MYS0D013ZMR6K9V·Mystery · site

Skinwalker Ranch

Skinwalker Ranch is a cattle ranch of about 480 acres (later accounts say 512) near Ballard in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah, bordering the Uintah and Ouray Reservation⁠[1]⁠[2]. Terry and Gwen Sherman bought it in 1994 and in June 1996 told the Deseret News that they had seen unexplained lights and craft, some emerging from "doorways" in midair, and had lost seven cows, three of them found partly mutilated⁠[3]. The story the ranch is best known for, a large wolf that took rifle rounds at close range and walked away, is not in that account; it first appears in print in a 2005 book⁠[4]⁠[5]. Within months the Las Vegas developer Robert Bigelow bought the ranch for his National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), which stationed observers there until it closed in 2004⁠[1]⁠[6].

The ranch would have remained a regional UFO story but for what came next. NIDS's lead investigator Colm Kelleher and the journalist George Knapp wrote a 2005 book describing what the staff said they saw⁠[4]. A Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, James Lacatski, read it, visited the ranch in 2007, and with Senator Harry Reid's help secured a $22 million contract for Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), which ran from September 2008 until DIA ended it in 2012⁠[7]⁠[8]. A later book by Lacatski, Kelleher and Knapp says the ranch was the program's main field site and that effects followed investigators home⁠[9]. In 2024 the Pentagon's own review confirmed that the contractor had investigated alleged paranormal activity at the ranch, and said DIA had neither sought nor authorised it⁠[8].

Since 2016 the ranch has belonged to the Utah property developer Brandon Fugal, who announced his ownership in 2020 and has made it the subject of a History Channel series, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, running since 2020⁠[10]⁠[2]. The series presents instrument readings and experiences as discoveries; none has been published for independent review, and this record treats the series as a source of claims, not of evidence.

The sceptical case is simple. The Myers family, who owned the ranch from the 1930s to 1994, are reported to have experienced nothing unusual in sixty years; NIDS, with years of access and money, produced no evidence it could publish; the extraordinary claims trace mostly to one family who sold the property to a buyer looking for exactly such a place⁠[11]⁠[5]⁠[12]. The case for something anomalous rests on the number and consistency of first-hand reports from people who, on the face of it, had little to gain from them. Neither side has what the other would need. Of the 12 questions on this site, 2 are answered. The most likely answer to “Are the ranch's reports distinctive within the Uintah Basin's own record of sightings and animal deaths?”, not yet confirmed: the ranch's lights, craft and cattle deaths belong to a Basin-wide pattern of reports going back to the….

Key questionsset by the editors

Are the ranch's reports distinctive within the Uintah Basin's own record of sightings and animal deaths?Most likely: the ranch's lights, craft and cattle deaths belong to a Basin-wide pattern of reports going back to the…

Did anything happen at the ranch between 1994 and 2010 that ordinary causes cannot explain?Most likely: the reports grew from ordinary events and misperception in a place with a reputation, amplified by the people…

How reliable are the Sherman family's 1994–96 accounts, and how did they reach print?Most likely: the core of the accounts was reported in good faith, but the story grew as researchers, the press and the…

What did NIDS record at the ranch between 1996 and 2004, and was any of it published as data?Most likely: what NIDS recorded at the ranch amounts to its staff's testimony; its instruments caught nothing it would…

What did the DIA's AAWSAP program actually do at the ranch, and what does it hold?Most likely: aAWSAP was mainly a paper study whose ranch component was small, informal or carried by the contractor…

What happened to the Shermans' cattle?Most likely: predators, disease and scavenging, read as mutilation

All 12 questions

The site

The ranch lies in the Uintah Basin, a high desert bowl ringed by the Uinta Mountains to the north and the Book Cliffs to the south, between the towns of Ballard and Fort Duchesne⁠[1]. The Basin had its own UFO literature before the ranch: the Utah State University plant physiologist Frank Salisbury collected local sighting reports gathered by the Roosevelt science teacher Joseph "Junior" Hicks in The Utah UFO Display (1974, revised 2010), which records hundreds of Basin sightings from the 1950s onward with no connection to the ranch⁠[13]. The name "Skinwalker" is a borrowing from Navajo tradition applied to the ranch by Knapp and Kelleher; the local Ute community has its own lore about the land, which the book reports second-hand⁠[4].

Ownership is a matter of record. Kenneth and Edith Myers held the property from the 1930s until 1994; the Shermans bought it in 1994; Bigelow bought it in September 1996, with press reports putting the price near $200,000; Bigelow sold to Fugal's Adamantium Real Estate in 2016⁠[14]⁠[2]⁠[10]. After 2016 the ranch was fenced, gated, and placed under camera surveillance; the name was trademarked in 2020⁠[2].

Map of the siteOpen the full map

Site plan Site Region

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The TriangleArea of reported activity

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Timeline

Timeline

Squeezed where little happened. Each mark is a published claim, by how it stands:AcceptedMost likelyStill possibleDisputedRuled out

What was found

No physical evidence from the ranch has been published for examination. The Shermans' claims of cattle deaths were made to the press, not to a vet or the sheriff, and later to NIDS⁠[3]. NIDS said it examined carcasses and found unexplained features, but reported this only in its own book; the website on which it published necropsies from Nebraska, Montana, Oregon, New Mexico and elsewhere in the Basin carries none from the ranch⁠[4]⁠[15]. The local vet who assisted with its necropsies said in 1996 that its one case so far was not a mutilation⁠[16]. The book describes dogs that ran into the dark and were found as "greasy spots," a bull found squeezed into a trailer, and marks in soil and grass; none is documented in a form a third party can check⁠[4].

First page of The AAWSAP solicitation and statement of work (HHM40208R0211) — The AAWSAP solicitation and statement of work (HHM40208R0211)Defense Intelligence Agency, 2008. Public domainArtifact

The released AAWSAP records consist of the 2008 solicitation and statement of work, the contract and its amendments, briefings to the Director of National Intelligence and to Senator Reid, the 2009 attempt to make the program a special access program, and 37 of the 38 "Defense Intelligence Reference Documents" that the contract produced, on subjects from warp drives to invisibility cloaking⁠[7]. A further 1,574 pages released to The Sun in April 2022 include a 2010 report on "anomalous acute and subacute field effects on human and biological tissues" compiled from the UFO literature⁠[17]. None of these documents mentions the ranch, and a FOIA request for Lacatski's 2007 letter to Bigelow returned no records⁠[7]. The first government statement about the ranch work came in March 2024, when the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office reported that the contractor had investigated "an alleged hotspot of UAP and paranormal activity at a property in Utah" owned by its head, including "shadow figures" and "creatures," citing a 2009 review of a contractor report⁠[8]. What field data the government holds, if any, is known only through the three authors of the 2021 book⁠[9].

What is known

The sequence of events is well documented; the events themselves are not. The Shermans' account appeared in the Deseret News on 30 June 1996 in a long feature by Zack Van Eyck, which reported their sightings of lights and of a ship "the size of several football fields," and the deaths and disappearance of seven cows; the family had told neither the sheriff nor any official⁠[3]. Van Eyck and the Las Vegas Sun reported Bigelow's purchase in October 1996⁠[14]⁠[1]. Terry Sherman stayed on as caretaker under a nondisclosure agreement, and from then on new Sherman stories reached print through others: about ten cows and three vanished dogs by October 1996, the wolf by 2005⁠[14]⁠[11]⁠[5]. Sherman later told Frank Salisbury that much in the 2005 book only resembled his experiences⁠[5].

NIDS was founded by Bigelow in 1995 and disbanded in October 2004⁠[6]. Its ranch work was never published in a peer-reviewed venue. In April 1997 NIDS's John Alexander said there had been "some minor observations, but nothing you would stand behind"⁠[18]; in 1998 Bigelow said strange activity had continued but that "it's just embarrassing to try to make conclusions at this point"⁠[19]. The 2005 book is the only extended account of the NIDS period; it renames the Shermans "the Gormans" and describes the staff's own experiences, including a large animal emerging from what one observer described as a tunnel of light in August 1997, and a humanoid figure seen in a tree in the same year⁠[4].

First page of The AAWSAP contract order (September 2008) and its 2009 modification — The AAWSAP contract order (September 2008) and its 2009 modificationDefense Intelligence Agency, 2008. Public domainArtifact

The DIA contract is a matter of record. The solicitation went out on 22 August 2008, the contract was signed on 2 September 2008, and funding ran for two fiscal years at about $22 million in total, the money having been added to the defence budget by Senators Reid, Stevens and Inouye⁠[7]⁠[20]. DIA ended the program in 2012⁠[8]. Senator Reid confirmed the program and its origins in interviews from 2017 onward⁠[20]. Lacatski's own visit, in July 2007, is described in the 2021 book: he reports seeing a yellowish tubular shape appear in the ranch house kitchen⁠[9]. The claim was first published fourteen years after the event.

The explanations

Four readings cover the ground. The first is that the reports are substantially true and describe an intelligence or phenomenon that acts on people and animals at the site; this is the position of the two books, which further argue that the phenomenon is "precognitive" and adapts to observation, which would explain why instruments never catch it⁠[4]⁠[9]. The reading has the obvious weakness that it is built to be untestable.

The second is that the Shermans invented or embellished their story, consciously or not, and that the story then selected for witnesses and investigators disposed to see more. Robert Sheaffer notes that the family who owned the ranch for sixty years deny anything happened there, that NIDS's own investigators conceded very little physical evidence, and that many of the most extraordinary claims trace to Terry Sherman alone⁠[11]. Barry Greenwood, reviewing the 2021 book in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, made a similar point from inside ufology: the stories are "not well-documented," and the ranch "is always in the business of selling belief and hope"⁠[12]. The sceptical reading does not require fraud; it needs only ordinary misperception in a place with a reputation, which is what the Basin's older UFO literature suggests⁠[13].

The third is a mixed account: real but mundane events (predator kills, cattle theft, aircraft from the Hill Air Force Range and oilfield traffic, meteors) read through expectation. NIDS's own hotline experience is relevant: of more than 5,000 reports received after 1999, officials said most were missile launches and meteors⁠[6]. The fourth is that the ranch is a vehicle for other purposes: Bigelow's wider interest in survival after death and in the UFO question, and since 2016 a television property and a trademarked brand⁠[21]⁠[2]. This does not say the witnesses lied; it says the incentives have never pointed toward disconfirmation.

Published claims

Published claims and their status

Year	Who	Claimed	Status	Reason
1974	Frank B. Salisbury⁠[13]	The Uintah Basin produced hundreds of reported UFO sightings from the 1950s onward, collected by the Roosevelt teacher Junior Hicks.	Accepted	The reports are documented and predate the ranch by decades, though what lay behind each is not known⁠[13]⁠[22].
1980	Kenneth M. Rommel Jr.⁠[25]	The New Mexico cattle mutilations were the work of ordinary predators and scavengers, not of people or anything unknown.	Accepted	Later historical study reached the same conclusion for the 1970s wave as a whole, though a few laboratory reports dissent⁠[23]⁠[24].
1996	Terry and Gwen Sherman (reported by Zack Van Eyck)⁠[3]	The family saw lights and craft over the ranch, some emerging from doorways in midair, and lost seven cows, three of them found mutilated.	Still possible	Nothing outside the family corroborates it and nothing shows it false; the deaths were never reported to a vet or the sheriff⁠[3]⁠[11].
1997	John Alexander (NIDS, reported by Zack Van Eyck)⁠[18]	Seven months of NIDS observation at the ranch produced some minor observations, but nothing NIDS would stand behind.	Accepted	NIDS never published ranch data, and its own investigators later wrote that they obtained very little physical evidence⁠[11]⁠[15].
1999	Colm A. Kelleher, George E. Onet and Eric W. Davis (NIDS)⁠[26]	The eye and ear of a cow found dead in the Uintah Basin were removed with a sharp instrument, with no sign of heat or cautery.	Accepted	A necropsy and laboratory report by NIDS's own pathologists; it points to human cutting in that case, not to an unknown agent⁠[26].
2005	Colm A. Kelleher and George Knapp⁠[4]	The ranch is the focus of a real phenomenon that acts on people, animals and instruments and seems to anticipate and evade observation.	Disputed	The book concedes very little physical evidence, and nearly thirty years of privately funded study have produced none that others can check⁠[11]⁠[12].
2011	Michael J. Goleman⁠[23]	Most cattle mutilations of the 1970s were scavengers taking soft tissue first, read as human work by officials and amplified by the press.	Accepted	It agrees with the official inquiries of the period⁠[25]⁠[27].
2018	Peter A. McCue, from Frank Salisbury's interviews⁠[5]	The previous owner's brother said nothing strange happened in the Myers years, and Terry Sherman said much of the 2005 book only resembled his experiences.	Most likely	Consistent with the dated print record, in which the wolf and other episodes first appear years after 1996, but both statements are second-hand⁠[3]⁠[4].
2020	Robert Sheaffer⁠[11]	The prior owners deny anything happened in sixty years, NIDS found nothing, and the simplest reading is that the ranch's story was made up or grew around one family.	Most likely	The usual sceptical reading and consistent with the record, but untestable until the NIDS and AAWSAP files are released⁠[12]⁠[8].
2020	Brandon Fugal (interviewed by KSL TV)⁠[30]	The owner's team has recorded phenomena at the ranch that defy all natural explanation.	Disputed	No raw data or methods have been released, and mundane causes have been offered for individual effects shown in the series⁠[28]⁠[29].
2021	James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher and George Knapp⁠[9]	The ranch was the main field site of the DIA's AAWSAP program, where investigators recorded anomalous effects, some of which followed them home.	Still possible	The Pentagon has since confirmed ranch work under the contract, but no field data has been released and DIA says it never sought that work⁠[8]⁠[12].
2023	Barry Greenwood⁠[12]	The ranch stories in the 2021 book are not well documented, and no peer-reviewed medical work supports the claimed effects on people.	Most likely	No document or data released since has supplied the missing record⁠[8]⁠[7].
2023	Tony Murfin⁠[28]	The drone failures shown in the television series could be caused by the team's own 1.6 GHz transmissions jamming the drones' GPS receivers.	Most likely	A known interference mechanism, but the drone logs that would test it were apparently never downloaded⁠[28].
2024	All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office⁠[8]	The AAWSAP contractor investigated alleged UAP and paranormal activity at a Utah property owned by its head, work DIA did not seek or authorise.	Accepted	An official Defense Department finding resting on a 2009 review of the contractor's report, though that report has not been released⁠[8].

What would settle it

The site is privately held and the owner controls access, so the question will not be settled by outsiders walking the ground. Three things would move it. First, any instrumented record from NIDS or AAWSAP, with timestamps and metadata, released to independent analysts; the authors of the 2021 book say such records exist⁠[9]. Second, the DIA's own files on the ranch: AARO's 2024 report cites a 2009 contractor report on the work, which has not been released⁠[8]⁠[7]. Third, a necropsy report on a single mutilated animal by a veterinary pathologist with no connection to the owners, published with photographs. Absent these, the ranch remains a well-recorded collection of claims, and the best available account is the sceptical one: a site with a reputation, a family who reported much, and investigators who reported more.