From: Nigel.Bamford@newcastle.ac.uk (Nigel.Bamford)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors
Subject: MUTILATIONS IN SWEEDEN ?
Date: 18 Aug 92 15:47:18 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK NE1 7RU


The following is taken from the "Fortean Times" a British publication
which deals in strange happenings from around the world.

Sweedish horse ripping.

For two or three years, someone-or something-has been attacking and mutilating
horses and cows in western Sweeden. Around 200 horse attacks had been 
reported to the police when the mystery was brought to national attention
by journalist Siewert Ohloms' TV programme "Svar direkt" on 25 Febuary
1992.

In the summer of 1989, the number of reports increased. In 90% of the
incidents, the victims were horses, almost always assaulted in the same
way. They were cut with a sharp, scalpel-like instrument,in or beside their
sexual organs. The wounds were often 30cm long, and five or six cm deep.
About 50% of the animals were so severely maimed that they had to be put
down.

Most of the attacks were near main roads, and the origional police 
hypothesis was that a single madman or religious fanatic was motoring from
one enclosed pasture to another; then several horses seemed to have been
assaulted in different places at the same time, although this is not certain.
According to Marie Raden, police investigator in the Vanesborg district
it requires an astonishing knowledge of animals to be able to approach the
horses, and hurt them so badly, without causing them to offer resistance.
There were cases where watchdogs didn't react, even when they were only a
couple of yards away, nor was there any indication that the animals had 
been drugged.

In August 1991, several horses were assaulted in the neighbourhood of
Fargelanda in Dalsland. It began when a mare, belonging to Marianne
Gothberg, was cut around the vagina. Another of Mrs Gothbergs' horses was 
cut the following day, and a day after that a foal was found bleeding on a 
neighbouring farm. More horses in the area succumbed, and some 40 farmers
formed a sort of equine "home guard". Pairs of farmers policed the roads
at night, armed with whatever weapons their farms could provide. They 
caught a suspicious individual one evening, and turned him over to the 
police; but he turned out to be a frightened bilberry picker who had lost
his way.

Tord Haraldsson from Alingas, who belongs to the investigating task force,
said that similar assaults in Denmark and the USA, have turned out to be
sectarian rituals, where fanatics have been drinking horses' blood to gain
strength. This is news to us; the widespread cattle mutilations accross
the American Midwest in the last two decades are variousley blamed on
cultists, aliens or government experimentation, but as far as we are aware
no actual proof has ever been found to back up any of these hypothesis.

Several farmers and horse breeders appeared on the TV program. They stressed
that several attacks had taken place almost in their presence, and couldn't
understand why their horses had submitted without offering resistance. The
perpetrator was like a phantomor a supernatural being. A vet said that the
attacker had a good knowledge, not only of animal behaviour, but also of
animal anatomy. Some of the wounds had been very professionally cut.

When the horses were turned out to pasture again after the winter, the
Fargelanda "home guard" were again mobilised, and others were organised
all over western Sweeden. The first mutilation of the year was reported
in "Expressen" on 14 April. A mare was found a t a place called Vitehall
near Kyrkekvarn, bleeding from wounds in her vagina and hind legs. A
"mysterious" red car driven by a young man sped away from the spot as the 
mare was found; but it was not clear at the time of the report how the 
wounds had been inflicted. The mare might have been kicked by another horse.




If anyone out there has any other info on animal mutilations, please e-mail
it to me, I am :

	Nigel.Bamford@newcastle.ac.uk

Thanks.

-Nige.