In April 1974, the mutilators were at it again in Nebraska, with the same familiar modus operandi: Blood was drained in some instances; there were no footprints; and various organs were removed, apparently surgically. High officials again leaned toward the predatory coyote/crow/racoon-with-a-scalpel theory. The toll of mutes, as mutilation buffs began referring to the acts, mounted throughout the summer, and by September, some 50 cases had been reported in the Cornhusker State.
As in Kansas, the rumor that the mutilations were the acts of helicopter-equipped devil worshipers, or "fertility ritualists," began to spread among the good farmers of Nebraska. Shotgun-toting vigilantes took to riding the back roads from dawn to dusk. Ranchers sometimes stopped out-of-state vehicles for a cow-blood check. Some marksperson in a pickup apparently tried to wing an aircraft that was checking a power line near Grand Island, Nebraska; as a result, the state National Guard ordered its choppers to fly at a minimum of 1000 feet rather than at the normal low of 500 feet. Sheriff Herb Thompson of hard-hd Knox County reported that, on several occasions, helicopters were seen on nights when mutilations occured. There were also copters spotted just over the border in Iowa, where on July 15th, a Honey Creek farmer was shot at from a copter that bore no identification number.
In the fall of April 1974, as the mute tapered off in Nebraska, the flying mutilation show worked its way up in South Dakota and over into Minnestota. Again, copters and boring goriness were much in evidence and the authorities chose to place the blame of predators. There was one notable exception. Dr. Mahlon W. Vorhies, associate professor of veterinarian science at South Dakota State University, said that ten animals had been examined at the school and that some of them has probably been mutilated by Homo sapiens.
In Minnesota, meanwhile, there was one case that points to a possible solution to a part of the mystery. On Friday night, October 4, 1974, a 400-pound bull was mutilated at the Charles Metz farm, in the extreme southwestern tip of the state. Both of the bull's ears were chewed/cut off and his hind end was "damaged." The local vet said that the cause of death was blackleg, a disease of the Clostridia family of bacteria. Vet added, however, that there was no sign of struggle, as is usual in case of blackleg, not was there much blood in the carcass. In fact, the animal apparently been mutilated after a death caused by disease. The copter-cruising-satanist hypothesis was so compelling, however, that no one was yet ready to entertain the theory that the bull had been subjected with Clostridia bacteria or toxin—perhaps for experimental purposes. For indeed, how difficult it would have been for a bunch of airborne turkeys to locate a cold, dead animal in the dark! And post-death muties would have had to be ready for weird smells also, as the fumes from a rotting cow causes one to seriously consider puking as a high-priority activity.