Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

40 Cattle Mutilations
working out of the Twin Cities, had a private interest
in UFOs and had looked into sightings on his
own time. Flickinger consented to Hynek’s suggestion
that he look into a possible UFO-mutilation
link. When he learned of Flickinger’s involvement,
Clark was less interested in the agent’s personal
UFO interests than in his position as a federal lawenforcement
officer potentially able to act on
Bankston’s information.
Through the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Paul,
Flickinger was appointed to head a federal study of
Bankston’s allegations. He interviewed Bankston
in Leavenworth, then had him transferred to a
small-town jail south of Minneapolis. Bankston
asked that his friend Dan Dugan, imprisoned in
Texas, also be transferred. Dugan, Bankston said,
also knew a great deal and could confirm the story
and produce additional information. Dugan was
duly brought to the same facility.
The two related a fantastic and frightening tale.
A Texas-based group called The Occult was
responsible for cattle mutilations. Its membership
consisted of criminals, drug-dealers, motorcycle
gangs, and their hangers-on. It also claimed the
secret allegiance of some ostensibly respectable
rich individuals who supplied enough money to
the cult that it could afford, among other things, a
fleet of helicopters. Members killed animals to use
their organs in orgiastic rites, and they also
committed human sacrifices, including the
slaughter of four innocent teenagers on the banks
of Lake Cozad in Nebraska in 1969. Dugan
claimed to have witnessed the murders personally.
The occultists had tranquilized the victims and
plied them with massive doses of the veterinary
anesthetic phencyclidine or PCP, also known as
angel dust, in the course of the ritual—exactly the
same thing they did with their bovine victims.
After swooping out of the sky in helicopters, its
members delighted in not leaving footprints at
mutilation sites; they walked on cardboard pads to
cover their tracks. The absence of traces encouraged
belief in UFO involvement, according to
Dugan.
Flickinger’s inquiries took him to several states,
where he enlisted the assistance of federal, state,
and local authorities in running down Bankston
and Dugan’s extraordinary claims. At Lake Cozad
authorities dug at the site where the teenagers
supposedly had been killed, finding nothing; nor
could they connect any missing-person reports
with the purported victims. Flickinger and
Nebraska authorities eventually decided that no
such incident had ever taken place. Other claims
also failed to check out. After several months it
became clear that Bankston and Dugan were
passing on prison rumors and freely embellishing
them. It also became apparent what their true
motive was: to remove themselves from secure
facilities to less secure ones, in order to escape.
Bankston told authorities that a car with Texas
license plates had parked near the jail and its
occupants shouted threats at him. After being
transferred to an even smaller jail in central
Minnesota, Bankston broke out and fled, only to
be captured a few hours later. The next day, in
Texas, Dugan also attempted an escape.
The collapse of the Bankston/Dugan tall tale
did little to discourage popular speculation about
Satanist cattle mutilators, though it did take the
federal government out of the business of investigating
them. From then on, it would be mostly
local law enforcement that would attempt to run
down rumors. Many, however, were growing
doubtful about the mutilation phenomenon itself.
Nearly all autopsies by veterinary pathologists
established that the cattle deaths and subsequent
body damage were nothing out of the ordinary. In
the spring of 1980, a much-publicized year-long
probe in New Mexico, headed by former FBI agent
Kenneth Rommel, debunked claimed mutilations
in that state and severely criticized those who were
making a mystery out of what Rommel regarded
as no more than popular paranoia.
But in a small handful of instances, evidence of
genuine mutilation did emerge. In the western
Canadian province of Alberta, the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP) documented six
instances in which, according to the results of
laboratory examination, animals had been cut up
with sharp instruments. In each case a drug had
been injected into the animal, inducing an overdose,
before the killer or killers removed some of
the organs. Once a red rubber skullcap, cut up to
resemble a long-haired wig, was found near a
mutilation site in Grassy Lake. The RCMP even