Mike Conley: Last week, the History Channel presented a new documentary on the weird phenomenon called cattle mutilations. Although I didn’t get to watch the entire program, I saw enough to let me know that the phenomenon is alive and well in 2005 - even if the cattle are dead.Cattle mutilation is the term given to the thousands of cases where farm animals are found dead and their bodies mutilated in a strange way. The cause of death is undetermined (they don’t appear to have been shot or poisoned) and all of the blood has been removed from their bodies. And strangest of all, certain body parts are found surgically removed from the cattle, usually the reproductive and rectal organs. A cow’s udders are sometimes found removed as well. The incisions are always performed neatly and precisely with almost no blood at the scene.Investigators will find abnormally high levels of radiation around the places where the dead animals are discovered. In some cases, the cattle are found marked with a kind of fluorescent paint. Buzzards and other scavengers will not touch the carcasses. No footprints or signs of a struggle are found around the scene. Investigators will often discover clamp marks on the animals’ legs that indicate they were taken from their pastures, killed and mutilated elsewhere and then brought back, according to a Web site.