Les OVNIS dans la presse quotidienne:

MUTILATIONS DE BETAIL A LA TROJA

Découverte macabre dans un endroit pratiquement inaccessible

Juan Antonio Abarzúa du El Tribuno

Provincial Justice and Police initiate activities aimed at determining the causes for the strange deaths of six bovines found in a sector known as El Cajon, inside the La Troja ranch, and in a dense, nearly inaccessible forested wilderness some 75 km east of the Saltan capital and bordering the Department of Metán. The animals' deaths have bewildered researchers and veterinarians who participated in a survey expedition mandated by Judge Carlos M. Aguero Molina.

The vets performed autopsies on two of the animals and submitted samples of tissue and organs to the Police Biochemistry Lab and the School of Natural Sciences of the National Univ. of la Salta (UNSA).

The initial action is aimed at establishing if there were bacterial or virological agents present capable of triggering the mysterious situation. The request forwarded to the UNSA scientists seeks to find details on some strange coleopteryds ("cascarudos") of large size which were found on some of the animal carcasses. Police investigators Cesar Jimenez and Marcelo Choque want to determine if the insect is carnivorous or not.

The six cows, who were missing eyes, tongue, the flesh covering the lower maxillaries and (in three specimens) the genitalia and udders of the female bovines, died in an area 6 km around, and were almost exactly 1,500 meters from each one. Despite the difficulty [of negotiating the terrain] and the tortuous paths followed by the cows, if an imaginary line were drawn between each one of the carcasses, an almost perfect isosceles triangle could be formed, a matter which could be coincidental but which nonetheless astonished the police expedition, headed by the chief of the 4th Sheriff's Office of the capital area, Miguel Armando Miranda.

A team from "El Tribuno" visited the area--which can only be visited on foot and requires a forced march two hours long--corroborated the findings. Beyond the peculiarities of the geometric arrangement of the deaths, there are others which are no less disturbing: the bovines were untouched by the usual carrion creatures, did not give off an odor, no traces of blood were found and their flesh did not appear to have entered the process of decomposition although it is certain that the deaths occurred at least ten days ago.

It is also curious that the animals died simultaneously and suddenly, since they fell as though struck down, without having made the motions characteristic of the struggle for life. Of the six bovines, only one left traces of having made any movement prior to its death: it made a small circumference with one of its front legs. Then it collapsed and remained still.

"I never saw anything like it in my life," said Tito Yurquina, 70, the animals' owner, whose family has been in the area for over four generations, having engaged in cattle ranching over that time. A similar opinion was voiced by Margarita Maidana, 77, the clan's matriarch, who made the report to the Police. In this regard, her daughter, Romualda Sarapura, 38, who claims to "have been born and raised in the area" said succinctly: "I have never seen anything like it. Nor have I heard of anything similar."

Meanwhile, two other family members, Carmen Salva, 15, and Nelly Tarifa, 51, added an item of information which revives the belief that all of this has extraterrestrial causes: both women swear that in the days preceding the macabre find "strange and powerful lights were seen in the skies."

"I saw a large circle, like a full moon over the hills. It gave off intermittent beams of different colors," said the teenager, a student at the Sargento Cabral school in the capital, who was helping out with farm tasks during her winter vacation.