engineering

Skinwalker Ranch

Skinwalker Ranch is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Skinwalker Ranch rather than just read about it. In short: Skinwalker Ranch, previously known as Sherman Ranch, is a property of approximately 512 acres (207 ha), located southeast of Ballard, Utah, that is reputed to be the site of paranormal and UFO-related activities. Its name is taken from the skin-walker, a malevolent witch in Navajo legend.

Key takeaways

Skinwalker Ranch belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Skinwalker Ranch to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Skinwalker Ranch from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Skinwalker Ranch, previously known as Sherman Ranch, is a property of approximately 512 acres (207 ha), located southeast of Ballard, Utah, that is reputed to be the site of paranormal and UFO-related activities. Its name is taken from the skin-walker, a malevolent witch in Navajo legend.

Background UFO reports in the Uintah Basin were publicized in the 1970s. Claims about the ranch first appeared in 1996 in the Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret News, and later in the alternative weekly Las Vegas Mercury as a series of articles by investigative journalist George Knapp. These early stories detailed the claims of a family that allegedly experienced inexplicable and frightening events after they purchased and occupied the property. The ranch, located in west Uintah County, Utah, bordering the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, was popularly dubbed the UFO ranch due to its ostensible 50-year history of odd events said to have taken place there. According to Kelleher and Knapp, they saw or investigated evidence of close to 100 incidents that include vanishing and mutilated cattle, sightings of unidentified flying objects or orbs, large animals with piercing red eyes that they say were unscathed when struck by bullets, and invisible objects emitting destructive magnetic fields. Among those involved were retired US Army Colonel John B. Alexander, who characterized the NIDSci effort as an attempt to get hard data using a "standard scientific approach". However, the investigators admitted to "difficulty obtaining evidence consistent with scientific publication". Cattle mutilations have been part of the folklore of the surrounding area for decades. When Robert Bigelow, founder of the National Institute for Discovery Science, purchased the ranch for $200,000 in 1996, this was reportedly the result of his having been convinced by the stories of mutilations, that included tales of strange lights and unusual impressions made in grass and soil told by the family of former ranch owner Terry Sherman.

Book and funding In 2005, Colm Kelleher and co-author George Knapp published a book, Hunt for the Skinwalker, in which they describe the ranch being acquired by Bigelow to study anecdotal sightings of UFOs, Bigfoot-like creatures, crop circles, glowing orbs and poltergeist activity reported by its former owners. Kelleher and Knapp's book was read by Defense Intelligence Agency official James Lacatski, who contacted Bigelow and obtained permission to visit the ranch. Lacatski had a supernatural experience there, which Bigelow relayed to his friend Harry Reid. Reid and Ted Stevens, a UFO experiencer, quickly agreed that the ranch deserved attention and inserted a line into the Department of Defense budget appropriating $22 million to study unidentified aerial phenomena.

Criticism In 2020, skeptical author Robert Sheaffer found the phenomena at Skinwalker to be "almost certainly illusory", given that NIDSci found no proof after several years of monitoring, and that the previous owners of the property, who had lived there for 60 years, say that no supernatural events of any kind had happened there. Sheaffer considers the explanation reliant upon the fewest assumptions to be that the Sherman family invented the story "prior to selling it to the gullible Bigelow", with many of the more extraordinary claims originating solely from Terry Sherman, who worked as a caretaker after the ranch was sold to Bigelow. In 1996, skeptic James Randi awarded Bigelow a tongue-in-cheek Pigasus Award for funding the purchase of the ranch and for supporting John E. Mack's and Budd Hopkins' investigations. The award category designated Bigelow as "the funding organization that supported the most useless study of a supernatural, paranormal or occult [claim]". In 2023, ufologist Barry Greenwood, writing in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, criticized the $22 million research program led by James Lacatski. He emphasized the lack of any documentary evidence from the ranch after many decades of exploration and characterized Skinwalker as "always in the business of selling belief and hope".

Ownership pre 1934 Benton M Locke and Ona Ora Bryant 1934–1994 — Kenneth and Edith Myers 1994–1996 — Terry and Gwen Sherman 1996–2016 — Robert Bigelow 2016–present — Brandon Fugal, via Adamantium Real Estate LLC In 2016, Bigelow sold Skinwalker Ranch to Adamantium Real Estate LLC for around $500,000. After this purchase, roads leading to the ranch were blocked, the perimeter was guarded by cameras and barbed wire, and signs were posted that aimed to prevent people from approaching the ranch. Adamantium Real Estate, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, filed a U.S. Trademark application for the service mark "Skinwalker Ranch" on February 15, 2017, and it was approved and registered on April 14, 2020, with the mark applicable to "providing recreation facilities; entertainment services, namely, creation, development, production, and distribution of multimedia content, internet content, motion pictures, and television shows." An additional trademark filing to expand use on "cups and mugs, shirts and short-sleeved shirts, sports caps and hats" was filed by Adamantium Real Estate, LLC on June 21, 2021, and was approved and registered on July 12, 2022. In March 2020, Brandon Fugal, a real estate developer and tech investor, announced ownership of the ranch. In 2022, Fugal announced a partnership with the Hutchings Museum Institute in Lehi, Utah, designed to "better understand the environment and historical significance" of the ranch.

In popular culture

See also List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

Footnotes

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Skinwalker Ranch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Skinwalker Ranch claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Skinwalker Ranch before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Skinwalker Ranch ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Skinwalker Ranch

In research: Skinwalker Ranch appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Skinwalker Ranch in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Skinwalker Ranch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1934 establishments in Utah, American urban legends, Buildings and structures completed in 1934, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Skinwalker Ranch outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Skinwalker Ranch in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Skinwalker Ranch means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Skinwalker Ranch out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Skinwalker Ranch in simple terms?

Why does Skinwalker Ranch matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Skinwalker Ranch?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Skinwalker Ranch.