The first mutilations in Arkansas were reported in Benton County in April 1978. By the end of the year, over 20 incidents had been reported in that area.
In l'année suivante, reports of mutilations began to come in from other parts of the state. To help deal with the situation, the Arkansas State Police appointed Sgt. Doug Fogley to coordinate the statewide investigation of these incidents.
In April that year, Sgt. Fogley, together with another local law officer testified at Senator Schmitt's hearing in Albuquerque that there had been 28 mutilations in Arkansas all of them "confirmed" cases. Mutilations continued to be reported throughout the state. By July, the problem was considered so serious that the Arkansas Cattlemen's Association announced that it was offering a reward of $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible persons who have been mutilating cattle in Benton and Franklin Counties.
That fall, however, new developments took place which seriously undermined the validity of many of the official statements that had been made about these Arkansas cases.
On October 15, 1979, Sgt. Fogley informed me that the law officer who had investigated the greatest number of livestock mutilations in Arkansas had been terminated by his agency, following a 30-day suspension. The underlying factor in his dismissal, according to Fogley, was his "inability to tell the truth" -- an "inability" very much evident in the official reports he had submitted on livestock mutilations.
Sgt. Fogley pointed out that he has since determined that the reports filed by this former officer contain gross inaccuracies and deliberate false statements. As an example, Fogley cited the case of a cow which had been found lying on her belly, her legs sprawled out to the side, and her head extended straight in front of her body. The report stated that her legs were broken, which, according to Sgt. Fogley was simply not true.
Sgt. Fogley also told me that he was prepared to inform the media that the Arkansas State Police had drawn invalid conclusions about cattle mutilations -- conclusions that had been based upon reports furnished by law enforcement officers that contained "deliberately furnished false information.
Sgt. Fogley maintained that Arkansas authorities are now convinced that over 98 percent of the reported livestock mutilations in the state are the work of scavengers aided by the normal decomposition of the carcass. He admitted that cultists or publicity seekers could be responsible for some of the incidents. However, even if this were so, he pointed out that the percentage involved would be extremely small in terms of the total number of reported mutilations.
Many of Sgt. Fogley's observations were further documented in a study conducted that fall by Dr. Nancy H. Owen, an anthropologist at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Owen's study is of interest in that it helps dispell many of the myths -- some of them widely circulated that surround the Arkansas cases.
One of the most highly publicized finds in Arkansas, and one which evoked considerable interest in New Mexico, was the discovery of drugs in some of the Benton County animals.
Owen (1980: 15) confirms this discovery with the following observation:
Analyses performed by the Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at Oklahoma State University revealed the presence of drugs in three animals -- succinycholine in the horse, santonin in a yearling bull, and mescaline in a bull calf.
Further investigation revealed that two of these drugs have veterinary use.
Santonin is used as a wormer. A rather dangerous drug, it is no longer on the market. This doesn't mean it is no longer available locally, for many older Benton County residents do their own veterinary work using supplies they have on hand.
Succinycholine, she points out, is used as a muscle relaxant, "an interesting piece of information in view of the fact that the rancher had castrated the horse the previous morning."
Interestingly, the report of this incident was circulated at the law enforcement portion of Senator Schmitt's 1979 conference as evidence of a "classic mutilation." The facts of this case are as follows:
A horse colt, 18 months old, weighing 800 pounds, was castrated on Friday morning by the owner, and the horse was reportedly observed Friday night seen standing by a fence. The horse was found dead the following morning by the owner.
Upon inspection of the animal, the investigating officers found all reproductive organs had been removed, along with the tongue. This was surgically done with precision. No blood was visible at the scene of the death -- no signs of a struggle by the animal was apparent. There was a small amount of blood found on the animal's rear leg. No other apparent wounds were observed externally. The animal did show signs of apparent grazing just prior to death as there was fresh grass in the mouth, and this was stuck to the teeth.
Dr. Gary France of the Pearidge Veterinary Clinic did a postmortem examination. He also took tissue and blood
samples and forwarded them to Oklahoma State University, Diagnostic Laboratory. The veterinary report stated that both
testicles had been removed at the external inguinal ring, with a minimal amount of blood staining the surrounding
tissue -- no major discovery since the horse had been castrated. The penis had been severed at about the middle of the
pelvis. A possible injection site was noted at the right mid-cervical area over the right jugular vein. The report
also states that the abdominal cavity was filled with approximately four gallons of blood, some of which had
clotted.
The official report also contains a laboratory report from the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory
at Oklahoma State University, which confirms the presence of a significant concentration of succinylcholine in the
blood sample. No additional information was presented in the official report.
I decided to further
investigate this incident myself. On July 9, 1979, I asked Doyle Potter, a Santa Fe druggist, to provide me with
information about succinycholine. In particular, I told him I wanted to know if there was any reason why such a drug
would be found in a horse. Potter informed me that succinylcholine was a muscle relaxant used extensively throughout
the United States during the castration of horses. He said the drug, which was usually adminstered by an injection,
was relatively unstable in that it was a "guess and by golly" system as to how much of it should be used, and how long
it would put a large animal down. Potter advised that the individual doing the castration should be very proficient,
because if he did not know what he was doing, the horse could get up in the middle of the operation and possibly bleed
to death.
On August 20, 1979, I discussed this incident with Dr. Albert E. McChesney, director of the Animal Diagnostic Center at Colorado State University. He advised me that succinylcholine metabolizes very rapidly in the body, and thus is relatively difficult to identify. He stated that the fact that this drug was located at all in the horse, indicates that the animal must have been given a large overdose, which, according to him, would undoubtedly have caused the animal's death.
I later communicated with Dr. France, the veterinarian who performed the postmortem examination. He informed me that in his final observation, the horse had been "put down" by an overdose of succinylcholine. Interestingly, when later interviewed by Dr. Owen on November 18, 1979, Dr. France stated that he didn't know the horse had been castrated.
It was a stallion the way I understood it. You're the first one that's ever mentioned to me it was castrated the day before.
In short, the facts strongly suggest that the horse had accidentally been overdosed by the rancher performing the castration and that this contributed to the animal's death.
Mescaline, the third drug found in an Arkansas animal, unlike the other two, has no known veterinary use. Rather, it is an alkaloid derivative of the peyote cactus which is available to grazing animals in the Arkansas area. Another possible explanation for the presence of this drug was suggested to Dr. Owen in an interview with the animal's owner. The latter complained to her that he suspected that "hippies" were camping on his property. It should be noted that mescaline as well as the peyote plant from which it is commonly derived, is a widely used hallucinogenic drug. Either explanation could very well account for the presence of mescaline in the bull calf, for as Dr. Clair Hibbs (1974) points out, livestock have the unfortunate habit of eating anything, including poisons and anti-coagulants if they are left unattended in areas accessible to them.
Two other incidents discussed by Dr. Owen have interesting parallels in New Mexico. Like the clamp marks reported on some of the mutilated animals in Dulce, rope marks were discovered around both hind hocks of a mutilated calf found in Benton County, Arkansas. The official report states that although the animal was discovered within 75 feet of the owner's home, evidence indicated that it had been dragged 1/4 of a mile from the lower pasture where it had apparently died. Like the clamp marks reported in New Mexico, this discovery has also been cited as dramatic evidence that livestock mutilations are being executed by some sophisticated organization.
Further investigation by Dr. Owen, however, produced a rather ordinary explanation for the presence of these marks.
Upon interviewing the owner, the mystery was quickly cleared up. He told me that a young boy, who periodically exercises his horses, discovered the dead calf one day while out riding. As a favor to the owner, he dragged the calf up to the house so that he could find it. The boy forgot to inform the owner about what he had done until several days later. By that time, the Sheriff's office had already investigated the incident" (Owen 1980: 16).
The other incident with interesting parallels in New Mexico is the alleged discovery of a cow found dead and mutilated right in the farmer's barn. The sheriff's office, as Dr. Owen points out, does indeed have a photograph of a dead cow in a barn a photograph shown on television several times as dramatic evidence of the "great skill of the 'mutilators' in doing their work undetected."
However, further investigation again revealed that even this mysterious incident had a logical explanation, for as Dr. Owen points out, the animal in this photograph was not mysteriously killed and mutilated.
"It was found sick in the pasture by the owner, who moved it to the barn where it was treated by a local veterinarian. It died shortly afterwards of blackleg. Around the same time, the same farmer discovered the mutilated carcass of a yearling bull which had been dead for several days. The animal was examined by the veterinarian and investigated by officers from the Sheriff's department, who took photographs not only of that animal, but also of the dead cow in the barn" (Owen 1980, 15).
This case is of interest because of its similarity to an incident that recently occurred in New Mexico. During a recent interview, one rancher told me that about a year ago he had found his one-year-old hog dead and mutilated in his locked barn. He told me that the 150-pound hog had three holes by its ear and that the rear end had been cut. He told me he had fed the animal at approximately 5 p.m. the previous evening. When he went to check on it the following morning, he found it dead in the locked barn. Nothing else had been disturbed.
Upset about the incident, he summoned an official from Espanola to investigate the incident. The inspector, upon examining the carcass, concluded that the animal had been killed by a bear. However, he offered no explanation as to how the carcass had gotten inside a locked barn.
This incident did appear to be a perplexing one until I interviewed the owner's son-in-law. The latter said he remembered this incident quite well. However, he pointed out that the pig was not in a barn but was in an open pen, which would have been readily accessible to other animals, including bears.
One other Arkansas incident worthy of special mention is the case of the mutilated animal in which a mysterious shaft of light appears to emanate from its torso, as revealed in a photograph taken at the scene. This photograph, according to Dr. Owen (1980: 14) has been cited as evidence of a possible connection between mutilations and UFOs.
The interesting thing about this photograph was that it was shown in a documentary and at a conference, both of which were covered by the media and televised. I attended this conference which was held in Little Rock, Arkansas, and also observed this photograph. The claim was made during the presentation that this mysterious shaft of light, said to be invisible to the naked eye, also appeared in other photographs taken of the same animal using different cameras and film. Later that day, in a private conference with the law officer who made the presentation, I suggested to him that the shaft of light appeared to be nothing more than "a static spark," which sometimes is created if you rewind the film too rapidly.
Dr. Owen's study independently confirmed my own observations. In her report, she states that she too was curious about the photograph and had subsequently questioned the police photographer who had taken the picture. He told her the shaft of light was "a static spark." He also pointed out that although he did take other photographs of the animal, the light leak appeared in only that one picture (Owen 1980: 14).