Research : Current

This intriguing article was forwarded to me just last week:

According to Bob Pickens of Lincoln, a herd of his cattle, some 180 in number, disappeared from his pasture in at approximately 2 pm on Thursday, Sept 11. Exactly 48 hours later, David Drummond, some 500 miles away near Aurora, NE, "discovered" the missing herd unharmed on his property.

This case presents several possibilities and several possible explanations, none of which seem satisfactory at this point.

Pickens reports no heavy machinery or trucks entered or left the area, a rural and rather isolated plot of farmland, at any time that Thursday. Drummond likewise reports no trucks entering or leaving on Saturday, yet one cannot rule out an elaborate hoax of which both farmers were part.

Neither farmer has a reputation as a prankster; in fact both men are highly respected in their communities. Furthermore, neither seems to have any connection other than their love of farming.

It is also possible that there was some sort of temporal disturbance, a sort of fold in time and space, in which the hapless cattle were swept up. This is purely hypothetical and has not yet been demonstrated to actually happen.

A third possibility is that the two farmers were indeed part of a practical joke, but that neither had foreknowledge and were taken by surprise. 500 miles in 48 hours is certainly manageable for modern trucking, but we come back once again to the integrity of the farmers who have insisted no one entered or left their properties on Thursday or Saturday.

This case remains open, an intriguing enigma.