Sunday 11 November 2018

UFO News Articles:
Focus On the April-June 1978 St. Charles County/
Lincoln County, Missouri, UFO Incidents and Cattle Mutilations


Sources: U.F.O. Newsclipping Service, Plumerville, Arkansas and AFU.se

Many of the UFO incidents and cattle mutilations occurred in the Elsberry area.

Links UFO Sightings To Cattle Mutilations

20 June 1978
(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri)

Quote from the article (Page 18):
“Recent incidents of cattle mutilation and reported sightings of UFOs have left Elsberry residents mystified and a little jittery.

Sam Mayes and Henry Hagemeier, two Elsberry farmers, found cattle mutilated in fields on their farms Saturday. The incident is the fourth in the area within the last two months.

Police Chief John Livengood said he believes the mutilation is related to a reported UFO sighting in the area last weekend.

Water Superintendent Manford Hammond said he spotted a large bright object ‘shaped like two saucers placed upside down on each other’ hovering above a wooded area southeast of town about 10:45 p.m. Sunday.

‘It was like something right out of a Buck Rogers comic strip,’ Hammond said. ‘It wasn’t an airplane, and it wasn’t a balloon; it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen.’

Hammond reported the incident to police, and by Monday afternoon, Livengood  said, about a half dozen other residents had reported similar sightings.

‘I think the mutilations and the sightings are too much of a coincidence not to be related,’ Livengood said.

One farmer, who found a mutilated heifer June 8, reported seeing lights in the sky near his property June 10, 11 and 12, Livengood said.

Livengood said he had contacted UFO researchers in Chicago and St. Louis to act as consultants in the police investigation of both incidents. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department also is conducting an investigation.

Livengood said similar incidents involving mutilation and UFO sightings occurred three years ago in Foley, Mo., about six miles south of Elsberry.

Livengood said he saw a UFO at that time.

Mrs. Hagemeier said there were no tracks in or out of the field where the slain cattle were found. She said a grassy area surrounding the carcasses ‘had been beaten down in a perfect circle.’

No cause of death had been determined for the mutilated carcasses, which were all found within a four- to six-mile radius of each other, spokesmen said.”

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Cattle mutilations, flying lights puzzle Missouri town

21 June 1978
(St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Missouri)

Quote from the article (Page 19):
“The mysterious mutilations of five head of cattle on four farms since April 26 and reports of strange lights have residents of this farming town (Elsberry, Missouri) about 50 miles northwest of St. Louis perplexed and frightened.

FARMERS AND LOCAL authorities aren’t certain about the first two possibilities but not all believe the ‘clean, surgical-type cuts’ found on all of the animals was the work of scavengers.

No blood was found and no tracks, either human or animal, were evident. Farmers interviewed said they have never seen anything like it.

ONE CURIOSITY THAT is baffling authorities are tree limbs taken from the site where the cow and calf were found. The limbs are covered with hundreds of dead flies stuck or frozen in some manner to the branches.

Since the first mutilated cow was found April 26 on the farm of John Mayes, about one mile west of Elsberry, some residents of the town claim they have seen strange orange balls of light and other moving lights in the sky which alternate in color from blinking red to green to orange.

Forrest Gladney, a cattle farmer living 12 miles southwest of Elsberry, found a 200-pound calf mutilated in a pasture about one-eight of a mile behind his farmhouse June 8.

AGAIN THERE WERE no signs of blood, and buzzards and other scavengers didn’t come near the carcass and the body ‘was still limber,’ the farmer noted.

Gladney, his wife Hazel, and 4-year-old daughter Judy witnessed the appearance of strange lights about 9 p.m. Friday night ‘that were not helicopters or airplanes,’ the farmer said.

‘The wife and girl saw them first. A big orange light came from the north and went around to the south. Then there were two other blinking lights that changed in color from red to green and orange. They sat still for a while and then circled around before they sped off faster then a jet. There was no sound,’ Gladney said.”

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Police Draw No Conclusions In Cattle Mutilation Inquiry

24 June 1978
(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri)

Quote from the article (Page 17):
St. Charles County sheriff’s deputies say they will keep an open mind in investigating what is reported to be the fifth incident of cattle mutilation in the western part of the county in two months.

Elsberry police and some residents have linked the mutilations with reported UFO sightings in the area.

He (Sheriff’s Deputy Ray Runyon) said he could find no evidence that vultures or other animals had been feeding on the carcass.”

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Elsberry residents looking to the skies for answer to cattle mutilation mystery

24-25 June 1978
(St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Missouri)

Quote from the article (Page 20):
“Miss (Ruth Ann) Lilley (Elsberrry resident) said her German shepherd, ‘Sergeant,’ has been acting strangely for the last two months, barking in the middle of the night ‘for no reason.’

‘I can’t get him to shut up, and he’s not a barking dog,’ she said.

RAY BURCHETTE said, ‘I’ve been around here since 1935 and I’ve never heard of anything like it. Some of the people are scared.’

Elsberry Police Chief John Livengood said he has received nearly a dozen reports of UFO sightings since last Sunday night.

The most recent was Tuesday night, when Margaret Watts, the editor of the Elsberry Democrat, said she and four other persons spotted ‘an orange light about the size of a volleyball’ hovering west of town about 10:30 p.m.

FOR THE LAST 70 or 80 years there have been reports of cattle mutilations throughout the country, but in recent years the reports have increased.”

http://files.afu.se/Downloads/Magazines/United%20States/UFO%20Newsclipping%20Service/UFO%20Newsclipping%20Service%20-%201978%2007%20-%20no%20108.pdf




















County map of Missouri (lib.utexas.edu)
(lib.utexas.edu image)
















Satellite photo of Elsberry, Missouri (tageo.com)
(tageo.com photo)