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.”
_________________________________________________
“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.”
_________________________________________________
“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.”
_________________________________________________
“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.
(lib.utexas.edu image)
Satellite photo of Elsberry,
Missouri (tageo.com)
(tageo.com photo)
.jpg)
