they know better than to

475
00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 1: try to explain why they would be doing this at

476
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:10,440
Speaker 1: any rate. As Goldman points out, like this does seem

477
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: to create a genuine feeling of fear and disquiet in

478
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,880
Speaker 1: these regions about cattle mutilations. It's not just again there's

479
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:20,120
Speaker 1: a lot of tension, there's a lot of anxiety already

480
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: about the socioeconomic conditions. Then this is occurring. The people

481
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 1: were taught telling tales about this, and it's not just

482
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: like casual like, oh, here we have the media, come over,

483
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:30,640
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell them about this cow. I think

484
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: it was aliens or I think it was a conspiracy.

485
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 1: Now people were apparently concerned, and it led to the

486
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 1: actual formation of vigilante groups who were checking out of

487
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 1: state vehicles for signs of cattle blood. There were reports

488
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: of encounters with strange helicopters that were spreading around, So

489
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: you had some unfortunate and dangerous incidents, like in Nebraska,

490
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: a farmer apparently shot at a utility helicopter and the

491
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 1: Nebraska National Guard had to ask all shoppers to start

492
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: flying at a higher altitude for a while. There was

493
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: another case with a rancher firing and a military chopper.

494
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 1: So at a state level, officials were worried that someone

495
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: might get hurt over this. Like it wasn't just there's

496
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 1: some superstition out there, but like it's leading to some

497
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: potentially dangerous situations. And on top of this, like the

498
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,880
Speaker 1: ranchers are still saying, yes, something terrible is happening here,

499
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: something strange is happening here. Cash rewards are being offered,

500
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: and ultimately official investigations are opened into the matter.

501
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 2: But when do we get to the Satanic cults?

502
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: Oh, now we get to the Satanic cults, because yeah,

503
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: one of the investigations that's opened this is seventy five.

504
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: So this is pretty much the peak. According to Goldman,

505
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: you have the Minnesota ATF that's the alcohol to back

506
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: in firearms opening investigation which led to satanic biker gangs,

507
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,719
Speaker 1: or as Goldman quotes them as saying, hell oriented biker

508
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: gangs hell oriented. Yeah, and according to Goldman, this comes

509
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: about because the lead investigator ends up talking to a

510
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: convicted bank robber and that bank robber insists that bikers

511
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: hell oriented bikers are the ones running around mutilating cows.

512
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: So yeah, at this point the devil and his bikers

513
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: are involved. But of course, within the confines of an

514
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: actual investigation, this leads nowhere because this was not actually happening.

515
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: They apparently did turn up some evidence on illegal motorcycle

516
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: gang activities, illegal motorcycle club activities in the region, but

517
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: nothing that connected to cattle mutilation, so the case was closed.

518
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 2: Okay, so it probably was not satanic biker gangs, right.

519
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: I think we can rule that out. But then the

520
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: Colorado Bureau of Investigation gets involved also in seventy five,

521
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: a nineteen month investigation with Carl Whiteside looking at more

522
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: than two hundred reported mutilations in the cropsies of nineteen carcasses.

523
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: I think they were going to try and do more,

524
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: but ended up being nineteen eleven of these cases ruled

525
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: to have possibly had cuts made by a sharp object

526
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: or instrument post mortem, but all signs still pointed to

527
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: natural causes of death. The CBI posted a forty thousand

528
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: dollars reward for information on cattle mutilations. They even set

529
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: up a witness protection program for anyone who would come

530
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: forward with information, but no one came forward. The case

531
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: was closed due to lack of apparent criminal activity and

532
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: due to the fact that reports of cattle mutilations began

533
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: to drop off on their own by mid nineteen seventy six. Now,

534
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: during that CBI investigation, apparently Whiteside asked the FBI for assistance,

535
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: which was denied, apparently due to lack of evidence. But

536
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: of course the FBI's refusal to investigate played right into

537
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: the hands of conspiracy theorists who are like, well, yeah,

538
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 1: of course the FEDS aren't going to look into it.

539
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: It's the FEDS doing it, right.

540
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 2: Right, I Mean one of the things about the conspiracy

541
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 2: mindset is it can accommodate anything. So if the FBI

542
00:30:55,800 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 2: does investigate, that's validation. If they don't investigate, that's also validation.

543
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 1: And right, But yeah, Cornea Goldman seventy five was the

544
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: peak for reported cattle mutilations. He writes that actual numbers

545
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: of reported cases are spotty, but some of the reported

546
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: numbers break down as follows. So there's like one hundred

547
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: mutilations in Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa between May seventy three

548
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: and September seventy four, twenty two mutilations in Minnesota between

549
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy four, and Colorado reports were high,

550
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: but also they fluctuated somewhat, So depending on apparently which

551
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: source you're looking at, could be as few as fifty

552
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: or as many as two hundred.

553
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 2: It's interesting those numbers are different than generalizations I know

554
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 2: I've seen in the more like fringe leaning cattle mutilation

555
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 2: sources which say that you know, there are thousands and

556
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 2: thousands of incidents.

557
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think, as we'll discuss even that might

558
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: might not be as impressive a number as we think.

559
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, here are the hard facts that all

560
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 1: evidence suggest that these apparent mutilations were not due to

561
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: any of these outrageous or otherworldly or conspiracy minded causes.

562
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: They were in all likelihood due to scavenger activity with

563
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: the possibility that there may have been some human involvement

564
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: in a few instances. And as for the cause of death,

565
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 1: which again in the cases where we had actual necropsies,

566
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: they seem to all be natural causes. Goldman does drive

567
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: home the cattle death is just a way of life,

568
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: obviously generally caused by diseases such as black leg, which

569
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: apparently is a common cattle disease, lightening strikes.

570
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 2: Sorry, blackleg came up in the elfshot episode, because that's right,

571
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 2: it did. Yeah, they were asking in one of those reports,

572
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 2: asking the farmer whether the calf could have fallen ill,

573
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 2: because apparently with black leg also known as quarter ill,

574
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 2: which again is an infection caused by Clostridium bacteria, that

575
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 2: often an animal can seem healthy and then drop dead

576
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 2: very rapidly. It can be extremely sudden.

577
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, lightning strikes are another one, and lightning strikes apparently

578
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: can they can leave quite perplexing injuries on the on

579
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: a dead cow or horse. Also gastro intestinal problems due

580
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 1: to consuming nails, barbed wire, et cetera, you know, whilst grazing.

581
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: But here's here's some numbers from Goldman that I think

582
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,479
Speaker 1: are pretty interesting. Quote in nineteen seventy four. Again, this

583
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: is the this is right around the peak, you know,

584
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: right before seventy five of the peak. In nineteen seventy four,

585
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: the USDA estimated that six point one million cattle deaths

586
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: had occurred over the course of the year, which equates

587
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: to only four point five percent of the overall cattle

588
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: population of one hundred and thirty one point eight million head.

589
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: And this number, he adds, was actually down from seventy

590
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: three spike of six point five million deaths. So Goldman

591
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: contends that finding a dead cow was nothing that unusual,

592
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: and certainly ranchers would be used to it. But the

593
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: thing is when there's some other re and to be suspicious,

594
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: if there's some other possible idea that's introduced that is

595
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: backed up by media circulation and so forth, then things

596
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:11,399
Speaker 1: can become different. Yeah.

597
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 2: And of course the people who would say, well, no

598
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 2: cattle mutilation, there is something actually weird going on, they

599
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 2: would come back to that stuff we talked about before,

600
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 2: like their claims about the characteristic features of the injuries

601
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 2: to these cow carcasses that they would say could not

602
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 2: be the result of natural predators or scavengers.

603
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 1: Right, and that yeah, and that's it's unfortunate that you

604
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: still see that reporting where where they'll say, well, this

605
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: couldn't be animals doing this. What predator would would leave

606
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 1: all the good meat? What predator would only eat these

607
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 1: strange fleshes. But that's the thing we can we can

608
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: pretty much agree that this is the work of scavengers.

609
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: The frequently cited missing bits in the cattle mutilation are

610
00:34:54,719 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: exactly the sorts of flesh that scavengers like coyotes, foxes, vultures, magpies, bobcats, badgers,

611
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: and flies would go for. This is the soft tissue.

612
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: And I think we've discussed this very situation before in

613
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: reference to crabs on the show. Oh yeah, there's also

614
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,720
Speaker 1: the argument, well, scavengers can't be that precise with their cuts,

615
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:19,839
Speaker 1: but I think we'll discuss that again in a little

616
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:23,399
Speaker 1: bit here. But also I think it's fair to say

617
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 1: that scavengers can probably be more precise than you think,

618
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: especially if they're removing the soft flesh from a region.

619
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: And then there's also the argument, well there was no blood. Well,

620
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: the lack of blood was apparently often due to the

621
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 1: post mortem coagulation of blood in the lower regions of

622
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: the animals. So again the animals died of some of

623
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 1: their cause. It's not been killed by a predator. It dies,

624
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 1: it falls over, the blood coagulates in the lower regions,

625
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 1: drains and coagulates, and then the scavenger arrives. Yeah.

626
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 2: The blood phenomenon also known as liver mortis liv R.

627
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 2: Another potential source of strange looking in on an animal

628
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:06,400
Speaker 2: cadaver that I was reading about decomposition itself. Decomposition of

629
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 2: an animal body by insects and by microorganisms does not

630
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 2: always look the way you would expect it to, and

631
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 2: it can produce some very weird and creepy looking details.

632
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 2: For example, I was reading in The Skeptic's Dictionary by

633
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 2: Robert Todd Carroll an account of an experiment carried out

634
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 2: by the Sheriff's Department of Washington County, Arkansas. I think

635
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 2: this was in nineteen seventy nine, in which a cal

636
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 2: carcass was left out in a field and observed for

637
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,439
Speaker 2: forty eight hours just to see what the natural course

638
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 2: of decomposition looked like. And Carol writes that you know

639
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 2: what they found that blowflies and maggots cleaned out portions

640
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,320
Speaker 2: of soft tissue. Sometimes said to be missing from cases

641
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 2: classified as cattle mutilation. And also I found this maybe

642
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 2: the most interesting part. Quote bloating led to incision like

643
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 2: tears in the skin. So a lot of the belief

644
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 2: that it must be the aliens or it must be

645
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 2: a government conspiracy leans heavily on the cuts that resemble

646
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 2: clean incisions or excisions rather than ragged tearing. But it

647
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:14,959
Speaker 2: seems like there are cases where just regular decomposition can

648
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 2: lead to what looked like very clean splits or cuts

649
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 2: in the hide.

650
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:23,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. This study is one that I believe Goldman mentions

651
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: as well, conducted by anthropologist Nancy Owen, funded by the

652
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 1: University of Arkansas, using lethally tranquilized but already dying cows

653
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: or already dying cow and they found that the resulting

654
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 1: scavenger wounds matched up closely with reported cattle mutilation quote

655
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 1: surgical cuts after thirty hours of exposure.

656
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:45,839
Speaker 2: Okay, So it seems likely to us at least that

657
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 2: many of the animals reported as part of the cattle

658
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 2: mutilation phenomenon probably had injuries as a result of scavengers

659
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 2: or as a result of decomposition, but probably also some

660
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 2: of them were actually just cases where like a human

661
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 2: person went out and tampered with the cow carcass.

662
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially once the script is it full power, once

663
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 1: the idea is out there. So yeah, you do have

664
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:15,720
Speaker 1: again a few cases of suspected human activity, and these

665
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: were thought to be post mortem wounds, so again that

666
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: the animal had died of some of their cause and

667
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:26,359
Speaker 1: then humans came and messed with the body. And when

668
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 1: you get into the reason for this, well, I think

669
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: we'll get into that question a bit more in a

670
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: bit here, but at the time, one mode have trotted

671
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: out for these quote unquote rural vandals by some local

672
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: agencies was good old fashioned cult activity. So yeah, this

673
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: again we're kind of slapped up in the middle of

674
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 1: satanic panic here, so I guess it unfortunately makes sense

675
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: that satanic cults would be fingered in all of this,

676
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: so sort of like they were with the biker scenario.

677
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 2: So right, but not satanic bikers, just your average run

678
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 2: of the mill satanic farm teenagers.

679
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,720
Speaker 1: Right. And according to Goldman, Iowa's Department of Criminal Activity

680
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: at the time claimed to have found evidence connecting some

681
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 1: of the mutilations to satanic activity, but no arrests were

682
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: ever made, and at any rate, the cases with suspected

683
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 1: human involvement were very low compared to the overall reported

684
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 1: rate of mutilations.

685
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:24,879
Speaker 2: Given the general credulity about Satanic cult phenomenon at the time,

686
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:27,320
Speaker 2: I would be doubtful of that connection.

687
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:30,719
Speaker 1: Right, we'll come back to this in a bed. But

688
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 1: essentially what ends up happening, though, again is the rate

689
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: drops on its own, and investigations are less about let's

690
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 1: find these people before they strike again, or let's stop

691
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: these aliens or whatever, let's find out what's happening, but

692
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: instead trying to figure out what happened. Why were there

693
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: so many reports of cattle mutilations, and again mostly by

694
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: small scale ranchers blaming the federal government, So you had

695
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 1: various surveys take place. Former FBI agent Kenneth Rahm investigated

696
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 1: on behalf of the DA's office in New Mexico, and he,

697
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: I think, offered a very logical sounding analysis of everything,

698
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: blaming it on the power of suggestion, media sensation, as

699
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 1: well as irresponsible local law enforcement officials. So basically, according

700
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 1: to Rommel, you'd have this script already out there in

701
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: the world, and then you'd have sensationalization by the media,

702
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:27,840
Speaker 1: and then comes a local law enforcement officer in to

703
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: respond to your report of a cattle death, an officer

704
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: who probably didn't have experience with bovine deaths, of Goldman ads,

705
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 1: and who would then suggest the cattle mutilation script and

706
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,479
Speaker 1: not necessarily simply coming out and saying, well, that looks

707
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: mighty strange. I reckon it was aliens, but even by

708
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 1: more casually just mentioning some of the sort of the

709
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:55,280
Speaker 1: keywords of the script, like remarking that the wounds look surgical,

710
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: or remarking that the wounds look like cuts in the

711
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 1: mind can fill in the rest was Rommel's argument. And

712
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 1: the results of this. Then, as this gets passed up

713
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 1: the chain, the media catches wind of it, and so

714
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: the results feed the media coverage, and the mild mass hysteria,

715
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 1: as Goldman describes it continues.

716
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 2: Now, of course, we know conspiracy mindset can accommodate anything.

717
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,320
Speaker 2: So if you have somebody investigated and find there's nothing

718
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 2: to it, well that confirms it because they're part of

719
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:26,760
Speaker 2: the conspiracy.

720
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: Right right, And yes, so detractors argue that Rommel was

721
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: clearly part of conspiracy, especially with his FBI background. There's

722
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: another investigation that the Goldman mentions. A private investigation by

723
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,399
Speaker 1: Daniel Kagan and Ian Summers, and these backed up most

724
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: of Rommel's findings as they conducted interviews across the country

725
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: and learned link the reports to a loss of faith

726
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:51,720
Speaker 1: in American institutions. So belief in the Bizaarre fueled by disillusionment.

727
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: So Golman spends a lot more time making this case.

728
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 1: And again, I think this paper is worth checking out

729
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,800
Speaker 1: if you're really interested in the nuts and bolts of it. Again,

730
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: the Wreck and the cattle industry peaks in seventy five

731
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 1: and falls away after that, which matches up with the

732
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:08,759
Speaker 1: rise and fall of reported mutilations, with small ranches hit

733
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 1: the hardest by the wreck being the main source of

734
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: the reports, while larger ranchers remain skeptical of the whole deal.

735
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 2: You know, to echo an idea that I think you

736
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 2: already started to raise here, it seems to me that

737
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 2: perhaps a major source of confusion is the very creation

738
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 2: of this category known as cattle mutilations, into which many

739
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 2: literally different incidents with probably different causes can all be

740
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 2: kind of sorted together, and then once you have them

741
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 2: all in the same conceptual bucket, people naturally tend to

742
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 2: assume they therefore must all share a single explanation. So

743
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 2: if you say, well, you know, I'm looking at this

744
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:03,239
Speaker 2: case of alleged cattle mutilation, and this could probably just

745
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 2: be a result of natural predation or an animal dying

746
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 2: of natural causes and then being attacked by a scavenger,

747
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 2: And then of course someone could say, well, but that

748
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 2: couldn't explain the weird features of this other cattle mutilation case.

749
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 2: And then you could say, well, that could be just

750
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 2: a product of the normal features of decomposition of an

751
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:24,240
Speaker 2: animal body. And they could say, well, but decomposition couldn't

752
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,919
Speaker 2: explain this and this these other cases, and you could say, well,

753
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,760
Speaker 2: maybe in that case a person just mutilated a cow,

754
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,879
Speaker 2: like for some reason, some person did that, And then

755
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 2: they say, but a person couldn't have done what we

756
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 2: saw in this other case. So the problem would be

757
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 2: you are assuming these are all cattle mutilation phenomenon, which

758
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 2: mentally makes them all the same thing, which makes you

759
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 2: assume they must all have the same cause. And because

760
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 2: there's no one explanation that fits all of them, therefore

761
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 2: there's no way to explain the phenomenon.

762
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think this is interesting because I think

763
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 1: it's also could help explain why, despite government conspiracies and

764
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 1: government tests and black helicopters being the primary detail of

765
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 1: the script in the nineteen seventies, why it seems to

766
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 1: have drifted more towards the alien explanation in like modern

767
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 1: conspiracy treatment of it. Because Yeah, if you start saying yeah,

768
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 1: like you were saying, well, if it can't you can't

769
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: be a person here, but it, you know, maybe could

770
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: be here, Like, you eventually reach a point where the

771
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: idea that it's government agents doesn't even fit anymore. You

772
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:35,120
Speaker 1: have to go entirely into the unseen world. You have

773
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: to go entirely into the realm of either elves or aliens.

774
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think the the impulse to say, well,

775
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 2: it has to be aliens really arises from the ones where,

776
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 2: you know, the details people describe in the reports seem

777
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 2: to defy the laws of physics, at least as you

778
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 2: know understood, Like so the ones where they say, like

779
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 2: there was not a single drop of blood on the ground.

780
00:44:57,800 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 2: I don't know what to make of those cases. I

781
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:02,240
Speaker 2: don't think think, I don't think you're justified in jumping

782
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 2: yet to it must be aliens. I think it's more

783
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 2: likely to say, maybe there's something you don't quite understand

784
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 2: about the way this scene is reported, or how exactly

785
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 2: the decomposition of an animal works. That seems more likely

786
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:19,040
Speaker 2: to me, But who knows, you know, I'm not all knowing.

787
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 2: But anyway, to come back to my summary thoughts on this,

788
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 2: I personally think it makes the most sense, when looking

789
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 2: at this whole thing, to say cattle mutilation is actually

790
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 2: just a grouping of diverse instances of dead animals with

791
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 2: various injuries that have a number of different causes. So

792
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 2: some might be the work of natural predators and scavengers.

793
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 2: Some might be animals that died of disease and simply

794
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 2: decomposed in a way that looked odd. Some might be

795
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 2: struck by lightning, some were actually mutilated by people for

796
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 2: whatever reason, and some might have explanations we haven't thought

797
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 2: of yet.

798
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to get here, and we're not

799
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 1: going to spend as much time with this, but I

800
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 1: do want to touch on ostension as a way of

801
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:08,320
Speaker 1: potentially understanding these cases, these few cases where human acts

802
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 1: seem to have been involved, where humans seem to have

803
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:14,720
Speaker 1: come along and potentially carved up some of these animals

804
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: post mortem to sort of prop up the myth, prop

805
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 1: up the legend. And I was reading about this potential

806
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:26,879
Speaker 1: angle in Death by Folklore Atension Contemporary Legend and Murdered

807
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:29,879
Speaker 1: by Bill Ellis again. That's published eighty nine Western States

808
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: Folklore Society, and he discusses a quote third dimension of

809
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 1: the legendary Elvis writes, quote folklorests disagree about whether legends

810
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: describe events that actually did or did not happen in

811
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 1: the past, but in the light of recent events and scholarship,

812
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 1: it seems more accurate to describe legends as normative definitions

813
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: of reality, maps by which one can determine what has happened,

814
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:55,320
Speaker 1: what is happening, and what will happen.

815
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 2: I think that's incredibly perceptive and very well put that

816
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 2: in a way. When people are arguing about the truth

817
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 2: of a legend, often it takes the form of arguing

818
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 2: about whether or not something literally did or did not

819
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 2: happen at a particular time in the past. But that's

820
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 2: not really the spirit of what they're arguing about. Often,

821
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 2: the spirit of what they're arguing about is is this

822
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 2: story reflective of how things are in the World.

823
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:26,319
Speaker 1: Alice cites the work of folklos Linda Dage, and I

824
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: hope I'm getting that right. If I'm not, I apologize

825
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:32,759
Speaker 1: and Andrew Vassangni, who contend that quote not only can

826
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 1: facts be turned into narratives, but narratives can also be

827
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:38,720
Speaker 1: turned into facts, and so in this we get into

828
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: ostension theory. These two authors were the first to use

829
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 1: ostension in folklore, but the idea in communication theory goes

830
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 1: back further. Umberto Echo discussed it in a Theory of

831
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: Semiotics from nineteen seventy nine. But even in that I

832
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: was looking up some of his writings in that book

833
00:47:57,239 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 1: about this topic, and even that he's citing Witgenstein. So

834
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 1: I'm not not sure where we how far back we

835
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:08,759
Speaker 1: trace this discussion. But Echo writes, quote ostension occurs when

836
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: a given object or event, produced by nature or human action,

837
00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:15,760
Speaker 1: intentionally or unintentionally, and existing in a world of fact

838
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,279
Speaker 1: among facts, is quote unquote picked up by someone and

839
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:21,880
Speaker 1: shown as the expression of the class of which it

840
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: is a member. And so Echo uses examples in the

841
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 1: books such as showing a brand of cigarettes or showing

842
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,360
Speaker 1: a shoe and you and you know you might be

843
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 1: conveying something like this shoe is dirty, or I need

844
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 1: more of these cigarettes, that sort of thing.

845
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 2: Ah, But I can see how this would apply to

846
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:42,440
Speaker 2: folklore and even to fringe beliefs and conspiracy theories, in that,

847
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 2: you know, when you believe very much in sort of

848
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 2: a story about something that recurs in the world or

849
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 2: a way the world is, you don't just believe in

850
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 2: the instances of it that you already know about. You

851
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,919
Speaker 2: want to like show new instances of that event as

852
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:05,880
Speaker 2: exemplars of the fact that the overall arc, the overall

853
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:07,840
Speaker 2: narrative really does take place.

854
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's kind of it's kind of difficult to

855
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: think about this because it's you know, I kind of

856
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:15,839
Speaker 1: waiver on interpreting it as like how much of it

857
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: is is sort of subconscious, how much of it is conscious,

858
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 1: Not to say that it's entirely subconscious, but like, how

859
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:24,439
Speaker 1: much of it is the conscious dimension of the act,

860
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 1: and how much is the subconscious. So to explain things better,

861
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,799
Speaker 1: Ellis brings up examples of folkloric ostensive actions such as

862
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: legend tripping, so going to or engaging in acts that

863
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: are said to elicit a supernatural response. So going out

864
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 1: and setting on railroad tracks at night. By the way,

865
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:47,919
Speaker 1: do not do that generally. I think it's in many

866
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 1: of not most cases, it may be illegal to set

867
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: on those railroad tracks in addition to being dangerous. So,

868
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 1: but doing things like that, hanking three times, looking for cryptid's,

869
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:02,720
Speaker 1: going on a Bigfoot search, these are all potentially examples

870
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 1: of legend tripping. They're all essentially benign acts. For the

871
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: most part. No one is going to get hurt because

872
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,160
Speaker 1: you went out and searched for Bigfoot. And doing this

873
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:15,720
Speaker 1: search doesn't rule out the monster, but fuels the legend.

874
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: Like nobody has ever gone out searching for Bigfoot and

875
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,239
Speaker 1: then said, well, we didn't find him. I just don't

876
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:22,240
Speaker 1: believe in it anymore.

877
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 2: And to be fair though, of course, I'm not advocating

878
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 2: the existence of squatch here. But you know, you need

879
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 2: to take you need to keep in mind search spaces

880
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 2: like if you went out looking for Bigfoot, even if

881
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 2: Bigfoot really existed, would you expect to find him on

882
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 2: one trip into the woods. Probably not.

883
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is where things get to do like

884
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: darker shades of folklore, and Ellis discusses such things as

885
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: food tampering and ritual murder, but he also brings up

886
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 1: the cattle mutilation of phenomenon or of cattle mutilation panic

887
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,359
Speaker 1: at one point in the article, focusing on cult interpretations

888
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: of the crime, which we already discussed, of those that

889
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:02,920
Speaker 1: were brought up in the other sources, as well as

890
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:05,760
Speaker 1: some really out there statements from a couple of Texas

891
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:07,799
Speaker 1: inmates at the time who said that it was an

892
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:12,040
Speaker 1: elaborate satanic undertaking by cultis. He also points to other

893
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six reports of animal mutilations cattle and other animals,

894
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: some of which involved reports of black robe figures and

895
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:24,080
Speaker 1: all the usual bells and whistles of cult activity. There were,

896
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 1: of course, no first hand accounts of any of this,

897
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:28,799
Speaker 1: but these were the stories that were circulating.

898
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 2: Was there a sacred bejeweled dagger?

899
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:37,120
Speaker 1: Yeah? So Ellis stresses that these rumors and legends reflect

900
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: a quote complex assortment of deliberate acts, misinterpreted evidence, and exaggeration,

901
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 1: and he writes the while logic neatly handles all the

902
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 1: challenges of the mystery, quasi a stension plays the key

903
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:54,080
Speaker 1: role here. Quote the observer's interpretation of puzzling evidence in

904
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: terms of a narrative tradition. So if you're prepared to

905
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 1: find evidence of X, then you will find evidence of X.

906
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:01,759
Speaker 1: If you go out looking for Bigfoot, yeah you may

907
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 1: you're not going to see him, but you're probably going

908
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: to there's a good chance you'll find something. Right, if

909
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: you find some hair, well that might be bigfoot hair.

910
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,239
Speaker 1: There's some bigfoot for right there. You know, some other

911
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: strange mark. If you go looking for star jelly in

912
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,720
Speaker 1: the woods, you'll find star jelly. But then human actors,

913
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:20,839
Speaker 1: he writes, can insert themselves into a given script by

914
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:25,319
Speaker 1: engaging in acts of a stension, like legend tripping, which

915
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:28,320
Speaker 1: sounds like a potential way to understand those few incidents

916
00:52:28,360 --> 00:52:31,560
Speaker 1: of cattle mutilation in which human activity may have been involved.

917
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 1: And there's I want to read one last quote from

918
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 1: Alice here that I thought was particularly creepy and very

919
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: seasonal quote. In contemporary times, too, legends about satanic murder

920
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:46,320
Speaker 1: and cattle mutilation are not just expressions of fictive horror.

921
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:50,840
Speaker 1: They are paradigms for making the world more horrifying. The

922
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:54,320
Speaker 1: haunted house and the outside world are always in danger

923
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:55,280
Speaker 1: of merging.

924
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 2: I guess that's true. It is up to humans not

925
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 2: to decide to make them merge by acting out a

926
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 2: legend or dangerous fiction in reality.

927
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, we have to remind ourselves that

928
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 1: a lot of these dangerous fictions, they're not just idle

929
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 1: fascinations or the word, they're not necessarily idle fascinations. Like, certainly,

930
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,239
Speaker 1: you can have an idle fascination with any number of

931
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:21,880
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, certainly, But where these things seem to have

932
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:26,320
Speaker 1: more traction is where like one's you know, personal identity

933
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:29,880
Speaker 1: or view of the entire world becomes wrapped up in

934
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 1: that thing. That seems to be the area where you

935
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 1: get some real potential for danger. That's where the haunted

936
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 1: house in their outside world can potentially emerge. All right, well,

937
00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 1: we're going to go ahead and close out the episode

938
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 1: right here, but we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Obviously,

939
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:49,280
Speaker 1: this is a topic of much rumination in some circles,

940
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 1: and some of you might have read some other sources

941
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 1: that you know, you might have some examples of faulty

942
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 1: logic on this that would be interesting to share. You

943
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: might have some examples of some very strong points or

944
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:03,759
Speaker 1: a counter arguments. Also just other theories, because some of

945
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:06,760
Speaker 1: them the material out there. We looked at a particular

946
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:10,799
Speaker 1: recent documentary in which another idea was brought up that

947
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 1: large ranches were the cause of this, like big ranchers

948
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:18,319
Speaker 1: were targeting the small ranches, and I had not heard that.

949
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. That wasn't mentioned as a possibility

950
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:23,320
Speaker 1: in the sources I was looking at, And I certainly

951
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 1: don't think that was the case, but I did think

952
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 1: it was interesting because it does fit in with the

953
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:33,680
Speaker 1: sort of socioeconomic setting of the time of the mid

954
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. You know, the idea that again it is

955
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:40,200
Speaker 1: the struggling, smaller rancher that is feeling the pain and

956
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 1: is reporting these incidents. So it would make sense that

957
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: at least some of them might say, well, I think

958
00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:47,120
Speaker 1: it's these big ranchers that are doing it. Like you

959
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: can see why that script would gain traction, is what

960
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: I'm saying.

961
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting premise. Unfortunately, that document in particular,

962
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 2: I think is the result of a government conspiracy. It

963
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 2: was designed in a lab in order to reduce people's

964
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 2: critical thinking faculties.

965
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: All right, well, we'd love to hear from everyone out

966
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 1: there if you haven't have some critical analysis, or if

967
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:07,800
Speaker 1: anyone out there. Had if you have ties to the

968
00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 1: ranching world and have some insight, we'd love to hear

969
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: from you. You know, everything's val it's so feel free

970
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:16,360
Speaker 1: to write in. In the meantime. Core episodes of Stuff

971
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind publish on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and

972
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:20,320
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed on Mondays,

973
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: we do Listen your mail. On Wednesdays we do a

974
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:25,799
Speaker 1: short form Monster Factor artifact, and on Fridays we do

975
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. That's our time to set aside most concerns,

976
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:31,160
Speaker 1: serious concerns and just talk about a weird film. And

977
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 1: this Friday we have a weird one that is also

978
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:36,880
Speaker 1: a cattle mutilation film. I think it'll be a fun episode.

979
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:39,839
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

980
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:42,399
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

981
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:44,719
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

982
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:46,799
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

983
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 2: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

984
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:58,120
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.

985
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is action of iHeartRadio. For

986
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

987
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 1: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows