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Sightings has continued to follow developments in the San Luis Valley of Colorado and New

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Mexico where bizarre livestock mutilations have been plaguing ranchers since 1967.

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It is an unexplained and gruesome phenomenon that just won't go away.

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They may call this part of New Mexico God's country, but if you're a cattle rancher here,

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this is hell on earth.

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Our livestock death, commonly known as cattle mutilation, continues to occur with alarming

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regularity.

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Recently, a sightings team returned to the San Luis Valley to investigate a rash of new

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reports.

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Somebody or something is killing these animals and the shock to me was seeing these animals

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lie there and they look like they were just sleeping.

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But yet, their tongues were gone, the sexual organs were gone, the blood was gone.

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Gail Stalen is a New Mexico based livestock mutilation investigator.

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She has worked on over 50 cases, including eight in 1996 alone.

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She is now concentrating her efforts in the Taos area where the most recent mutilations

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have taken place.

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The authorities right now, I do not believe are handling mutilations in a proper way or

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let's say a more professional way.

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What I hope to change is to impose a forensic protocol on the cattle mutilations.

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I would like to see an organized response from the government to address this issue,

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to investigate cattle mutilations as a crime scene.

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John Patternoster made the cattle mutilations a central issue at his recent bid for district

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attorney of Taos.

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It's a growing mystery.

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It's a significant economic impact on the ranchers and they deserve a response.

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Carlos Trujillo is a cattle rancher in Penausco, a remote town south of Taos.

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Just before our arrival, Trujillo had found his prize bull dead.

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Mutilations including the heart had been removed with an eerie surgical precision.

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Trujillo told local field investigator Michael Abbey that he was dissatisfied with the county

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inspector's findings.

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This was not the work of a coyote.

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I talked to the inspector personally and he said that he was some kind of a predator

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or a coyote.

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Well, if I'm coyote, I have knives like that.

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I mean, we're in a heap of trouble.

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We're in a heap of trouble.

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Many local ranchers Trujillo doesn't know where to turn next.

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It hurts.

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It hurts in the pocket.

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The ranchers are frustrated.

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There's no question about that, about the lack of any kind of a response, a uniform,

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significant response from government.

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As part of this investigation, sightings travel to Albuquerque to try and get some answers

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from John Wortman, the director of the New Mexico Livestock Board, the state agency charged

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with investigating cattle mutilations.

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I can't say that we've actually determined a specific cause of death in any of those.

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Some, we've got a higher probability that maybe they died of natural causes or struck

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by lightning or were killed by a predator or whatever.

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Yes, there are some of those that have been reported that we just have no explanation,

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but that's not to say that there was some deep dark mystery about why they died.

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We just don't have a reason for why they killed.

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We haven't been as careful with crime scenes in some of these mutilations as you would

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like to have if you're going to try to find evidence.

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And in some of these cases, there's very little evidence there.

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And when you walk in there and start rolling these animals around trying to figure out

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why they died, you destroy whatever evidence is there.

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In those cases that remain unresolved, the Livestock Board believes that a conventional

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explanation will be found.

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We think that there are individuals out there that are mutilating for whatever reasons, either

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ritual activities or vengeance or just pure vandalism.

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The assertion by the New Mexico Livestock Board that there's cult activity behind these

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cattle mutilations or malicious vandalism, I have to say is based from my knowledge

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on insufficient or completely absent evidence.

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It seems to me that everybody's got a lot of theories, but nobody's got a lot of hard

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evidence.

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One prevailing theory connects the mutilations to UFOs.

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Well, as an official here in response to the aliens are taking our cattle hypothesis, I

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understand there are people out there that firmly believe that.

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And I guess I can't prove that that's not true.

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We have no evidence that would point that direction.

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And at this point, we're not pursuing that as a possibility of the problem.

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Eventually, better forensic procedures may help officials cope with mutilations mystery.

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For now, it's an economic burden for the ranchers and a mystery to the community at large.

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We don't know.

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And until we do know from hard evidence obtained at the scene in a forensically responsible way,

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we're just guessing.

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Gail Stalen isn't waiting for the wheels of government to turn in her favor.

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She takes this issue personally and continues to fight the ranchers.

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I'm going to continue investigating these mutilations because I truly believe that

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eventually we will find the answers.

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In November of 1996, John Paternoster was elected district attorney for Taos in the

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surrounding county.

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And he's vowed to continue his fight to get to the bottom of the mutilations mystery.