Inside the mysterious Skinwalker Ranch from giant ‘monsters’ to UFO sightings

Stories of portals to other dimensions, extinct giant wolves and flying saucers may sound like something from a science-fiction blockbuster, but they have all been “spotted” at the infamous Skinwalker Ranch over the years.

The 512-acre property nestled in the Uintah Basin in Utah, US, has been a hotbed for apparent paranormal incidents for decades.

Named after the mythical creature found in the Navajo tribe legends, its various owners and visitors have claimed to have witnessed unexplainable events and the fascination behind the Ranch has even attracted celebrities such as Robbie Williams.

Billionaire businessman and UFO fanatic Robert Bigelow bought the property in 1996 and his team of scientists set about studying the sightings of Bigfoot-like creatures, crop circles, glowing orbs and more.

But even they were unable to come up with a plausible explanation.

Skinwalker Ranch is the focus of new BLAZE documentary Hunt for the Skinwalker, which features footage from a previously-never seen programme from journalist George Knapp.

Ahead of its release on March 25 as part of the channel's UFO week, Daily Star delves into some of the strangest stories to emerge from the chilling ranch.

UFOs and ‘portals’

Thousands of people have claimed to have witnessed UFOs at Skinwalker Ranch and the surrounding Uintah Basin ever since it was first publicised in the 1970s.

Bigelow’s team of scientists, from his privately-funded National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), set up cameras around the property when he bought it in 1996 and they managed to capture their own sightings.

Frustratingly, as NIDS’ Dr John Alexander claimed, the UFOs proved elusive as they “knew where you were looking”.

But the cameras did manage to pick up some bizarre activities.

In footage shown for the first time in the Hunt for Skinwalker documentary, a blue orb that “seemed under intelligent design” darts across the night sky.

Another image shows how a “fan-shaped array of lights” was recorded while a third captured an airline-like contrail emanating from the ground.

Perhaps the strangest of all caught on camera was the moment a ghostly silhouette of “structures” appeared on CCTV.

As the narrator explained, it reminded the team of New York City’s fallen Twin Towers.

Two scientists also bizarrely claimed to have witnessed a “portal” opening up in front of them, before a mysterious creature emerged and darted off into the darkness.

Calf mutilated and ‘spread-eagled’

Cattle mutilation continues to be one of the most mysterious happenings across the world.

Thousands of farm animals have been found over the years sucked dry of blood with surgical precision at the hands (or paws) of what some believe to be an otherworldly being.

But no incident compares to the chilling discovery of a mutilated calf at Skinwalker Ranch on March 10, 1997.

Tom Gorman and his wife had just tagged a calf and left it with their mother to go and carry on the task for the rest of their cattle when something mysterious happened.

Now standing 300 yards from where they left the animal, their dog started growling at its direction.

“And then it just took off, west, and was never seen again,” Dr Colm Kelleher, a biochemist who worked for NIDS, explained.

Understandably perplexed, the couple returned to the spot to find the calf’s distressed mother pacing back and forth dragging her leg.

They then discovered the calf, or what was left of it.

The creature was laid spread-eagled on the floor with all of its internal body cavities and muscle missing.

One of the ears had also been removed with a “very sharp instrument”.

About 10 feet away from the animal lay its femur, which seemed to have been forcibly removed from its body.

Dr Kelleher recalled: “It looked like a massive predator had laid waste to this animal, removed 60lbs of meat in 45 minutes. We don’t know of any predator that could have done it.”

To make it even stranger, the couple did not hear or see anything from when they left the calf and returned to it and there was not a drop of blood on the ground around the creature.

Skin tissue analysis showed that the calf had been cut up with sharp, metallic instrument.

Scientists came to the conclusion that the creature had been taken away from the field to be killed before being returned and laid out in the “ritualistic” pattern. But, like all the other cattle mutilations, no perpetrator has ever been found.

Extinct giant wolf ‘attacks’ calf

In 1994, Terry and Gwen Sherman bought Skinwalker Ranch but on their very first weekend found just why he had received its spook reputation, when they came across a creature “three to four times” the size of an ordinary wolf.

Dr Colm Kelleher, a biochemist at NIDS, recounted the chilling story on Hunt for the Skinwalker.

He explained how Terry and his son noticed what looked like a wolf coming towards them across a field one day while they were tending to their cattle.

They assumed it was someone’s lost pet and it seemed docile, until a calf stuck its head out of its pen.

The creature quickly attacked it and tried to drag it through the fence. In a desperate attempt to rescue their prized possession, the duo repeatedly beat the creature with sticks but it had no effect.

Terry then shot the monster with a .357 Magnum handgun four times and it was not until the fourth shot that the creature let go.

Spookily, it let out no cries of pain and stared at the ranch owner. He then shot the creature with a rifle at 20ft, but it still did not squeal. The wolf-like animal was shot again and, this time, a “piece of flesh” fell to the ground before the monster trotted off.

Terry and his son tracked the animal to a creek and found that its tracks “stopped suddenly”.

The pair never forgot the encounter, with Dr Kelleher noting: “Even a single shot from the Magnum should have brought that wolf down.”

Later that day, Gwen came across the monster wolf and claimed it was accompanied by two black dogs “with giant heads”.

But there was one more chilling element to the story.

When the family was asked to point describe the creature by pointing out its picture from a lineup of different wolves, they picked out a “dire wolf”.

Dire wolves, made famous by Game of Thrones, went extinct roughly 13,000 years ago.

Hunt for the Skinwalker will air this Thursday (March 25) on BLAZE, found on Freeview Channel 63. As part of the channel's UFO week, they also conducted a survey to find out how much Brits believed in little green men. You can find out more about their results here.

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