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.

Devil Names and Fortean Locations

I've written about the name game on this Twilight Language blog, often, in relationship to sites.

For example, one of the most in depth treatments was about the "Hockomock Name Game."

I wanted to alert you to my republishing of my classic Fortean Times contribution from 1979, "Devil Names and Fortean Places," over on my new blog, CryptoZooNews, at this selection, "Devil Names, Fortean Places, and Cryptids." Click here to go visit that there.

Enjoy.

Manitou: Fires of the Great Spirit

Over the weekend, specifically on the Eve of St. John's Day and St. John's Day, June 23-24, 2012, wildfires swept over Colorado, encompassing nature, homes and cabins (shown above). Readers here were probably not too surprised by these events considering the past.

Upon closer inspection, the epicenter reveals yet another name game. The news reports have signaled the fires have been concentrating, at least in one major outbreak, on Manitou Springs, Colorado.

A wildfire burns west of Manitou Springs, Colorado, on Sunday, June 24, 2012. The fire erupted and grew out of control to more than 3 square miles early Sunday, prompting the evacuation of more than 11,000 residents and an unknown number of tourists. (Credit: Christian Murdock, The Colorado Springs Gazette)

Manitou Springs is a "name game" wonder. The settlement was "Manitou" until changed in 1885. "Manitou" is a term for the "Great Spirit," in its most basic interpretation. The main street through the town is a direct route to Pikes Peak. One of the town's major attractions, Briarhurst Manor, is a Victorian manor house built in 1876 by the founder of Manitou Springs, Dr. William Abraham Bell (April 26, 1841–June 6, 1921). Bell earlier had been the 32nd parallel expedition's photographer, as the southern route for the Union Pacific Railroad was being mapped in the late 1860s. (See more on the significance of the "Bell" name here.)

In my breakthrough article, "Devil Names and Fortean Places," published in Summer 1979, in Fortean Times 29, I looked at how names used by Native Americans, First Peoples, and other indigenous folks have left their sinister/spiritual feelings on the land, whether the names used be devil, diablo, hockomock, or manitou.

In my Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation's Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures, I reprinted and expanded on this "devil names" article in Chapter 3. There I note the following about the name Manitou,

...the WPA guides are wonderful books for tracking down the origins of place names. One of my favorities is the story behind Lake Manitou, Indiana. “Manitou” is an Indian word demonstrating some power and connection to the unknown - “The Great Spirit,” similar in a fashion to what we are talking about here regarding “devil.” According the WPA guide for Indiana (page 436), Lake Manitou was inhabited by three “monster devilfish” that began destroying all the fish there after arriving from Lake Michigan. “They even drove the wild game away, for when the buffalo, elk, deer, and other animals came to the lake to drink, fearsome serpentine tentacles shot out and dragged them beneath the surface of the murky water.” The prayers of the Natives exterminated the monsters and out of gratitude, they named the lake after the Great Spirit. While the exact details of the encounters may be shrouded in folkloric overtones, the underlying nature of such stories are an intriguing bit of evidence for some historical links to real events, as we have seen over and over again. The land reveals its secrets for those who wish to look.

To expand a bit on the meaning of Manitou, the generally accepted definition is "a supernatural force that according to an Algonquian conception pervades the natural world."


But the lines between "god," "spirit," "Great Spirit," "evil spirit," "demon," and "devil" are very thin in how Manitou was used or understood by Western settlers or invaders. The notion of a continuum is at work here, with most North Americans of nonnative background considering Manitou to be a positive "spirit" term and the other end of the range being Hockomock (and its other forms) being a negative "devil" word. For Amerindians, the differences may not be so clear, for example, as any concept can hold both "good" and "evil" meanings. In the Hockomock Swamp, Massachusetts, naturally, there exists both ends of the continuum.


Western Europeans, using an Algonquian name, have now painted the landscape of North America.


Wikipedia points out, "In 1585 when Thomas Harriot recorded the first glossary of an Algonquian language, Roanoke (Pamlico), he included the word mantóac meaning "gods" (with a plural ending). Similar terms were found in nearly all of the Algonquian languages."

Besides Manitou Springs, El Paso County, Colorado, and Lake Manitou, Fulton County, Indiana, other Manitou forms that show up on the landscape of North America include:

Province of Manitoba, Canada

Manitou Island, off Keweenaw Peninsula, Lake Superior, Michigan

North Manitou Island, off Leelanau Peninsula, Lake Michigan, Michigan

South Manitou Island, off Leelanau Peninsula, Michigan

Manitou Island, White Bear Lake, Minnesota

Manitoulin Island, Lake Huron, Ontario

Manitouwadge, Ontario

Big Manitou Falls, Douglas County, Wisconsin

Manitou Island, one of Apostle Islands, Lake Superior, Wisconsin, and

Manitowoc, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.