Almanac of the Gods
Skinwalker Ranch
Photo: Paul from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · cropped and resized

Place No. 21 of 44

Skinwalker Ranch

USA (Uintah Basin, Utah) · 40.26° N · 109.89° W

On a fenced-off Utah cattle ranch, owners and TV crews have chased glowing orbs, dead cattle and strange signals for thirty years, and the argument has never cooled.

Size
about 512 acres (the 1996 newspaper report said 480)
Earlier owners
the Myers family for 60 years, 1934–1994
Cattle incidents in the 1996 report
7 (4 missing, 3 found dead)
Bigelow's purchase
about $200,000 in 1996
NIDS incident log
close to 100 reported events
Pentagon UFO study funding
about $22 million, 2007–2012 (contractor: Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies)
TV seasons of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch
7 aired by 2026, with an 8th planned

What it is

Skinwalker Ranch is a private property of roughly 500 acres in Uintah County, in northeastern Utah, southeast of the small town of Ballard and a few miles from Fort Duchesne. It borders the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, home of the Northern Ute. Unlike most places on this site, it has no ancient ruins. It is a working ranch that became famous in the 1990s as one of America's best-known hotspots for UFO and paranormal reports.

The name comes from the skinwalker, a shape-shifting witch figure from Navajo tradition. Local lore holds that the Ute consider the area to lie on the skinwalker's path, a belief some tie to old conflicts between the Ute and Navajo. The wider Uintah Basin had a long run of UFO reports in the mid-1900s, collected by local teacher Joseph 'Junior' Hicks, who logged hundreds of sightings.

The modern story starts in 1994, when Terry and Gwen Sherman bought the ranch. In June 1996 the Deseret News reported their account of odd craft overhead and cattle that vanished or turned up dead with strange wounds. Months later businessman Robert Bigelow bought the property for his National Institute for Discovery Science, which staffed it with researchers and logged close to 100 incidents. The team admitted it struggled to gather evidence fit for publication.

Since 2016 the ranch has been owned by Utah real-estate executive Brandon Fugal. He trademarked the name and opened it to the History channel series The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, made by the producers of Ancient Aliens, which has run since 2020. The site matters because it connects folklore, private money and a secret Pentagon-funded UFO study, and because it keeps drawing fresh claims.

The ancient-alien case

Believers see the ranch as a place where something nonhuman keeps breaking through. Giorgio Tsoukalos, in 'The Mystery of Skinwalker Ranch' (2020), calls it the 'Disneyland of the paranormal.' Owner Brandon Fugal sorts the reports into three groups: lights in the sky, odd electromagnetic readings, and unexplained injuries or illness among visitors. He stops short of saying aliens are behind it and raises the idea of a doorway to a parallel world.

Journalist George Knapp tells some of the ranch's most striking stories on the show. He says Spanish friars recorded strange lights in the region in colonial times, that residents have seen animals that should not exist, and that a ball of light once opened like a tunnel with a figure crawling out.

Aerospace engineer Travis Taylor, who leads research on the spin-off series, argues that the electromagnetic anomalies point to a nonhuman intelligence. In 'The Glowing Orb Phenomenon' (2025) he suggests the orbs may come from a parallel universe, and Tsoukalos links them to the Watchers of the Book of Enoch, heavenly beings who kept an eye on humanity.

Others on the show widen the frame. Caroline Cory describes the ranch as one node in a planet-wide grid of dimensional gateways. Writer Lynn Picknett proposes that a single poltergeist-like entity is behind all the different reports. To theorists, the variety itself is the clue that one hidden intelligence is at work.

What archaeologists say

Skeptics and investigators say the ranch has produced many stories but no verified physical evidence. Even the Bigelow team, with years of access and funding, reported trouble getting data that met scientific standards. No peer-reviewed study has confirmed an anomaly there. Skeptic Robert Sheaffer notes that the Myers family lived on the land for sixty years without reporting anything unusual, and questions the account given just before the property was sold.

Critics also point to the role of television. Jason Colavito found that footage in a 2025 Ancient Aliens segment showed what looked like car headlights presented as orbs. Science writer Russell Moul and others note that the TV team has not backed up its claims with shared data. Cattle deaths with odd wounds are well known to ranchers and vets, who usually trace them to natural decay and scavengers.

Historians add that the skinwalker label was attached to the ranch by outside writers, and that the Deseret News article that started the modern story did not use the word at all. Investigators see a feedback loop, in which books, websites and TV shows keep feeding each other, rather than a growing body of evidence.

Timeline

  1. 1861The Uintah Valley reservation is set aside for the Ute; the ranch will later sit on its border.
  2. 1934–1994Kenneth and Edith Myers own and work the ranch.
  3. 1950s–1970sA wave of UFO reports across the Uintah Basin is documented by local teacher Junior Hicks.
  4. 1994Terry and Gwen Sherman buy the ranch.
  5. June 30, 1996The Deseret News publishes the Shermans' account of UFOs and cattle deaths.
  6. 1996Robert Bigelow buys the ranch for his National Institute for Discovery Science.
  7. 2005Colm Kelleher and George Knapp publish Hunt for the Skinwalker, the book that made the ranch famous.
  8. 2007–2012A Pentagon-funded UFO study, pushed by Senator Harry Reid, pays Bigelow's aerospace company about $22 million.
  9. 2016Brandon Fugal buys the ranch through Adamantium Real Estate.
  10. 2020–2026The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch premieres on March 31, 2020; its seventh season airs May–August 2026, and an eighth is planned for 2027.

Still unanswered

  • Has any instrument reading from the ranch been independently checked and published?
  • What did the Pentagon-funded study actually record at or about the ranch, and will more of its files be released?
  • Why did the Myers family, over sixty years, report nothing out of the ordinary?
  • How much of the ranch's reputation comes from the Sherman account alone, and how much from later investigators?

Did you know?

  • The 1996 newspaper story that launched the ranch's fame never used the word 'skinwalker.'
  • Brandon Fugal registered 'Skinwalker Ranch' as a trademark in 2020.
  • Before the ranch became famous, Utah's Uintah Basin already had hundreds of logged UFO sightings from the 1950s to the 1970s.

On Ancient Aliens

  • S15E10 The Mystery of Skinwalker Ranch A full episode on the ranch featuring Fugal, Knapp, Taylor, Cory and Picknett, launching the spin-off series.
  • S21E08 The Glowing Orb Phenomenon A segment ties the ranch's orbs to a parallel universe and to the biblical Watchers.

Episode numbers follow Wikipedia's episode list; History and some reviewers number a few seasons differently.

Visiting

Getting there. Near Ballard and Fort Duchesne in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah; the nearest larger town is Vernal. Access is by road only.

What you can see. The ranch is private property and closed to the public. Roads to it are blocked, the perimeter is watched by cameras and fenced with barbed wire, and trespassers are turned away. There is no visitor center.

Tip. Treat it as a place to read about, not to visit; the nearby Uintah Basin towns and Dinosaur National Monument make a better road trip than a gate you cannot pass.

Sources

  1. Skinwalker Ranch (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Frequent Fliers? (Deseret News, June 30, 1996) deseret.com
  3. The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Skinwalker Ranch of Uintah County, Utah (Legends of America) legendsofamerica.com
  6. List of Ancient Aliens episodes (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Review of Ancient Aliens S15E10 'The Mystery of Skinwalker Ranch' (Jason Colavito) jasoncolavito.com
  8. Review of Ancient Aliens S21E08 'The Glowing Orb Phenomenon' (Jason Colavito) jasoncolavito.com
Research notes: what we could not confirm
  • Wikipedia's summary credited George Knapp with the 1996 Deseret News article, but the article's own byline is Zack Van Eyck; the byline was used here.
  • Wikipedia gives the 2016 sale price as around $500,000; other figures circulate, so no price is stated in the dossier.
  • The Pentagon study's direct work at the ranch is described in secondary sources; the Wikipedia page on the program opened this session does not mention the ranch.
  • 'The Hotspots Connection' (S19E1) and 'UFO Hot Spots' (S22E5) may cover the ranch but were not confirmed.
  • The Ute belief that the ranch lies on the skinwalker's path comes from a popular history site, not from a tribal source.
  • The explanation that most cattle 'mutilations' come from decay and scavengers is general knowledge, not from a page opened this session.