Source: The Great Airship Mystery: A UFO of the 1890s, Daniel Cohen. publ. Dodd, Mead, 1st ed. 1981, ISBN-13 978-0396079903, Chapter 7, pp.92-102.
“Last Monday night about 10:30 we were awakened by a noise among the cattle. I arose thinking that perhaps my bulldog was performing pranks, but upon going to the door saw to my utter astonishment that an airship was slowly descending upon my cow lot, about forty rods [600 feet] from the house.
“Calling my tenant, Gid Heslip, and my son Wall, we seized some axes and ran to the corral. Meanwhile the ship had been gently descending until it was not more than thirty feet above the ground and we came within fifty yards of it.
“It consisted of a great cigar-shaped portion, possibly three hundred feet long, with a carriage underneath. The carriage was made of glass or some other transparent substance alternating with a narrow strip of some material. It was brightly lighted within and everything was plainly visible-it was occupied by six of the strangest beings I ever saw. They were jabbering together but we could not understand a word they said.
“Every part of the vessel which was not transparent was of a dark reddish color. We stood mute with wonder and fright. Then some noise attracted their attention and they turned a light directly upon us. Immediately on catching sight of us they turned on some unknown power, and a great turbine wheel, about thirty feet in diameter, which was revolving slowly below the craft, began to buzz and the vessel rose lightly as a bird. When about three hundred feet above us it seemed to pause and to hover directly above a two-year-old heifer which was bawling and jumping, apparently fast in the fence. Going to her, we found some material fastened in a slip knot around her neck and going up to the vessel from the heifer tangled in the wire fence. We tried to get it off but could not, so we cut the wire loose to see the ship, heifer and all, rise slowly, disappearing in the northwest.
“We went home but I was so frightened I could not sleep. Rising early Tuesday I started out on my horse, hoping to find some trace of my cow. This I failed to do, but coming back in the evening found that Link Thomas, about three or four miles west of LeRoy, had found the hide, legs and head in his field that day. He, thinking that someone had butchered a stolen beast, had brought the hide to town for identification, but was greatly mystified in not being able to find any tracks in the soft ground. After identifying the hide by my brand, I went home. But every time I would drop to sleep I would see the cursed thing, with its big lights and hideous people. I don’t know whether they are devils or angels or what; but we all saw them, and my whole family saw the ship, and I don’t want any more to do with them.”
Analysis of the Story:
The description of the craft mimics airships of that time period, the first flown by Henri Giffard’s in 1852 which was steam powered. What’s interesting about this story is how it’s very similar to today’s sightings:
Description:
“It consisted of a great cigar-shaped portion, possibly three hundred feet long.”
Cigar-shaped UFO’s are still being seen today. As of this writing, The National UFO Reporting Center has eight listings so far in 2016 from Seattle, Washington down to Eagle River, Arkansas with two separate sightings reported in Joplin, Missouri. There’s over 2500 Cigar-shaped cases reported on this website.
Animal Mutilation:
The Airship picks up a cow, and then cow parts were found three to four miles west of LeRoy and appeared to have been dropped due to leaving no tracks in the soft ground.
If that story wasn’t enough, in Volume 38, No.11 of Fate Magazine’s issue, November of 1985, was printed a story called, “Cattle-Killing UFO of 1896”. One year before Hamilton’s story, in August of 1896 in Howell County, Missouri, a family experienced a UFO encounter.
Excerpts from the Fate Magazine article:
– “All at once we saw flashing lights. At first we thought they were a star shower, but the “stars” stayed in a circle as if they were all strung together like beads.”
– “The circle of lights just kept whirling and falling towards us.”
– “ I ran to my mother and clung to her skirts, crying and shaking so hard that I could barely stand.”
– “ It stopped and hovered over the barn. We could now see it was a large saucer-like shape. It’s lights were blinding. The whole barn lot lit up like day.”
– “My father grabbed up the baby who was sleeping on a pallet and we fled into the house.”
– “The next morning when Ben took his dog Cappie and went out to the pasture to bring up the milk cows, as he always did, he came running back to the house scared out of his wits.”
– “In a large patch of burned grass were three of our steers lying dead on the ground.”
The father then examined the steers and noticed they were completely drained of blood.
Note: For a complete version of the article, please contact Fate Magazine and request, Volume 38, No.11, 1985 issue.
Real Animal Mutilation cases consist of the following:
– Animal is picked up at location A, then mutilated at location B, then placed at location C.
– Animal found with usual lesions, and lack of blood.
– Animal appears to have been dropped or placed.
– No animal struggle evidence found.
– No predator take-down evidence found.
– No human evidence found.
– No tracks of any kind!
– Sometimes strange lights are seen in the area before and even after the mutilation.
So we have two possible mutilation cases occurring in 1896 and one in 1897. Both talk about a purposed UFO and both sightings result in cattle deaths. But wait, there’s more to this.
Hamilton mutilation location, occurred around 38.062278, -95.725157
Missouri mutilation location, occurred around 36.969949, -91.892627