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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.sci
Subject: Re: Cattle mutilations (Honest!)
Message-ID: <5326@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Mar-85 07:13:18 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5326
Posted: Fri Mar 22 07:13:18 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Mar-85 07:13:18 EST
References: <261@eneevax.UUCP> <634@houxa.UUCP> <2059@sun.uucp> <9288@brl-tgr.ARPA> <190@ihdev.UUCP>, <1350@ut-sRe: Cattle mutilations (HoneFri, 22-Mar-85 07:13:18 EST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 22
Keywords: Perpetual Motion, benevolent aliens, Int'l Veterinary Conspiracy

My aunt is a vet. When she was in school at U of Saskatchewan, she was
told this story. 

There are some diseases which kill cattle and which also leave the
meat unfit for human consumption -- or at least, they won't pass
government regulations, whether they should is another story. In
times gone by some farmers, having found a dead cow in their pasture,
would singe its coat in a particular fashion to simulate ``struck
by lightning.'' Lightning struck cattle were okay for eating. So
the vets, who had to certify a cause of death for the corpses, were
told to look for tell-take bits of wax and other signs that the farmers
might have been up to something. However, this training did not help
a professor of my aunt's who was called out one day to certify that
a whole herd had been ``killed by aliens''.

Strange, but under the mutilations, it sure looked like (I think)
Anthrax...

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura

ps -- It could have been a friend of the professor.