UFOs and a Horse Called Snippy

What I found was a surprising variety of topics, ranging from a spate of mysterious flying craft sightings in 1897 (which turned out to be an experimental airship), to claims tying Native American folklore to alien entities, to my old friend, Harold T. Wilkins. I even discovered a scientific study conducted by the University of Colorado Boulder at the request of the United States Air Force, and a significantly less scientific study released by an organization billing itself as the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.

On September 7, 1967, near the town of Alamosa in the San Luis Valley, Snippy, a 3-year-old Appaloosa, failed to return to the Harry King Ranch where she was stabled. Two days later, Mr. King (the ranch owner) discovered Snippy's remains roughly a quarter-mile from the ranch house. According to his account, the neck and head had been completely stripped of flesh, leaving nothing but bare, seemingly sun-bleached, white bone, while the remainder of the mare remained unscathed.

There were some other elements to the initial reports as well. At one point, the exposed bones allegedly appeared to be bright pink; one person reported that her palm became incredibly itchy after handling some fur, or a piece of metal, or a piece of hide (reports varied); a sickly-sweet smell hung in the air around the body. One thing all of these claims have in common is that they were all transitory events, and there’s no way to investigate even whether they happened, let alone their cause.

Howe’s book contained a detailed account of the Snippy incident, complete with numerous interviews and photographs. Oddly, in her book Howe reveals that Snippy was actually the mother and that the deceased horse was, in fact, named Lady. (In other accounts, it’s claimed that Snippy was a nickname given to Lady by journalists, inspired by the gruesome condition in which she was found.) How this strange conflation of identities occurred is unclear, but largely irrelevant since the horse is called “Snippy” in virtually every instance. Even then, Snippy is occasionally referred to as “he,” though in that respect, the consensus is that Snippy was a mare.

By the time Howe was compiling her book, over a decade after Snippy met her unfortunate demise, the author was able to interview a significant number of ranchers who subscribed to the ‘alien dissection’ hypothesis of dead farm animals. The fact that Howe was a respected journalist, at one point serving as the Director of Special Projects at Denver’s CBS affiliate, undoubtedly added an air of credibility which the claims would not have enjoyed, had they come from a fringe crackpot. 

For example, there are a large number of assumptions made by the witnesses involved in Snippy’s discovery. Some discolorations near the body were reputed to be “exhaust” marks, but their origin was never confirmed, and there’s nothing attesting to their being the result of heat or flame. The indentations found nearby were alleged to be imprints from the landing gear of a spaceship, but not only was there no evidence of said craft, there’s not any evidence that the marks were related to the horse or its premature passing in any way. There were some vague and nonspecific reports of “elevated radiation levels” in the area (particularly in relation to the alleged scorch marks), but others found no evidence to support those claims.

As to some of the other oddities surrounding the case, opinions were somewhat varied. Speculation around the apparent cleanliness of the neck wound ranged from the frightened horse getting tangled in a barbed wire fence, to someone discovering the suffering animal, and cutting its throat in an act of mercy. The bones being picked clean is easily attributed to scavengers or ants (radioactive or otherwise). While it seems unusual that the flesh would be stripped only from the head and neck, there remains no reason to infer an otherworldly explanation, particularly since the initial examination somehow overlooked two festering bullet wounds. Given how arid the climate in that region is, it’s entirely possible the blood from the wounds could have dried, leaving behind discolorations that were misidentified as “scorch marks.” Is that definitely the case? Nobody can say for certain … and that’s really the point.