Cattle Mutilations Debunked
in GQ Article titled "Operation Moo" claims birds explain it all! |
by Mark Williams
image by Dynamic Duo
Studio
|
In a surprising move which
appears to be a classic case of debunking (disguised by
an outward appearance of objectivity, as usual), Gentleman's
Quarterly, in the February '97 issue, printed a
lengthy article which attempts to portray Linda Moulton
Howe as a UFO nut who's merely out to fleece the public,
while the poor, strangely mutilated cows (over10,000 of
them) are the victims of attack by scavenging birds and
insects, of all things. The author, Jack Hitt, claims to have done more research into the bizarre mutilations more than just about anybody. He claims to have spent much time reading about the subject on the Internet, watching the video documentary by Linda Howe (A Strange Harvest), and even reading her books. On top of all that, Mr. Hitt says he actually visited the site of a mutilated cow and saw the strange wounds with his own eyes. Yet, in spite of all this in depth exposure to this increasingly puzzling phenomenon, the author of that article concluded that a former FBI agent, Ken Rommel, who had spent some time looking into the mutilations, was on the right track when he concluded that the mutilations were basically caused by scavenging birds, pecking away at the exposed soft tissues (eye, tongue, rectum, etc.). The author seemed to have no quibble with Mr. Rommel's notion that the smoothness of the "incisions" is produced as a result of post mortem gas production in the cattle's bodies, "stretching the tissues." Rommel believes that people who think there are more complex reasons for the cattle mutilations -such as aliens monitoring contaminants and looking at genetic material (as a number of UFO abductees have been told or shown, according to Linda) - are basically people who "lead very dull and boring lives". . . who "get together and lie to one another." Superficially, that all sounds reasonable enough (as intended, no doubt), but what about the anomalies that were never mentioned in the entire article, such as the heat cauterization of the incisions (amounting to several hundred degrees)? Why leave out the specific points that make theories about scavenging birds clearly ridiculous? The image above shows some of the typical incisions - oval and straight cuts - without a drop of blood, where a cow's ear had been removed, along with some surrounding tissue, in a recent Klamath, Oregon case. Clear evidence of heat was also present, in this example. If birds are responsible for this, they are strange birds indeed. No footprints were found in the area, as usual. And even more strange, the tissues surrounding the unborn calf within the birth canal of this cow had been carefully removed, right down to the delicate membrane surrounding the unborn calf, leaving the membrane (amniotic sack) exposed, yet untouched. Why did this article in GQ leave out photos of actual mutilations, and instead, began the article with a splashy full page cartoon, showing hypnotized cows being floated up into flying saucers? (See a small portion of it, by Dynamic Duo Studio, at the top of this article.) It's a pretty interesting piece of art, but not as informative as real photos. Do they think that this phenomenon is funny? Or are they hoping people don't take it seriously? Also note that it shows the beams as being green (typical Hollywood notion), while in reality, they are almost always described as being blue. Lastly, why did Mr. Hitt portray Linda Moulton Howe as a woman who's getting rich off her books and videos (by tabulating the $600,000 in gross revenue she may have generated)? He must have known full well that the books she's getting "rich" off of, selling for $39.95, actually cost her $40.00 to print - leaving her with a 5 cent loss for each copy sold (not to mention the cost of doing the research and creating the book in the first place)! I'll bet Mr. Hitt got paid pretty handsomely for the GQ article, though. If you'd like to tell Gentleman's Quarterly what you think of their article, write to the editor: Gentleman's Quarterly 350 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10017 Return to UFO's, Mysteries, & Phenomena Illustration ©1997 Gentleman's Quarterly |