The Skinwalker

My dear readers the article which I am about to narrate is based on a true story.

This is a story about a ranch in America more specifically in the southeast of Ballard, Utah called the Skinwalker Ranch. There have been many spooky stories about this place circulating around since centuries among the local tribes which now makes it one the most haunted paranormal hotspots of the world.

It is believed for centuries by the Navajo tribe and the Indian tribe that this property of 512-acres or this ranch and its surrounding forest area is cursed by an evil horrific entity. The legend has it that, a Skin Walker is actually a witch who has the horrific powers to transform themselves into any animal forms which they may choose (mainly wolves and coyotes). They even gain their speed and strength. It is believed that they can easily control or take over someone’s body and mind, who lock eyes with them. As per the legend, the witch instead of using the magic learned for good uses it for a sinister and evil purpose. In order for them to become a Skin Walker, they sacrifice someone who is very dear and near to them by performing some kind of a twisted evil ritual. They perform this horrific sacrificial ritual far away from the common masses hidden deep inside some caves where no human can’t reach them. The Skin Walker legend is so popularly believed by the tribes that they are very much scared to speak about this as they believe that it could summon them.

Now let us enter the main body of this article and get to know about the horrific experience of a family who unknowingly purchased this ranch and what became of them in just 18 months!

This story revolves around the Sherman family, who moved into the ranch in the year 1994. They soon got to experience many bizarre creepy incidents around them. It all began one day when the family was out on their property going about their lives when suddenly they saw a wolf which slowly crept towards them coming out of the forest. At first glance, they didn’t think of it as anything much rather than just an ordinary wild animal. But as it came near to them more specifically towards an enclosure just beside them. The family soon became horrified when they noticed that this wild animal was not an ordinary wolf as it was abnormally big for a wolf. The truth was that this creature didn’t fit into any description of an animal know to them even though they were a ranching family, who normally are known to be knowledgeable about a large variety of animals. They kept on watching in horror as this strange oversized creature crept toward the enclosure which housed their precious livestock. The way that creature moved towards that enclosure seemed very creepy as the family had never seen an animal walk or move like that. It looked like it was dragging itself and its legs were all out of sync. All its four legs moved differently or independently rather than working together to support the creature’s body. The creature forced its head into the pen through a small opening. The family watched in horror as the creature tried to lock its massive jaws around the head of a baby calf and tried to drag it outside. By seeing that their precious animal was in danger, the family conjured up some courage and hurriedly went to get their guns. After getting their gun out, the family started shooting at the creature but they were shocked to see that nothing was happening. They fired numerous shots and all of them connected with the creature but nothing was happening. Luckily the last bullet was able to scrap a piece of the creature’s flesh off. This was enough for the creature to leave the baby calf and slowly creep away into the forest.

This incident was not the last but was just a beginning to the many incidents which would take place in the following months to come. As time passed there were many visitors, and as well the family all reported seeing and feeling strange things occurring out there in the surrounding woods. Most of them had seen many strange monstrous looking beast roaming around the ranch. They had even heard horrifying roars from the forest which didn’t seem to be of any ordinary wild animal.

One of the most unexplainable phenomena was that people in surrounding areas, especially near the ranch, used to see numerous floating colourful orbs up in the sky. These orbs used to suddenly appear and vanish into thin air without any explanations.

It was even found that some of these orbs used to fly close to the ground in the property. All the people who came in close contacts with these orbs reported a sensation of pure dread and terror. This horrific sensation is said to be like no other.

Just after the sighting of these bizarre orbs had started, another new terrifying incident started to occur in the ranch. Their precious livestock started to die in a strange unexplainable manner.

Their precious animals mainly their cows would be mysteriously found dead. The most horrifying and spine chilling part was that all the animals which were found dead were all mutilated. Many of the dead animals had missing body parts like their ears, tongues and eyes were all cut out. They were not just cut out randomly in a haste but with precision equal to that of a vet. In some instances, the mutilation was so perfectly executed that it was even believed that a perfectly trained vet could not pull it off with such level of precision. In other cases, it was found that many animals bodies were perfectly hollowed out. Their internal organs were removed perfectly without any cut mark on the exterior body which could not be explained. Another most astonishing and horrifying fact was that there wasn’t even a single drop of blood left inside the body or there was no trace of blood found near the surroundings of dead bodies. Even their beloved pet dogs weren’t spared, on one occasion their dogs suddenly ran out into the forest in pursuit of an orb and did not return back, sometime later when the family went in search into the forest in search for them. They were found in a horrific state. The three dogs which went missing were found in three separate piles of their own dismembered body parts. Along with that hot steam seemed to be coming out of the piles of their body parts as if they were somehow vapourised or steamed from the inside.

By this time now, the word about this ranch and the Sherman’s had gotten out into the local neighbourhood. The stories were a shock for many but they were not so frightening for a few as there were many strange and weird incident happening way before the Sherman’s came. Another strange mind-boggling incident occurred after this. A mysterious man came to the Sherman’s and asked their permission so he could get on the property and meditate on it. He was very adamant about it and it seemed he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The Sherman’s gave him their permission to do so, as they thought what harm could it possibly do. They were willing to do anything that could help them get out of this situation. So, after getting the family’s permission, the man sat down in a crossed leg position and started to meditate on the property. The family was nearby and kept a watch on the man. A few minutes later, suddenly to everyone’s shock, a gigantic creature came out of the forest. This creature looked so odd and horrifying that no word could be found to describe it. The creature’s body seemed to be translucent as only its body outline seemed to be prominent and the rest of its body parts were almost see-through. The creature ran up to the man with horrifying speed, who was by now in a state of shock along with the family. Then the creature left out a very loud demonic roar just in front of the man. The roar sounded so monstrous and demonic that the man stood up and ran for his life. The man did not stop even after he was off the property. All this happened in front of the Sherman’s who were equally shocked and horrified by all this. Nobody knew what became of the man afterwards, as he was never seen again.

On another instance, the family had gone out for shopping. On returning home they had organised all their shopped items in their kitchen cupboard which was pretty usual. Then a strange incident took place. When they had left the kitchen for a moment and almost instantly returned back. They were astonished to see all the items which they had organised in the cupboard had returned back into the shopping bag on the kitchen floor as they were before.

There was another bizarre and horrifying incident which took place in front of the Sherman’s and it is considered to be the most mysterious incident to occur on the property till date.

One day suddenly a colourful orb appeared in front of the Sherman’s. By now it was nothing odd for them to see anymore. The only difference was that this orb was huge in size as compared to the previous ones. After a moment this orb seemed to increase in size until it became a gigantic circle. Astonishingly the family could see-through it and it seemed like it was a portal to another place. The scenery which could be seen through it seemed odd like it was not of this world. It seemed like it was a portal to some other world or maybe to an alternate dimension and to the families horror they could see a large creature dragging itself towards the portal from the other side. The creature slithered itself out of the portal to Sherman’s property. The family watched all this in horror as they were totally speechless to this new horrifying event and then suddenly in a blink of an eye the creature disappeared along with the portal into thin air as if nothing had ever happened.

By now the news of the Sherman’s and the stories of the weird incident which were occurring in their ranch had spread like wildfire and had attracted large global media attention. It didn’t take long for billionaire and property magnate Robert Bigelow, who had a keen interest in space travel and the paranormal to get a wind of this news. He also founded NIDS the National Institute of Discovery Science. He almost instantly bought the property from the Sherman’s finally relieving them from their horrific ordeals. After that Robert Bigelow and his team of experts started to research and investigate the strange occurrences and activities which kept on happening. They were able to capture a lot of these strange incidents on cameras and on various other instruments. But sadly all of their state of art instruments would later start to malfunction as soon as they would capture something. They even repeatedly installed various instrument on high rise poles in the surrounding forest. But all were in vain as later they found all those instruments would be repeatedly shredded or ripped apart.

Later in 2016, Robert Bigelow sold the ranch to a shell corporation of unknown origin named Adamantium Holdings. After this purchase, the strange part was that all the roads leading to the ranch had been blocked, the perimeter was secured and guarded by cameras and barbed wire, and surrounded by signs that aim to prevent the public from approaching the ranch.

All these new strange measures to keep the public away created an atmosphere for many rumours. Some popular rumours were:

• The government were doing some top-secret experiment or research on supernatural stuff.
• There was another popular rumour which was that the property was a landing or contact point for UFO’s or aliens who were secretly in touch with the government.

In 2017, the name “Skinwalker Ranch” was filed for trademark and in 2018, the trademark was successfully issued and so the official name of the ranch became the “Skinwalker Ranch”. In 2020, a Utah real estate tycoon named Brandon Fugal publicly announced that he is the real owner of the ranch via Adamantium Holdings.

Till date, nobody exactly knows what are the actual reasons for the mysterious and horrific incidents which still occurs to this day. There are many rumours and legends about this ranch and especially about the Skinwalker. One of the local legends states that back in the days there was a fierce territorial dispute between the Native American peoples, the Navajo and the Ute tribes. The reason for the dispute was that the Navajo tribe were more aggressive and fierce compared to the other tribes and they took many Ute’s as slaves. This was one of the main reasons for their dispute which led the Navajo’s to curse the land.

The rumours about the Skinwalker ranch is so popular that it inspired many popular movies and webseries such as:

Title	Year	Type	Description
Lost Tapes	2009	TV	A fictional portrayal of the ranch is featured in an encounter with a Skinwalker and the protagonists.
Skinwalker Ranch	2013	Film	Loosely based upon the folklore surrounding the ranch.
Hunt for the Skinwalker	2018	Film	Documentary following the history of claimed phenomena at the ranch, including testimony from locals and friends of the Gormans.
Portals to Hell	2019	TV	The Strawberry River Inn featured in the episode is situated a stone’s throw from the ranch, and it is claimed to experience the same paranormal phenomena as Skinwalker Ranch.[12]
Project Blue Book	2020	TV	Features Skinwalker Ranch in Season 2 Episode 7 including elements of various claims, such as a mysterious wolf and moving objects.
Ancient Aliens	2020	TV	Mentions Skinwalker Ranch in connection to claimed shape-shifting beings and ancient astronaut theories.
The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch	2020	TV	A television series on History channel, featuring “a team of scientists and experts” that uses science and technology such as lasers, ground-penetrating radar, and drone thermography as they search the property, attempting to explain claims of UFO sightings, animal mutilations, and paranormal events. Season one consists of 8 episodes.[13]

This story is truly shocking, isn’t it? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section and let me know what you feel about this.