Skinwalker Ranch

Facing the Unknown Force

that Haunts the Uinta Basin

Conrad Bauer
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 Contents

The Skinwalker and the Conspiracy of Silence

The Beginning of a Mystery
The Shermans meet the Skin-Walkers
Flying Refrigerators and Mysterious Mind Games
Closer Encounters
Yes, They’re Watching Us
Last Stand at the Ranch House
How Robert Bigelow Bought the Farm
Higher Dimensions
Skin-Walkers and Vandals
Further Developments
Possible Explanations
More Questions than Answers
Further Readings
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 The Skinwalker and the Conspiracy
of Silence
The world is full of mystifying myths and legends, but the Navajo
legend of the skin-walker is one of the least understood of all.
Indeed, it is perhaps the only mythological entity whose originators
seem to be sworn to complete secrecy on the subject. Most Navajo
are hesitant even to mention skin-walkers in passing conversation
among themselves, and if an outsider were to ask about these
mythical creatures, he would receive nothing but a startled and
stone-faced denial.

But the walls of silence that have been built up around the skin-
walker are not airtight. A few obscure, anecdotal stories of shape-
shifting entities playing pranks on the locals have found their way
through the embargo. From them we have learned that the skin-
walker of hushed Native American legend has a name in Navajo that
is never supposed to be pronounced, or even mentioned. But if you
feel brave enough to sound it out in your own mind—the Navajo
name for these fearsome fiends is “naaldooshii”.

According to Navajo folklore, the mere utterance of this name is

dangerous because it could draw the unwanted attention of a skin-
walker. As scary as these entities are, the myth maintains that skin-
walkers were originally human beings. Specifically, they were
medicine men or shamans who achieved superhuman awareness
and mastery of their soul but turned toward the darker side of reality
somewhere along their spiritual journey. For some unknown reason,
these once-holy men, after reaching enlightenment, simply chose to
become evil.

This induction into the negative side of the universe came with an
initiation. In order for a skin-walker to obtain his extraordinary
powers, he had to kill someone of his own bloodline. This previously
holy man was then imbued with the sinister and unholy power of the
skin-walker, which included the ability to shape-shift into just about
any animal known to man—and some that were completely unknown
outside of legend.

The most infamous of these animal forms is that of a highly unusual

dog/wolf/coyote type creature that is usually much larger than its
natural counterpart. These strange canines can run at incredible,
unheard-of speed, and they have even been witnessed running on
two legs.

As if these canine aberrations weren’t frightening enough, the skin-

walker is also connected to a more primatal strain of the paranormal.
Many have witnessed these shape-shifters morph into furry, ape-like
creatures. These entities can only be described as the classic Bigfoot
or Sasquatch of North American folklore.

And this is only the tip of the paranormal iceberg. As we proceed

with the true story of the skin-walkers and the Utah ranch that
became infamous for hosting them, we will break the conspiracy of
silence that has long surrounded the skin-walker wide open.
 The Beginning of a Mystery

Most stories have a clear beginning and a clear end, but the
beginning of the great mystery that is Skinwalker Ranch and its
immediate surroundings could be as old as the beginning of time.
Native Americans have passed around legends about this haunted
corner of Utah long before the ranch or any other permanent
settlement existed. But the European settlers who came after them
would note the high strangeness as well, and perhaps that’s a good
place for us to start the tale.

Mormon leader Brigham Young was one of the earlier chroniclers of

this Utah oddity. Young succeeded the founder of the Mormon faith,
Joseph Smith, as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints after Smith’s assassination. He then led his followers west
to escape further religious persecution, establishing several Mormon
colonies in what was then unsettled American territory. One of these
colonies was located on what would one day become the grounds of
Skinwalker Ranch.

Brigham Young’s first forays into this haunted stretch of land

occurred in the early 1860s when he sent a survey team to see if the
Uinta Basin would provide habitable land for settlers. Their findings
were disappointing; when they came back, they reported that the
whole region was a “vast contiguity of waste” which was completely
“valueless except for nomadic purposes, hunting grounds for Indians
and to hold the world together”.

Despite this bleak early assessment, the Mormon march eventually

did bring the Church of Latter-day Saints back to the Uinta Basin,
with serious settlement effort occurring in the 1880s. Upon venturing
into this formerly Native American land, the Mormons soon had
many of their own skin-walker tales to tell. The secret mythology
was secret no longer, and the tales then spread to miners who
arrived around 1885 to harvest the Uinta Basin’s many valuable
mineral deposits.

The surrounding area, named Uintah County, now boasts a

population of some 25,000 people. It is thus still sparsely populated
by most standards, but considering the vastness of the region, which
those first Mormon explorers quantified as “valueless except for
nomadic purposes”, the figure demonstrates slow but steady growth.
Today the miners are all but gone, and cattle ranching has been the
Uinta Basin’s main industry since the early 1950s—which is also
when the first documented UFO sightings began to take place over
the area.

Junior Hicks, a science professor at the University of Utah, was the

first to gather evidence of the paranormal happenings at Skinwalker
Ranch and attempt to figure out what was going on. Hicks’s
investigation was inspired by a group of students who witnessed
what could only be described as a UFO over Skinwalker Ranch in
1951. About 30 of his students claimed to have seen a classic cigar-
shaped UFO flying over them in broad daylight.

They had no doubt that they had observed something highly

extraordinary, and it turned out that they weren’t the only ones.
Hicks’s subsequent digging uncovered hundreds of firsthand
accounts of UFOs and other strange phenomena occurring in and
around the ranch. He soon discovered that all of these tales shared
one common feature—and that common feature was the skin-walker.
Hicks was one of the first outsiders to collect extensive information
about these alleged paranormal entities from Native American tribes.

The tribal members he spoke with referred to the whole region as

the “Path of the Skin-Walker” and were steadfast in their refusal to
go anywhere near it. Hicks eventually published his findings in a
1974 book entitled *The Utah UFO Display*—the first book in which
skin-walkers were directly linked to the UFO phenomenon. Although
Hicks mentioned the Skinwalker Ranch in this book, the ranch itself
did not attract much attention until the early 1990s when the
Sherman family bought the land and brought the phenomena that
came with it to the world stage.

The Shermans, undoubtedly the most famous residents of

Skinwalker Ranch, acquired it after the deaths of the original
owners, Kenneth John Myers and Edith Child Myers. This married
couple had purchased the ranch all the way back in 1933. At first
their property consisted of just 160 acres, but over the years they
expanded their holdings to 480 acres. They never had any children,
instead throwing themselves completely into working the land.

Even after Kenneth passed away in 1987, Edith stayed on at the

ranch by herself until her own death on March 3, 1994. Kenneth’s
younger brother Garth Myers inherited the property and eventually
sold it to Terry and Gwen Sherman. Not a whole lot is known about
what went on before the Shermans moved in, but when they did
they were absolutely puzzled to find locks and deadbolts all
throughout the ranch house.

There were locks on both the insides and outsides of doors,

windows, and even closets. Were the previous residents really afraid
of unwelcome visitors suddenly invading their closet space? Most of
us believe the monster in the closet is just a product of vivid
childhood imagination, but here was a home with no children, whose
inhabitants were seemingly afraid of what might lurk in their
bedroom closet! It all begged the question—just what had the Myers
family been trying so desperately to keep out?
 The Shermans meet the Skin-
Walkers

When the Sherman family purchased the old Myers Ranch, they
assumed that they would be the only ones living on the premises.
But soon enough, they began to realize that they had some
company on the land. The first of these strange denizens made its
presence known in the classic skin-walker form—as an oddly out-of-
place wolf.

Terry Sherman had been hard at work in one of the fields

surrounding the ranch house when he saw movement out of the
corner of his eye. He turned to see some kind of large dog-like
creature in the distance. It was walking in his direction, and he
immediately began a process of elimination to figure out what it
might be—a dog, a coyote, or perhaps even a wolf. As it came
closer, however, Terry was forced to discard such easy explanations.
Whatever it was, this creature was bigger than any natural-born
canine had any right to be.

Before he knew what was happening, the wolfish creature had

covered the entire distance between them and trotted right out in
front of Terry and his family. The animal seemed peaceful, maybe
even tame, and Terry couldn’t help but reach out his hand to pet it.
He ran his hand through its grey fur, feeling the powerful
musculature below. But this animal would not remain friendly for
long.

Shortly after Terry touched it, the beast turned around and ran away
from him, shooting off like a thunderbolt and heading straight
toward the corral in which the Shermans kept their cattle. Before
Terry knew quite what was happening, it stuck its snout through the
bars of the cattle pen and clamped its jaws onto the head of the calf
closest to it. Taking a vise-grip with its teeth, the creature began
attempting to pull the baby bovine through the bars as it screamed
in pain.

Terry was shocked at what he was seeing, but he finally got over his
surprise and ran to help the calf. Reaching the side of the wolf—or
whatever it was—he delivered several blows to the beast’s ribcage.
When his bare hands had no effect, Terry upped the ante by
grabbing a nearby baseball bat which he sent crashing down onto
the attacking animal’s side and back.

But incredibly, the wolf-creature still seemed completely unaffected.

Ignoring Terry altogether, it continued its attempt to pull the crying
calf through the bars of its holding pen. Desperate to stop this
shameless seizure of his livestock, Terry yelled out to his son Tad,
“Get my magnum!” He meant the heavy-duty handgun that he kept
in his pickup truck. Tad quickly brought the weapon to his father,
and Terry opened fire, scoring several direct hits on the wolf-thing.
Strangely, even after being riddled with bullets, the beast didn’t
deign to acknowledge that it was being shot! And what startled Terry
even more was that his blasts left no visible bullet wounds or blood.
The wolfish interloper seemed completely impervious to the gunshot
onslaught. It wasn’t until the fourth shot, at point-blank range, that
the creature finally let go of the calf—seemingly more out of sheer
annoyance than anything else.

The freed baby cow ran to the safety of the other side of the corral,
still wailing in pain and fear and bleeding from its injuries. Terry was
left alone just a few feet from the wolf-thing, and to his amazement,
it still seemed completely unharmed as it stared blankly back at him.
Beginning to break into an all-out panic, Terry aimed his gun at the
creature’s chest and let loose with one more magnum round. He
made a direct hit, but the animal’s only response was to slowly turn
around and begin walking away at a leisurely pace.

If the wolf-thing had been injured by the barrage of bullets, it didn’t

show it. Becoming increasingly concerned, and not willing to allow
such a dangerous animal to live to raid his livestock again, Terry
yelled for his son to bring him his shotgun. Armed with this much
more powerful weapon, Terry opened fire on the creature once
again. This time the sound of impact could be heard clearly as the
12-gauge slug tore through the animal’s shoulder.

Even now the creature made only the briefest of reactions, pausing
for just a moment before continuing at its own slowly measured
pace. Terry, shocked and somewhat incensed at the sight, then let
off another round, hitting the wolf-thing directly in the chest. This
time Terry could clearly see gouts of blood spraying out of the open
wound, but even so, the animal didn’t show itself to be in any pain
whatsoever as it slowly continued its course toward a patch of trees.

Terry and his son were still desperate to stop the beast. They
followed it into the woods, but lost sight of it after it entered the
trees. However, they could clearly see its fresh tracks in the mud,
and they carefully followed them—right up until the trail suddenly
reached a dead-end in the middle of the forest. With no explanation
whatsoever, the tracks simply stopped. Their werewolf visitor had
apparently disappeared in mid-gallop.

The incident was deeply disturbing for the Shermans, but as they
would soon find out, this kind of bizarre cat-and-mouse, smoke-and-
mirrors deviltry was standard fare for the intruding tricksters that
they would come to know all too well during their stay on the
Skinwalker Ranch. This was the Sherman family’s first run-in with
what they would come to know as a skin-walker—but it wouldn’t be
their last.
Flying Refrigerators and Mysterious
Mind Games

As the Sherman family tried their best to put the unsettling

encounter with the “bullet-proof wolf” behind them, they gained
some small sense of solace when they learned from longtime local
residents that unusually big wolves weren’t all that uncommon in the
area. Of course, this still didn’t explain how the animal had survived
several shotgun blasts, but information allowed the Shermans to
rationalize the incident. Perhaps Terry simply hadn’t hit any vital
organs. They put the whole thing out of their minds.
The mysterious wolf-thing, however, wasn’t so willing to let bygones
be bygones. It soon showed up again, following Gwen’s car as she
drove up to the ranch house—and moving at such an uncanny speed
that it was easily able to keep up with the vehicle before finally
going on its way. Gwen, realizing that this was the same exact
creature reported by her husband Terry, decided that enough was
enough and made up her mind to complain about the intruding
animal.

This meant a visit to the Office of Tribal Affairs located in nearby Fort
Duchesne, where she related a sanitized version of the “bullet-proof
wolf” incident as well as her own wolf sighting. Gwen was a no-
nonsense woman and she expected to get results, but all she
received from the local magistrates was a look of bewilderment.
Despite what the Shermans had heard from their neighbors, the
tribal officials informed her that there had not been a wolf in the
region for many decades; they had been wiped out in 1929!
Sidestepping the wolf-thing’s unnatural speed and seeming
invulnerability, the officials insisted that it was an utter impossibility
for the Shermans to have seen a wolf at all, suggesting that it must
have been a stray dog or coyote instead.

After this rebuff Gwen returned home more anxious, confused and
frustrated than ever. What was it that they had seen? Were their
eyes simply playing tricks on them?

If that was the case, Terry was the next Sherman to be subject to a
massive hallucination. The incident began innocently enough, when
Terry, his son, and his nephew were out surveying the property right
around sunset. As the skies began to darken around them, Terry
noticed what looked like the headlights of a parked RV in the
distance. It certainly wasn’t unheard of for an RV to park on
someone else’s ranch—this sort of thing happens all the time in the
vast expanse of the Utah countryside. But that didn’t mean Terry
liked it, and he wasn’t about to tolerate such trespassers on his
property.
Determined to order the interlopers off his land, he instructed his
son and nephew to follow him as he walked in the direction of the
lights. But almost as soon as they began heading in the RV’s
direction, it began to back away from them. This seemed strange to
Terry, since they were still too far away to be seen against the dim
backdrop. Maybe, he thought, the trespassers had a pair of
binoculars or night-vision goggles trained on them and were
watching their every movement.

The notion of being spied on—and on his own property, no less—

only incensed Terry further, so the three broke into a run and began
to give chase to what they still believed to be a departing RV. But as
they drew closer, they were stunned to see the vehicle’s headlights
lift off the ground and then land a few feet away. Terry wasn’t sure
what was happening. Had the RV hit a piece of uneven terrain and
been jolted into the air? He wasn’t exactly sure—but he knew that
the vehicle was now approaching a grove of olive trees lined with a
barbed wire fence.

Terry thought that they had the RV cornered. Intent on confronting

the interlopers, he broke into a full sprint. As they closed with the
vehicle, Terry began to realize just how strange this supposed RV
really was. It was moving, but it wasn’t making any sound—no
engine noise, no sound of tires rolling across the ground, nothing.
Things got even stranger as the craft neared the fence-lined trees.
This would have constituted a dead end for a real RV, but Terry and
the boys watched in shock as the vehicle lifted off the ground and
silently hovered for a moment before flying right over the tops of the
trees! They were now able to make out the object more clearly, and
strangely enough it looked like an oversized refrigerator, with one
light shining in front and a red beacon shining in back.

They were all astounded, and Terry’s nephew was so shocked that
he would never return to the ranch again. Just like the “bullet-proof
wolf”, though, the “flying refrigerator” couldn’t seem to stay away. In
fact, the odd object returned in only a few short weeks. This time
Terry was out walking with his wife Gwen when they suddenly heard
a loud metallic scraping sound. They turned and once again saw
what appeared to be headlights.

Not sure what to make of it, and wondering if perhaps someone was
lost on their property, they began to walk toward the lights. As soon
as they neared the object, however, it lifted off the ground and flew
a few feet further away. With a sinking feeling, Terry realized that
this was no ordinary motorist—it was the same hopping vehicle he
had seen before. He and Gwen continued to walk toward the craft,
and it continued to rise and move further away as they approached.

As the bizarre refrigerator-shaped object seemingly played cat-and-

mouse with them, Terry actually began to grow angry. As strange as
the whole situation was, he felt as if whatever was behind it was
playing games with them. For what purpose, he couldn’t imagine—
but playing games nonetheless. Trying to overcome his fear with
righteous anger, Terry shouted, “Who the hell do they think they
are?” Just after this indignant inquiry, they heard the loud scraping
sound again—this time directly to their rear. They turned to see what
was causing the noise, but saw nothing—and when they turned back
to the refrigerator-shaped object, it was gone.

This is certainly an odd account, but it does have one aspect that
just might have a rational explanation. That aspect is the shape of
the object. According to Terry, the vehicle looked like a “flying
refrigerator”. Well, interestingly enough, the top-secret aircraft test
facility in nearby Nevada, Area 51, at one time produced an aircraft
that seems to fit this description.

The now-declassified aircraft called the Tacit Blue was indeed widely
described as resembling a “flying refrigerator”. This very strange
looking craft had an extremely unorthodox box-shaped body
designed to make it invisible to radar. Tacit Blue utilized a far
different approach toward radar deflection than the now-familiar
diamond shapes of the F117 and Stealth Bomber. It was basically a
flying box—or refrigerator!

Could this possibly have been the vehicle that Terry and Gwen
witnessed performing maneuvers on their ranch? Was it the Tacit
Blue on a test flight? But even if it was the Tacit Blue—which was
still very much top secret in 1994 when the Shermans claim to have
seen it—that still doesn’t quite explain the odd cat-and-mouse
behavior of the craft. Nor can it account for the bizarre metallic
sounds projected away from the vehicle.

It seemed to the Shermans almost as if the object had used the loud
metallic noise to get their attention, and then used the same
projected sound to distract them so it could disappear. Of course,
this gives no hint as to what the craft was or who was in it—but it
certainly seems to show they were in the mood for mind games!
 Closer Encounters

After the family’s strange encounters with the refrigerator-shaped

craft, Terry began to believe that someone was using their property
for tests and exercises of a nature he could only imagine. From time
to time, he contemplated the strange thought that perhaps his land
was being used by some secret, black budget program of the United
States government to test out exotic new technology.

As the wintertime months got underway, the strange phenomena

that continued to beset his homestead furthered his speculation.
One incident in particular that seemed to lend credence to the
military black budget theory came when Terry was out checking on
his cattle in the snowy fields. Suddenly—as almost always seems to
be the case with this odd phenomenon—he detected movement out
of the corner of his eye.

Turning to see what it was, he saw what looked like some sort of
variation of the B-2 Stealth Bomber hovering over the snow just a
few yards away. The B-2 Bomber had already been declassified and
officially introduced to the American public a few years before, but
even though Terry had this vague point of reference linking the craft
to something plausible, explainable, and terrestrial, one can only
imagine how strange it would be to have such an exotic aircraft drop
down on his property!

Making the intrusion even stranger was the odd stillness that
permeated the atmosphere surrounding the craft. There was no
sound, no engine noise, nothing—just absolute and uncanny quiet as
the vehicle hovered in place. This is not a known characteristic of
any terrestrial craft. As advanced as the B-2 might be by earthly
standards, it makes noise. The B-2 is considered stealthy because it
can evade radar as it flies high up in the clouds, but it’s nowhere
near stealthy enough to hover a few feet off the ground in perfect
silence!

Terry continued to watch as the gravity-defying object slowly drifted

over the ground. As it came a little closer he noticed that it was
emitting a colorful searchlight from the bottom of its hull, sending
down a series of odd rainbow hues to illuminate the snowy ground
below. Terry got the distinct impression that the craft was scanning
the ground and searching for something.

Interestingly enough, the Uinta Basin of which the Skinwalker Ranch

is a part is fabulously rich in rare mineral deposits. In fact, one such
mineral discovered in the late 1880s, gilsonite, is one of the rarest of
the so-called “black hydrocarbons”, and the Uinta Basin contains one
of the few major deposits of gilsonite on the planet. Was this craft—
wherever it came from, and whoever it belonged to—conducting
covert missions on the Shermans’ property to retrieve this precious
mineral?

In complete bewilderment, Terry decided that all he could do was

watch. Sitting down on the snowy ridge, he attempted to make
sense of the scene before him. The craft continued to trace the
snow with colorful pinpoints of illumination that Terry would later
refer to as “disco lights”. The craft sent these strange, intrusive
spotlights from one stretch of ground to another in a seemingly
purposeful fashion, as if conducting a dogged search.

Terry was craning his neck to keep the craft in view as it passed
nearby when his cervical vertebrae popped. Unexpectedly, this
ordinarily trivial event had an immediate impact on the hovering
craft. As soon as the bones in Terry’s neck popped, ever so subtly
breaking the silence of the snowy waste, the craft turned off all of its
lighting. It had apparently detected the faint sound of human
vertebrae popping from several yards away and learned of the
presence of its quiet observer—Terry Sherman. For a moment, fear
gripped Terry’s heart as he began to imagine the sinister-looking
ship attacking him, but to his immense relief the craft slowly moved
away instead. He didn’t know what to make of the sighting, but as is
often the case with such unusual phenomenon, Terry found himself
simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by the enigmatic activity.

Once again, Gwen had her own encounter with a “visitor” first seen
by Terry when she was driving back to the ranch house one night a
few weeks later. Looking up to admire what appeared to be a dark
black cloud overhead, she realized that the “cloud” was actually the
same strange craft that Terry had witnessed. But instead of being
indifferent or wary, as it had been towards Terry, the craft seemed
intent on following her. Gwen became increasingly uneasy as she
made her way back to the ranch house. Finally unable to tolerate the
pursuit anymore, she hit the gas pedal to try to get away from the
craft. As soon as she did, it showered her with the same odd,
colorful spotlight Terry had seen it illuminate the ground with. The
lights followed her all the way to the driveway, and Gwen wondered
in terror whether the craft would stop, or perhaps even land, when
she parked her car. Fortunately for her frayed nerves, the ship simply
continued on its way, flying over the house and disappearing over
the horizon.

But Gwen’s night of high strangeness wasn’t over yet. Just an hour
later, after she had settled into the house and called Terry (who was
away on business that night), she spotted what looked like an RV on
her property. She was both irked and somewhat alarmed that
someone would have the gall to set up camp on their land.

Looking closer, she saw that the RV’s interior was brightly
illuminated. She could clearly see a desk through the vehicle’s side
windows—and she was then startled to see a figure dressed all in
black stride into view, pull up a seat and sit down at the desk. As
she strained her eyes to make out the details, she was perplexed to
notice that the figure was wearing a helmet and some kind of
uniform.

Was this person from the military? Why was he casually sitting down
at his desk in the middle of the Shermans’ ranch? Gwen was still
asking herself these questions when the figure suddenly stood up
and marched to the door of the RV. As she peered out at him, she
realized that he was unusually tall, perhaps even seven feet. She
could also now make out the details of his uniform. He had a black
visor covering most of his face and knee-high boots on his feet.

She also noticed something troubling—the entity, who or what ever

it was, appeared to be looking right at her. Perhaps the visor was a
pair of long-distance night vision goggles, because Gwen had the
distinct feeling that even from the considerable distance between
them, the being was able to watch her every move. The same terror
she had experienced earlier in the evening with the sighting of the
unknown aircraft returned anew with this latest apparition. Gwen
quickly averted her gaze and closed her curtains, then frantically
dialed her husband and asked him to come home as soon as
possible. Terry raced back to the ranch, but the supposed “RV” was
long gone when he finally arrived.

Although Gwen did not see this particular object rise up into the air,
its general description is very similar to the “flying refrigerator” that
Terry had spotted several weeks earlier. Terry had initially thought
that that interloper was an RV as well—that is, until it began to
levitate! Whatever it was that Terry had seen, perhaps Gwen was
seeing the same exact thing.

However, in Gwen’s case, she actually saw one of the craft’s

occupants. And from the way the being stared at her through vision
enhancing headgear, it appeared that even as the Shermans
observed the strange phenomena of the Skinwalker Ranch, they too
were being actively monitored and watched.
 Yes, They’re Watching Us

Even before the beginning of the UFO phenomenon, it has been

speculated that humanity is being observed by another sentient
species. All the way back in 1898, H.G. Wells opened his famous
science fiction classic *War of the Worlds* with the line, “No one
would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that
this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences
greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own.”

Wells envisioned a Martian civilization spying on the Earth of the late

1800s with no one the wiser—but could an alien force really be
sending out scouts and probes to observe humanity in its natural
habitat? Humans, after all, have already sent robotic probes to most
of the worlds in our solar system, so it may not be too farfetched to
suppose that if aliens exist, they’ve sent some probes of their own.

In fact, one of the big questions for scientists searching for

extraterrestrial life is, “Where are the probes?” According to the late
great Stephen Hawking, if advanced aliens ever existed at any time
during the history of our 13-billion-year-old universe, we should have
bumped into one of their mechanical probes by now. Even if the
aliens themselves went extinct billions of years ago, their robotic
probes—just like the hundreds of autonomous craft humanity has
launched into space—should still be out there.

Officially, at least, no scientist or NASA astronaut has ever bumped

into any alien probes. But maybe they’ve been looking in the wrong
place—because according to the Shermans, if you stick around
Skinwalker Ranch long enough some very strange pieces of
equipment of an unknown intelligence will undoubtedly make their
appearance. They come in the form of lighted mechanical balls that
seem to completely defy gravity.

Terry and Gwen first encountered these odd orbs one evening as
they were out checking on their cattle. They noticed that their
animals were unusually restless, and soon they too began to feel
uneasy. The Shermans began to experience that strange but
undeniable feeling that someone—or something—was watching
them. Their horses were grazing under a nearby tree, and when
Terry happened to look over at them, he was startled to see what
appeared to be a perfectly round glass ball floating above the tree.
Blue light was emanating from its crystalline surface.

Gwen turned to see what her husband was looking at and gasped in
shock as the blue, baseball-sized light drifted away from the tree
and slowly sailed down to one of the horses. As the pulsating blue
orb hovered around the animal’s head, it grew understandably
agitated and stopped grazing. The object almost seemed to be
filming the horse, or gathering some other kind of data, as it bathed
the beast in an incredibly intense blue light.

Stunned as he was, Terry was also worried about what the unknown
object might do to his horse. He felt compelled to take some sort of
decisive action, but before he could move a muscle to intercept the
object, it abruptly rose up and shot off away from the horse. To the
Shermans’ amazement, it then flew right over their heads, about 20
feet above them. As the couple stared in shock, the object just
hovered silently, fixed in that position, as if it were watching them
intently.

From this distance they could see that the object was made of
crystal-clear glass and was about the size of a softball or a small
melon. Some blue liquid bubbled and swirled inside. Terry could also
hear a slight crackling being emitted from the strange probe; it
reminded him of static electricity. As the couple stared at this
crackling object, they found themselves filled with fear—and it felt
like a fear greater than even the unusual circumstances should
merit. It was almost as if the object was somehow tapping into their
emotions and purposefully triggering their fear response.

Fighting through her terror, Gwen grabbed her flashlight and turned
it on. With shaking hands, she tried to shine it up at their frightening
visitor, but the shining blue ball reacted instantly and took evasive
action before the flashlight beam could illuminate it. The orb shot off
into the trees for cover before flying upward and disappearing over
the horizon. Whatever the object was, it obviously had no use for
Gwen’s flashlight beam—this craft was there to watch, not to be
watched.

Understandably, Terry and Gwen were thoroughly shaken by the

experience. They called it a night and hurried back to what they
thought would be the safety of their home. But no more than two
hours passed before they noticed a strange blue glow outside of
their window. Then, to their horror, the same blue ball sailed past
toward the back of their house. As it did so, the lights of the house
began to dim and brighten slightly, as if the softball-sized object was
somehow affecting the electrical supply.

Terry and Gwen rushed to the door to look outside. They saw the
strange floating probe flying several hundred feet away before
disappearing from sight. But this wasn’t the last the Shermans would
see of these strange, probing balls of light—and their next encounter
with these otherworldly reconnaissance craft would be a lethal one.
 Last Stand at the Ranch House

As frightening as the happenings on the ranch had been at times, to

that point they had not caused any physical harm. The strange blue
orbs in particular seemed content just to watch the Shermans and
their animals from a distance; they had never given them any reason
to think that their very lives might be in danger. But in April of 1996,
what was meant to be a quiet evening of relaxation turned into a
night of sheer terror.

Terry had been sitting outside enjoying the evening breeze with his
three loyal guard dogs when his peace was interrupted by the now
eerily familiar flash of blue which signified the arrival of one of the
orbs which had been visiting on a regular basis. His dogs, perhaps
aware of the intruding object even before he was, were already
growling and whining at the sight. The object was hovering just a
few feet off the ground, and it appeared to be approaching them.
When it was less than 100 yards away from Terry and his dogs, it
abruptly changed course and started heading north.

Terry had reached a breaking point. He was now entirely fed up with
these intrusions, and against his better judgment, he sicced his dogs
on the orb. The dogs took off at full speed and easily caught up to
the slow-moving object. While the object could easily have shot up
into the air to avoid the dogs, it seemed to be somehow playing
along with the pursuit, dropping down just within striking distance of
the hounds’ eager jaws.

The shining sphere seemed to be showing off its maneuverability by

allowing the dogs to come close to biting down on it, only to artfully
dodge their fangs with split-second precision. This infuriated the
dogs, which at this point probably wouldn’t have returned even if
Terry had called them. Their singular focus was to sink their teeth
into this alien (for lack of a better word) piece of technology that
was tormenting them. All the while, the orb was purposefully leading
the pursuing pack into the thick tree cover to the south, as if it
wanted the game to continue away from Terry’s worried eyes.

Sure enough, the orb suddenly dropped to the ground, tantalizingly

within reach of the chasing dogs, and sped off into the woods. All
three dogs followed in hot pursuit. Terry’s beloved pets had left his
sight for the last time, as mere moments later he heard what could
only be their death wails: three howls of brief but intense pain. Terry
stared hard and horrified at the entrance to the woods, but he could
not hear or see anything more. The entire ranch was now gripped in
a deathly quiet.

Terry sat in his lawn chair for the better part of two hours as the
darkness grew around him, hoping beyond hope to see his dogs
come running back. And as brave as Terry had proved himself to be
in his encounter with the “bullet-proof wolf”, he didn’t dare step into
those dark woods where the hovering menace still lurked. Eventually
he quietly packed up his things and went in for the night.

It was not until the next morning, under the comforting shield of the
daylight sun, that Terry finally ventured into the forest. As soon as
he stepped within the ring of trees he was greeted with the distinct
odor of death. Whatever he might find, it wouldn’t be good. After
only a few more steps through the maze of trees he found the
source of the putrid scent and recoiled in horror at the sight of three
oval piles of incinerated flesh on the forest floor. It was clear that the
shining blue probe had expertly herded the dogs out of sight inside
the woods and then turned on them and viciously incinerated them.

With the loss of his beloved dogs to the increasingly malevolent

phenomena besieging Skinwalker Ranch, Terry finally caved to the
pressure. As he walked away from the nightmarish sight the strange
intelligence had left behind, he knew it wouldn’t be long before his
family would be forced to walk away from the ranch completely. The
hidden forces that had long resided within Skinwalker Ranch were
now evicting the latest residents.
 How Robert Bigelow Bought the
Farm

After the death of their dogs, the Shermans were at their wits’ end.
With nothing to lose, they finally broke their silence about what was
happening on their ranch. Their story first appeared in a 1996
edition of a local newspaper, the *Deseret News*, and this rendition
of the tale caught the attention of billionaire Las Vegas businessman
Robert Bigelow.

Bigelow had made his fortune as owner of the Budget Suites hotel
chain, but he had many other interests besides the hospitality
industry—and one of those interests was the paranormal. Just one
year before the Skinwalker Ranch story hit the paper, Bigelow had
founded a paranormal research organization called the National
Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). This group was tasked with
investigating a host of mysterious and strange phenomena to find
concrete evidence in all kinds of nebulous subject matter that had
hitherto remained elusive.

So when Robert Bigelow received word of the strange happenings on

the Sherman Ranch, he was immediately intrigued. He had already
been considering the creation of a NIDS research outpost
somewhere in the western United States, and so the chance to
purchase land that had been the focal point of such unexplainable
activity was the proverbial icing on his paranormal cake. He came to
terms with the Shermans within a matter of weeks, and the sale of
Skinwalker Ranch was finalized in September of 1996.

But that didn’t happen before the mysterious forces left a final
parting gift to the Shermans—and this time, the manifestation was
more personal than ever. Terry Sherman later claimed that after one
of their last nights sleeping at the Ranch, both he and his wife woke
up with the telltale sign of alien abduction—a scoop mark scar
mysteriously appearing on one’s body.

The day before this incident they had spent the whole day taking
care of their cattle and preparing their ranch for the impending
handover to Bigelow. When the weary couple went inside for the
night, they made sure they shut their house up tight, locking all the
doors and even the windows. After a long, hot shower to wash away
the grime of the day, they went to bed early. They woke up the next
morning to see their bed sheets soaked in blood. As they were
wriggling out of these inexplicably bloody sheets, they noticed that
they both had matching scoop marks on their right thumbs.

Needless to say, the Shermans were relieved to finally be leaving the

ranch. They took the money from the sale and used it to purchase
another ranch some 20 miles away. But as grateful as they were for
their escape from Skinwalker Ranch, there was a part of Terry that
just couldn’t let the ranch go completely. You can chock it up to his
rancher’s pride, but Terry couldn’t quite stomach the idea of letting
the mysterious phenomena win. Even after moving out, he still
wanted to get to the bottom of what was happening.

And so Terry signed on with NIDS to become an extra ranch hand

and assist in the investigations being carried out by the team of
researchers. The arrangement was just as appealing to Bigelow, who
knew that no one knew the grounds better than Terry and
considered him an invaluable resource. One of Terry’s first major
tasks as Skinwalker Ranch guide for NIDS was looking into a recent
spate of cattle mutilations.

Such things were not exactly unusual in the region; cattle

mutilations had been reported in and around Skinwalker Ranch ever
since the 1960s. The Shermans’ first possible encounter with the
phenomenon had occurred in April of 1995. The ranch had just
endured several days of heavy rain, and Terry and his son were
attempting to gather their cattle on the slippery range.

While they were trying to retrieve a wayward calf, they spotted a

cow struggling to pull herself up a steep incline, but miserably failing
due to the slick mud that covered the field. Terry decided to take
care of the cow after they caught the calf. But when the Shermans
returned to the cow just minutes later, they found it lying down at
the bottom of the ridge, completely lifeless.
They initially surmised that it had drowned in the flood waters, but
upon closer inspection they could see that the animal had been
mutilated in every sense of the word. Its anus, genitals, and tongue
had all been sliced out as if with a surgeon’s scalpel. The poor beast
had also been completely drained of blood.

Several more mysteriously mutilated cattle were found after the

NIDS takeover, and the mutilations invariably occurred when no one
was looking. In one instance, two mutilated animals were discovered
at approximately the same time within several feet of each other,
with their carcasses shoved up under a fence. Terry scoured the
vicinity and helped to secure the perimeter, but nothing was found.
Security cameras were then installed throughout the area, and an
observation trailer was set up from which trained scientists could
observe anything that transpired on the ranch.

But inexplicably, they had seen nothing when on January 21, 1997,
Terry discovered young cows near the observation center with
strange wounds to their eyes and ears. The injuries seemed to have
occurred during a bad snow storm the night before. Had the entities
behind the injuries taken advantage of the near white-out conditions
to cut into these animals? And if so, why hadn’t they finished the
job? Had someone on the research staff gotten too close and sent
them fleeing?

At any rate, the heavy snowfall meant that there were no footprints
to be found. Unable to find a trail leading to the culprits, Terry
summoned local veterinarians to take a look at the affected cattle.
The first vet took one look at the injuries and declared that they
were unlike anything he’d ever encountered before. But the next
veterinarian, a more experienced man, strenuously disagreed. He
insisted that the wounds had been made by a coyote or a wildcat.
The idea of a big cat randomly attacking cattle during a snowstorm
struck the NIDS team as unlikely, but such theories from
veterinarians and other local professionals were quite common.
Often enough, when they were confronted with the phenomenon of
cattle mutilations, they would simply try to explain it way—even if
the explanation didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Whatever their origin, the mutilations only increased after this point.
In one particularly harrowing incident, one of Terry’s own calves
(which he had recently transferred back to Skinwalker Ranch) was
viciously mutilated in broad daylight while Terry and other
researchers were standing within arm’s reach. Terry was anguished
at the sight, but the research team didn’t have time for sympathy.
They got busy studying the carcass, then conducted an autopsy to
find out how the animal had met its end.

The calf’s body appeared to have been torn open by some

tremendous energy. One leg had been ripped off right at the joint as
easily as someone would pull the leg off of a cooked rotisserie
chicken. No known predator of the animal world would have been
able to do such a thing with the leg of a living, struggling cow.
Besides this dismemberment, the calf had the typical hallmarks of
cattle mutilation. All its internal organs had been removed with laser
precision, it was completely drained of blood, and one ear was
neatly severed from the head. There was no obvious ripping or
tearing at the incision, and when the wound was placed under a
microscope it was irrefutably clear that the ear had been cut off with
a precision instrument. Bigelow’s NIDS had a real and active
predator—of the paranormal kind.
 Higher Dimensions

After living on Skinwalker Ranch for a while, the Sherman family had
begun to notice discernible patterns in the paranormal activity that
confronted them. And the biggest canvas for these telltale signs was
always the skies above their heads. In particular, a piece of sky right
over a wooded grove hosted a very specific retinue of spooky
happenings. Almost every evening, like clockwork, right when the
sun was going down, an odd-looking orange smudge would appear
just above the treetops.

At first the family rationalized this aerial phenomenon as merely an

odd manifestation of the refraction of setting sunlight as it passed
over the clouds. But as this phenomenon repeated itself without
alteration night after night, Terry’s curiosity was piqued enough to
investigate further. Setting his night-vision-equipped rifle on a tree
stump, he used the weapon’s scope to zoom in on the orange
smudge suspended over the trees.

Strangely, as he looked more closely at the group of orange clouds,

he could almost look *through* them to what appeared to be
“another sky”. He seemed to be looking down a tunnel that opened
up outside the very fabric of space and time! Was he viewing a
doorway to another dimension? Was this tunnel, spanning from one
world to another, where the strange vehicles, creatures and other
entities were arriving from?

Just a few days later, Terry witnessed what appeared to be a

verification of this theory. As he stared through his rifle’s scope once
more, he saw a large, black, triangle-shaped craft fly out of the
putative interdimensional doorway. This doorway was apparently
paper-thin around the edges and could only be seen when looked at
straight on. This meant that anyone driving along the roadways near
the property would not be able to see it, but it could be clearly
observed from within the ranch.

Is the Skinwalker Ranch home to naturally (or even unnaturally)

occurring doorways into another dimension? Are advanced aircraft,
otherwise known as UFOs routinely entering our world through these
interdimensional portals? If so, the craft weren’t the only things
shimmying through these galactic gateways. Later witnesses have
even seen humanoid creatures stepping out of these open doorways
into our dimension.

In August of 1997, the NIDS crew witnessed something highly

unusual even by the standards of Skinwalker Ranch. It was three in
the morning, and two scientists named Mike and Jim had been
manning an observation post for several hours when they saw an
unknown light shining in the distant darkness. Well aware that
something unusual was occurring in front of them, the men set up a
camera on a tripod to capture the incident. As the camera
automatically snapped pictures every 30 seconds, Mike peered out at
the anomaly through a pair of night vision binoculars.

As the scientist stared in disbelief, the light turned into a circular

portal or tunnel. Moments later, Mike shouted in shock, “Jesus
Christ! Something’s in the tunnel!” This was soon followed by the
exclamation, “Oh my God, it just climbed out!” Mike was watching a
large humanoid creature tumble out of the strange interdimensional
doorway that periodically appeared over Skinwalker Ranch.

With no binoculars of his own, Jim could not see this detail. All he
could see was a swirling vortex of light, and that light was now
rapidly shrinking, collapsing in on itself, before disappearing entirely.

Based on Mike’s observation through the binoculars, it would seem

that the portal was open just long enough for the entity to walk
through it. Immediately after the being crossed over, the
interdimensional door shut behind it. But despite Mike’s startling
testimony, none of the NIDS equipment was able to pick up hard
evidence of this bizarre event.

The photos showed nothing more than a distant, indistinct light, and
other sensitive equipment deployed in the area to pick up
fluctuations in X-rays, gamma rays, beta rays and the like failed to
pick up anything of significance either. The next day NIDS crew
members scoured the ground over which the light had been seen for
footprints from the entity that had dropped out of the tunnel, but
none were ever found.

For the time being, this event rests solely on the testimony of one
rattled NIDS researcher. But as strange as it sounds, Skinwalker
Ranch may not be the only location where these interdimensional
doorways occur. Just take for example a case that came to light in
January of 2014, in which a Wisconsin rancher named Leroy Smith
reportedly witnessed a very similar phenomenon. The winter was
particularly bad in Wisconsin that year, with a frigid blast of arctic air
perpetually blanketing much of the rancher’s property in ice and
snow.

Leroy says that the strange happenings usually occurred when the
snowstorms were at their worst. Much like Terry Sherman’s
experience on Skinwalker Ranch, the phenomenon would begin with
an orange vortex-like structure appearing over the horizon, just
above the treetops. This structure was only visible from one
direction; that is, it could only be seen when looking at it head-on.
From the sides, this bizarre tunnel of light was so thin it was almost
two-dimensional.

Head-on, however, the old rancher could stare in amazement as the

tunnel opened up in the middle of the sky and creatures dropped out
of it. Yes, that’s right. This Wisconsin rancher saw big, hairy
creatures descend from the spinning sky vortex. He also saw
creatures much more akin to the traditional skin-walker: dog-like
animals that would jump from the opening, hit the ground and then
take off running on two legs. Although Wisconsin is admittedly a bit
removed from the traditional source of skin-walker lore in the
southwestern United States, the bipedal dogs Leroy describes have
an undeniable similarity to the shape-shifting dog-men of Navajo
legend.

One interesting difference between the sightings that occurred on

Leroy Smith’s ranch in Wisconsin and those at the Skinwalker Ranch
in Utah is that whatever dropped out of the Wisconsin portals left
footprints behind. The fresh footprints in the snow looked exactly as
if they had been made by an ordinary flesh-and-blood being, but
strangely enough, they would begin out of nowhere. It was as if
whatever made them had just dropped out of the sky—exactly as
Leroy describes. Attempts to track this creature were fruitless,
however, as the trail of the beast would disappear just as suddenly
as it had begun.
Before NIDS was shut down in 2007, the team had one more
encounter with a portal on Skinwalker Ranch—but rather than seeing
something drop out of it, this time they witnessed a strange Bigfoot-
like creature jump into a portal! On this occasion, the researchers
and ranch hands were in hot pursuit of a strange, hairy, bipedal
creature. Incredibly, just when the Bigfoot seemed to have been
cornered, it ran up a hill, jumped into a large orange tunnel that
appeared out of thin air, and disappeared.

The entire tunnel immediately vanished as well. It seemed as if the

being had created an opening in the fabric of space and time at will,
and then, as soon as it had crossed over, shut the door behind it so
no one could follow. If true, this mind-bending phenomenon is proof
positive that whoever serves as interdimensional doorman at
Skinwalker Ranch is in complete control.
 Skin-Walkers and Vandals

As well funded as Bigelow’s study of the Skinwalker Ranch was, as

the 1990s drew to a close, the team of investigators seemed no
closer to getting to the bottom of things than when they had first
arrived.

From the very beginning, former owner and current ranch hand
Terry Sherman had insisted that the research should be approached
like a hunter stalking wild game. He believed that since whatever
was behind the phenomena was obviously watching their actions,
any overt show of cameras and other instruments would make the
unknown force go into hiding. Terry advocated employing as much
stealth as possible, only using minimal equipment, and setting up
discreet viewing posts far away from each other.
The NIDS researchers did not follow this advice, however. Instead,
they installed cameras all throughout the property, set to film just
about every square inch of terrain 24 hours a day. But just as Terry
had feared, as soon as these cameras were put in place, the
camera-shy skin-walkers made themselves scarce.

In one area that had previously been a hotbed of activity, a total of

six sophisticated surveillance cameras were installed. Previously this
location had been beset by almost all of the standard skin-walker
activity, including cattle mutilations, flying blue balls of light, strange
aircraft, and the infamous portals that opened up over the horizon.
The six cameras were set to film every section of this paranormal
paradise 24/7. But just as Terry had feared, all of this equipment
seemed to make the unknown force go dormant. After several
months of filming, nothing of any significance had been captured on
tape.

Before the cameras were installed, many members of the research

staff had personally witnessed bizarre phenomena taking place. But
as soon as the cameras went up, the game was over, and the power
behind the skin-walkers decided to lie low. For about a year,
everything was so low-key that some began to think that the
presence that had been haunting the ranch had simply moved on
and left the area for good. The silence was finally broken on July 20,
1998, when Terry Sherman, who was on duty at the command and
control center, was made aware of an unsettling occurrence.

Half of the cameras tasked with filming the terrain had been
knocked out simultaneously. It had been storming heavily the past
few days, so Terry naturally assumed that there was some kind of
electrical failure due to the rain or thunderstorms. He went to
inspect the downed cameras to see the damage—and found that
while the cameras were indeed damaged, it was not by lighting.

To his amazement, he saw that the three cameras which had gone
offline had all of their wiring forcefully ripped out. It looked like a
bad case of vandalism or sabotage—but the fact that the equipment
had been so expertly torn asunder from 15 feet in the air made that
seem highly improbable. All of the cameras were positioned atop 15-
foot wooden poles, so any conventional saboteur would have had to
scale the poles to rip out the wires.

Climbing up a narrow pole and holding on to the smooth wood while

tearing out the thick wiring would be a practically superhuman feat.
The wires had been held in place by thick PVC pipes that ran down
to the foot of the poles, but all of these had been expertly detached.
Each of the three disabled cameras had been afflicted with identical
damage.

The other three cameras, however, remained completely operational,

and so the NIDS group turned to them to find out just what had
happened. Fortunately, one of them had been pointed directly at one
of the sabotaged cameras. The investigators immediately replayed
the video from the time that they believed the vandalism had
occurred. But incredibly, as they watched the footage, they could see
absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

Perplexed, the researchers sent the tape to a lab in Las Vegas to

have it digitally enhanced. The enhancement revealed the red
recording lights on the damaged cameras, and this proved to be
important, because the footage indicated that all three affected
cameras had switched off simultaneously at 8:30 PM. But still, there
was no perpetrator to be seen. The only conclusion the NIDS
researchers could draw was that whoever had damaged the cameras
was endowed with the power to render themselves invisible!

One person who had no trouble believing this incredible theory was
Terry Sherman—for this was not the first time he had witnessed the
camouflage ability of the skin-walkers inhabiting his ranch. Both he
and his son had seen it firsthand in 1996, shortly after the
Shermans’ story was published in the *Deseret News* and just as
paranormal enthusiasts were beginning to take note. One such
enthusiast arrived unannounced at their door in June of that year,
asking to spend time and “meditate” on the ranch. Terry was slightly
amused by the request, so he went ahead and gave permission,
thinking that nothing would come of it.

Picking a pristine pasture near the woods, the man began to

meditate just as he’d said. He stood in the middle of the clearing,
raised his hands toward the heavens, and with his eyes closed tight,
began to focus on his inward being. While he was deep in this
trance-like state, a sudden violent rustling of trees came from the
woods. The man, lost in his meditation, did not seem to notice, but
the Shermans watched the disturbance with increasing alarm.

To their astonishment, they saw an almost completely invisible figure

emerge from the trees. Due to a strange, pixelated effect, as if
sunlight was being directed around it, the entity was so blurry that
they could just barely make out its outline as it crossed the field in
broad daylight. As they watched in stunned silence, the camouflaged
being picked up speed and ran straight toward the meditating visitor.
Before anyone could quite process what was happening, the entity
stopped right in front of the visitor and erupted into a roar of
aggression. The meditating man fell to the ground in shock at what
he was seeing and hearing. After the deafening roar, the semi-
invisible entity simply turned around and ran back into the woods
from whence it had come.

Coincidentally enough, Terry and his son watched the Arnold

Schwarzenegger / Jesse Ventura film *Predator* just a few months
later and were struck by similarity between this real-life entity’s
capability and that of the fictional character in the film. In the movie,
the alien predator uses an advanced cloaking device to make itself
invisible. Were the entities on Skinwalker Ranch utilizing a similar
technology? Is that how they managed to dismantle three complex
surveillance stations without being seen, and without being recorded
on the remaining cameras?
It just might be, because scientists now believe that such means of
camouflage is not as farfetched as previously thought. Researchers
all over the planet are currently perfecting methods of bending
sunlight over objects in order to render them invisible. If we are
beginning to master this technology ourselves, then it should not
surprise us that another, far more advanced intelligence would have
developed such capabilities as well. Perhaps it was such advanced
technology that made it so easy for the paranormal denizens of
Skinwalker Ranch to stay one step ahead of Bigelow and his
associates.
 Further Developments

Towards the end of the NIDS era at Skinwalker Ranch, the most
frequent intruders were not of the paranormal kind, but of the bored
teenager kind. The ranch’s notoriety had begun to attract
trespassers and thrill seekers with some regularity. In 2006, one of
these trespassers was UFO enthusiast Ryan Skinner, who had first
learned of the ranch by accident.

Skinner had been on a road trip with his girlfriend when he

happened upon flying orbs very similar to those seen on Skinwalker
Ranch. After he returned from this harrowing first encounter, he
found out that his car had been passing through the vicinity of the
ranch at the time. Intrigued by what he had seen, Skinner was
determined to go back. He had always been searching for a place to
hunt the paranormal, and Skinwalker Ranch seemed to have his
name all over it. He began to make frequent nighttime trips out to
the property, and on many of these nocturnal forays he met with the
strange glowing balls of light.

During one of these encounters, Skinner was hidden on a ridge

watching as the objects seemed to be observing the cattle grazing
below. The surrounding lighting suddenly began to flicker before
going out completely. Shortly thereafter, the door to one of the
trailers next to the grazing cattle was flung open and a security
guard came crashing through it with a litany of profanity. The guard
made a beeline for a transformer box and fiddled around for a
minute or so before the lights snapped back on.

The most interesting thing about this is that Skinner saw one of the
balls of light turn its attention away from the cows and fly over to
the guard. According to Skinner, the ball of light hovered right
behind the guard as he worked without him ever realizing it. After
the guard went inside, the orb hung in the air over the trailer as if it
was thinking about what its next move should be. Then it darted off
to join the larger group of orbs that had been slinking around the
ranch.

Skinner’s account seems to verify that as much as NIDS attempted

to document and verify all of the strange happenings on the
Skinwalker Ranch, the phenomena were always one step ahead of
them. It was this very fact that led the scientists at NIDS to come up
with perhaps the most startling conclusion of all—that they were
dealing with a “pre-cognitive” intelligence. Many have erroneously
asserted that paranormal activity at the ranch disappeared when the
scientists arrived. But it didn’t. It merely changed its tactics.

NIDS saw very much the same phenomena that the Sherman family
did, but the activity was so randomized and erratic that they could
never capture any hard evidence. If cameras and other data
collecting equipment were placed on one side of the property, the
manifestations would just shift to the other. Those involved became
increasingly aware of an extremely selective intelligence at work,
hampering their investigation. This intelligence would pick and
choose who it revealed itself to and what times and places the
manifestations would occur.

But most startling of all, it seemed to be able to predict the actions

of the NIDS crew before they were implemented. If you moved left,
the phenomena would move right. It knew what you were going to
do before you even dreamed up the action in the first place. Before
you even thought to move your right foot forward, this strange pre-
cognitive intelligence was already registering and tracking your
movement. The NIDS scientists assert that it is for this reason that
they were never able to get any hard data on the phenomena of
Skinwalker Ranch.

Now, you may be tempted to think that that’s merely a handy

excuse for their distinct lack of results. But before you start scoffing,
you may want to consider some of the stranger things that quantum
physicists have learned about the very fabric of our reality—and how
we perceive that reality. Because one of the major discoveries of
quantum physics is that at the quantum level, things actually do
change and react to our own observations.

As hard as it may be to grasp such a strange concept, the veracity of

this theory has been proven time and time again in laboratories all
around the world. It has been found that at the quantum level, light
waves can spontaneously become particles and vice versa, as well as
move from one location to another, simply because they are
observed. If these fundamental building blocks of reality change
upon observation, how much more could other aspects of our reality
bend and adjust as we observe them?

It was actually Colonel John Alexander who coined the phrase “pre-
cognitive sentient intelligence” with regard to Skinwalker Ranch.
During the Vietnam War, Col. Alexander—the inspiration for the
George Clooney / Ewan McGregor / Jeff Bridges / Kevin Spacey film
*The Men Who Stare at Goats*—was part of a special forces unit
attempting to create supersoldiers through metaphysical exercises
such as transcendental meditation and the like. After his time in
Vietnam, Col. Alexander became an intelligence officer and worked
on classified studies of UFOs for the U.S. military. If anyone might
know a little something about cracking the thin veil of what we
normally perceive to be reality, Col. Alexander would be the one, and
his rather grim assessment of what was happening at the Skinwalker
Ranch was that they were dealing with a “trickster” entity which was
merely toying with them as it saw fit.

It is interesting to note that this “trickster” motif—the idea that

otherworldly entities come into our reality just to play pranks on us—
can be found in ancient folklore all around the world. Look into the
tales of leprechauns and Loki, elves and Anansi, and yes, the Navajo
legend of the skin-walker, and you will be inundated with accounts of
a precognitive intelligence doing its best to get one over on
mankind. If Col. Alexander is right, perhaps the whole ordeal of
Skinwalker Ranch was simply one big, long-drawn-out—Gotcha!
 Possible Explanations
As we bring this book to a close, let’s examine some explanations
that have been posited for what is really going on at Skinwalker
Ranch. These explanations range from the prosaic, to the enigmatic
and deceptive, to the fantastic, and to the even more fantastic. Here
is a brief run-through of theories that have been proposed by
experts and enthusiasts alike.

Massive Military PSYOPs Program

Terry Sherman himself has long suspected that his former property
was a secret military testing ground. He feels that users of advanced
military technology, ranging from stealth aircraft to man-portable
cloaking devices, were running amok on the ranch. And their
behavior seemed to indicate that the residents and their
psychological reactions to the phenomena were very much a part of
the experiment.

But could this be true? Could the military really be testing exotic
cutting-edge technologies over the idyllic backdrop of a rural ranch?
If this is the case, the testing has been going on for quite some
time, perhaps since the 1930s. This does not quite account for the
earlier legends of bipedal dog-men, but it does correspond with the
UFO activity of more recent times.

Interestingly, the 1930s was the decade when the Myers family first
bought the farm. Now, the curious thing about the Myers is the fact
that they never reported anything unusual during their many
decades at the ranch. The Shermans, meanwhile, experienced odd
behavior from the moment they moved in. For the more conspiracy
minded among us, this can lead to only one conclusion—the Myers
were in on it!

For those who believe that the ranch has been part of a massive
military PSYOPs program spanning several decades, it would seem
plausible that the Myers family long ago signed on the dotted line to
take part. But whether the Myers were in on the plot or not, the real
question is—why? What was the goal of all of these operations? Was
it to test human reaction to advanced holographic displays and
cutting-edge camouflage technology?

If so, it would hardly be the first time that a remote region in the
West was used for military testing. Just think of all the atomic bombs
and covert military hardware tested in remote deserts in Nevada and
New Mexico. Utah could work just as well as the desolate backdrop
for such secretive military operations; much of it is far off the grid,
with few potential witnesses around. It’s the perfect place to test
something out on just a few select individuals at a time—and the
Skinwalker Ranch phenomena were certainly selective about when
and where they decided to manifest.

But even assuming that the Myers had agreed to be subjected to

such testing when they built their first ranch house in the 1930s, the
Shermans most certainly did not know or agree to any such
arrangement. To continue such testing on the new residents without
their consent would have been a severe violation of legal protocol.
The only hint the Shermans were given before moving in that there
might be some kind of military involvement with the property was
when Garth Myers, who had inherited the ranch from the original
owners, mysteriously advised Terry to avoid digging on the property.

This directive would make sense if it was possible that excavations

could uncover underground installations. The idea of military bases
being buried underground in the vast expanse of the western United
States is no conspiracy-theory fantasy; during the Cold War, several
bunker-type command centers were buried all over the West to
prepare for nuclear war. Terry must have known of this possibility,
but to think that such an underground base might be buried
underneath the ranch was still unsettling.

And it certainly didn’t help matters that one of the very first of the
wide range of odd phenomena was strange underground pounding
sounds. These would be followed by the sounds of drilling and heavy
machinery working feverishly right underneath the Shermans’ feet at
all hours of the day. Just who was performing these subterranean
maneuvers? Did the Shermans and those who followed after them
become the unwitting pawns in a series of clandestine military
maneuvers?

If you can accept the stranger Skinwalker Ranch phenomena—the

portals, the balls of light, the wolves of unusual size—as being the
product of advanced holographs or maybe even mental
manipulation, then massive military PSYOPs could indeed serve as a
somewhat rational explanation. But then again, nothing is ever quite
rational in regard to Skinwalker Ranch!
 Native American Curse

The oldest explanation for strange happenings in the region of Utah

where Skinwalker Ranch is located comes from the oldest residents
of the region: the Native American tribes. In particular, the Ute and
the Navajo have a long backstory as to just how the land of the
Uinta Basin became cursed. You see, these two peoples were
competitors and archrivals before Europeans ever set foot in the
Americas. It is out of this friction and conflict that the lore of the
skin-walker originates in the oral histories of both tribes.

These histories contend that the Navajos were finally defeated by

the Utes and forced to leave their land in the Uinta Basin. According
to the story, the Navajo knew they had to go, but they weren’t going
to leave without a parting gift to their enemies—a gift in the form of
a curse. Supposedly, before the Navajo surrendered their land to the
Utes, they placed a curse on it that brought forth the dreaded skin-
walker and all of the frightful activity that came with it.

The traditional belief systems of many Native American tribes place

much emphasis on blessings and curses carried out by mystical
shamans. Terry Sherman himself once came upon the recent
remains of what appeared to be a Native American tribal ritual on
the grounds of Skinwalker Ranch. He wasn’t sure who had snuck
onto his property to perform it, but it certainly had all the hallmarks
of a traditional religious ceremony. Were local tribespeople sneaking
onto the ranch to fend off the curse—or were they adding to it?

Belief in the power of curses is still strong among the locals, and so
is the belief in skin-walkers, but despite all of the attempts to link
the activity at the ranch to Native American, lore there is one aspect
of the story that just doesn’t fit. The skin-walker of Navajo legend is
a brutal, ruthless fiend who wouldn’t hesitate to strike a person
dead. But as far as we know, the phenomena on Skinwalker Ranch
have never killed a single human being.

The activity has claimed the lives of plenty of animals, including

Terry’s beloved pets, but even though the presence at the ranch has
melted dogs and mutilated cattle, it has stayed its hand when it
comes to physically harming humanity. People have felt ill effects
such as headaches and nosebleeds, and as was the case with the
Sherman family, sometimes strange marks would appear on their
bodies. However, no mortal harm has come to any man, woman, or
child. This restraint goes against the traditional portrayal of the
bloodthirsty skin-walker. Nevertheless, the legend of the curse still
persists, and as has often been said—a curse is as strong as those
who believe it.
 Unknown Form of Consciousness

After nearly a decade of studying the elusive activity on the ranch,

the NIDS group more or less came to the consensus that they were
dealing with an unknown form of consciousness—some sort of
massive collective consciousness whose senses could monitor the
entire ranch 24 hours a day. Indeed, as much as they tried to
observe the paranormal manifestations, this collective consciousness
seemed to be much better equipped to observe the researchers
themselves! Whatever inhabited the ranch was always at least two
steps ahead of the NIDS crew, anticipating their actions before they
made them.
The Shermans had often felt that the presence was actively
eavesdropping on them, and this belief was apparently confirmed
when the intelligence reacted to an offhand remark Gwen had made.
She had briefly mentioned to Terry her fear of something bad
happening to her prized new bulls. Immediately afterward, Terry
went outside and was shocked to find that those very bulls were
nowhere to be seen. Their frantic search for the animals would
conclude with one of the most infamous incidents that occurred
during their time at the ranch.

They ultimately found their missing bulls, but the condition in which
they found them defied explanation. The animals were discovered
impossibly lined up and neatly placed into a locked trailer. Not only
that, they were staring off into space as if they were somehow
“switched off” and in a complete trance, oblivious to the world
around them. The very second the astonished Terry Sherman
opened the trailer, the bulls came to life as if someone had just hit
the Play button to bring these freeze-frame creatures back to reality.

The idea of a sentient precognitive intelligence eventually became

the prevailing theory among the NIDS researchers. Their findings
pointed to the conclusion that an unknown intelligence which could
predict events was attempting to interact with people in a variety of
ways. In particular, this unknown form of consciousness often tried
to produce very specific emotive responses from those it
manipulated.

Sometimes it did this in subtle ways, through trickery, and at other

times it employed more direct means. The more direct approach was
experienced early on by Terry and Gwen after one of the shining
blue probe-like orbs confronted them. Terry believes that the probe
somehow tapped into his mind and deliberately instilled fear into him
and his wife. They were instantly filled with terror and dread, as if
someone had flipped a switch. Trespasser Ryan Skinner had a similar
experience later on when one of these probes hovered over him and
sent instantaneous shockwaves of fear coursing through his body.
This was not fear that came from him, but fear that seemed to have
been unnaturally injected into him from the outside.

An unknown intelligence playing games and manipulating our

emotions? According to the official findings of NIDS, as strange as it
all may sound, that’s the most likely explanation.
 Interference from Parallel Universe

Whether the general public wants to accept it or not, most modern

physicists firmly believe that we are part of a multiverse with several
slightly similar yet different parallel universes bumping up against
our own. The nuts and bolts of quantum mechanics is a bit too much
to get into here, but just know that these experts agree that our
very reality is most likely separated from a multitude of other
potential realities by merely a thin membrane of dark matter.

If this theory is correct, is it possible that some advanced species

from the “universe next door” has found a way to punch through
that thin barrier of separation? Is Skinwalker Ranch a place where
the thin membrane that separates universes has been successfully
traversed?

According to eyewitness testimony from both the Shermans and the

NIDS researchers, random portals have appeared above the
landscape on several occasions, and UFOs and strange creatures
crossed through them. And they were not the first to witness such
things in the region. Local Native American lore has long described
the appearance of doorways to other worlds. It is an integral and
accepted part of their belief system; perhaps we could learn to
accept it too.
 Extraterrestrial Incursion

Among UFO buffs, the most popular explanation for the happenings
at Skinwalker Ranch is, of course, an extraterrestrial incursion.
Although many aspects of the Skinwalker phenomena differ from the
typical ET narrative, diehard believers have come up with a variety
of explanations for these discrepancies. Some suggest that the
aliens are conducting psychological experiments on those who
wander onto the ranch—just like the military PSYOPs explanation,
except it’s an alien military behind it!
Other ET believers take a simpler approach, postulating that ETs are
behind a large part of the activity at the ranch, but not all of it. They
argue that there is indeed something unusual about Skinwalker
Ranch—so unusual that extraterrestrials are drawn to it for their own
research purposes, thereby compounding the oddity of the location
even further.

The Shermans witnessed a wide variety of strange craft hovering

over the ranch, and Terry observed some that seemed to scan the
grounds of the property as if they were looking for something. Gwen
even saw one of the occupants of such a craft, a strange looking
man decked out in some sort of uniform or flight suit, sitting at a
desk! Perhaps these ETs are scientists who are just exploring a
strange feature of our planet.

The probes that seem to monitor the ranch could also be

hypothesized as being extraterrestrial in origin. Are these the robotic
scouts of alien explorers? Artificially intelligent drones sent by ET to
gather data on the Earth and its inhabitants? Most scientists do
believe that the first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization would
probably be with one of its far-flung autonomous explorers. But
other than a few blurry photos, so far there is no concrete evidence
to support this theory.
 Mental Mirages and Hallucinations

It has been postulated for some time that perhaps there is

something at the Skinwalker Ranch—in the environment itself,
perhaps—that affects the minds of residents and visitors alike.
Perhaps intense magnetic fields or some other naturally occurring
phenomenon could be creating mental mirages and hallucinations.
This could explain a wide array of events, and also explain why
these events cannot be captured on camera—because they exist
only in someone’s fevered mind.

But this explanation falls short on many fronts. The fact that multiple
people have witnessed the same events at the same time pretty
much rules out individual hallucinations. Also, the phenomena have
had very real physical ramifications—consider the Shermans’
incinerated dogs, the mutilated cattle, and the destruction of the
cameras. This seems to prove that, as crazy as the activity on the
ranch may be, it’s most likely not all in our heads!
 Widespread Deception

For those who have not experienced the bizarre occurrences at

Skinwalker Ranch firsthand, perhaps the most convenient
explanation of all is to say that the whole thing was simply made up!
Those who adhere to this theory believe that the Shermans created
the modern mythology of the ranch by piggybacking on local UFO
sightings and older Native American legends. They claim that the
Shermans came up with a creative storyline to attract attention to
their property so that someone would buy it.

According to this theory, they didn’t sell to escape the paranormal,

but to escape a failed business venture. You see, the Shermans’
profits had nosedived immediately before they sold the ranch, and
as unusual as such a marketing strategy would be, the strange tales
they told did indeed attract a buyer—Mr. Robert Bigelow, who paid
the Shermans a handsome amount of money for their property. This
big payout would have been the motivating factor for the initial
deception.

But in order for widespread deception to be a plausible explanation,

it would have to be very widespread indeed. The Shermans are not
the only people claiming to have witnessed strange events on the
ranch. Many visitors, and a whole team of research scientists, would
have to be in on the deception in order for it to work. And most
would contend that such a vast conspiracy is just as farfetched as
the bizarre stories told about the ranch in the first place.
 More Questions than Answers
Hotel chain owner and Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelow
pulled the plug on his NIDS operations at Skinwalker Ranch in 2004.
Not a whole lot is known about his decision-making process, but it is
said that funding for the project began to dry up. Bigelow had been
given several governmental grants for the research, but when these
were not renewed, he seemed to lose interest.

Interestingly enough, however, it was immediately after Bigelow shut

down operations on the ranch that Bigelow Aerospace began to
really take off. Bigelow began to partner directly with NASA for the
creation of special modules and additions for the International Space
Station, and contracts are currently in the works to install his
Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) in the space station by
2020.

However, it’s some of the lesser known government projects that

Bigelow became involved with after shutting down Skinwalker Ranch
that have gotten the most attention lately. Foremost among these is
a Pentagon UFO study that just came to light in December of 2017.
Known as the Advanced Aviation Threat Initiative (AAVTI), this
program began in 2007 when Bigelow convinced his longtime
political crony, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to seek funding
for an official inquiry into UFOs. Such a thing hadn’t been done since
the shutdown of the Air Force’s UFO study, Project Blue Book, in
1969, but Reid managed to get funding for the project diverted to
Bigelow Aerospace anyway—to the tune of approximately 22 million
dollars between 2007 and 2012.

During these years the study researched credible UFO sightings by

military personnel and other trained professionals—some of which
were captured on camera—along with unknown metal fragments
and alloys allegedly left behind by UFOs. Bigelow stashed the
evidence in converted buildings, and all of this—22 million in
taxpayer dollars notwithstanding—was done in complete secret from
the public.

This secrecy led the program’s research head, Luis Elizondo, to

resign from his post in October of 2017, just before the bombshell
broke. Elizondo sent his letter of resignation to the Trump
Administration’s Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, explaining that he
was quitting “in protest of excessive secrecy and internal opposition”
before ending the letter by asking the administration, “Why aren’t
we spending more time and effort on this issue?” That, of course, is
a very good question. But as is usually the case, there are simply far
more questions than there are answers.
 Further Readings
Here in this section we are going to take a look at some of the great
reading material and resources that helped to make this book
possible. If you would like to learn more about any particular piece
of subject matter covered in this book, you can find additional
information in the following resources. Feel free to check them out
for yourself.

Daemonic Reality. Patrick Harper

Many complex topics are addressed in this book, such as parallel
dimensions, quantum mechanics and the like. If you are at all
confused by some of these heady topics of discussion, Patrick
Harper’s *Daemonic Reality* is an exhaustive resource on just about
every single metaphysical subject known to man. Note that in
Harper’s usage, the word “Daemonic” simply means “alternate” or
“other”—he’s not talking about demons, he’s simply describing other
means by which reality can be perceived. This book is a real eye-
opener to be sure.

Hunt for the Skin-Walker: Science Confronts the

Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah. Colm A Kelleher
and George Knapp
Published in 2005, this book is a true classic when it comes to the
Skinwalker Ranch. This is the book that first dropped the bombshell
story of what was going on in Utah, and it still remains a brilliant
piece of investigative journalism on one of the strangest places on
Earth. Written with riveting firsthand accounts, it has George Knapp
—the same veteran journalist who introduced the world to Area 51
whistleblower Bob Lazar—as a main contributor. Knapp recounts his
own experience when he was imbedded with Robert Bigelow’s now
defunct National Institute of Discovery Science, clearly laying out
exactly what he and others experienced. If you would like to get a
few extra details as to what transpired in this haunted corner of Utah
during the late 1990s and early 2000s, this book is your go-to
source.

Path of the Skin-Walker. Ryan Skinner

Ryan Skinner—the guy with the perfect name to be talking about
skin-walkers—spins us up a real tale in this piece. From the outset,
the disclaimer has to be made that this book is entirely subjective.
There is no real evidence that any of it transpired except for Ryan’s
own testimony. Of course, this can be said of many paranormal
tales, but George Knapp’s reporting in *Hunt for the Skin-Walker* is
arguably much more authoritative.

While Knapp met with and interviewed most of the key people
involved with Skinwalker Ranch, and actually spent time with the
NIDS research crew in an official capacity, Ryan Skinner is an
admitted trespasser on the property. But as long as you take his
accounts with a grain of salt, the fact that he was an independent
and unknown observer during the more legitimate work at the ranch
actually provides some invaluable insight that can be used to
compare and contrast information from both camps.

Skinwalker Ranch: The UFO Farm. Ryan Skinner

This book is Ryan Skinner’s first, and is considered by many to be his
best book on the topic. It details how he was initially exposed to the
happenings on Skinwalker Ranch, how he got involved, and how he
bypassed NIDS security to get onto the property. Ryan relates some
rather startling encounters in this book, including the appearance of
a traditional Native American skin-walker—upright-walking wolf-body
and all—out of a “nebulous mist” that appeared right in front of him.

The Utah UFO Display: A Scientist Brings Reason and Logic

to Over 400 UFO Sightings. Junior Hicks
Written in the 1970s, this classic book predates all the mainstream
literature on the topic. It doesn’t mention the Skinwalker Ranch by
name (at that time it was owned by the Myers family) but it does
detail plenty of strange and anomalous activity in and around that
particular section of Utah. If you would like more of a background on
the region and past accounts of the unexplained occurrences there,
this book is a good resource.

Monsters Among us: An Exploration of Otherworldly

Bigfoots, Wolfmen, Portals, Phantoms, and Odd Phenomena.
Linda S. Godfrey
This book, although not specifically about the Skinwalker Ranch,
mentions the strange happenings in Utah in its exploration of similar
events happening in many other places around the world. It is
especially interesting to note the similarity of tales of
interdimensional doorways or portals opening up over random
regions of countryside in much the same way they are alleged to
have done over Skinwalker Ranch. This book tackles some rather
complex and strange events, and as such serves as a great cross
reference for the phenomena of Skinwalker Ranch.

[Link]
In this era of so-called “fake news”, NBC has taken a little heat
recently, but don’t let that deter you from using its website as a
resource when it comes to the Skinwalker Ranch! This news site has
a plethora of wide-ranging reports spanning many years, as well as
in-depth information and interviews with key players such as Robert
Bigelow, NIDS scientists, and even figures involved with the recent
Pentagon UFO disclosure regarding Bigelow Aerospace. If you would
like to look at the nuts and bolts of how the story of Skinwalker
Ranch was built, this where NBC really delivers!
 Your FREE Gift!
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get your FREE gift, The Most Haunted Places in America. Click
here to get it.

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 Review
Thank you so much for purchasing and reading Skinwalker Ranch:
Facing the Unknown Force that Haunts the Uinta Basin. I really hope
you enjoyed it. As a self-published author, I always like to know what
the readers think. If you have time, please review my book on
Amazon by following the link below.

The above link directs to [Link]. Please change the .com to

your own country extension.
 Excerpt from Conrad Bauer’s The
Bermuda Triangle

What is the Bermuda Triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle is commonly regarded as one of the biggest
mysteries of the present time, but what is it exactly?

The Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle, is a stretch of the

western North Atlantic Ocean. The region is loosely defined by
imaginary lines drawn from Florida to the island of Bermuda, then to
Puerto Rico, and lastly back to Florida, forming a triangle.

The mystery itself stems from several aircraft and ships that
mysteriously disappeared inside the Triangle under strange
circumstances.

The nature of the phenomenon lends itself to a myriad of theories,

hypotheses, and explanations. These range from the religious and
superstitious to the scientific and mundane.

Unfortunately, records of Bermuda Triangle events are often rife with

false information, deceptive reports, and spun tales. Studies of the
area are often performed with a bias towards one particular theory,
leading to the unwarranted dismissal of hard facts or the acceptance
of unreliable data that is then forcefully declared as truth.

You might be wondering now, “How did the Triangle come to be?”
Well, it’s hard to tell without falling into someone else’s trap.
Nonetheless, let’s try to unravel the origin!
 History of the Bermuda Triangle
The foundation of the myth is just as foggy as the myth itself, but in
a way, that’s just part of the charm! Let’s carry on from the very
beginning of the legend.

The Origin
Several suggestions of the phenomenon cropped up prior to the
“formal” definition of the triangle area in 1964. One of those was
reported by none other than Christopher Columbus, who reported
that his ships experienced unpredictable compass readings while
sailing through the Sargasso Sea. They also sighted unidentifiable
lights on the horizon on October 11, 1492. So far, these incidents
remain unexplained.

The Spark
The proper birth of the legend was midwifed in 1950 by an article
published by Edward Van Winkle Jones in The Miami Herald. This
article can be regarded as the earliest direct reference to the
Bermuda Triangle.

Jones cited several incidents, including the December 5, 1945,

disappearance of Flight 19, a training flight of five US Navy TBM
Avenger torpedo bombers that never returned home.

The most shocking part of this disappearance was the fact that the
search-and-rescue aircraft deployed to locate the flight disappeared
as well. As no cause has ever been conclusively established, theories
about what happened all boil down to conjecture.

Jones also cited the disappearance of the commercial airliners Star

Tiger and Star Ariel in 1948 and 1949 respectively. Star Tiger was
traveling from the Azores to Bermuda, and Star Ariel was traveling
from there to Kingston, Jamaica.

In both cases, the planes were apparently operating well beyond

their own limits, so these incidents could very well have stemmed
from technical difficulties—not that this was any comfort to the
families of those on board.

The Mystery
George X. Sand made his contribution to the myth just two years
after Jones’s article.

Writing for Fate magazine, he published an article entitled “Sea

Mystery at Our Back Door” in which he narrated a series of
disappearances without trace that took place in what he described
as a “watery triangle bounded roughly by Florida, Bermuda, and
Puerto Rico.” He thus explicitly laid the foundation for what we now
know as the Bermuda Triangle.

Like Jones, Sand cited the infamous Flight 19. He also reported
several additional disappearances, such as that of the Sandra, a
square-cut tramp steamer headed from Georgia to Puerto Cabello,
Venezuela. The heavy steamer vanished on the way, and the case
was left as “unsolved” after several days of fruitless search.

Sand also covered the disappearance of Albert Snider, an American

jockey. The search for Snider involved at least 800 persons, but
despite their efforts, they only found his skiff, caught in the
mangrove roots of an unnamed island. They searched the island
thoroughly but found no conclusive evidence as to what had
happened to Snider on March 5, 1948.

There was yet another disappearance that same year. On December

28, a DC-3 transport plane was heading to Miami from San Juan,
Puerto Rico. Everything seemed to be all right, and the weather was
good, but the airliner simply… disappeared. Nothing was found then,
and nothing has been found yet.

The Paranormal
With the increasing thirst for an answer to the yet-unsolved string of
disappearances, it was only natural that someone would attribute
them to something… unnatural. In his 1955 book The Case for the
UFO, M.K. Jessup used some of the previously mentioned stories to
point the finger at extraterrestrial life forms. Jessup’s point of view
was amplified by Donald E. Keyhoe’s The Flying Saucer Conspiracy,
also published in 1955, and Frank Edwards’s Stranger Than Science
(1959).

The term “Bermuda Triangle” was coined in 1964 by Vincent H.

Gaddis in his article “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle” for the magazine
Argosy. He defined the boundaries of this Bermuda Triangle more
precisely than Sand, giving its vertices as Miami, Puerto Rico, and
Bermuda.

Gaddis’s article was somewhat overstated, as he claimed that over

1,000 lives had been lost in the area. By contrast, Jones’s article in
1950 had reported only 135 victims. However, the basic premise,
that there had been a “pattern of strange events” and “in this series
of disasters” not a single body had been found, was not false. The
article clearly illustrated a rather terrifying fact: No matter how
advanced our technology, or how thorough our searches, we can still
disappear completely and without a trace.

The obsession with the Triangle really took off during the early
1970s. Soon enough, every popular “paranormal” or “true mystery”
book included a chapter (or more) on the “deadly” Bermuda
Triangle, although you could find it with different names such as the
“Devil’s Triangle” or the “Hoodoo Sea.”
Among the several paperback books about the topic, we find
Invisible Residents, by Ivan T. Sanderson, published in 1970. This
book treats the Bermuda Triangle as evidence of an intelligent,
technologically advanced underwater civilization.

Limbo of the Lost, by John Wallace Spencer, was published in 1969

and had a huge readership by 1973.

Perhaps the most relevant of the bunch is the eponymous The

Bermuda Triangle, a bestseller written by Charles Berlitz and J.
Manson Valentine, published in 1974. This book sent Triangle fever
through the roof.
The Debunking
For critical and attentive readers, it became clear that these writers
were simply cannibalizing each other’s works. There was little to no
evidence of original research, and the so-called chroniclers of the
Triangle were soon thoroughly discredited.

Following the outstanding sales of the 1974 books The Devil’s

Triangle, by Richard Winer, and No Earthly Explanation—by, again,
John Wallace Spencer, who was apparently hoping to make a career
out of the subject—Larry Kusche, a librarian at Arizona State
University, conducted his own research and published a book that
delivered a devastating blow to what he called a “manufactured
mystery.”

The work in question, entitled The Bermuda Triangle Mystery:

Solved, featured the fruits of thorough archival digging, something
sadly neglected by previous writers. Kusche referred to weather
records, official reports from investigation agencies, newspaper
accounts, and a myriad of complementary documents to judge
whether the “Bermuda Triangle literature” had played fair with the
evidence.

Kusche concluded that previous writers were rather sloppy in this

regard—not to say downright dirty. For instance, conditions
described as “calm seas” in the books had actually been raging
storms; ships missing “without a trace” had long since been found;
and lastly, “ominous disappearances” were completely conventional
sinking accidents.

Further undermining claims of a Bermuda Triangle mystery, a

spokesman for Lloyd’s of London wrote a letter to the editor of the
magazine Fate, Mary Margaret Fuller. He stated that, according to
Lloyd’s records, a total of 428 ships had been reported missing
throughout the entire world from 1955 to 1975. However, Lloyd’s
could find no evidence that the Bermuda Triangle had experienced
more losses than any other location. The letter was upheld by the
US Coastguard based on their computerized records of the Atlantic,
which went all the way back to 1958.

In the face of these demonstrations, the Bermuda Triangle

proponents had to mount a credible defense if their claims were to
retain any legitimacy whatsoever. However, they met the facts with a
wall silence. Needless to say, this inspired little confidence in the
general public that the Bermuda Triangle represented an authentic
anomaly.

There’s still no shortage of pro-anomaly researchers who affirm that

the “skeptics” simply don’t want to explain the mystery. However,
their accusations fall flat in face of some hard facts, such as several
“Bermuda Triangle disappearances” that didn’t actually happen
within the Bermuda Triangle.

The skeptics, on the other hand, argue that no study to the date has
produced any evidence of any unusual phenomena whatsoever in
the disappearances. According to them, there’s no need for a test of
strength between the opposing parties, as explanations, even the
scientific ones, aren’t really needed.

In a sense, the real mystery is how the mystery came to be, rather
than whether or not it’s real.

The Legacy
Even today, nearly 50 years later, the Bermuda Triangle occasionally
resurfaces in the tabloids. While the former myth has been relegated
to a footnote of history, its impact on popular culture is indisputable.
The Triangle is still the subject of an ongoing war of scientific versus
pseudo-scientific debate, albeit among a much smaller population.
But, beyond that, the various elements of the myth have inspired
innumerable movies, television series, books, and video games.

Timeless classics such as the original Scooby-Doo cartoon and the

sci-fi series X-Files have featured the Bermuda Triangle.

Capcom’s 2010 video game Dark Void features a protagonist who is

teleported to another world while flying through the Bermuda
Triangle.

Arthur Rankin Jr. wrote and shot his own Bermuda Triangle-themed
TV movie in 1978. The Japanese/American co-production was
actually recorded on the island of Bermuda. It follows the story of an
orphaned college dropout who returns to the island hoping to find
the cause of his father’s death years before.

So, the Bermuda Triangle craze left its mark. Whether, like most
people, you simply accept the skeptics’ point of view, or whether you
take a side in the scientific versus paranormal debate, you’ve
certainly heard of the Triangle before now. It was part of the
Zeitgeist of an era, and it’s a good example of what happens when
superstition meets technology—perhaps one of the last we will see
in this age of scientific advances and ubiquitous data collection.

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