GREENVILLE - Progress is slow in the investigation of a sacred white buffalo and his mother, who were found dead seven weeks ago on a ranch near Greenville.

“We have interviewed a couple of people that we have leads on but as far as anything concrete right now we still don’t have anything,” Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks said Monday.

Lightning Medicine Cloud would have turned 1 on May 12. The calf was born to the herd of Arby Little Soldier, who says he chose the name because the animal was born during a thunderstorm.

To Native Americans, the birth of a white buffalo is considered the most significant of prophetic signs. The website of the Lakota Ranch, where Lightning was born, compares the birth to the weeping statues, bleeding icons, and crosses of light that are becoming prevalent within Christian churches today.

"The arrival of the white buffalo is like the second coming of Christ," says Floyd Hand Looks For Buffalo, an Oglala Medicine Man from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. "It will bring about purity of mind, body, and spirit and unify all nations - black, red, yellow, and white." He sees the birth of a white calf as an omen because they happen in the most unexpected places and often among the poorest people in the nation. The birth of the sacred white buffalo provides those within the Native American community with a sense of hope and an indication that good times are to come.

A naming ceremony on June 29, 2011 brought together hundreds.

The message brought by Lightning Medicine Cloud, as Little Soldier references below in the days after the white calf’s death, is "still in our hearts and in our minds.”

A report concerning the nature of the deaths of Lightning and his mother, Buffalo Woman, is still being examined at Crossroads Veterinary Clinic in Greenville.

“We should have that within a week or so,” said Sheriff Meeks, who added he hopes the investigation can produce some solid evidence within the next 30 days.

Talk of the sacred white buffalo’s death is still active through social media.

Upon completion of the investigation, the Lakota Ranch is expected to again house a white buffalo, courtesy of Cynthia Hart-Button. The president and founder of Sacred World Peace Church in Oregon has a record 14 white bison. Hart-Button has offered to provide the ranch Chief Hiawatha, in hopes that the buffalo will serve as protection for the ranch and also help produce another white calf.

At last check, a reward for information leading the arrest of the person or persons responsible had exceeded $50,000, thanks to an outpouring of support from people across the nation.