-
- In the first two parts of this essay,
I discussed Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(BSE), also known as "Mad Cow Disease," and recent admissions
by British Government Officials that this is a species-jumper and that
some of the British blood supply is likely contaminated. I also discussed
the connection between bovine excision sites and unmarked helicopters in
35 cases in Northern Alabama in 1992 & 1993. In Part #3 I will discuss
other facts and events not covered in the previous two installments.
-
- By February, 1993 another phenomenon
appeared in and over DeKalb, Jackson, Cherokee and Marshall counties --
UFOs.
-
- In early February of 1993, Reverend Roger
Watkins and his family were startled at 3 a.m. A sound "like a tornado,
or freight train" woke them up, according to Brother Roger. Looking
out their bedroom window, they saw a large illuminated disc shaped object,
with multi colored lights on its rim, moving in opposite directions. The
disc hovered over their cow pasture at fence level. It finally ascended
and disappeared into the sky. The next morning they found their goldfish
bowl empty. The fish were lying dead on the table covered in water, but
the bowl was still upright. The family dog was missing, never to be seen
again.
-
- Rev. Watkins' family had seen this same
object four years earlier during the UFO wave of 1989. At that time, Rev.
Watkins was out of town preaching at a revival in another state. He got
an unexpected phone call from his son Chris, who described the mutli-colored
flying saucer that flew over his mother's car while they were driving near
Gilbert's Crossroads. It was the same location where the Fyffe Police had
seen a large triangular shaped object fly silently over them a week before.
-
- Chris was very upset, so much so that
Rev. Watkins came home a day early to be with his family. Mrs. Watkins
wasn't disturbed at all, in fact she dropped Chris off at home while she
drove back to Gilbert's Crossroads, in search of the mysterious object.
It would be four years before the entire Watkins family got their own,
private light show, courtesy of the same flying disc.
-
- This time, the UFO caused an uproar at
the Rainsville First Baptist Church where Rev. Watkins had been pastor
for the last seven years. Seven years that saw his flock grow from a little
under a hundred to over four hundred parishioners. When word got out that
the Watkins had seen a UFO, it started a chain of events that spelled doom
for the pastor. Rumors and lies were circulated throughout the parishioners
and clergy.
-
- Then when journalist Linda Moulton Howe
arrived on Sand Mountain, I recommended that she talk to Rev. Watkins.
After he agreed to be interviewed on camera, the clergy took Rev. Watkins
aside. They told him they didn't want him to go on camera, that "It
wasn't any body's business." Watkins backed down and canceled the
interview. But the pressure didn't stop. Private plans were made to "get
rid of" Rev. Watkins. Friends betrayed him and turned a cold shoulder
on their pastor, the man who had made their church grow. (No good deed
goes un-punished.) When his departure became imminent, Rev. Watkins changed
his mind and went ahead with the on-camera interview. It was the end of
his career at Rainsville's First Baptist Church.
-
- What makes Rev. Watkins' story equally
important is the fact that he is also a cattle farmer. Though the UFO hovered
over his pasture, the cows were not molested. So here's a case where UFOs
were seen over a cow pasture at 3 a.m., but there were no mutilations.
It's important to consider that fact because the cattle mutilations that
did occur, started in October of 1992, four months before UFOs were first
reported. Though the mutilations continued during the UFO wave of 1993,
they were never reported at the same time or locations of the crime scenes.
The aliens had an alibi. It doesn't mean they weren't involved, just
that nobody ever connected them to the crimes law enforcement officials
were investigating. But although there were no UFOs, there were plenty
of unidentified helicopters.
-
- Flip-Flopping Veterinarians, The Silencing
of Law Enforcement & State Employees.
-
- The first five months of the investigations
into mysterious livestock deaths was conducted in concert by the Fyffe
Police Department, The Albertville Police Department and The Alabama Department
of Public Safety, particularly the Alabama State Troopers. My partners
in this investigation, Chief of Detectives Tommy Cole, Albertville Police,
and Ron Ogletree, Post Commander of the State Troopers, were actively involved
in the investigation. They, like myself, made several statements about
the reality of these crimes to the local and outside news media. Tommy
Cole appeared on CNN after being quoted in many newspaper headlines. Sgt.
Ogletree also made statements about the investigation and was quoted as
well. They were important allies in the investigation and their public
statements helped back up what I was telling reporters.
-
- Veterinarians also were of great help,
in the beginning of the investigations. Vets would initially show a great
deal of interest in the cases, and were glad to show up in the pastures,
examine the carcasses and even perform autopsies in the field, or accept
the animals into their labs for analysis. When Tommy Cole lost his steer
on January 9, 1997, He called Dr. Adams, a local Albertville veterinarian.
Dr. Adams took fluid samples from the animal's eye, and he also took blood
samples. When Dr. Adams called Chief Detective Cole back, he reported neither
he nor the State Labs at Auburn University could determine the cause of
the steer's death. But he was still interested and was willing again to
inspect another fresh mutilation case in Albertville, should it occur.
It did.
-
- On January 14, 1993 a local cow farmer
found his 10 year old cross-bred Gert cow mutilated and dead with an enormous,
mysterious round wound in its hind quarters. This looked totally different
from any of the other cases Cole, Ogletree and I had investigated. Not
only had this cow's sex organs been removed, but there was a large, irregular
incision around the entire hind quarters. We called Dr. Adams and he performed
an autopsy on site. He also took blood and eye fluid samples. He couldn't
determine the cause of death from what he inspected, but promised to send
the physical evidence to Auburn for analysis.
-
- As Chief Detective Cole and I left the
crime scene, he looked at me and asked what I thought. "This is a
diversion, Tommy, it's not what we've been seeing." Tommy agreed,
"No it isn't." "Somebody is trying to throw us off, and
I think that cow's been cut on twice. I think the original incisions have
been excised." Tommy just looked at me and didn't say anything.
I drove home and got ready for work, not looking forward to another 18
hour day.
-
- I called Tommy a week later to see what
the Vet told him. "He hasn't returned my call," explained the
Chief of Detectives. I called Dr. Adams, but he couldn't come to the phone.
His secretary took my number, but he never called me back. Finally I
got him on the phone and he said he couldn't explain the animal's cause
of death. I asked him about Tommy Cole's steer that he had examined two
weeks earlier, and he denied ever taking blood or fluid samples. I called
Tommy Cole who said, "That's a damn lie, he did too, I watched him
do it."
-
- Then Tommy Cole tried calling Dr. Adams
but his secretary explained that he was busy. Cole called again, but the
doctor wasn't in. After that Dr. Adams never again returned our calls,
or talked to us. Tommy and I just hunched our shoulders and threw up
our hands in dismay. Soon this became a recurring theme.
-
- In Fyffe, I took crime scene photographs
to veterinarian Dr. Danny Thrash. I explained that we were investigating
these strange deaths and if he ever saw something suspicious, I wanted
to know about it. I didn't have to wait long. On February 1, 1997 I got
a call from Dr. Thrash saying he'd just received a call from a ranch hand
in the Grove Oak community, just outside of Fyffe. He asked me to meet
him at his office and we'd ride out together.
-
- When we arrived at the Glen Fricks ranch,
a cowboy met us at the gate and escorted us out to the crime scene. There
were two cows in various states of decay. One was missing its udder and
jaw, while the other was missing it's rectum and vagina. All the incisions
were clean and bloodless. Dr. Thrash and I examined the animals and took
pictures. On the way back to the Vet's office Dr. Thrash said it indeed
"Looked suspicious" to him, but we agreed the animals were too
far gone to determine the cause of death. We left it at that until the
local newspaper reporter, Steven Smith, called and interviewed us. Dr.
Thrash made a statement that echoed mine, and it went it the newspaper.
A week later Dr., Thrash was interviewed again in another newspaper. This
time he said, "This whole thing is getting blown out of proportion,"
and contradicted his previous statements by saying, "Predators are
probably responsible for these two cases." When I read that in the
newspaper I called Dr. Thrash and challenged his reversal. He got mad
at me and we never spoke again.
-
- On February 4, 1997 I decided to get
an early start and drop in on Chief Detective Cole in Albertville. I sat
down across from his desk and we started talking about what we thought
should be done next. Tommy explained that he'd talked to the State Diagnostic
Lab in Boaz and they'd be willing to look at the next case we investigated,
as long as the animal was "fresh."
-
- Five minutes into our conversation, the
phone rang. It was DeKalb County Sheriff's Department Assistant Chief
Deputy Dale Orr. He wanted Tommy to meet him at the Waymon J. Buttram ranch
in the Martling Community. Though it was in Marshall County, in Tommy
Cole's jurisdiction, the call had gone to DeKalb County. We hopped in
Tommy's unmarked police car and arrived at the scene around 10 a.m. When
we pulled up, we were greeted by Dale Orr who recognized me and said, "How
the hell did you know to be here?". I just grinned and followed
him out to the crime scene. Soon Sgt. Ogletree arrived, and as usual,
his presence made the locals breath easier. They all knew and respected
him. Sgt. Ogletree has a great reputation with the locals, because his
professionalism, like Chief Detective Cole's, was unparalleled. Soon other
officers and ranchers arrived, and everyone was deeply concerned.
-
- We examined the crime scene. It was
a black Angus cow and it lay on its right side. There was a tear drop
shaped incision on its left jaw, and it was very bloody. The animal had
been dead for about seven hours, but the blood hadn't coagulated, and was
still flowing out of the animal. Dale Orr called DeKalb County Sheriff
Harold Richards on the radio and advised him about what he had found.
We waited for him to arrive, and Dale handed me his camera and asked me
to take pictures for him, and made me promise to give him copies of all
the photos I was taking. Soon, the rest of the cows in this pasture "surrounded"
us.
-
- They had to be scared off twice before
Sheriff Richards arrived and examined the animal. He agreed it looked
suspicious. At that point Tommy Cole took over the investigation. He
asked me what I thought we should do. I just looked at him with a cocked
eyebrow. He said to me, "You want to take it to the State Lab and
have it examined right?" I nodded, and we loaded it up into rancher
Buttram's livestock trailer. Tommy called the State Lab and made arrangements.
While we were waiting, a helicopter flew over the southern edge of the
pasture. I took a picture of it. Then we drove to the Sate Diagnostic
Lab at Boaz and tracked down the Lab director, Dr. Rick Sharpton.
-
- When we had finished unloading the animal,
and attached it to a chain hoist, we all heard a helicopter approaching.
I went outside with Tommy to look, and we saw a black Hughes helicopter
fly directly over us. We went back inside and said nothing about it.
-
- We told Dr. Sharpton what we wanted to
know. Then we watched as the blood was washed from the jaw, revealing
the large, tear drop incision. He stripped the hide off the cow, looking
for bruises or other injuries. None were found. Then the whole cow was
dissected, piece by piece. Dr. Sharpton couldn't find anything unusual,
outside of the jaw excision. We asked him what he thought, "It looks
like this was done with a sharp knife, by someone experienced with field
stripping animals." He echoed this sentiment, under condition of
anonymity, to a local newspaper.
-
- For the next week at the Buttram ranch,
the remaining herd defecated and urinated all over the site where the
animal was originally found, as if it would make what had happened, go
away. The remaining livestock were noticeably upset.
-
- The silencing of Dr. Rick Sharpton, director
of the State Lab at Boaz.
-
- A week later the TV camera crew from
"Sightings" arrived in Alabama to cover the story. Dr. Sharpton
agreed to meet with them for an interview. When he did, his boss, Dr. Lee
Alley, the State Veterinarian, was looking over his shoulder. With the
camera rolling, Dr. Sharpton totally reversed his prior position, explaining
that it was "All the work of predators." Dr. Alley also went
on camera explaining that Tommy Cole, Sgt. Ogletree and I didn't know what
we were talking about, because of our inexperience.
-
- A week later, Dr. Sharpton had "resigned"
as director of the State Lab. I asked Tommy about it and he said that
he learned Sharpton had "resigned under fire." He had been
pressured out. This was our third case of flip-flopping veterinarians.
It was our 20th livestock mutilation case in four months.
-
- On February 6, 1997 I got a call from
Geraldine Police dispatcher Corey Dobson. He told me he'd just heard about
a new case near Crossville and gave me the directions to the crime scene.
By the time I got there, the Crossville Police Chief, Ron West, and Dekalb
County Sheriff's Department Assistant Chief Deputy, Dale Orr, had already
left the scene. The farmer took me to the crime scene, explaining that
he'd heard a helicopter over his pasture the previous evening, but he
hadn't thought anything about it until he found his calf dead. I asked
him how knew it was hovering over his pasture? He replied, "I used
to fly choppers invite Nam, and I know what a hovering helicopter sounds
like."
-
- I decided not to argue with him, and
inspected the victim. This cross-bred beef calf was lying on its right
side, with an enormous circle of hide missing from its back, neck and rib
cage, and much muscle was missing. The esophagus was exposed and an eight
inch length of it was missing. It appeared to have been snipped cleanly
by a pair of scissors, and there was foam at the end of each side. There
was still color in the animal's blue eyes, and they were just beginning
to get cloudy.
-
- This animal was alive when it was cut,
and it hadn't been dead long. I looked closely at the cuts on the animal
and found no blood on the hide or ground. The farmer told me that the
police who had just been there told him it was the work of predators.
They had offered that explanation before they looked at the animal! When
they did inspect it, they just said the same thing, "Yeah, that look's
like predators all right, go ahead and bury it." They didn't even
file an incident/offense report.
-
- There was minor damage on some of the
tissue from scavenging or predatory animals. I could understand how the
previous investigators thought it might have been the work of predators,
but it still didn't add up. I told the farmer that the incision looked
like it had been made by a straight edge of some kind, and that he should
have a veterinarian look at it. He took my advice and called Dr. Creel
in Boaz, and the Vet came out and examined the carcass.
-
- Dr. Creel agreed with me and said, "I
don't know what killed it, but animals were not involved in it's death."
Dr. Creel stuck to his guns and never flip flopped. He was the exception
to the rule.
-
- By mid-February, these cases were the
talk of police in both Marshall & DeKalb Counties. At month's end,
I had filled out 12 reports covering 14 strange livestock deaths. Even
without considering the sinister agencies causing them, the crimes by themselves
were very disturbing. Large animals had been incapacitated and vivisected
in plain view of ranch houses and farms. One was even found outside a
bedroom window. Nobody heard anything except barking dogs at 3 a.m., which
were ignored. Then came the grizzly discoveries.
-
- While 90% of the farmers reported seeing
helicopters before or after their animals were found dead, no one saw them
at the critical time. This made me wonder, until I got a call from local
gun dealer and pilot, Clyde Barksdale. He told me that the previous evening
he arrived home and was walking around his house when he looked up and
saw a helicopter flying only two hundred feet above him. He said it was
almost silent. Clyde is also a helicopter pilot, and he couldn't understand
why it only made a faint sound. "Whisssp whisssp, whisssp,"
he imitated the chopper's sound. "I couldn't believe it," he
explained. A silent helicopter. A silent helicopter?
-
- The Silencing of Sgt. Ron Ogletree.
-
- One evening in late February when I was
on duty in Fyffe, I met with Alabama State Trooper Ron Ogletree, who was
post commander in Gadsden. Ron and I had been working together on the
livestock cases for four months together. He explained that his boss in
Montgomery had instructed him to cease interviews with the media. "No
more talk about Cattle Mutilations, no more talk about UFOs, you're out
of the business." Ron just took it in stride. He never spoke to
the media again. I took it in stride too. Then it happened again.
-
- The Silencing of Chief of Detectives
Tommy Cole.
-
- It was about a month later when the Boston
Globe came to Sand Mountain to interview Tommy Cole and me. I finished
the interview and drove with the reporter to Albertville, where we were
scheduled to meet Tommy. When I arrived I went into the Albertville Police
Department, but was denied entry.
-
- Tommy Cole came out the back door and
took me aside, away from the reporter. He wanted to talk privately. "Ted,
I can't talk to this guy, I'm sorry. I've been told not to talk about
it any more." He looked irritated but resigned to the fact that he
wasn't allowed to talk to the media. I walked back to the Globe reporter
and explained that the Chief of Detectives had been ordered to keep his
mouth shut. He looked at me suspiciously, but accepted it, and gave me
a ride back to Fyffe.
-
- Snow Job. The Silencing of the entire
Law Enforcement Community.
-
- A special, secret briefing was organized
and police officers and deputies from both counties were invited. Every
police department, that is, except Fyffe. DeKalb County Chief Of Detectives
Mike James ( A direct descendent of Frank and Jesse James) and his drinking
buddy, Tom Price from the Marshall County Sheriff's Department, started
the briefing and introduced David Pratt, a jewelry salesman from Chattanooga,
Tennessee. They described him as a man who had been involved in so-called
"cattle mutilations" while a member of a secret, well funded
"Satanic Cult." Pratt outlined how the "cult" he was
once a "member" of was responsible for the mutilations, and that
they had backing that covered the expense of using helicopters to retrieve
bovine organs for "their rituals." Pratt also proclaimed that
his former cult "loved the publicity" and embarrassing local
authorities.
-
- Every cop present "bought"
this story, except Tommy Cole. Even Sgt. Ogletree believed this con artist.
Tommy Cole later told me, "That guy didn't impress me in the least.
It's obvious why they didn't want you there, they said you were intentionally
not invited" I could have challenged this guy and he couldn't have
held up under my questioning. That's why I was kept out of it. The briefing
was concluded with Detectives James and Price explaining that "These
Satanist love the publicity, and if we ignore them, they'll stop what they're
doing and go away." The assembled officers concurred.
-
- ___________________________
-
- Note - Mr. Oliphant's two earlier articles
are stored in the UFO-Paranormal archives in the DATAPAGES section on our
homepage.
|
Sightings HomePage