- He stops short of pointing the finger at aliens, but
Ray Riguidel swears what he saw in his pasture last Friday evening couldn't
have been done by humans or animals.
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- Riguidel, 68, has been farming near Paradise Hill his
entire life. During that time he's lost his share of cattle under various
circumstances, but the 10-year-old cow he lost this weekend was far different
from the rest.
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- The udder was gone, one eye and ear had been removed
and the sex organs were torn away. The remaining 50 or so cattle in the
pasture had congregated as far away from the corpse as possible.
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- There were no tire tracks or footprints. There was no
sign of a struggle.
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- Perhaps most bizarre, however, was a glaring lack of
blood despite the numerous and carefully crafted incisions into the carcass.
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- "When you see a cow go down, you go look, but I
didn't have to look twice," said Riguidel. "There was a guy with
me, and we both popped our eyes.
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- "I've heard about (cow mutilations) before, but
it never really sunk in," he said.
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- "But it's sunk in now. It's real."
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- Cow mutilations are a relatively recent phenomenon, with
the earliest documented cases dating back to the mid-1900s. While cows
have been the main targets in the cases reported throughout North America,
less frequent victims have included deer, elk, horses, lambs and dogs.
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- In some cases, UFO sightings have been reported near
the mutilation sites. And even though skeptics will scoff at these extra-terrestrial
accounts, no surveillance team has ever come up with any rational explanation
for what took place.
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- After talking to a friend, Riguidel was encouraged to
call Fernand Belzil, a rancher from St. Paul who's been investigating cow
mutilations for the past eight years.
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- Belzil - commonly known around St. Paul as the 'UFO guy'
- has done documentaries on his findings with The Fifth Estate and Life
Network. He's conducted numerous radio interviews with stations throughout
North America, and has put together an hour-and-a-half presentation he
gives in communities throughout Canada.
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- Another documentary with Red Star Films from Halifax
is in the works and should be completed later this summer. Although he
gets paid for presentations and the town of St. Paul has offered to pay
the gas bills he incurs travelling to investigations, Belzil doesn't charge
individual farmers a cent.
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- "The reason I get so much publicity is because I'm
the only (mutilation investigator) in Canada," said Belzil. "I'm
the type of guy you don't ask what's new, because I could probably bore
you for an hour or two."
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- Belzil visited Riguidel's farm this past Sunday, and
based on his initial observations, he thinks the mutilation is authentic
- meaning not the work of predators or a human hoax.
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- Upon visiting a mutilation site, Belzil uses a metal
detector, Geiger counter and compass to record any abnormal electric, magnetic
and radioactive properties. He also takes soil samples from around the
animal - along with a controlled sample from 35 metres away - and sends
all the evidence he obtains to a lab in Michigan for testing.
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- In most cases, he says the culprits usually take the
tongue, one ear, one eye and the udder. Sex organs such as the scrotum,
rectum and uterus are also routinely amputated. Predators, birds and other
animals generally won't come near the mutilated carcass for anywhere from
a few days to upwards of a month.
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- Although Belzil has ranched for years, none of his cattle
have ever been harmed - although one did mysteriously disappear many years
ago - and he has never personally seen a UFO. His interest in these less-than-ordinary
investigations started after visiting a mutilation site in Makwa, Sask.
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- "It just kind of snowballed from there, and it's
been one hell of a deal ever since," said Belzil. "It kind of
just opened up a can of worms.
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- "I guess I believe in UFOs, but I'd sure like to
see one first," he said. "We're naïve to believe we're alone
in this universe, but I guess that's just my opinion."
-
- George Larre, another rancher about 32 kilometres south
of Riguidel's farm, had a similar mutilation take place about five years
ago. While the scene itself was gruesome enough, he said the behaviour
of other animals in the area was equally disconcerting.
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- "The first thing I noticed was her calf wasn't there,
none of the cattle were there. They had all moved to the far end of the
pasture and didn't come back for 10 days to two weeks," said Larre,
59.
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- "I went there, and there was no sign of absolutely
anything. But there was a fair bit of pasture that year, so if anyone went
there with a vehicle there should have been tracks or something, and there
wasn't," he said.
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- Although Larre didn't put much faith in extra-terrestrial
life before this incident, he doesn't think these stories are so far-fetched
any more.
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- "If you haven't seen it, I wouldn't expect anyone
to believe it. But if you really see one for yourself, and you understand
what coyotes will do, you know it's not predators," he said. "Some
people say it's from up above, and I don't know. I'm not going to say it
is or it isn't. But when you see absolutely no clues and no reason, you
really have to wonder."
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- Riguidel said he plans to leave the rotting corpse in
his pasture to see if any birds or animals will start feeding on the carcass.
But since Friday, nothing other than some interested neighbours and a few
flies have even come close.
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- http://www.meridianbooster.com/story.php?id=166883
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