By Tim Binnall
The mysterious cattle mutilation phenomenon continues to vex ranchers in Oregon as three more curious cases have now been reported. According to a local media outlet, the latest incident occurred earlier this month on the property of rancher Fee Stubblefield near the community of Ukiah. As he was checking on his cattle one evening, he spotted a dead cow that sported unusual injuries which "didn’t look right."
Specifically, the creature's tongue and sex organs had been removed by way of a bloodless cut described by Stubblefield as unusual. Additionally, in a rather odd detail, one of the animals ears had been severed and inexplicably placed upon its neck. The rancher's misgivings about the manner in which the cow died were subsequently confirmed by local authorities who examined the creature and noted that it bore all of the telltale signs of a cattle mutilation case.
The determination was particularly worrisome to Stubblefield as "now that we've identified this as a mutilation kill, we've actually discovered we had two other ones." Those cases, he said, took place earlier this year under similarly puzzling circumstances. Stubblefield's most recent lost cattle comes on the heels of an odd cattle mutilation that took place in Oregon back in July as well as a highly-publicized incident last summer in which five mutilated bulls on a different ranch in the state.
The spate of cattle mutilation cases has, understandably, raised concerns among ranchers and authorities in Oregon. To that end, Stubblefield declared that "this is too much. It's got to stop." For his part, the rancher indicated that he did not subscribe to the more fantastic theories associated with the phenomenon, such as that it is the work of aliens or a sinister cult. "I'm a believer that this is a little more practical," he mused, "and this is criminal behavior." Unfortunately for Stubblefield, history suggests that the culprit behind the cattle mutilations is likely to remain a mystery.