Comment by blastro
2 years ago
I recently read some speculation that Alzheimer's might be related to prion diseases like wasting and mad cow disease. That's one possible explanation for cattle mutilations also, which is a really weird rabbit hole to go down.
I’m inclined to believe that the bulk of cattle mutilation cases are from natural predators and the really anomalous-seeming cases are just from thrill-seeking sociopaths and/including bored farmers, both groups undoubtedly encouraged by media attention
to go on a slight flight of fancy, I could believe one or two (perhaps early) cases were aliens. if you’re looking down from above in certain regions, the largest groups of exposed megafauna will be cattle. what do humans do when we meet an abundant new life form? kill one and cut it up to see how it ticks.
but then another plausible hypothesis is that it’s just a slightly sick inside joke/prank amongst some subculture, playing on that observation to mess with the credulous