Friday, October 28, 2005

Horse death mystery solved

A veterinary investigation has found that 16 horses, which were found dead and lying in a field last week, were killed by lightning.
Posted by Mac at 4:36 PM

6 comments:

W.M. Bear said...

I thought the original number was 22 mysteriously dead horses. Plus, how could one lightning strike kill that MANY horses? I suppose it's conceivable but hey, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

11:04 PM
Ken said...

First: glad to hear the cause is identified as lightning. Could have been a new disease, or worse.

Second, I do believe the number was originally 22. So, what happened to the other six, we don't as yet know. Myself, I'll not bother to find out. Too much else to do, even in this boring life.

Now, I am no Meteorologist, but I do know that lightning can do amazing things. After all, what we're dealing with is this: "An individual bolt can pack several hundred million volts at 10,000 amperes, one trillion watts, briefly burning up more electrical power than is being used in the entire United States. Monsters of one billion volts and over 100,000 amperes are not unknown."

http://www.inwit.com/inwit/writings/lightning.html

Another good place to start is http://thunder.msfc.nasa.gov/primer/ . One might also try
http://www.lightning.ece.ufl.edu/ .

When you're dealing with that much power, I am not at all surprised that an entire herd of horses could be struck down.

My own Great Grandmother Grieger was struck by ball lighting. It came down the chimney, rolled about one room and into the next, struck her on the hip, and - according to eyewitness accounts - flew out the door and flashed into nothingness. She limped the rest of her life. Present theories account ball lighting a form of plasma, which given the power levels involved, I can believe. So, electrical discharges can do very strange things.

Anyhow, given hundreds of millions to a billion volts, I'd think an entire herd being killed by a strike to be entirely believeable.

11:37 PM
W.M. Bear said...

ken -- A couple of points:

1) A veterinary investigation has found that 16 horses, which were found dead and lying in a field last week, were killed by lightning. That's it. Just the bald assertion. The actual EVIDENCE uncovered in the "veterinary investigation" is never described in the story.

2) I find it interesting that you're willing to lend credence to this explanation on this (what strikes me as a rather slim) basis, especially since your great-grandmother SURVIVED her encounter with lightning (as indeed many people are known to have done).

Was a thunderstorm recorded to have taken place in the area at the right time? This should be easy to establish but the story makes no mention of one. So honestly, this is starting to smell to me like a secret weapons test. (What else would occur to me, right?) The military in its "black ops" seems to like to mess with ordinary people and things in a clandestine way (including, of course, mind control). Of course, the whole thing COULD have a perfectly "innocent" explanation. But (as I pointed out in the other thread on this) 22 IS the number of cards in Tarot Major Arcana.

1:03 AM
Ken said...

Oookay, fine. First, 6 horses + 16 horses +1 mule =23, so that's covered. Read down.

Second, ..."he believes lightning is the most probable cause".... ..."(They were) not a case of lightning," Heikkila said Monday. In real life, there are a lot of incidents where we just don't know."... Aargh! Pick one. Anyway, lightning is as credible cause as any, IMO, plenty of it in the Great Plains and Rockies, and since the on-scene "experts" don't agree, all I can say is ... pick one. I dunno. I wasn't there. I didn't see it. All I know is what I read in the papers! And Granny lived, it was not a four hundred volt strike, and I dunno. Black Ops, Tarot, God, I'm gettin' a headache. My ass hurts, too. I'm gonna take a nap and dream of my misspent youth, or something. Maybe walk around smoking a salmon - again. :-D

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/5164107/detail.html?subid=22100484&qs;=1;bp=t

CALHAN, Colo. -- El Paso County authorities, puzzling over another herd of dead horses near where other horses were found dead two weeks ago, have been told that lightning is the likely culprit.

Sheriff's deputies said 16 horses were discovered dead in a pasture near South Calhan road over the weekend. Dr. John Heikkila, a veterinarian, said Tuesday that he believes lightning is the most probable cause of the weekend deaths.

Investigators said earlier that the horses appeared to have died suddenly, possibly from a lightning strike.

The animals were found about a mile where investigators found six horses and a mule dead from mysterious circumstances earlier in the month. The precise cause of death for those animals has not yet been determined, although they were first reported to have been shot to death.

Heikkila performed autopsies on the first group of horses and found round puncture wounds in their hides or skulls. The wounds, however, were no more than three-quarters of an inch deep and no bullet fragments or slugs were found.

"(They were) not a case of lightning," Heikkila said Monday. "In real life, there are a lot of incidents where we just don't know."

Tissue samples from both herds have been sent to labs at Colorado State University for further testing.

1:25 AM
Ken Younos said...

"Heikkila performed autopsies on the first group of horses and found round puncture wounds in their hides or skulls. The wounds, however, were no more than three-quarters of an inch deep and no bullet fragments or slugs were found."

Chupacabra strikes again.

7:30 AM
W.M. Bear said...

Puncture wounds but no bullets? Aha! This sounds like a case for Resident Paranoid!

12:22 AM