Livestock mutilations¶
The livestock mutilations are a string of unexplained animal deaths on the Sherman Ranch in Utah, in which sheep burst apart and cattle are found boiled or split open, which the local FBI office blames on lightning.
| Type | Anomalous phenomenon |
| Aliases | Exploded sheep and mutilated cattle; cattle mutilations; boiled cattle |
| Location | Sherman Ranch and about half a mile around it |
| Cause | Never established |
| First appearance | Walkers 01 |
Reports¶
In Walkers 01, Alberta Wilmarth tells Andrew Howard that her family ranch is "cursed", listing boiled cattle, missing pets, UFO lights and Navy people investigating radiation. She describes one steer with half its head split open from steam pressure and its eyes cooked through (Walkers 01).
In Walkers 02, Carl Gardner of the Salt Lake City field office gives a rundown of the local reports: a former Army Ranger on the ranch who shot at a snooper by the barn, a young woman who saw her dead mother, informal reports of lights and lost time, and cattle mutilation. Gardner admits the cattle were "fucked up" but says it was sometimes lightning, and he puts the lost time down to drinking (Walkers 02).
Ranch hand Walt Murphy calls the property "haunted as hell" and asks whether Alberta told the party about the sheep that "kinda exploded". The cattle, he says, were just dead, but the sheep went "poof, you know, bang." Asked how, Andre (as Walt) replies, "You ever microwaved an egg?" and says the chunks were perhaps corgi-sized. Rita (as Howard) remarks that this is less exploded than "the last thing we saw exploded", and Dante (as Kurt) answers, "A man", a reference to the death at Spud Hut in an earlier arc (Walkers 02).
Bigelow's measurements¶
Robert Bigelow's team measures electromagnetic and electrostatic fields, radio waves and thermal and acoustic anomalies, recording everything onto big tape reels. Asked about interesting results, Andre (as Bigelow) answers, "Well, some of the sheep exploded," and adds that there are many unexplained heat signatures and electrical events, all localized to the ranch and about half a mile around it, with nothing unusual in town (Walkers 02). The deaths are therefore grouped with the rest of the Sherman Ranch phenomenon.
Theories¶
In Walkers 02, Dante (as Kurt) suggests teenagers with pipe bombs, and Walt agrees that was his first thought; the FBI prefers lightning. No episode settles the cause. The later beam, which heats metal and cooks grass, is the closest the story comes to a mechanism, but nobody links it to the animal deaths on screen.