In 2020 the pandemic lockdown was underway and we were in a place where there wasn't much to do except watch TV. You would think with hundreds of DirecTV satellite channels, Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video there would be plenty to occupy time. But such is not the case. We were endlessly searching for something we would like but had not already seen multiple times. One evening while surfing channels I came across the History Channel just as they were premiering a new series, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.
From previous posts it is already known that I am a watcher of the series Ancient Aliens. But generally I tend to avoid virtually all the other series that sensationalize paranormal or UFO activity but never gather any measurable and repeatable data. Skinwalker Ranch showed promise to break that mold. The "hook" that reeled me in was that the principal scientific advisor was someone I was familiar with from watching and reading about such as How the Universe Works, Space's Deepest Secrets and Ancient Aliens; Dr. Travis Taylor. Dr. Taylor is an engineer and best-selling author who hold's PhD's in Optical Science and Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, as well as Masters degrees in Physics and Astronomy. For the past twenty-five years, Dr. Taylor has worked on various high tech programs for the Department of Defense and NASA.
I also learned that the Skinwalker Ranch came with credentials. It has history dating back to 1776 when the Spanish explorers Dominguez and Escalante (Franciscan priests searching for passage from Santa Fe, NM to Monterey, CA) came through along Skinwalker Ridge. The Utes and Navajo have oral histories about this area having frequent paranormal occurrences and objects in the sky that coincide with the Utes joining forces with U.S. troops in a campaign against the Navajo. This 1860 campaign was the origin of the Skinwalker curse. When the Uintah Basin reached levels of enough settlement to have towns with newspapers there were reports of "RUMBLINGS HEARD IN UINTAH BASIN", "Strange Noises Cause New Settlers Much Uneasiness" in the Theodore, UT newspaper, December 30, 1906.
The ranch was originally established in 1937 by the Myers family. There was a documented UFO sighting that occurred in 1940 (well before Roswell and all the hysteria around it) and again in 1960. In 1979 another major sighting was reported by the Arnold family. The ranch changed hands from the Myers to the Shermans in 1992. The Shermans were plagued by strange noises, paranormal phenomena, UFO sightings and cattle mutilations. In 1996 the Shermans wanted nothing more to do with the ranch and sold the property to billionaire Robert Bigelow who, in partnership with the Defense Logistics Agency (The Nation's Combat Logistics Support Agency), secured the ranch with fencing, gates, surveillance equipment and all sorts of monitoring devices. The ranch went under a lockdown and Bigelow never shared anything about what he was doing on the ranch, not even when he abandoned the project in 2015 and sold the property to the current investigators.
Okay, that's a lot to unpack but hang with me I'm getting to what this post is about.
The current team of investigators are the antithesis of the Bigelow team. While it is necessary to keep the ranch secure, mostly from tourists like me, they share pretty much everything else on their weekly History Channel series and skinwalker-ranch.com. While I singled out Dr. Taylor, he is not a one-man team. The core team is comprised of nine people, including Dr. Taylor. The team is made up of everyone from the owner of the ranch, Brandon Fugal, to fellow investigator Erik Bard, ranch manager Thomas Winterton, head of security Bryant "Dragon" Arnold, security Kaleb Bench, ranch caretakers Kandus and Tom, and community outreach director Jim Morse. There are auxiliary members that are high tech experts, aerospace engineers and even the governor of Utah.
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The Team
L to R: Kaleb, Tom, Kandus, Jim S, Thomas, Dragon, Brandon, Erik, Jim M, Travis.
Another star of the show is in the background, The Mesa |
So where is all this going? It is a whole bunch of background to give meaning to what is next.
During our duties as docents for the Swett Ranch, Cyndee and I would give tours of the 14 acre historically registered area. We divided the tour, I would great visitors at the parking lot gate and give them the origin story and a walking tour and history of all the out-buildings, making a circuit that would bring us around to the gate to the yard where the cabins and house resided. Cyndee would pick up the group from there and give the low-down on the family and what their ranch life was like and how it changed from 1912 to 1972. Our tours were not monologues, there was lots of Q&A, some of which had nothing to do with the ranch.
On one such occasion I had toured a family, a couple our age as well as an adult son, nice people. I handed them off to Cyndee and didn't see them again until they were departing. There was a little more than the casual goodbyes, there was some extra smiling and a little more "nice to meet you" than usual. When I next saw Cyndee she said that I had given a tour to one of the producers of "The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch". What!? Who!? Where!? In a casual conversation with Cyndee (the "where are you from", "what brought you here" type thing) the guy my age said that they were visiting their son at his job producing the History Channel's series "Skinwalker Ranch". Cyndee had told them something to the effect that I was a huge fan of the show and it was probably a good thing they didn't tell me who they were or I would have pestered them to death with talking about every episode.
Cyndee also told them of our adventure of coming to their gate and taking pictures in front of the "STOP" sign and all the surveillance cameras. It was when we were driving to Roosevelt, UT for Cyndee's pre-surgery doctor's visit that she pointed out we just passed the road for the entrance to Skinwalker Ranch. Notice I said Cyndee pointed it out, I was totally unaware that the ranch was right there. Well! We're turning in on the way back.
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Almost Skinwalker Ranch.
The "STOP" sign and no trespassing and barricade and surveillance cameras
kept us a fair distance from the actual front gate of the ranch.
But I was there and Cyndee took a picture, so it happened. |
And you thought I was through. Nope, there's more.
A couple of weeks later, after we had transitioned from the Swett Ranch to the Ute Mountain Fire Watch Tower, we were going about our business when in walked the producer and his parents. The dad entered the cab of the tower, looked at us and exclaimed; "You just can't get rid of us". This time I knew who they were and had them in a small room three stories above ground. Let the conversation begin! And it did. The producer, Mike, was most gracious and entertained all my questions without a single eye-roll. In fact, he made it a two-way conversation asking me questions about what I thought about certain episodes and volunteering some neat stuff that got edited out because of time constraints.
After a really nice visit and just before leaving, Mike asked me if I would like an autographed photo from the crew. Figuring he had some stock, mass reproduced copies I said "Sure". To my surprise Mike said he would go back to the ranch and get everybody's signature, they were all on-site filming the last shots of the season and everybody was getting ready to go home for the winter. Upon hearing this I said; "Oh, no, I don't want to bug anybody for an autograph" to which Mike said he had already told them about us and that they would be happy to do it. Okay then, it just got really special.
Mike and his parents descended the tower and I had a feeling I was never going to see that autographed photo. After all, Skinwalker Ranch was over an hour-and-a-half away, down in the Uintah Basin. I just couldn't let myself think that Mike would go to the trouble of getting the signatures and spend the better part of four hours driving, round-trip, to bring me an autographed photo. But two weeks later Mike proved to be a man of his word. In he walked with a large manilla envelope in his hand. They had finished filming for the season and he was making a last tour around to some favorite spots before going to his apartment in California. He opened the envelope and slipped out an 8.5 x 11 photograph of a sunset taken from atop the mesa and on the back-side of the photograph were eight signatures of the team.
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| Evidently they didn't just blindly sign. Dragon personalized it. |
Mike had personally taken the sunset photo and circulated it for signatures. He also brought me a pebble from the spot where he took the picture. Weird thing is that the rock split, I'm talking clean, smooth split, as he picked it up. And to top it off, he also included a frame to put the picture in. Wow!
This whole experience was unexpected. I/we didn't go looking for any of this. From my perspective it was all by pure coincidence. But what a nice coincidence.
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