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Q:And more recently?

A: You had cases in Canada in the mid 1960s. You had a ton of cases in the late 1970s to the early 1980s in Alberta. The RCMP chief investigator was running himself all over B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan. There were dozens and dozens of reports coming out in the early 1980s.

Q: How many cases have you investigated?

A: Somewhere around 200 (in Colorado and New Mexico). My least favourite thing in the world to do is to get called out on a cattle mutilation investigation. I can’t stand the smell of dead rotting flesh. I can’t stand to see the shock and horror in the rancher’s eyes, to deal with a traumatized family, to deal with law enforcement that feels embarrassed and impotent. To me it’s the stuff of high drama and quite frankly I’m not into high drama. I really don’t like doing it but somebody has got to do it.

Q: So what’s going on?

A: A lot of cases are just scavenger action — magpies, crows, birds. The first thing I look for is cut hair follicles. If a knife or other instrument has gone through and cut the hair in a straight line, I know I have a case that was perpetrated by something with intelligence. Out of 200 cases, 40 of the cases I’ve personally investigated were highly suspect. Out of those, I had 6, maybe 7 cases that really, to me, were just jaw-dropping and scary. It’s really complicated and unless you’re a veterinary pathologist with a budget, you’re not going to be able to come up with a real report that indicates how the animal died and how it was disfigured. This whole thing with UFOS or aliens, sure it sounds great but only one or two per cent of cases have the anecdotal evidence to support that. We’ve also heard of hundreds of cases of helicopters being seen in conjunction with mutilations.