September 7, 1967. Alamosa County, Colorado. Berle Lewis went to check on her horse, Lady, who had not returned to the ranch. She found the animal dead in a field. The skin and flesh had been removed from the neck to the head with cuts described as having surgical precision. No blood. No tracks. A strong medicinal smell in the area. This was the first widely documented case of what would become, over the following decade, a phenomenon involving an estimated 10,000 animals across the United States and tens of thousands more globally. Lady — later renamed “Snippy” in media coverage — became the template for every case that followed.
What Was Found
The horse’s neck and skull had been cleanly defleshed from the shoulders upward. The cuts were described by examining veterinarians as having a precision inconsistent with any known field instrument or predator. No blood was found on or around the carcass despite the extent of the tissue removal. The ground around the body showed no tracks — not the horse’s own final movements, not any predator, not any human. A medicinal or chemical odour was noted by the owner and subsequently by investigators who examined the site.
Fifteen mysterious circular exhaust holes were found in the ground approximately 100 yards from the body. Bushes in the area had been flattened in a circular pattern consistent with downwash from a hovering aircraft. The owner reported seeing red and orange lights over the ranch the night before the horse was found.
The Investigation
Pathologist Dr. John Henry Howard Jr. examined the body. His finding: the cuts were made by a sharp instrument — too precise for predators. A US Forest Service ranger who examined the site described the brush damage as consistent with “something” hovering overhead. Laboratory analysis found traces of a substance described as “like medicine” but not identified. The case attracted national media attention — AP wire picked it up, Time Magazine covered it, and CBS Evening News broadcast a segment.
The FBI was not involved at this stage — the systematic federal involvement didn’t begin until the 1975 Colorado wave. Lady/Snippy was handled at the county and state level. No perpetrator was found. No natural explanation was established for the precision of the cuts or the absence of blood and tracks.
Why 1967 Matters
Lady’s death in September 1967 occurred in a specific context: Roswell’s recovered materials were being analysed at Wright-Patterson AFB per multiple whistleblower accounts. The UAP programme was being restructured following Eisenhower’s loss of control in the early 1960s. The San Luis Valley — where Lady was found — would become one of the most densely documented UAP sighting zones in the American West, with reports continuing to the present day. The valley’s geography — high altitude, magnetic anomalies, proximity to Dulce — makes it significant in the broader UAP landscape.
The same year, 1967, was also the year of the Malmstrom AFB nuclear missile shutdown — Robert Salas’s documented incident where UAPs disabled ICBMs simultaneously. 1967 is the year the phenomenon became undeniable across multiple domains simultaneously. Lady was the first documented physical trace case in what would become the largest unexplained systematic animal event in recorded history.
Sources: Berle Lewis testimony. Dr. John Henry Howard Jr. pathology report, September 1967. AP wire coverage and CBS Evening News reporting, 1967. San Luis Valley historical UAP documentation.