The problem with some Spooky Saturday topics is that they’re just so expansive. There are some topics that I want to delve into, and the reality of it is, it’s such a huge topic that it could make its own sub-series in and of itself. Skinwalker Ranch is one of those topics, but I’m going to challenge myself to keep it short and sweet and just give you the basics. But trust me, if this interests you there is a whoooole rabbit hole out there for you to fall down. If you decide to embark on that particular descent, take some snacks and a rope, and I’ll see you in a week or two.
Now onto the nitty gritty.
You know how some places are just…really, really creepy? Like the place itself is scary as all hell?
Skinwalker Ranch is basically that times a thousand.
Skinwalker Ranch is located outside of Ballard, Utah, and actually used to be named Sherman Ranch after its former owners Terry and Glen Sherman, but was renamed Skinwalker Ranch after…well, skinwalkers. Skinwalkers are a creature from Navajo legends which are said to be evil or corrupt shaman with the ability to disguise themselves as animals. (I know, already getting into the creepiness, right?)
But trust me when I tell you, the name isn’t the only weird thing about this place. The ranch, which sits on over 500 acres and borders the Ute Indian Reservation, is widely regarded as a paranormal hotspot. It’s more or less just a magnet for strange and supernatural occurrences—most prominently (but not limited to) UFOs.
Let’s start with the ranch’s namesake—the skinwalker. Terry Sherman, the owner the ranch used to be named for, claimed to see several human-like creatures on his property, which he believed to be skinwalkers after hearing the Navajo legends. However, since the ranch is almost four hundred miles from Navajo territory in Utah, some believe that he was seeing wasn’t a shapeshifting shaman at all, but perhaps a humanoid extraterrestrial being.
Other people claimed to see creepy humanoid figures, as well. A scientist working on the ranch to try to get to the bottom of all the strange happenings spotted what he described as a large humanoid figure creeping on him from a tree branch twenty feet off the ground, which he could only be sure was there when he shined the light on it and saw the “penetrating yellow light of the unblinking eyes.” The scientist shot at the creature and it fled, and when he went to look for it, he saw a single footprint on the ground that was shaped like an oval with two sharp claws which he compared to a “bird of prey” or a “raptor print.”
Thanks, I hate it.
Former owner Sherman also said he saw a wolf on the ranch three times the size of a normal wolf which he also shot at (these people just love shooting at things, or they were spooked? I don’t know, y’all), and apparently shooting it had absolutely no effect on it whatsoever.
But let’s get to what you’re really here for…the alien stuff. I know, I know. Trust me, there’s no shortage of UFO and alien stuff happening here. Far too much to include it all in this post, so again, feel free to go way down that rabbit hole when you’re done here if you want to know more. There’s tons of TV shows and even a full-length documentary about the ranch. One that I’d recommend is Hunt for the Skinwalker, which came out two years ago and goes pretty in-depth into the strange happenings. And if you’re a Bagans fan, there’s also a Ghost Adventures episode where they visit the ranch and conduct their own little experiments.
But I digress.
Over the past fifty years or so, owners of or visitors to the ranch have reported literally hundreds of UFO sightings, and two of the investigators who stayed at the ranch claim to have investigated about one hundred incidents just themselves. The Shermans said they’d wake up to horrifying sights like unexplainable crop circles and cattle mutilations in which the cattle had been completely drained of blood and taken apart in an almost “surgical” manner. And we all know cattle mutilations and crop circles are pretty much trademarks of reported UFO and alien activity.
As far as UFO sightings go, they range from everything from strange lights in the sky to reports of seeing actual crafts hovering in the sky right above the ranch.
Back in 1998, a police officer claimed to see a large light plunge into a nearby reservoir and then reemerge moments later, and a few years later four young men on the shore of that same reservoir said they saw a glowing ball of blue-white light dive into the water and then reemerge in a different shape before taking off and disappearing into the sky. Could these light anomalies have been extraterresterial in origin?
If they weren’t some of these other sightings may have been. The Shermans specifically reported clearly seeing several types of UFOs: small, boxy ones, big forty foot UFOs, and huge crafts that were bigger than football fields. They claimed one of the crafts emerged from a glowing orange orb that looked like a doorway or a portal, and some of them emitted red light. Gwen Sherman claimed that a flying light followed her all the way home once.
But it didn’t stop at just the sightings of the crafts. Terry Sherman’s stories are nearly innumerous, including one where he took the dogs outside and seemed to hear male voices speaking in another language coming from about twenty feet above him. The dogs seemed to hear it, too, and went absolutely berserk trying to figure out where it was coming from.
Can you imagine how scary that would be, compounded with everything else that was happening? Well, it turns out, the Shermans were so scared, they just took off. A little more than a year after dropping a pretty penny on this property, they just fled. They were having none of it. Luckily, the property was so famous, a UFO and supernatural enthusiast from Vegas named Robert Bigelow was happy to buy it from them, much to the criticism of certain skeptics.
Now, some people say the Shermans made all this up. Some people say they saw perfectly natural occurrences and just interpreted them as something supernatural or extraterrestrial out of fear. And still others say they were suffering from some sort of collective delusion or hallucination.
But a lot of people believe them, and a lot of people have put tons of work and money into more closely investigating this location. And most investigators seem to agree: there’s definitely something going on here. The ranch has become such a popular investigation site that the new owners (a once-mysterious shell corporation who went only by the name of “Adamantium Holdings”, but has since been proven to belong to businessman/real estate developer named Brandon Fugal) have completely barricaded it from the public, closing off roads and making it nearly impossible to enter without permission. But with permission, it’s become an investigative hotspot, with its own command center for observing the mysterious occurrences. Investigators agree that whatever is happening here not only gives off an overall eerie, uncomfortable feeling, it also gives off very high EMF readings, messes with electronics like cell phones and cameras, and oftentimes makes visitors feel violently ill and have to be taken off the ranch.
I don’t know, if that doesn’t scream potentially paranormal, what does?
One of the biggest questions about Skinwalker Ranch is why here? Why does this particular spot seem to have so much going all in one area? Theories are abundant, and people have hypothesized that it could be anything from converging ley lines creating a hotspot to the area just being a great open area for otherworldly beings to land in and utilize as an earthly hub of sorts.
One thing is for sure—Skinwalker Ranch has a long history of supernatural reports behind it, and a long future ahead of it. There is no shortage of information and creepy claims about this location, and I don’t think its legendary status is going anywhere anytime soon.
What do you all think? Is it paranormal? Is it aliens? Or is it just a collective delusion? Let me know in the comments! And let me know if you have any requests for our next spooky Saturday topic! I have a few in mind, but I’m always open to suggestions if there’s something specific you want to read about.
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