Alexander Hamilton and the 1897 UFO/Cattle Mutilation Incident
Did Alexander Hamilton, a local Kansas rancher personally experience a UFO sighting which escalated into one of our first documented cattle mutilation case in 1897?
( Yes this story is not new, but it’s still interesting, fun, and worth mentioning. )
On April 23, 1897, the Kansas, Farmer’s Advocate published a story about a phenomenal event experienced by Alexander Hamilton, a local rancher living in Kansas.
After the article was published, it was re-printed in newspapers all over America and Europe. In his book “ANATOMY OF PHENOMENA” by researcher Jacques Vallee back in 1965, Jacques brought this article into the media lime light. Later in years some publications including Fate Magazine concluded the event was a hoax due to Alexander Hamilton being part of an elite group of citizens known as “The Liars Club”. Their information came from a 1943 article from a Kansas newspaper called, “The Buffalo Enterprise”, in which Mrs. Donna Steeby of Wichita Kansas wrote that her 93 year old mother, Ethel L Shaw when younger, had actually heard the tall-tale from Hamilton himself and he admitted it was all a hoax.
Hamilton had signed an affidavit, notarized by 10 notable members of the community of LeRoy, Kansas, where they lived. The affidavit was dated April 21, 1897, and Hamilton staked his “sacred honor” on the truth of the event.
Not to discredit Fate Magazine or Ethel Shaw, but let’s look at Hamilton’s tale and then compare it to what happened in the general area of Kansas last year, December of 2015 and the beginning of this year, January, 2016. First the Hamilton’s case:
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
On December 21st, 2015, KWCH News 12 out of Kansas, reported a Newton, Kansas rancher found one of his bulls dead a quarter of a mile into his pasture on the 18th. The animal’s sex organs had been removed. The Harvey County Sheriff’s department investigated the incident and found no traces of cause of death and is classifying this as an Animal Cruelty case or non-animal related.
On January 2nd, 2016, the Harvey County Sheriff’s department’s Facebook page stated another cow has been found dead in McPherson County, Kansas, its eyeballs had been removed and other similar damage mimicked the Newton case.
Let’s look at the location of all four cases:
2015 Newton, Harvey County, Kansas mutilation 37.966629, -97.390411
2015 McPherson County mutilation 38.217891, -97.662204
1897 Leroy, Coffey County mutilation occurred around 38.062278, -95.725157
1896 Howell County Missouri mutilation occurred around 36.969949, -91.892627
Include my investigation case from December 2015, posted on this website January 3rd of this year:
2015 Miller mutilation, Trinidad, Colorado 37.235617, -104.363306
“They all appear to be on a linear pattern mimicking my 37th Parallel or Paranormal Highway Theory.”
Food for Thought:
Numerous publications state Hamilton’s mutilation case was an elaborate hoax due to him being associated with “The Liars Club”. Gentlemen creating fantastic stories for sport, the winner being the one who’s story becomes the most popular in the media. But… I’ve found no evidence at this time Hamilton admitted guilt in his own hand writing, only that Ethel Shaw had heard the tall-tale confession from Hamilton himself when she was a lot younger. Hamilton did sign an affidavit about the event and at that time was practicing law in Leroy, Kansas.
Conclusion:
Obviously there’s been a lot of research by good people on the Hamilton Airship case and the overall consensus is, he indeed lied. But what if he didn’t? How accurate is the second hand witness testimony, it’s just circumstantial evidence which allows for more than one explanation. Did he lie, or did he in fact experience an experimental Airship stealing one of his cows? Or.. did he see something else? And what about the Howell County Missouri event a year earlier? Two events occurring a year apart from each other, a state apart from each other, with similar out comes; Cattle dying. And why are similar events still happening today in the general location?
Coincidence? Maybe, but then again, maybe not so coincidence.
Category: Cattle Mutilations, The Z-Files
