1897 cow abduction

Date reported: April 23, 1897 Source: Yates Center Farmer's Advocate, Kansas newspaper

On the evening of April 19, 1897 local rancher Alexander Hamilton, his son, and a hired man saw a hovering above a corral near the house. Hamilton claimed that in a carriage underneath the structure were "six of the strangest beings I ever saw." Just then, the three men heard a calf bawling and found it trapped in the fence, a rope around its neck extending upward. "We tried to get it off but could not," Hamilton said, "so we cut the wire loose to see the ship, heifer and all, rise slowly, disappearing in the northwest."

The next day, Hamilton went looking for the animal. He learned that a neighbor had found the butchered remains in his pasture. The neighbor, according to Hamilton, "was greatly mystified in not being able to find any tracks in the soft ground."

Hamilton's statement was followed by an affidavit signed by a dozen prominent citizens who swore that "for truth and veracity we have never heard [Hamilton's] word questioned." In the following days, his story was published in newspapers throughout the United States and even in Europe.

Hamilton's story resurfaced in the early 1960s to 70s in books and magazines as cattle abduction cases were on the rise, predominantly in the Mid-West. Hamilton's story was made out to be a "hoax" because of an elderly Kansas woman's comments in 1976, who said that Hamilton boasted to his wife that he made the story up. The woman also said Hamilton belonged to the local liars' club who delighted in the concoction of outrageous tall tales. According to the woman, "The club soon broke up after the 'airship and cow' story. I guess that one had topped them all."