THE NIGHT THE COWS DROPPED DEAD

July 3, 1996
Source: Boston Globe
By Kathleen Burge, Globe Correspondent, 07/03/96

DUMMERSTON, Vt. - The early hours were oddly warm for February and damp with fog as Robert Ranney walked the familiar path from his house to the barn. It was still dark, but as he neared the red building, he saw the dim shape of a heifer, her head stuck under the gate.

Ranney switched on the barn light and looked around. What he saw with his own eyes, his mind could not fathom. Every cow in the barn was dead.

Some of the 25 heifers were sprawled by the feed bunk with grain still in their mouths. Others lay by the watering tub. Some had collapsed in the walkway, or rested in their stalls. ``I had no idea what had happened,'' Ranney said. ``I hadn't seen a single live animal at this point. I didn't have a clue.'' More than 12 years later, there are still few clues about what occurred that Valentine's Day at Honeymoon Valley Farm. Although the veterinarian who came to examine the dead cows ruled that they were electrocuted, no one can figure out how. Lightning is rare in winter, and beyond a report of a bright light from nearby Hinsdale, N.H., no one had seen any. Some people have blamed blanket lightning, which rises from the ground. But even that should have tripped the circuit breaker in the barn, or thrown off the electric fence.

Stranger still, the 150 cows in the next barn, just a few feet away, were safe. And four heifers who had jumped over the feed bunk from the first barn into the second were fine. They had no fear about returning to their original barn, suggesting that they had not lived through a traumatic experience. One man, though, had a hunch about the deaths. William Chapleau, a former police officer and state director of the Mutual UFO Network, read a newspaper account of the cows' death and then drove to the Ranneys' house from his home in Rutland. He was especially interested because Honeymoon Valley Farm was about 10 miles from Vermont Yankee, the state's only nuclear power plant. And he had heard reports of UFO sightings that night.

``I felt that because of the large amount of carnage inside the barn, I ... should call this farmer and inquire about his problem, for I had read many articles concerning UFOs and cattle-related incidents,'' Chapleau wrote in a report to the national headquarters of the UFO network, based in Seguin, Texas.

Chapleau had managed to borrow a Geiger counter from the Vermont Civil Defense. He walked through the Ranneys' property and detected high levels of radiation - as much as five times the normal level - inside the barn where the cows had died. He wrote that he found even higher levels on the land along the road. ``He thought there was enough radiation to chalk it up to UFOs,'' said Julia Ranney, Robert's wife.

When Chapleau took the Geiger counter to the spot in the cornfield where the cows had been buried, the numbers shot up again. Next he tried to convince several state and federal regulatory agencies to investigate.

Most declined, questioning whether he had used the Geiger counter correctly. Although he was not an expert, Chapleau said, he noted that he had worked at a nuclear power plant in Antarctica during a stint in the Navy.

Eventually, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission showed up at the Ranneys' farm, assuring the family that the nearby nuclear plant was not responsible. The local electric company also telephoned to declare its innocence, the Ranneys said.

Rumors began to spread in this southern Vermont town of 1,600 and beyond. One published report said the cows had fallen over dead in a perfect circle. Soon the Ranneys were barraged with calls and visitors. ``We were like an historic site or something,'' Julia Ranney said.
Many of the people who showed thought they knew what had killed the cows.
``You wouldn't believe the stories people had,'' she said. ``One person thought the United States Army did it, with some chemical warfare.''

At the time, the incident was painful for the Ranneys, emotionally as well as economically. Among the dead were the pet cows that their four children had had raised from calves. The heifers, all pregnant, were worth about $1,500 each. The family had spent two years raising and breeding them.

Today, the Ranneys can laugh about the brouhaha that followed the deaths of the cows. They still farm, but now they live in Cornwall, just a few miles from Middlebury College.

Still, the mystery sometimes haunts them.
They remember clearly what happened the morning that Robert Ranney found the cows. He trudged into the house and sat grimly on the bed where his wife, nine months pregnant with their fifth child, lay asleep.
`They're all dead,'' he said.
``What's all dead?'' she asked groggily.
``The cows,'' he replied.
``Robert, are you sure?'' she asked.
``Well, I checked them,'' he said. ``But I'll go check again.''
He disappeared through the doorway, and returned a few minutes later. ``Yeah,'' he said, ``they're still all dead.''

Later that day, men from the Ranneys' church helped the family carry the dead cows from the barn. But the Ranneys could not find anyone to take the carcasses. No one wanted so many dead animals, especially since the Ranneys did not know what had killed them. Finally, a man in town agreed to dig a hole in the family's frozen cornfield with a backhoe. They dumped in the cows and filled the hole with dirt. That spring, they planted corn, as they always did, in the field.

In the circle where the cows were buried, the corn started to grow. Then the young stalks fell over and died.

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