Conrad Bauer - Skinwalker Ranch: Facing the Unknown Force That Haunts the Uinta Basin

Skinwalker Ranch

Facing the Unknown Force that Haunts the Uinta Basin

Conrad Bauer

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All rights reserved 2018 by Conrad Bauer and Maplewood Publishing. No part of this publication or the information in it may be quoted from or reproduced in any form by means such as printing, scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

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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 mindthe 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 manand 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 werent 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.

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 thats 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 Smiths 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 Youngs 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 Basins 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 Basins main industry since the early 1950swhich 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. Hickss 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 werent the only ones. Hickss 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 featureand 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.