There have been some calculations . . . e.g. in a field with new snow on top of significant muddiness . . . that at least in one case, the cow had to have been dropped from at least 300 feet.
There have been some very clever explanations as to how human black ops folks have used silent copters to do such things for the 50% of the mutilations they are supposedly engaging in . . . though certainly we have UFO type craft, too. I don’t remember all the details but it was plausible. Something about the workers using a particular kind of dart or beam or some such to take the cow down initially, then standing on top of the cow to do the work etc. and still leaving no hint of any tracks to the cow.
However, clearly a huge chunk of such mutilations have been carried out by ‘others.’
Farmers have
1. SEEN the critters and their craft just before and after.
2. In some cases they have seen them working with the cows in the midst of the process.
3. Some have seen the cows being ‘beamed’ up into the craft.
4. Some farmers have shot at the critters which came up around the farmhouse and peered in the windows at the same time as the mutilations incidents were occurring on their property.
When the wave of mutilations was reported in the early 70s many ranchers I knew also speculated that possible satanic rituals were the answer. As far as I know there haven’t been any close to where I have lived so never got any first hand accounts, just what I have seen in the media. It does seem odd to me that lifelong ranchers and vets are puzzled as to what happened to the critters. I have seen many different stages of livestock decomp and the results of bugs, birds, coyotes and such on carcasses but this seems to be a mystery to folks that have seen the same things I have, so who knows?