• Registered: 2005-06-26

Topic: 450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths

450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths
By The Associated Press

posted: 08 July 2005
11:22 am ET


ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) _ First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported Friday.
In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher, cushioning the fall, the daily newspaper Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted,'' Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam.

The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas, located in Van province in eastern Turkey, tops US$100,000 (euro84,000), a significant amount of money in a country where average GDP per person is around US$2,700 (euro2,268).

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep,'' Aksam quoted another villager, Abdullah Hazar as saying. "But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us.''

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ … eaths.html

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If external life is a symbolic reflection of truth, then this is a clear indication that to "be a sheep" anymore in this world is to essentially commit suicide, eh? Even the numerology adds up (4+5+0=9, Major endings).

Whew!

~Sowelu

"The most important decision you have to make is whether you live in a hostile or friendly universe."
~ Albert Einstein

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~Marcel Proust

The evolution of humanity is an evolution of the heart. The path is through the heart.
  • From: istanbul
  • Registered: 2004-05-13

Re: 450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths

Hahaha, yes this is fascinating news, already on chain e-mails here with the subject: "only in Turkey!"

On the other hand, yes when you see it as metaphor, it's time to wake up!

Change we must, to live again
- Jon Anderson
  • From: NOTHING
  • Registered: 2004-09-03

Re: 450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths

My first impression of this is that they (sheep) were electromagnetically influenced to jump over the cliff. From a satellite or something. hehh - Can they do that? I betcha they could.

Kay but why would they spend millions in advanced thechnology for simply killing some sheep? Well, maybe they're just that arrogant. Or maybe they're testing the method on animals before they go and make a mistake like using the technology incorrectly on real people who can turn around and expose them when they realize what happened.

Maybe they actually 'got inside the sheeps head' with EM beams (*laughing*) but more likely to me would be that they created some 'heat shiled' around the herd and 'drove' them off the cliff.

Then again it also does sound like the phenomena of whales beaching themselves. So maybe the sheep couldn't stand some inadvertant condition in their enviroment like the wales and decided to bid us adeu.

boy I bet I look pretty crazy right about now . . . yea sometimes I compare myself to Jeffrey from Twelve Monkeys . . .

I am as is Void.
  • Registered: 2004-08-19

Re: 450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths

This makes me thinks of a South Park episode (Cow Days, season 2, episode 13) where a similar thing happens to cows. To celebrate the Cow Days a huge wooden cow (sitting like Buddha) with a clock in it is presented to the town; every hour the statue moos. The cows start massively grouping around this statue and worshipping it. When their cult is opressed, they massively commit suicide by walking off a cliff.

It also makes me think of sheep farmers who shoot any sheep that figures out how to unlock the gates, out of fear that sheep will teach it to the other sheeps as well (does this tactic sound familiar to anyone?). I wonder wether all the sheep would have jumped if the second sheep to go (and thus the first one to follow) would have been visibly shot. The sheep did not see the dead sheep at the bottom of the cliff, so they must not have realised it was fatal until they were at the edge, and possibly being pushed by the rest of the herd, who also wanted to reach the edge.

Or maybe it was just plain suicide. Perhaps the herd suddenly realised in whose belly they would end up.

  • Registered: 2004-04-09

Re: 450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths

Maybe it was a group of reincarnated lemmings......

" Then it was, then again it will be. And though the course may change sometimes rivers always reach the sea." Robert Plant