On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors
Directed by Seth Breedlove | Small Town Monsters
When it comes to the UFO phenomenon, one of the more disturbing aspects has to be that of alleged animal mutilations. Much like crop circles, these bizarre occurrences are usually tangentially associated with UFO sightings and experiences. I’ve always felt that animal mutilations were mostly relegated to sidebar mentions in the larger UFO narrative. After all, most UFO reports don’t include mutilations. But On the trail of UFOs: Night Visitors, the newest entry from Small Town Monsters, fixes its focus squarely on the subject.
A Disturbing Trend
When most people think of these mutilations, they think of cattle mutilations. But many different animals have been reported mutilated. Cattle, of course, but also sheep, goats, dogs, and horses. In fact, the most famous animal mutilation story centers on a horse named Snippy. And we learn a lot about that case here. Witnesses usually report strange lights being seen before the mutilated animal is found. Sightings of strange, unmarked helicopters usually follow. The livestock are discovered with their soft tissue organs missing (e.g., eyeballs, lips, tongues, genitals, etc.). And there’s a shocking lack of any blood.
Animal mutilations make an already hard-to-believe phenomenon even more unpalatable to skeptics. It can be hard enough to believe that advanced civilizations are traveling across the galaxy to come hover in our skies. Even harder to believe is why they’d want to kill our livestock to take their eyeballs, tongues, and rectums. Having said that, it cannot be denied that something is killing and harvesting these animals. But is it aliens? or something more sinister?
Night Visitors takes a closer look at these tragic mutilations. Through eyewitness interviews and on-location investigating, host Shannon LeGro and director Seth Breedlove delve into one of the more esoteric UFO mysteries. The stories are often the same. Strange, bright lights, often moving in ways conventional aircraft aren’t able to. A day or so later, the discovery of a beloved animal from the ranch, dead and mutilated. Some organs are missing, yet there’s no blood on the ground. No tracks. And no apparent signs of human involvement.
UFOs? Or Something Closer to Home?
Skeptics are often quick to explain away these mutilations. Predators are the easiest culprits to suggest, as coyotes, wolves, and other predators also roam the lands with the livestock. However, it doesn’t always explain the laser-like incisions, or lack of blood. Or the lack of signs of any struggle. Another easy scapegoat is Satan worshippers, or just teenagers being stupid. There’s of course no evidence for this, and again, the surgical incision and lack of blood sort of preclude this. So what is going on?
Another theory – one attached to the unmarked helicopters – is that the government is conducting some clandestine, long-term experiment. But the question begs itself: why? Why would the government need to attack, kill, and mutilate the livestock of innocent farmers? Couldn’t the government procure it’s own animals to experiment on? It’s an explanation that doesn’t make any sense, but is also the most grounded and logical of all explanations.
Night Visions explores all of these avenues of thought in an unflinching and unbiased manner. As with all STM productions, all theories (and witnesses) are treated with equal respect, even if there’s some skepticism. Each entry by Breedlove trumps the previous one, and Night Visitors is no different. The visual effects here are absolutely stunning, a marked step up from the already fantastic work on On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky. Additionally, the interviews are engaging yet chilling. There’s an uneasy subtlety to these stories, which is often missing in most UFO encounters. The culprit is sometimes assumed to be aliens, but the witness testimony leaves plenty of room for doubt. And interpretation. LeGro and Breedlove expertly ask the right questions. Yet satisfying answers, as always, are elusive. Which just makes this subset of the UFO phenomenon all the more unsettling.
Final Thoughts
On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors continues the trend of grounded, serious, and thought-provoking documentaries from Seth Breedlove and the superbly talented Small Town Monsters team. A wonderfully somber look at a gruesome phenomenon with frighteningly mysterious implications, Night Visitors is a perfect primer on the subject of animal mutilations.
On the Trail of UFOs: Night Visitors is available to watch now on most VOD & Streaming platforms
