Skinwalker Ranch (Sherman Ranch)

The ranch lies southeast of Ballard, Utah, beside the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. Kenneth and Edith Myers owned it from about 1933 until 1994. The Uintah Basin already had a history. Retired teacher Joseph "Junior" Hicks had investigated more than 400 sightings there since the 1950s. "I'd estimate over 10 percent of the population of the Uintah Basin has seen something," he said.

In 1994 Terry and Gwen Sherman moved in with their teenage son and 10-year-old daughter. On June 30, 1996, the Deseret News told their story. Three kinds of craft, seen again and again. A small boxlike craft with a white light. A 40-foot-long object. A massive ship comparable in size to several football fields. One sent out "a wavy red ray or light beam." Lights came "from orange, circular doorways that seem to appear in midair."

Once, Terry and his son faced a lit object that would "duck behind the rock ridge as if to avoid them." They waved. "The light flashed on and off three times, as if signaling them, and then disappeared."

The family linked seven dead or missing cattle to the sightings. Some had precise holes in the left eye and no blood. One missing cow's hoofprints simply stopped at the edge of the field. Circles of flattened grass lay in a triangular pattern. And once Terry heard male voices speaking an unfamiliar language, about 25 feet above him. He saw nothing. The dogs barked and growled, then ran off.

In November 2002 journalist George Knapp coined the name Skinwalker Ranch. His articles added blue orbs about the size of a softball, and a wolf that took shot after shot at point-blank range, then "casually trotted across the field."

In September 1996 Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science took control. On August 25, 1997, at about 2:30 a.m., two observers watched a yellowish light grow to about 4 feet across. One, using night-vision binoculars, said: "A big black creature just crawled through that tunnel, got onto the ground, and walked away." Infrared film showed only a single very faint light. Publicly, NIDS stayed cautious. "Definitely no craft," John Alexander said in 1997. The final verdict was "inconclusive."

On July 26, 2007, DIA official James Lacatski visited the ranch. A DIA contract with Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies followed, known as AAWSAP. In 2024 the Pentagon's AARO reported that the program examined reports of "shadow figures" and "creatures" at a property in Utah. It noted that "DIA did not seek, nor specifically authorize, this work." The program was terminated in 2012.

Garth Myers, brother of the previous owner, said there was "absolutely nothing" there while his family lived on the land. Skeptic Robert Sheaffer suggested the Shermans "invented the story prior to selling it to the gullible Bigelow." A local veterinarian called cattle mutilations "10 percent scavenger activity and 90 percent imagination." Critics also noted how the story grew. In 1996 one wound was "about an inch deep." By 2002 it was "18 inches deep."

Adamantium Real Estate bought the ranch in 2016. Brandon Fugal was named as its owner in 2020, the year History premiered The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Books, films and podcasts followed. No verifiable photo or video of the phenomena has been published. The field is still watched.