I’ve seen the Linda Howe tape where she shows the cattle and explains that bugs and birds and so on don’t make such evenly perfect holes when they eat the soft parts of the dead cattle, so it must be something or someONE else doing it, and she has records of cattle mutilations happening all over the world. So I looked on the skeptics sites and the individual debunkers and I find that they don’t answer what has been found: 1) they don’t bother to explain the evenness of the holes–they just say well of course the insects and birds eat the soft parts, because it is easier than going through hide. It’s like they change the subject and then act like they’ve disproved something.
2) they say there is no proof of cattle mutilations happening all over the world, but Linda Howe supposedly offers proof, so here the debunkers just ignore something and think they have solved the mystery (or claim that there never was a mystery in the first place) 3) the ones I looked at anyway, ignore the whole factor of the blood being completely missing or else they say it “dried up”! 4) What about the respectable veterinarians who report that no known scavengers work the way the cattle mutilators work? 5)What about the fact that the organs are not just like eaten off, but excised down deep and even? And so forth.
According to this source, blowflies are behind cattle mutilations.
“Oh, that was Carl’s fault. He’s new.”
“My bad.”
If you go to this site and scroll through the images, you’ll see those responsible.
Moo moo moo MOOO moo moo.
Or, Ms. Howe is simply mistaken.
Don, you seem bound and determined to convert all us skeptics (aka “logical realists”) here on the SDMB and it’s not going to work. To address your numbered points:
- I don’t interpret the debunkers as changing the subject. I think they give a logical explanation of why the soft parts are eaten and not the tough outer hide. Linda Howe, on the other hand, doesn’t “prove” anything either by saying that birds don’t eat in that way. That’s her opinion, that’s all – she’s not a biologist, zoologist, or ornithologist, is she?
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Linda Howe doesn’t offer “proof” of cattle mutilations all over the world. She says that these so-called “mutilations” are caused by aliens. She says that birds don’t eat that way. That’s not proof, that’s her lay opinion.
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None of the skeptic accounts I have read say that the missing blood must have “dried up.” I don’t think any reputable scientist – and there are plenty who think Linda Howe is a nutjob or at least seriously misguided – would say that many pints of blood can “dry up” in dead animals. They say that blood naturally pools in the body cavity of a dead animal (or person, for that matter), and it is possible to cut quite deeply and not draw any blood.
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Maybe some veterinarians do believe that scavengers don’t feed in such a way to cause these wounds. That’s their opinion – many other vets, biologists, and scientists believe that the “cattle mutilation” wounds are exactly what happens when insects, small animals, and birds eat a dead carcass.
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Reputable scientists don’t say that the organs are “excised” deep down and evenly. They are excised the way you would expect if an animal with extremely sharp, razor-like teeth (which many small animals have) had eaten the dead cow.
Don, do you really think if the aliens were capable of visiting Earth that all they’d be doing is mutilating cows and trying to fool us into believing that animals did it? Why is it that no cattle inside clean enclosed pens inside cowsheds are mutilated? What, the aliens have a fear of interiors? Could it just maybe be that no insects or animals are able to get at any cow that might die inside an enclosed interior pen?
“… so Eisenhower says ‘Hey! Give us your technology, and you can have all the cow lips you want!’”
The Skeptic’s Dictionary’s entry on cattle mutilation addresses many of these points and even mentions Ms. Howe. They also have several links to related items.
Here is one quote:
*The belief that aliens have been killing and mutilating animals is supported by little more than an argument from ignorance: since there is a lack of evidence that aliens aren’t responsible for the deaths or the post mortem conditions of the animals, it follows that the aliens are responsible. Defenders of this view reject the notion that there could be an earthly and naturalistic explanation. They are convinced that aliens need cow blood and organs for their experiments. What seems most convincing to the alien theorists is that “wounds” and missing organs such as the tongue and the genitalia seem completely inexplicable to them in any but mysterious terms, i.e., alien surgeons. Naturalistic explanations in terms of predators (skunks, buzzards, weasels, etc.), insects (such as blowflies), and birds are to no avail, even though the most thorough examination of so-called cattle “mutilations” concluded there was nothing mysterious that needed explaining (see the Rommel report). It is useless to note that insects and animals often devour the vulnerable mucous membranes and the softer parts of dead animals such as the genitalia, instead of trying to burrow through the cowhide. It is pointless to note that incisions to a carcass by the teeth of predators/scavengers often resemble knife cuts. It is of no use to point out that there is little or no blood oozing from the wounds because blood settles, the heart does not pump when an animal is dead, insects devour the blood that does spill out, etc. *
Aliens? Nonsense. It’s just a result of all those guys who have hooked up with vegearian gals. The dudes don’t dare eat dead things at home now, so they sneak about at night carving hunks out of cattle and munching away.