Linda Moulton Howe (born January 20, 1942) is an American investigative journalist and Regional Emmy award-winning documentary film maker best known for her work as a ufologist and advocate of a variety of conspiracy theories, including her investigation of cattle mutilations and conclusion that they are performed by extraterrestrials. She is also noted for her speculations that the U.S. government is working with aliens. Early life She was born Linda Ann Moulton in Boise, Idaho. Howe entered the 1963 Miss Boise pageant for college scholarships and went on to win the 1963 Miss Idaho crown and scholarships, and participated in the Miss America 1964 pageant that year in Atlantic City. Howe received her 1965 B.A. cum laude in English Literature from the University of Colorado. In 1966, Howe was awarded the Stanley Baubaire Scholarship for her master's degree work at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. She received her master's degree in communication from Stanford University in 1968, where she produced a documentary film for the Stanford Medical Center and her Master's Thesis, "A Picture Calculus," at the Stanford Linear Accelerator. Career Howe's early work focused on environmental issues. From 1978 to 1983, Howe was Director of Special Projects at KMGH-TV, Channel 7, Denver, Colorado. Her documentaries included Poison in the Wind and A Sun Kissed Poison which compared smog pollution in Los Angeles and Denver, Fire In The Water about hydrogen as an alternative energy source to fossil fuels, and A Radioactive Water about uranium contamination of public drinking water in a Denver suburb. Howe was on staff at WCVB-TV when the station won an Institutional Peabody Award for institutional excellence in 1975. In 1980, Howe produced A Strange Harvest, a documentary that suggested unusual wounds found on cattle are the work of extraterrestrial beings who harvest body parts required for their survival or research, and that the U.S. government is complicit. The documentary received a Regional Emmy award for Audio Achievement in 1981. Howe became known as a "staunch advocate" for these ideas, and began to focus on UFO conspiracy theories and speculate about alleged connections between cattle mutilations, UFOs and supposed government conspiracies, saying "I am convinced that one or more alien intelligences are affecting this planet". Although Howe claimed she was shown secret documents after being taken into confidence by an agent of the government, author John Greer wrote that Howe presented no evidence for such claims