Friday morning I leave for a hiking trip in Utah. I thought I would write about a special place in Northern Utah that has a lot of legend along with it, Skinwalker Ranch.

A skinwalker is a creature of Native American lore that is said to be a person who can change into an animal, most often a wolf. Unlike a werewolf, skinwalkers can change at anytime they desire. In Navajo, the culture of origin of the legend, skinwalkers are called “yee naaldlooshii” which translates to “by means of it, it goes on all fours.” This implies the evil witch changes into a full wolf, rather than one on its hind legs, such as a typical werewolf.

Skinwalker Ranch is said to be a place of cursed land. The area is stalked by skinwalkers, but once before a certain family called the ranch home, the homestead was dubbed UFO ranch. For more than 50 years, Skinwalker Ranch had been subject to many kinds of alien activity, most notably strange markings in the soil and grass, along with UFO sightings and cattle mutilations and disappearances. Many of the cattle found had appeared to have been sliced into and drained of blood, with no blood found in the surrounding area.

The land gained its modern name when the Sherman family bought the land. The 500+ acres had sat unlived upon for seven years. The family had no reason to believe this was odd. Upon arriving at the house, the Sherman’s found that the house had been fitted with locks on every single door, both outer and inner. They also found large chains hanging on the outer back wall of the house.

Within one day of having officially moved onto the land, the Sherman’s spotted an odd creature out by their cattle pen. It appeared to be a wolf unlike any the family had seen. The monstrous animal stood with its head at an even height with Mr. Sherman’s chest and was solid black. The creature seemed to be friendly with the family and was allowing them to approach it, at one point even letting Mr. Sherman pet its side.

After this, the family understandably believed the beast to be safe until it attacked a calf. The monster latched onto the neck of the squealing animal and attempted to remove it from the cattle pen. Mr. Sherman was forced to shoot the animal with a high caliber handgun, but the first bullet hardly got the beasts attention. After three shots and large chunks of flesh missing from the creature’s body, it ran into the woods. Mr. Sherman and his son pursued the wolf by following its tracks only to find that they disappeared with no explanation.

For two years the family was subject to oddities such as glowing orbs, lights so bright, the entire cattle field could be seen at night and multiple appearances of the wolf creature. At times the monster was even seen standing on its hind legs. The prints it left were human-shaped, but much larger and had large claws protruding from the toes. The family was also plagued by cattle mutilations and disappearances, along with nightly nightmares.

18 cattle disappeared within the families time there. One evening, very near to dusk, the boy in the family noticed the wolf creature once again stalking near the cattle pen. He followed the creature into the wood until night had fallen and he decided to head back to the house. As he was leaving he looked back at the creature to find that it was staring back at him. This time the monster had beaming red eyes. Terrified, the young man sprinted to the house.

The next day he followed up with the investigation. Upon returning to the location in the woods, he found a dead cow that had a small hole in its back. A hole that looked as if it had been made by a drill. The cow was drained of all of its blood.

After the family moved from the land a scientific research company called the National Institute of Discovery Science bought the land and built a facility on it. The team there has found many incidents of supernatural activity, including both sighting of UFO/alien activity and the wolf-like monster. To this day the land is still known as Skinwalker Ranch.