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“4. First Mutilation
Jim: Shortly after that, the oldest boy, Joe, had his friends out from Denver. They were out going through the woods this was a Sunday morning and they found our first mutilated cow about 200 yards from the house up over the hill. They came back in a panic. They were both 16-years-old. It was snowing heavily and we decided the first thing to do was get into town and get the law officer. The boys were pretty upset and we took some time to talk to them because they felt that something was following them to get them. I assumed it was a natural paranoia.We went out and I followed the route and we found huge footprints that had followed them all the way from the cow to the horse barn and the footprints were even in the soft manure inside the horse barn. They were, I guess, 18 inches long. I didn’t measure them, but they were quite large what you would call a ‘big foot’ footprint.
Then immediately, I decided to go get the law officer. I went to the nearest phone and called the law officer and told him I wanted him out right away. He said he would be out next Wednesday. I explained the footprints. He said he could not make it. But there was a bad snowstorm and he did not show up the next Wednesday. When we went out the next day, all the footprints in the snow had been removed, even our own footprints. All of them were just gone. That was pretty upsetting and I was pretty angry with the law officer by that time.
The mutilation was discovered early Sunday morning. The boys came back about 9 a.m. and the footprints were there all day Sunday. But Monday morning they were all gone. The law officer did not show up, which angered me. Wednesday, when he was supposed to show up, he still did not and we still had a mutilated cow. The teats were removed surgically the sac under the teats was not perforated. One eye was missing. One ear was missing. And that was it. There was no blood. All the blood had been removed. And there were no tracks in the snow around the cow. It was just there mutilated. John states that the rectum was also removed.
Barbara: There were some funny looking markings in the snow and we found out later they were caused by owls. We found that it took two weeks after a mutilation before any of the wild animals would touch it.
5. Second Mutilation
Jim: Fourteen days after the first mutilation, a friend of ours from California, a forest ranger, stopped to visit. We went out walking and were showing the ranch to him and other friends, including a photographer, Roger, who had been hired from Denver to take pictures of the mutilated cow. We found our second mutilation, a bull, as we were walking over the property and the bull was not ours!
Subsequently, I went into town and called the law officer. He said he would like to talk to me, so we met at a restaurant in town. I asked him why I had not heard from him and why he was not trying to solve this. He explained to me that they knew what the mutilations were and they had known for some time. They only report one our of four and in this county alone, there had been over 400 reports by that time. It was being done by extraterrestrials and they had spoken to the FBI about it. I told him that I could not believe it. I said that I could believe that an intelligent race could travel across space, but to do some of the things they had done to the cow and bull stretched my credulity a little too far. I told him that if he could not solve the crime, at least don’t blame it on something like that. I made an enemy of the man and I frankly did not care because we had lost two cattle.
6. Chased by Dark Shape
Jim: The photographer asked if he could come out the next weekend and bring a friend, Harry, with him. These two and Steve, who worked for us, were standing in front of a log cabin about 10 o’clock at night when they heard a strange noise coming from the cistern which is southeast from the house and about 60 yards up the slope in the direction of the burned spot. All of a sudden, after listening to this noise, a huge, dark object pushed its way through the barbed wire and came straight at them down the hill. They all came running into the house. I went running out right away to catch whatever it was, and then I thought they were putting me on. We subsequently went back and traced the route and sure enough, there were footprints. I removed some of the hair from the fence, noticing that it just pushed its way through the barbed wire it didn’t jump the fence. But just by force alone (something) spread it and went through. There were long strands of hair I collected the hair and got photographs of the footprints coming to the house.
By then, I was getting more and more upset about the activities that were building up continuously over a period of time. I sent some of the hairs down to Denver to a biogeneticist for examination. His report later was ‘no known species.’ By then, I was collecting books and discovered that other people had sent in hair and nothing had ever come of it. One law officer was encouraging me to keep my mouth shut about it because he did not want a full-scale panic in the county. I told him I wasn’t interested in panics I was interested in finding out who was mutilating my cattle.
7. Disk Cruises by House
Barbara: It got very heavy after that. The closest you can define it is an emotional attack of some kind. Everyone went into absolute feelings of fear and depression with no stimulant. I have very tractable children; it is amazing how well they get along. But everyone was fighting with everyone. Just a lot of little paranoid incidents, one after the other.
Jim: By this time, I was sleeping on the couch in front of the door with the gun and staying awake most of the night to catch whoever it was. I was beginning to suspect that somehow the real estate man was involved in it; that he was trying to make us break the contract so he could resell the land. I was lying on the couch about 2 a.m. There was a humming noise again and I raised up and looked out the window. The disk came out of the north across our property, very slowly, right in front of the front windows and went up the gully past the whole front of the house.
Barbara: I did not see the disk. What I saw was the glow from the disk my bedroom was on the other extreme of the house and I could see a glow over a slight hump. I screamed and Jim came running to tell me what he had seen.
8. Friend’s Car Chased by Disk
Jim: By then, I was getting a little more upset and I went into town. Two of our best friends owned the restaurant and we sat down and we talked to them about it. they then opened up and told us about the property and some of the unusual occurrences. They told us about the people down the road who had just moved into the county and had mentioned an incident just prior to that. Prior to our moving out there, their cousin and nephew were going down the road past our property. A disk allegedly came off of our property (it was not ours at that time) and followed the car. They went down the road, turned the corner, and pulled into their house. They ran inside and while all the people in the house watched, the disk hovered over the car for approximately 45 minutes. Later, she went into town and talked about it. After hearing this, I went back to the law officer (Sheriff George Yarnell’s deputy) and apologized; I had to eat crow over the fact that there obviously was something going on. We subsequently patched up the friendship and I think we are so-so friends now.
Barbara: He has been very supportive in coming out to help when we have had problems.
Jim: And he (deputy sheriff) moved out there by us shortly thereafter and told me that he frankly was quite scared, but that it was his (law enforcement) duty. He did not feel that he could do anything, but that if we needed him, he would come. This made us feel a little bit better.
9. Neighbor Has Seen Lights for Years
Jim: We found out that there was a ‘Crazy Lady’ in the county. We had heard a lot of stories of her calling the law officers with stories of lights over our property, before we moved in.
10. Apparent Harassment by Hairy Creature
Jim: During this time, I felt that something was trying to scare us away. We heard a slamming noise and I went out car-to-car, but did not see anything. Then I saw the trunk light on the dash of the Cadillac. The trunk was locked. I opened it and saw that the pin switch had been bent over to the side. Something had opened and closed the trunk and bent it when only I had the key. I again filed that as something unusual.
Something would continuously come up and beat on the sides of the house twice and run you know, just like Halloween. Again, I decided it was the real estate man. I went down and talked to the law officer again. He requested that I not shoot anything. He was afraid that whatever it was could shoot back harder much more undesirably than I could. So, it continued progressively for some time after that beating on the walls and running. I would run out and I would see a big hairy thing running. I was tolerating it to a certain degree.
One night, I went out and one was running beside the corral and I shot it. Barbara came running out and when Harry and Roger came back from town, we went tracking to see if we could find what I had shot. It did not seem to hurt it at all. There was a little flinch I’m a good shot, so I know I hit it. There was no blood, no traces, no signs (on the ground). We pursued it on to the property next to us. Then I heard this most unusual sound. they said it was like a double sound it was a whine with almost a beeping noise intermixed. The closest sound I think I could describe it to is the South American primate of some type. Some people said it sounded mechanical. It did not to me. And we roamed around looking, but did not find anything except we seemed to be led in a certain direction. We did not find anything. We returned to the house and I notified the law officer (deputy) that I had shot one. He gave me hell and told me I was lucky this time and he did not want anybody killed.
11. Communications
Jim: They stopped bothering us quite so bad, I think, after that. We came home one night after shopping the three boys were alone at home. That same sound was going on to the east and one up by the barn (west) like calling back and forth. It was like they had an intelligent pattern of communication. It was broken syllables it was not like animal sounds. It was like it was their communication.
I joked and said, ‘Well, the least you can do is come down and help us carry the groceries.’ When we went in, the three boys were hidden in the back bedroom, terrified. From what they said, something had been beating on the house continually that night. Well, I have a pretty good temper which I have lost only three or four times in my life. I stormed outside I don’t remember exactly what I said, but most of it can’t be repeated. I think I threatened that if we can’t have the land, then you won’t either I’ll blow the whole thing away. I meant it, too. I would have destroyed it before I would have moved right then I was so mad.
I went into the house, had some coffee and calmed down. Then, since our septic tank and toilet were not working, I went outside. While outside, this voice just came out of nowhere and said four words: ‘Dr. Jim, we accept.’ I think that was the first time I was really shaken, rather than just angered or disoriented. That was all just like FM stereo, it came from everywhere. I came in the house and was pretty upset.
12. Cars Damaged
Jim: One night ‘it’ destroyed two cars. Barbara has a green Cadillac and a station wagon. One night when we went to leave, the transmissions on both cars were inoperable. We had to have both cars repaired. Again, I assume ‘they’ did it; I’ve never had two transmissions go out like that on two good cars. I again felt that we were being driven off and I was still trying to believe it was the real estate man. Both cars required total transmissions as all the gears were shot.
13. Shiny Black Box
Barbara: I was not feeling well that night and I went back to lie down in the dark for awhile. I had pulled the drape part way on the window creating a triangular area. There were some patches of snow outside and from where I was lying on the bed, the triangular area was lit up by a background of snow patches. I lit a cigarette and as the match went out, I realized that the triangular area was not lit up anymore.
I scrambled down to the foot of the bed and looked out. I could see only a middle section of something that looked like a box. It was black and very shiny. It was not lit, but looked like it reflected light. There was a rounded shape around it it looked like something was carrying it under his arm. It was close to the window within about two to three feet. There is a line of trees behind the house and it was between the trees and the house. The trees are about four or five feet from the house. I ran in to tell everyone what had happened. We ran outside and, as usual, no one could find anything. This has happened more often than not. By the time you tell someone, or get your coat on, you could not find anything. But we found that if we did not turn the porch light on, we could get out quickly enough to hear something.
14. More Harassment
Jim: There were many smaller incidents that were unnerving. A friend of mine from Boston came out, but I finally had to tell him to go back. He was becoming paranoid and thought that whatever it was had come to get him; he was going to go out and let them get him because he could not stand waiting any longer. We had several friends come out who were harassed one way or the other or terrified; a car door opened and closed when it was locked. I went in and talked to the law officer again. If he really felt we were in any danger, I would move the boys. He said that nobody he knew of had been hurt. They had lost horses, a lot of cattle and animals of one kind or another and people had been terrified. The mutilations were going on at a much heavier rate during this period this was 1976 the mutilations were occurring weekly.
15. Neighbor Family Terrified, Move Away
Jim: About that time, the school bus driver, who was watching a large ranch for the owners and had some cattle of his own, moved back to Nebraska after being terrified. His son’s yearling was mutilated and the boy evidently saw something that terrified him.
Barbara: His mother came over and asked me if we had seen anything like her son had seen because his father had not believed him. He had seen something very large and was really scared. I did not want to discuss it because of the children, but said that we had had some strange occurrences.”
Continued in Part 3 Nine Disks Land in Front of House
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