UFO 8 MY COWThe truth is out there. Beryl is not.
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The founding file / U8MC-94-0001

What happened to Beryl

The complete file on the 14 March 1994 abduction of a Droughtmaster cow from the Top Paddock at Boolaroo Downs, including the tape, the circle, the pamphlet and the receipt that management keeps bringing up.

The one that started it all
Blurry photograph: The Beryl Photograph. Frame 00:02:47:12 from the original tape. The disc, the beam, and the unmistakable outline of a Droughtmaster cow being lifted "like a sock out of a dryer".CONFIRMEDENHANCED ×212
The Beryl Photograph — 14 March 1994, 2:47 am, Top Paddock, Boolaroo Downs. Frame 00:02:47:12 from the original tape. The disc, the beam, and the unmistakable outline of a Droughtmaster cow being lifted "like a sock out of a dryer". Photo: Warren Doolan (Panasonic VHS-C, hand held, raining).ANALYSIS: Dr Faraday enhanced the frame 212 times. The cow became clearer. The craft became clearer. The rain became, somehow, wetter.

The cow

Beryl. Droughtmaster, red, polled, nine years old at the time of lift, 540 kilograms on the last weigh. Ear tag QLD-0447-B. Quiet to handle, good mother, strong feet, would come to the ute. Reserve Champion Cow, Wandoona Show 1991, and should have won it outright but the judge was from Roma and we will leave it there.

She was in the Top Paddock with eleven others because the Top Paddock had feed and the bore was working, which it is not always. She was, in every sense that matters to a grazier, exactly where she was meant to be. This is the last time anyone can say that about Beryl.

The timeline

  • 02:40

    The dogs hum.

    Both dogs, same note. Later identified as B flat. Warren goes out with the Panasonic because it is still on the fridge from the Show video.

  • 02:44

    The disc.

    Grey-green, lights running anticlockwise, which is wrong. Silent, except the dogs. Estimated altitude: higher than the windmill, lower than the moon.

  • 02:47

    The beam.

    A column of light the width of a cattle grid. Beryl rises, legs down, looking at the camera, "like a sock out of a dryer". The disc closes under her. Straight up. Gone.

  • 02:48

    The rain stops.

    Noted at the time. Management: "It was a shower, Warren."

  • 06:00

    Police rung.

    Senior Constable Taggart attends at 9:15 am. Files the matter under Livestock: Miscellaneous. Declines to create Livestock: Taken.

  • 10:05

    The Men in Beige.

    Thirty-one hours after the lift: two men, beige slacks, white Commodore. They ask for the tape. They receive a no. They leave a pamphlet about drought assistance. It is not a drought.

  • Tue.

    Management's version.

    Eleven head go to Roma saleyards on the Tuesday for the bore pump money. Management says Beryl was among them. Management produces a receipt. The receipt is discussed below.

The circle

Nine metres across, perfectly round, the grass flattened clockwise and scorched at the rim. No tracks in or out. No blood, no footprints, no receipt. The remaining cattle had bunched up at the far gate facing the house "like they wanted to make a statement". The circle has not grown back in thirty-two years, except where Noreen put the sprinkler, which Warren has logged as a separate anomaly (see Site 7).

Blurry photograph: Site 7, the Burnt Circle. A cow found at rest inside a 9-metre circle of scorched grass. No tracks, no blood, no footprints, no receipt. The cow was later found to be asleep.DEVELOPING
Site 7, the Burnt Circle — 3 April 1995, 7:30 am, Top Paddock, Boolaroo Downs. A cow found at rest inside a 9-metre circle of scorched grass. No tracks, no blood, no footprints, no receipt. The cow was later found to be asleep. Photo: Warren Doolan.

The tape

Panasonic VHS-C, 1991 model, 22 minutes of footage of which 19 are the dogs. The relevant 40 seconds have been copied to a second VHS, a DVD, a USB stick, a second USB stick after the first one "went missing from the kitchen drawer the day after a beige visit", and Shane's phone. The original is kept in a location known only to Warren and, since the 2009 incident with the hot water system, to Noreen.

The Men in Beige have asked for the tape on 31 occasions. The answer has been no on 31 occasions. They have never asked for a copy, which Dr Faraday considers significant: "they don't want to see it. They want it gone."

The analysis

Dr Lyle Faraday, Chief Scientific Officer, has enhanced the key frame 212 times using a process he describes as "zoom, enhance, zoom, print, scan, enhance". His findings:

  1. The craft is approximately 40 metres across, or 40 centimetres if it was closer.
  2. The beam exhibits a luminosity of 11 Faraday Units, which is "plenty".
  3. The cow is "clearly worrying".
  4. The rain, on enhancement, "appears to be falling upward near the craft", consistent with "a localised reversal" or with Warren holding the camera upside down for a bit, which he denies.

A word from management

Receipt no. 0417, Roma Saleyards, Tuesday 15 March 1994: eleven head, mixed, including one Droughtmaster cow, red, polled, nine years. Paid by cheque to the bore pump. The "tape" shows a light in the rain and a dog. I have offered to frame the receipt. Warren has offered to frame the Men in Beige. We have not framed anything.

The receipt, addressed

The Collective has examined the receipt. It is a receipt. It says a red polled Droughtmaster cow was sold. It does not say which red polled Droughtmaster cow. Boolaroo Downs ran, at the time, ninety red polled Droughtmaster cows. The receipt is, in the Collective's considered view, exactly what they would want you to have.

Where is she now?

Pine Gap Pete's information, delivered on the back of a Keno slip in August 2008, is that cattle taken from the eastern states are "processed through the domes" near Alice Springs and either returned to a different paddock, retained, or "sent on". He did not know where "on" was. He said it was above his pay grade, which, Noreen points out, is lawn mowing.

The Collective's position is that Beryl is alive, somewhere, being looked at by something that does not understand what it has. The Top Paddock gate has been open since 1994. The windmill is lit at night. There is a bucket of pellets on the post.

Beryl, if you are reading this, which Dr Faraday says is possible: we're still here. The dogs are different dogs now, but they know about you.

Read Warren's original 1996 account → · All photographic evidence → · Report a sighting →