Skinwalker
In Navajo culture a skin-walker (Navajo: yee naaldlooshii) is a type of witch or medicine man who has the ability to either turn themselves into, or disguise themselves as an animal to do evil deeds.
The word itself (yee naaldlooshii) translates to, “by means of it, it goes on all fours”. There have been misconceptions of Skinwalkers being birds but that’s just misinformation, a Skinwalker walks on all fours and is generally seen as a wolf or coyote.
While filming the Skinwalker episode for Alien Highway, I had the opportunity to speak with a Ute Native American elder. Unfortunately that interview wasn’t used in the episode, but I learned alot. I learned from the elder, the Navajo people cursed the Ute people with the evil presence of the Skinwalker.
In short based on my interview: The Ute Indians basically controlled most of what is now Utah and were experts in tanning and working with leather. The Spanish would trade goods and horses with the Ute Indians for their leather. As time passed the Ute Indians became expert horse riders in battle which was a great advantage compared to the other tribes who were on foot. This gave them the upper hand as they fought to gain more territory. As the Ute Indians fought their way into the Colorado territory, they won many a battle against the Navajo while captureing their women and children and forcing the others to flee. In turn faceing defeat multiple times, the Navajo elders and medicine men, cursed the Ute people with the Skinwalker.
Even today Ute elders will not allow the word Skinwalker or “yee naaldlooshii” spoken around them because it’s bad medicine and could summon the creature.
While filming the Skinwalker episode I had the opportunity to meet Ryan Burns. An avid fisherman and guide, Ryan is very familiar with the Skinwalker Ranch and areas surrounding it. He had his own Skinwalker type experience at what he called “The Crossroads” an area a few miles from the Skinwalker ranch location. His segement was used in the Alien Highway episode.
Ryan took the Alien Highway team to The Crossroads location and told us his story. “I was out here driving alone at night when a large wolf-like creature appeared out of the black mist. I turned to get a better look at it, and at first I thought it was a really large dog, but then noticed it only had one eye that appeared to be glowing. And then it just vanished.”
Ryan has a theory that there could be some-type of interdimensional portal at the “crossroads” location. Other anomolies have been experienced there too, so the decision was made to set-up a couple of game cameras in the area hoping to catch any anomaly.
I have multiple UFO/Paranormal type kits pertaining to specific investigations I do. In my Bigfoot and Animal mutilation kits, I have a couple of motion sensing game camers made by Moultrie. I’ve used these cameras in past personal investigations including other Alien Highway episodes and they work really well. I can record still pictures or short video clips, and can also control the sensitvity of the motion detection for different applications.
The following picture was taken from my camera’s video footage which was used in the TV show.
When I originally saw the footage which was in the clip at the beginning of this blog, I was amazed, confused and suspicious. Because I’m experienced using these types of cameras, I have never seen footage of an animal just appearing mid section of a video clip. Immediately I started to suspect our director and cameraman of tampering with the footage to falsify evidence to make a better TV episode. But then it hit me that my son Daniel and I were the ones that set-up the cameras and retreived them the next day. The cameras were in my truck and the SD cards were only pulled out and given to production a few minutes earlier for viewing which was not enough time to tamper with it.
My team and the production crew left the cross-roads site late at night while it was snowing. We traveled a good distance back to our hotels without having dinner because we had an early morning call. There was no evidence anyone from the production crew went back to the cross-roads site and tampered with my cameras. How did I know this?
While shooting a previous Alien Highway episode in an other state, someone had tampered with my game-cameras by pulling the batteries out, thus not being able to record and capture any evidence good or bad. There was clear evidence of foot-prints and camera strap movement with my cameras that showed they had been messed with. That particular episode everyone outside of my team became suspects, so Dan and I secretly placed another game camera in that area looking for the culprit. Our secret game camera only recorded some animal activities and our other cameras were ok. But for all of the following episodes we hadn’t shot yet, Dan and I developed a system of setting up my game cameras with certain ways we trapped the camera which would easily show us if it had been tampered with.
We didn’t notice any camera interference for the cross-roads wolf segment, which led us to believe all recordings were authentic. To this day that animal footage still amazes me and I consider it a true anomaly.
One thing I was always suspicious about the Skinwalker Ranch southeast of Ballard, Utah was, not all activity occurs on the ranch. I had received multiple reports throughout the years of events happening outside the ranch. The Native American Ute elder I spoke with also confirmed that. You don’t have to be on the ranch to experience paranormal or UFO-type phenomena’s. We proved that by not only capturing unusual footage at the “cross-roads”, but also capturing EVPs, strange glowing lights, and another creature sighting at the cemetery near UFO Mountain.
UFO Mountain is a couple of miles outside the Skinwalker ranch and the locals have been seeing strange lights there for generations. Fishermen and hunters have also reported sightings from Bigfoot to UFO’s in the nearby mountains and lakes. I was able to speak to a local animal tracker who also confirmed this. Just like the San Luis Valley in my home state of Colorado, the Uintah and Ouray Reservation area near Ballard is extremely active and has been active for centuries. Any local Ute Elder will confirm this. That is, “If they decide to speak with you”.
For more information about our Skinwalker experience, catch Travel Channel’s Alien Highway episode, “Legend of the Skinwalker”, on Amazon Prime Video.
Category: The Z-Files
