Killed cattle stripped of organs with surgical precision and found in pastures without a trace of blood or evidence have baffled ranchers and law enforcement in quiet farming communities across the country since at least the 1970s and potentially for over a century .

Animals are found in unnatural positions and completely drained of blood by bewildered ranchers in Minnesota, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Oregon and elsewhere.

Sgt. Jeremiah Holmes of Wheeler County Oregon Sheriff’s Officewho has overseen five such cases in the past six years, told Fox News Digital that “there are more questions than answers in this.”

It is a crime to kill a farmer’s animals, Holmes said. But there were never any substantial leads to follow in these cases. The first time law enforcement saw an animal die under these circumstances, he said, there was a dearth of tracks or blood in the freshly fallen snow.

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Colby Marshall is pictured in front of one of five mutilated bulls on the ranch he ran in 2017. Typically, he said, ranchers would remove the animals’ bodies but not touch the bulls, leaving the carcasses to “melt away.” in the ground. (Colby Marshall)

He spoke to numerous news outlets, researchers and documentarians about the phenomenon, desperate to finally solve the bizarre mystery.

“Why would someone take a reproductive organ if it wasn’t a ritual or a test? I guess I don’t know,” Holmes said.

“People will reach out and give their theory. Some think it’s aliens, some think it’s the government doing tests, some think it’s a farmer trying to pay his way — there are so many theories,” Holmes said. “The only thing I’ve minimized is predators — being raised in the country … and being in the livestock industry, I’ve seen firsthand what a bear will do, a cougar, wild dogs, even what a bear will do. Man will after seeing all of this for himself, there’s no way I can…attribute it to predators of any kind.”

Reports of the phenomenon — usually involving cattle but sometimes involving other livestock — began making headlines in the 1970s, with the Colorado Associated Press voting the mutilations the No. 1 story in the state. But records of cow mutilations matching the same patterns date back to 1869, according to “Stalking the Herd: Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery,” by Chris O’Brien.

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The bulls had their organs removed with surgical precision and no blood was left at the scene, Marshall said. (Colby Marshall)

“Investigation Alien,” a Netflix docuseries released this month that follows UFO journalist George Knapp through his investigation into extraterrestrial influence on Earth, suggests aliens are to blame.

“Initially, I grew up very conservative — aliens were something that my family and friends scoffed at,” Holmes told Fox News Digital. “I automatically assumed there wasn’t.”

“But what is it an alien? If people believe in bigfoot or sasquatch, there are people who believe in life from another planet,” Holmes said. “There would be some who would say, ‘if bigfoot is a viable belief, then maybe there are unidentified creatures, even on this earth, who do this I have not yet identified.”

Former ranch manager Colby Marshall of Burns, Ore., found five mutilated bulls over a two-day period in September 2017.

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A cow found dead in a strange position with its tongue and reproductive organs removed in July 2020 in Wheeler County, Oregon. Ranchers in the area were urged to “be extremely vigilant in watching over their cattle” after the incident. (Wheeler County Sheriff’s Office)

“One of the cowboys called me on one of our radios that we had and said, ‘We found a dead bull,’ which was a unique situation because it was unusual to find a young, perfectly healthy bull. weighing 2,000 pounds. dead,” Marshall recalled.

The Hereford bull was lying on its side with its front legs sticking out at an odd angle. The tongue and entire reproductive organs were carefully removed – but there was “not a drop” of blood.

“They did not perforate the abdominal cavity. . . . I’ve harvested a lot of animals over the years and slaughtered a lot of cattle for meat processing and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Marshall said.

The cattle phenomenon has Oregon police and ranchers baffled. (Courtesy of Mt. Hood Village Resort)

The second bull was found with the same organs missing, as were three more bulls found the next day.

“We’ve seen a lot of dead animals in a variety of different situations from injuries or disease or what have you,” Marshall said. “It was the most surreal and strangest animal situation I’ve ever experienced.”

Holmes told Fox News Digital that because farms are spread out and cattle mutilations usually take place in remote areas, necropsies and other forms of investigation are no longer viable because the animals’ bodies have decomposed by the time they are found. But in Marshall’s case, the corpse was relatively fresh.

“We tried to gather the forensic evidence as best we could and performed the necropsy on the bull,” Marshall said. “There were no signs of liver or heart or lung damage. No internal organs were missing. (The stomach) of the animal was full. They ate. They drank. They were not stressed for them. not at all.”

Bulls that weren’t transported to a lab simply “melted into the ground” — diggers wouldn’t touch them, Marshall said.

“In a normal situation, pit bulls, coyotes, bears, you know, would tear the animal apart, drag it all over the place. Bones would be scattered everywhere, skins would be missing, heads would be gone,” he said.

A $25,000 reward was offered for any information leading to the capture of the person or persons who mauled the bulls — but no information was ever forthcoming, Marshall said.

Like Holmes, Marshall is willing to talk to anyone about the matter in the hope that “the longest-running crime mystery in the history of the world” will be solved, including other puzzled farmers across the country.

Rather than aliens, Marshall believes a sophisticated network of humans—perhaps cultists or a group that uses animal parts for ritualistic purposes—is to blame.

“I think there is a big galaxy out there. . . . And there is an extremely high probability that we are not the only sentient life forms in the galaxy. I think, yes, there are probably aliens out there. And, you know, they’ve probably visited Earth,” Marshall told Fox News Digital. “Now, I think they’re using their technology to come after the breeding bulls in eastern Oregon? No, I don’t – I think they’d have a better use of their technology than that.”

Cattle in states like Oregon have been mysteriously mutilated. (Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office)

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“But hey, if they’re coming across the galaxy to come get beef in eastern Oregon, that means we’ve got pretty good beef and maybe the best beef in the galaxy,” Marshall joked.

“I don’t mind talking about it and telling the story,” Marshall said. “I just want people to be aware that … there are other people who have experienced this. And the thing we need to do is we need to talk about it because maybe that will bring some light and maybe we can get some answers.”

FBI investigated the phenomenon of animal mutilation between 1974 and 1978, according to its website, but was unable to find any answers.

“We’ve been advocating for the federal government to look more into this with the tools we have now,” Holmes said. “We have a lot more tools since the 1980s to investigate … the reason I’m a little more vocal about this is because I want it solved … and I know we’re not going to be able to solve it. on his own”.