UFO
horse bones sale hits snag
Wednesday,
December 6, 2006
A
man attempting to sell on eBay the skeletal remains of the first horse to be mutilated
by aliens has had to postpone his plans – after a dispute about who owns
the bones.
Frank
Duran was trying to sell the supposed skeleton of Snippy the horse, whose body
was found in 1967 in Alamosa, Colorado with the skin and flesh neatly removed
from its neck and head, and a formaldehayde odour in the air.
The
mysteriousness of the horse's death, alongside an account at the same time from
a Colorado judge of how he saw 'three reddish-orange rings in the sky', led people
to speculate that UFOs had mutilated the horse. An anonymous 'pathologist's report'
added to the media frenzy, when it suggested that many of Snippy's organs had
been removed.
The
horse's name wasn't actually Snippy, by the way – it was Lady. Snippy was
a different, entirely non-mutilated horse on the same ranch, but the name Snippy
has stuck.
Since
Snippy's untimely death, reports of horses, cattle, sheep and other animals mutilated
in a strange, grotesque and eldritch manner have been a mainstay of the UFO community.
Duran
was selling the bones on behalf of an Alamosa man who claimed ownership –
but now the local chamber of commerce, and a relative of Snippy's original owner,
have both claimed ownership, slightly hampering the attempt to sell it.
At
the time of writing, Snippy the dead mutilated horse had 60 friends on MySpace.
