Editing Cattle mutilation (section)

===The "Snippy" horse death of 1967===
{{Main|Mutilation of "Snippy" the horse}}
[[File:Snippy the Horse 1967.jpg|thumb|right|Photograph of Snippy after death showing reportedly-"clean" cuts]]
Unexplained livestock deaths were relatively unknown until 1967, when the ''[[Pueblo Chieftain]]'' published a story about a horse called "Snippy"  that was mysteriously found mutilated in [[Alamosa, Colorado]].

On September 9, 1967, Agnes King and her son Harry reportedly found the dead body of their three-year-old horse. The horse's head and neck had been skinned and defleshed, and the body displayed cuts that, to King, looked very precise. No blood was at the scene, according to Harry, and a strong medicinal odor was in the air.

The story was republished by the wider press and distributed nationwide; this case was the first to feature speculation that [[extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial]] beings and [[unidentified flying object]]s were associated with mutilation.<ref>David R. Saunders and R. Roger Harkins; ''UFO's? Yes! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong''; World Publishing, 1969 {{ASIN|B0006BX12W}}{{page needed|date=January 2022}}</ref>  A subsequent investigation by Wadsworth Ayer for the Condon Committee <ref>(Case #32)</ref> concluded that "There was no evidence to support the assertion that the horse's death was associated in any way to abnormal causes".<ref name="O'Brien"/>

Alamosa County Sheriff Ben Phillips suggested that the death was probably due to "a lightning strike" and never bothered to visit the site. Early press coverage of the case misnamed Lady as Snippy. Snippy was Lady's sire and belonged to Nellie's husband, Berle Lewis.<ref name="O'Brien"/> Later press coverage mentions that the horse had been shot "in the rump".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.denverpost.com/2006/12/08/town-gets-snippy-about-skeleton-of-mutilated-horse/ |title=Town gets Snippy about skeleton of mutilated horse |first=Rich |last=Tosches |date=8 December 2006 |publisher=[[The Denver Post]] |access-date=2017-12-20}}</ref> However, two students from Alamosa State College confessed to sneaking out into the pasture and shooting the horse several weeks after the case was publicized.<ref name="O'Brien"/>