- By Juan Antonio Abarzúa El Tribuno (Salta, Argentina)
July 21, 2002
-
- Provincial Justice and Police initiate activites aimed
at determining the causes fo the strange deaths of six bovines found in
a sector known as El Cajon, inside the La Troja ranch, and in a dense,
nearly inaccessible forested wilderness some 75 km east of the Saltan
capital and bordering the Department of Metán. The animals' deaths
have bewildered researchers and veterinarians who participated in a survey
expedition mandadated by Judge Carlos M. Aguero Molina.
-
- The vets performed autopsies on two of the animals and
submitted samples of tissue and organs to the Police Biochemistry Lab and
the School of Natural Sciences of the National Univ. of la Salta (UNSa).
The initial action is aimed at establishaing if there were bacterial or
virological agents present capable of triggering the mysterious situation.
The request forwarded to the UNSa scientists seeks to find details on
some strange coleopteryds ("cascarudos") of large size which
were found on some of the animal carcasses. Police investigators Cesar
Jimenez and Marcelo Choque want to determine if the insect is carnivorous
or not.
-
- The six cows, who were missing eyes, tongue, the flesh
covering the lower maxillaries and (in three specimens) the genitalia and
udders of the female bovines, died in an area 6 km around, and were almost
exactly 1,500 meters from each one. Despite the difficulty [of negotiating
the terrain] and the tortuous paths followed by the cows, if an imaginary
line were drawn between each one of the carcasses, an almost perfect isoceles
triangle could be formed, a matter which could be coincidental but which
nonetheless astonished the police expedition, headed by the chief of the
4th Sheriff's Office of the capital area, Miguel Armando Miranda.
-
- A team from "El Tribuno" visited the area--which
can only be visited on foot and requires a forced march two hours long--corroborated
the findings. Beyond the peculiarities of the geometric arrangement of
the deaths, there are others which are no less disturbing: the bovines
were untouched by the usual carrion creatures, did not give off an odor,
no traces of blood were found and their flesh did not appear to have entered
the process of decomposition although it is certain that the deaths occurred
at least ten days ago.
-
- It is also curious that the animals died simultaneously
and suddenly, since they fell as though struck down, without having made
the motions characteristic of the struggle for life. Of the six bovines,
only one left traces of having made any movement prior to its death: it
made a small circumference with one of its front legs. Then it collapsed
and remained still.
-
- "I never saw anything like it in my life,"
said Tito Yurquina, 70, the animals' owner, whose family has been in the
area for over four generations, having engaged in cattle ranching over
that time. A similar opinion was voiced by Margarita Maidana, 77, the
clan's matriarch, who made the report to the Police. In this regard, her
daughter, Romualda Sarapura, 38, who claims to "have been born and
raised in the area" said succinctly: "I have never seen anything
like it. Nor have I heard of anything similar."
-
- Meanwhile, two other family members, Carmen Salva, 15,
and Nelly Tarifa, 51, added an item of information which revives the belief
that all of this has extraterrene causes: both women swear that in the
days preceding the macabre find "strange and powerful lights were
seen in the skies." "I saw a large circle, like a full moon
over the hills. It gave off intermitten beams of different colors,"
said the teenager, a student at the Sargento Cabral school in the capital,
who was helping out with farm tasks during her winter vacation.
-
- Translation (C) 2002. Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic
Ufology. Special thanks to Gloria Coluchi.
|