Skinwalker Ranch Deaths and the Hitchhiker Effect

The Skinwalker Ranch is a property of approximately 512 acres (207 ha), located southeast of Ballard, Utah, that is reputed to be the site of strange (Fortean) and UFO/UAP-related activities. Its name is taken from the lore and sightings of skinwalkers of Ute and Diné legend.

Various parts of documentaries and programs have chronicled the mysteries of the site. As of 2020, a television series, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, on History channel, has featured "a team of scientists and experts" that uses science and technology such as lasers, ground-penetrating radar, and drone thermography, as well as lots of rockets. It have shown the cast members searching the property, and attempting to explain claims of UFO/UAP sightings, animal deaths, and unusual events. By April 2024, five seasons of multiple episodes have been filmed and planned for broadcast.

Chief Deputy Brian Fletcher

In March 2024, breaking news was released by the Uintah County Sheriff’s Office. They reported the recovery of a deceased individual around February 29, 2024, near the Skinwalker Ranch.

Chief Deputy Brian Fletcher confirmed the finding, stating, “Our agency did locate a deceased individual south of Fort Duchesne; however, the circumstances are not suspicious, and no further information will be released out of respect for the family,” in an email to Expanding Frontiers Research on March 4, 2024.

Expanding Frontiers Research received information indicating that the body may have been found in the vicinity of 4500 East and 2800 South after an abandoned motorcycle was reported to the sheriff’s office several months earlier. The motorcycle’s discovery was reported on November 24, 2023.

According to an inside informant familiar with the incident, the deceased individual might have been in the area due to an interest in the purported paranormal phenomena linked to Skinwalker Ranch. When asked about this possibility, Chief Deputy Fletcher declined to provide further details.

Members of the investigative teams of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch have told of the "Hitchhiker Effect" involving how the ranch impacts visitors and scientists who visit and work there. Dizzy spells, headaches, and hospital visits have resulted from the apparent electromagnetic side effects from the ranch.

Former Skinwalker Ranch owner Robert Bigelow’s wife Diane, 72, died on February 19, 2020, of myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia.

“The reason Bigelow got rid of the place was he was convinced that it killed his wife.” ~ Travis Taylor, said, re: the “hitchhiker effect” at Skinwalker Ranch. 

The number of “mysterious deaths” associated with the Skinwalker Ranch seems nil. Or the tip of the iceberg is merely being demonstrated, as shown via Diane Bigelow. And Kevin Burns, 65, executive producer of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, who died of a cardiac arrest, September 27, 2020.

Skinwalker Ranch,

Uintah County, Utah, U.S.

Prehistory to 1934 - Utes/Diné

1934–1994 – Kenneth and Edith Myers

1994–1996 – Terry and Gwen Sherman

1996–2016 – Robert Bigelow

2016–Present – Brandon Fugal

Current owner, Brandon Fugal

The danger of fans of the program being attracted to the physical location of the Skinwalker Ranch then ending in death has been seen due to other reality programming.

Savanna Bright, 15, died after being hit by a Norfolk Southern train on Sunday night, May 26, 2019, near Pope Lick Park, on the train tracks near the Pope Lick trestle, while searching for the Pope Lick Goat Man. Louisville, Kentucky media has confirmed that two adolescent females on the Pope Lick Train Trestle were stuck by a train near Pope Lick Road, and Taylorsville Road, in Louisville, Kentucky.

The area is known to be “notoriously dangerous” as it is alleged to be the home of the Pope Lick Monster. The creature is said to be part human and part goat.

The Pope Lick Monster is the subject of an urban legend and popularized in YouTube videos, as well as a 1988 film, The Legend of the Pope Lick Monster (director Ron Schildknecht); and a 2013 episode of Destination America’s Monsters and Mysteries in America (in “Ozarks”). There is also a haunted attraction themed after the tales surrounding the Pope Lick monster called the Legend at Pope Lick located at Pope Lick Park in the Parklands of Floyds Fork.

In 2016, Roquel Bain and her boyfriend Dave Knee decided to go to a "paranormal event" at the nearby Waverly Hills Sanatorium, a well-known haunted location often highlighted on “ghost hunter”-type reality programming. But with some time to fill, the couple decided to explore the Pope Lick Trestle and actively see if they could see the Pope Lick Monster. Bain met her tragic fate there.

The "Hitchhiker Effect" can be said to have had some grave links to this location as well as it seems to have to the Skinwalker Ranch.

Conspiracy and Twilight Language Deaths of 2023

Conspiracy and Twilight Language Deaths of 2023

by Loren Coleman

The "hail and farewell" obituaries at the end of a year are often a confusing mixture of multiple themes. For the twelve months of 2023, I gather here a few of the noteworthy passings of assassination authors, conspiracy journalists, cryptokubrology dots, and twilight language-linked folks we lost in 2023. From the latest, to the earliest...

2023

December 23

Hugh Aynesworth, 92. Obituary. He is shown above with Marina Oswald, in 1964. Aynesworth and others would later say they had an affair.

Hugh Grant Aynesworth, born August 2, 1931 in Clarksburg, West Virginia (as was UFO writer Gary Barker), died December 23, 2023, in Dallas, Texas. Aynesworth was an American journalist, investigative reporter, author, and teacher.

In a 1976 Texas Monthly article, William Broyles, Jr. claimed Aynesworth as "one of the most respected authorities on the assassination of John F. Kennedy".

Certainly, Aynesworth was one of the luckiest reporters or experienced an incredibly high number of coincidences in his life in journalism. He said he  

~ witnessed the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza, 

~ the capture and arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre,  

~ the shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters,

~  had "broken almost every major assassination story", and

~ worked openly with Clay Shaw's attorneys to defend Shaw against Jim Garrison.

He painted himself as a conservative, a skeptic, and an assassination conspiracist.

Also Aynesworth...

~ with Stephen Michaud, a former Business Week reporter, wrote two books on serial killer Ted Bundy,

~ with Jim Henderson, also of the Dallas Times Herald, did investigative reporting of self-proclaimed mass murderer Henry Lee Lucas, and

~ covered the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, referring to it as "[t]he Branch Davidian massacre".

Aynesworth was seen to have been his own greatest promoter. Aynesworth was reported to have "interviewed John F. Kennedy in the shower [and] Lyndon B. Johnson in bed". According to one report: "He also tracked down the person who stole "most of" eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes' money, chased James Earl Ray all over the South and into Canada after he shot the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr." According to Aynesworth, he was asked to serve as a pallbearer for Jack Ruby and played basketball with Fidel Castro. He said that he was playing outside of Havana: "And all of a sudden, this Jeep drives up and a bearded gentleman gets out and puts on his tennis shoes and joins us. I'd been having trouble getting an interview, and after that, it came a little easier. I told him that I would let him win."

Aynesworth co-authored seven books with Stephen G. Michaud. His 2003 book JFK: Breaking the News is "a companion piece to a documentary on the 40th anniversary of the event."

December 21

Ian Punnett, 63

Ian Punnett was a regular host of Coast to Coast AM beginning in 1998, infrequently interviewing conspiracy writers and related individuals. He died shortly after a brief illness.

December 8

Ryan O'Neal, 82. Obituary. 

Born April 20, 1941, actor Ryan O'Neal starred in Barry Lyndon, Love Story, and Paper Moon, among other films, before dying on December 8, 2023.

#Cryptokubrology reflective screen history: Stanley Kubrick modeled Tom Cruise's mask in Eyes Wide Shut on Ryan O'Neal's face in Barry Lyndon (shown above).

September 22

Kenn Thomas, 65. Obituary.

St. Louis area resident and author Kenn Thomas was a former university librarian, archivist, and the editor/publisher of Steamshovel Press, a parapoliticial conspiracy theory magazine. He was an author of a great collection of conspiracy articles and books.

Kenn died in his sleep on a Friday night. Kenn resisted going into a nursing home, despite ongoing chronic health issues, because it would have meant living without his dog, books, records, and comic books, which to him was not living at all.

Kenn showed author Loren Coleman the "name game" location, the Beall House, in Missouri, on one visit.

August 20

 

David Perkins, 77. Obituary.

David Perkins was a field researcher and writer investigating “cattle muteology,” the mysterious mutilations occurring throughout the Midwest USA.

Long before podcasts, there was Altered Steaks: A Colloquium on the Cattle Mutilation Question (1982), by David Perkins (a/k/a "Izzy Zane"), Lewis Macadams, and Tom Clark.

February 19

Richard Jay Belzar, 78. Obituary.

Richard Belzar, well-known for his role on Law and Order: SVU, was a comic and conspiracy author. His book UFOs, JFK & Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Believe, was one of his more popular.

January 9

Melinda Dillon, 83. Obituary.

Melinda appeared in the midst of films that had a central theme of interest to many of us: Magnolia, Harry and the Hendersons, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Dillon also is famously in A Christmas Story. This movie contains a scene of the parade in front of the Cleveland-based department store Higbee's featuring characters from MGM's version of The Wizard of Oz, which was released in 1939. As this clip shows, it is extremely filled with twilight language. #Cryptokubrology