The Horrifying Creature That Bullets Can’t Kill

In Navajo mythology, skinwalkers are murderous, shapeshifting creatures who gain supernatural powers by sacrificing the lives of their closest relatives. But ask a Navajo person about them, and they'll turn white, deny their existence, and walk away from you like they've just seen a ghost. According to the Navajo, you must never speak about skinwalkers, say their name out loud, or even think about them. Those who have dared have come back with horrific tales. The Navajo may not engage in conversations about them, but skinwalkers are an integral part of the people's lore. In fact, the native people of Navajo insist that legends of skinwalkers are neither myths nor scary stories used to get children in line. These creatures are real to Navajo people. But perhaps what is most perplexing and at the same time utterly terrifying about skinwalkers is the irrationality behind their existence. Skinwalkers did not become who they were by accident. Quite the opposite, they chose to be the ugly, oozing, beast-like creatures that they are. According to native lore, skinwalkers used to be medicine men and healers until they acquired a taste for evil and turned over to the dark side, or more specifically, the witchery way. As one might expect, the requirements for extraordinary people are steep, especially when they come from the dark side. For skinwalkers, initiation rituals involved necrophilia, the murder of a loved one, grave robberies, and cannibalism. The promise, however, was that anyone daring enough to fulfill all these requirements would be rewarded with supernatural abilities, including shapeshifting, indestructibility, and necromancy. For some, that's an offer you don't refuse. So they accepted the terms and became skinwalkers, wielding great power and causing great harm. Now, that's one legend of the skinwalkers. There are a couple of other legends surrounding these mystery creatures, each one more intriguing than the next. For the sake of time, however, I'm going to focus on only one other legend because it has its groundings in actual history. In the 19th century, while the transatlantic slave trade was going on, another less brutal but equally tragic slave trade was going on in the southwest. I'm talking about the Indian slave trade. From about 1829 to 1862, Native Americans were sold and traded for horses in New Mexico and California using the newly constructed Santa Fe Trail, which connected the eastern part of the U.S. with New Mexico. Now, two of the most prominent actors in this slave trade were the Utes and the Navajo. Both tribes would sell members of the other tribe as slaves in exchange for horses and supplies. So, naturally, this caused tensions between both tribes, with both sides actively orchestrating expansive slave raids into the other side's territory, which only further entrenched the intertribal hostilities. Fast forward to 1863 and this man entered the picture, Kit Carson. You see, around this time, American Europeans had started settling on Navajo lands, which led to a tension. And so, to cut a long story short, the U.S. government decided that the Navajo problem needed to be taken care of, which was where Carson came in. Carson was basically the executioner of the U.S. government's plans, deploying every ruthless means possible to force the Navajo out of their land. Houses were incinerated, livestock were destroyed, and farmlands were razed to the ground. It was a full-scale assault. But here's something else. Carson didn't work alone. The fur trapper was able to enlist the support of the Ute tribe, who helped to flush out Navajo people who had tried to hide. Eventually, the Navajo were forced to surrender, and thus began the long walk from their homeland to a reservation in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The walk was just as brutal as Carson's military campaign, and hundreds lost their lives in the 300-mile trek. Not surprisingly, the Navajo harbored a deep-seated resentment against the Ute for the betrayal, and legend has it that the Navajo placed a curse on them as a result. This curse, it is claimed, unleashed skinwalkers in the Ute's territory. And as it turns out, said territory is only 20 miles away from Skinwalker Ranch, where skinwalkers are said to have a base. I think it's important to talk about the Skinwalker Ranch first so that you can get some context. Keep in mind that I've done a separate video on the Skinwalker Ranch itself, so you should check that out if you want to do a deep dive into the ranch. I'm only going to touch on in this video so we can focus on the mystery of the skinwalkers themselves. Alright, so here goes. In 1994, a couple named Terry and Gwen Sherman decided they wanted to live a quiet farm life, so they bought a ranch in Utah. As you may know or may have already guessed, that didn't go well at all. The ranch turned out to be the worst possible place Terry and Gwen could have chosen to call home. And in less than two years, they sold it and moved on to a different property. Here's what happened. One night, shortly after the Shermans moved into their ranch house, the couple heard a strange noise while they slept. Startled, Terry peeped through the window to check what was causing the noise. What he saw, however, completely caught him off guard. It was a wolf. But, as if that wasn't scary enough, this wolf was several times larger than any wolf Terry had ever seen. Right away, Terry ran back inside to pick up his gun so he could shoot the wolf. But after firing several rounds of bullets, the wolf remained unharmed. It was almost as if Terry was just shooting a water gun at the creature, as it didn't even budge. Eventually, the strange beast got bored, perhaps, so it wandered off. That was when Terry noticed other equally strange things about this creature. For one, the wolf-like beast left no tracks, almost as if the wolf had simply appeared and disappeared into thin air. Secondly, the animal had a strong stench, like that of a rotting corpse, which traumatized the couple for a very long time. Unfortunately for them, that was only the beginning. In the weeks and months that followed, Terry and Gwen experienced much weirder and more terrifying stuff. Their animals started to die in the most grotesque ways, as if some unseen malevolent force was out for them. Dogs were incinerated over the night. Cows were dismembered. But this wasn't just your average wild animal attack. The mutilations showed surgical precision, suggesting that something with an intelligent mind was at work here. If Skinwalker Ranch was the only known account of Skinwalker activity to exist, it could have been much easier to explain away these mysterious creatures. However, as it turns out, this is far from the case. There are many who have narrated similarly terrifying experiences. We've even seen those who initially didn't believe have their whole world changed when they came across a creature with striking resemblance. Like the story this lady told on a Reddit sub, with comments from people talking about their own sighting. So, the question isn't if the creature exists or not. Clearly, it does. The question now is, what exactly is this being? Even though all believers generally agree that Skinwalkers really do exist, not everyone agrees with the Navajo legends as an explanation for their existence. For some believers, this is obviously a case of shapeshifting aliens. To understand why they say that, we need to go back to Skinwalker Ranch. Besides the strange animals the Shermans found on their ranch, the couple also reported seeing strange lights, hearing sounds of heavy machinery being operated by no one, and hearing disembodied voices speaking in an unknown language. But that wasn't even all. There were several other creepy happenings consistent with alien activity, like crop circles. Then, one night in May 1996, Terry Sherman saw a blue orb moving around his ranch. So he sicked his three dogs on it. The dogs immediately chased the orb deep into the bush. And then, shortly after, Terry heard three horrible screams that seemed to be coming from the directions his dogs went. When he went into the bush to check what had made that sound, what he found chilled him to his bones. Lying there on the ground were the grotesquely mangled remains of his three dogs. That was it for the Shermans. The very next day, they packed up and left, immediately putting the ranch on the market. The ranch was then bought by a millionaire UFO enthusiast, Robert Bigelow, who hoped to conduct UFO investigations on the land through his agency, National Institute for Discovery Science. Now, some have said that the Shermans probably made up the stories about the strange sightings and occurrences on their ranch in order to attract Bigelow's attention and make some money. However, the facts around this sale obviously preclude that. First off, there was no way the Shermans could have known that Bigelow would be so interested as to offer to buy their ranch. Secondly, the Shermans sold their ranch to Bigelow for just $200,000. In 1996, ranch land in Utah would have sold for an average of $740 per acre. The Shermans' ranch was about 500 acres, which means that the couple lost a lot of money on this deal. Judging from the facts, therefore, it appears the Shermans just wanted to get the heck out of there, whatever that was going to cost them. Thirdly, and most importantly, how do we explain the experiences of numerous other people who visited Skinwalker Ranch from as far back as the 1700s to the two successive owners of the ranch, Robert Bigelow and Brandon Fugel? Explorer Sylvester Velez de Escalante reported seeing odd fireballs over at the Uinta Basin in 1776. As we now know, this is where the Skinwalker Ranch would later be located about 200 years later. The NID Psi Group, who bought the ranch from the Shermans, also reported stories of mysterious creatures, macabre cattle mutilation, and even the mysterious destruction of their expensive recording equipment on multiple occasions. This video is not about the Skinwalker Ranch, so I won't go into further detail about the things that were discovered at the ranch. Once again, find out more about that in our Skinwalker Ranch video. In the meantime, however, for many people, all of the evidence from the Skinwalker Ranch points to the activity of Skinwalkers, hence the name given to the farmland. However, what if this wasn't the work of a mythical creature? What if this was the work of a shape-shifting alien instead? Let's check out the evidence again. Eyewitnesses mentioned seeing orbs floating in the sky. There were also mentions of strange lights, sounds of heavy machinery, crop circles, and spontaneous failure of electronic gadgets. Even if you aren't an avid member of the UFO community, you probably already know that these signs are consistent with alien activity. But there's one more thing that further proves the theory that Skinwalkers are probably just aliens. I'm talking about the suspicious activity of the US government following the investigation of Skinwalker Ranch. After spending millions in taxpayer money investigating Skinwalker Ranch, the government came to the conclusion that there was nothing otherworldly going on there. Pretty cut and dry, right? But then, a few years later, a private citizen tried to request files on the case from the police and the CIA using the Freedom of Information Act. Weirdly, however, the request was denied. According to the official report from Langley, the CIA said it could neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to said person's request. That's very odd for an investigation that allegedly turned up nothing, which means that the US government obviously knows more than it is letting on. Perhaps a race of aliens is part of it? Well, it definitely feels like it. The only question now is where does this shape-shifting human-beast hybrid creature fit in this alien theory? Do shape-shifting aliens even exist? Well, if you couldn't already tell, the answer is yes. In August 2021, an unknown UFO enthusiast uploaded a bizarre video to his channel. The video has since been taken down from YouTube, but according to news reports that reported the sighting, in the video, you could see a shape-shifting object that looked a lot like a biological entity. And said entity was hovering in the atmosphere at about 10,000 to 30,000 feet. As you can see from the images, this is definitely not a bird. It's not the wing of a plane or the reflection of the sun either. The shape simply doesn't fit. And again, there's the shape-shifting. Reflections do not shape-shift, nor do airplane wings. Many skeptics have tried to deny that this is likely an alien or a UFO, but they've also failed to provide a more reasonable alternative for what this traveler most likely saw and recorded that fateful day. This leaves us with one likely option, which is that said apparition was probably a shape-shifting alien life form. And if this is so, then it suggests that shape-shifting aliens are possible, which means that the skinwalkers of Navajo legend might just be aliens. In fact, Reptoids come to mind. Yes, Reptoids might have a reptilian anatomy, which is very different from the coyote or wolf-like appearance that skinwalkers tend to take, but Reptoids are also known shape-shifters. Not only that, but in UFO lore, this particular race of aliens is known to always have malevolent intentions. They are power-hungry and highly manipulative, which perfectly matches what we know about skinwalkers. So is this it? Are skinwalkers shape-shifting aliens? Well, there's one more theory we need to look at. Some have suggested that skinwalkers might actually be interdimensional beings. This is a bit similar to the alien theory, except that this theory proposes that skinwalkers aren't just from another planet, but from another dimension entirely that coexists alongside ours. In other words, a parallel universe. As sci-fi-ish as it may seem, the interdimensional theory actually has some grounding in science, specifically in quantum mechanics. Concepts like string theory, for instance, suggest, on a theoretical level at least, that it is scientifically plausible, maybe even inevitable, that there are multiple dimensions coexisting with ours. Humans may not be able to reach these dimensions given our current technological capability, but this does not mean that whatever beings reside in these other dimensions cannot access ours. According to string theory, there could be as many as 11 dimensions. You could think of these dimensions as tiny pockets within reality that fold into and interact with one another in ways that humans cannot. So, it could be that many of the paranormal beings we encounter on Earth actually live in these other parallel dimensions and then make contact with our dimension under specific physical or psychological conditions. For instance, someone in a heightened and altered state of consciousness might be more sensitive to the interdimensional overlap than someone who isn't. This might cause such a person to be able to sense the paranormal where others can't. A physical condition could look like liminal spaces. So, there are certain spots around us known as liminal spaces. These are what you might call transitional points or portals that take you from one dimension to the next. So, naturally, in such places, the frequency of paranormal activity tends to be high. Now, considering how Skinwalker Ranch has been observed to be a hotbed of UFO activity for centuries now, it's quite possible that the area might be a liminal space, which would make the Skinwalkers being observed there interdimensional, not extraterrestrial. Let's talk a bit more about that for a second. Obviously, interdimensionals are beings that live in a parallel universe to ours. Those who hold on to the interdimensional theory explain that interdimensionals do not have physical bodies. Instead, they have energetic bodies, which can shapeshift into physical bodies. As you can see, this fits perfectly with what we know about Skinwalkers as notable shapeshifters. But it gets even more specific. Some say that interdimensionals can even take over another person's body, as in the case of possession. Once again, this fits well with what we know about Skinwalkers, who are known to transform into beast-like creatures and even possess animals and dead bodies. That said, another reason Skinwalkers might not be extraterrestrials, as believed by some, is the lack of spacecraft. Neither in the Skinwalker Ranch nor in any other place where people have encountered Skinwalkers have we seen spacecraft or debris of spacecraft. This makes sense if Skinwalkers are interdimensional, since they may not necessarily need any craft to move between realities. Think about ghosts and demons, for instance. These beings live in separate dimensions and make regular appearances in our reality without the need for a spacecraft. So, this is very likely the case with Skinwalkers as well. Now, you could say that there's no such things as interdimensional beings, but that may be a hasty conclusion, considering that around 95% of the universe is invisible and unobservable. That is, what we do not know about the universe is actually the majority of what exists in the universe. And what we do know is just a tiny fragment. This leaves the possibility open for the existence of multiple dimensions and therefore interdimensional beings, just like string theory suggests. But even more specifically, there's a lot of work currently going on in the field of reincarnation, especially at the University of Virginia. Considering that reincarnation has to do with the migration of the non-physical essence of a person back into the physical universe, we could classify it as part of interdimensional studies. This would mean that even science is considering cases involving alternate dimensions serious enough to warrant further studies. All of this considered, I think we have sufficient grounds to assume that Skinwalkers might actually be interdimensional beings. Skeptics, on the other hand, have a wildly different explanation for the existence of Skinwalkers. It's not as fun as the theories we've looked at so far, but it is definitely grounded and worth considering. So what's the less sensational explanation for the existence of Skinwalkers? Well, you're about to find out. When talking about the legend of the Skinwalkers, there is one aspect of the conversation that many often leave out. Everyone knows about the Salem witch hunt of the 1800s by now. But there's another lesser-known cultural phenomenon that also happened in that century. It's called the Navajo Witch Purge, and it happened in 1878. So in 1864, the Navajo were forcefully removed from their land and marched to Fort Sumner. But four years later, they were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland after signing a treaty with the United States government. Now, while the Navajo were still at Fort Sumner, they went through a lot. Their numbers reduced drastically as a result of a myriad of misfortunes. Crops were failing, the water in the area was bad, leading to all kinds of sicknesses, and people were dying off due to hostile conditions. To sum it all up, it was horrific, and the Navajo people began to believe that their gods had deserted them. It is said that during this time of hardship, many of the Navajo people took up the art of shapeshifting in order to escape the terrible conditions in which they were living. Unfortunately, this attempt to save their lives would become the very reason for their execution years later. After the Navajo people returned to their land in 1868, things got better for the tribe. However, the trauma from their displacement was still ever-present, and the Navajo people continued to blame witches for the years of horror they had to endure at Fort Sumner. Then, one day, someone found some witch artifacts wrapped in a copy of the 1868 treaty, and all hell was let loose. Accusations of witchcraft started flying around, leading to the infamous Navajo Witch Purge of 1878, in which 40 suspected Navajo witches were killed to restore peace and harmony to the tribe. Now, that's the way the legend goes. However, some stories tell the story differently. For one, they do not mention any shapeshifting by any Navajo tribe member during their stay at Fort Sumner. Instead, they describe the 1878 Witch Purge as the product of jealousy, envy, and distrust between members of different factions within the Navajo tribe. According to these sources, the 1868 treaty might have allowed the Navajo people to return to their homeland, but it also led to a lot of internal conflict. On one hand, there were those who tried to work with the U.S. government to maintain order. On the other hand, there were those who felt that government interference was excessive and wanted to fight to allow the Navajo to return to their old way of life. Hastin Biwasi was the leader of this group, and it was he and his rebel group who buried the 1868 treaty, which they regarded as the symbol of widespread suffering and hardship, in the body of a dead man. Where the witch artifacts found in the other legend came from is unclear, as Biwasi's group did not include anything of the sort when burying the treaty. Unfortunately, this action led to allegations of witchcraft, and Biwasi was accused of casting spells on people and burying people's belongings in order to cause sickness and misfortune. Thus, Biwasi and his group became the scapegoat onto whom the community projected their collective fears and frustrations. The traumatized tribe labeled Biwasi a witch and proceeded to execute him as their laws demanded. Whichever version of the story you believe, the ultimate point is similar. Essentially, holders of this view believe that there are no such things as malevolent witches out for blood. They suggest that what likely happened was that the trauma of being displaced from their homeland and the catastrophe the Navajo experienced during their banishment caused a lot of fear in them. Not knowing how else to process these fears, therefore, the Navajo projected them outward onto a tangible entity, something they could understand and handle. And for them, that was witches. Blaming their misfortunes on witches made it easier for the Navajo people to make sense of a series of misfortunes that, up to that point, made no sense to them. It also made it easier for them to handle and process their trauma. Hence, the Witch Purge of 1878. This line of thought isn't left field at all, as even a basic grasp of psychology tells us that projection is one of the most common ways people deal with their trauma. Highly stressful experiences like the one suffered by the Navajo can leave a person feeling fearful or powerless. In such a case, Very Well Health says that projection may allow a person to separate themselves from the trauma. However, this may lead them to project intense emotions onto others. This seems to be what happened with the Navajo during the 1878 Witch Purge, which might also explain how the whole concept of skinwalkers came about in the first place. False accusation and trauma projection. So, that's one explanation. But there is another explanation proposed by skeptics. One is infrasound, which we're about to look into. Infrasound is a low-frequency sound with a rate of vibration way below what the human ears can perceive. Scientists have always known that this sound triggers intense fear in humans. However, it wasn't until 1980 that infrasound was linked to the paranormal. The first person to make this connection was Vic Tandy. Tandy was an engineer and a lecturer at Coventry University, England, and in 1980, he was working in a lab that had a reputation for being creepy and haunted. One day, Tandy experienced the high strangeness for himself. In his words, According to Tandy, he saw a spirit emerge in his peripheral vision, but then, when he turned to face the spirit, it vanished. For a short while after his spooky experience, Tandy was convinced, along with everyone else, that the lab was haunted. Until he found out the cause of his mysterious experience by accident. The following day, while polishing his sword, Tandy was also a fencer by the way, the engineer noticed that the blade of his sword continued to vibrate even after he clamped it in a vice. From this, Tandy theorized that his lab probably had some infrasound in it. So, he carried out some experiments, and it turned out that he was right. In fact, the infrasound was highest right next to his desk, where he saw the apparition, and it was coming from the newly installed extractor fan in the lab. To confirm his findings, Tandy went on to recreate his experience, and the findings were the same. Turns out, infrasound really could lead to false ghost sightings. So, could this be the case with skinwalkers? Were eyewitnesses simply experiencing the spooky effects of infrasound? Probably. However, just like the other skeptical explanations we've seen so far, certain aspects of skinwalker encounters remain unaccounted for. For example, how do we explain Sherman's mutilated cows or the dogs that wound up mangled after chasing a floating orb? If murderous, misfortune-causing, shapeshifting witches aren't real, if it was all just in the minds of the Navajo people and those who had these encounters, how come animals were winding up dead and crop circles were cropping up on farmlands? Unreal entities don't act in reality. So, it's either these explanations don't cut it, or someone somewhere has misrepresented facts. Which leads me to my final theory. Alright, so let's go back to the Skinwalker Ranch. After the Shermans sold to Robert Bigelow, Bigelow immediately set up shop, putting together a team to man the ranch round the clock and report any phenomena or sightings that happened on the farm. For ten years, the research efforts continued. But, according to Com Kelleher, the molecular biologist Bigelow hired to oversee the research team, in all their time on Skinwalker Ranch, the team never found any tangible evidence of paranormal activity. Yes, they did find the occasional cattle mutilation and floating lights, but Kelleher did not consider these tangible enough evidence. And Brian Dunning, a popular UFO skeptic, agrees. In his opinion, the few cases of cattle mutilations observed were probably just cases of carcass predation, a situation where animals feed on the carcass of another dead animal. As for the lights, Dunning argues that they were likely just atmospheric lights. Another common part of the Skinwalker tale that is often over-sensationalized and outrightly misrepresented is the fact that the Shermans spent only about 30 months on the ranch. Yes, the Shermans only spent about two years on the ranch, but the popular narrative that the Shermans left the ranch in a hurry because of Skinwalkers does not seem to be the case. For one, according to Dunning, the Shermans themselves never gave this as their reason for leaving their ranch. What had actually happened was that Robert Bigelow showed up on their doorstep one day offering to buy their ranch. This was why they left the ranch after spending only 30 months on it. It wasn't because of Skinwalkers as popular narratives claim, which calls into question all the claims of paranormal activity on the Skinwalker ranch. On top of that, even some of the so-called Navajo legends surrounding Skinwalkers are suspect. The claims of the Navajo cursing the Oots, for instance, doesn't seem to have any basis in history. Dunning's proposition, therefore, is that the evidence from history seems to suggest that Skinwalkers, whatever they were, were no more than random Native Americans who dressed in animal hides and considered themselves to be witches. Now, that's possible, no doubt, but that being said, it still doesn't answer all the questions. For us to accept what skeptics say, there has to be undeniable proof of that because, mind you, the CIA, FBI, and the police have once investigated the mutilation of animals in that area and more. Mysteriously, all of their efforts have always met a dead end. They don't know what animal kills like that with surgical precision, eats like that, behaves like that, and most times leaves without a footprint. And let's not forget the government intervention. Now, if it was a geological expedition, the government would say that, and Skinwalker Ranch might not have been included in this video, but the branch of government that was involved was a covert government office known to investigate UFOs or suspicious sightings. So, what gives? There's obviously more to all of this than meets the eye. Sure, the skeptics do have a point, but it's still not the holy grail of answers to the questions most of us have. And without proof, even skeptical arguments remain mere speculation at best. So, which of these theories seems like the most likely explanation? Well, that's up for you to decide. Ultimately, though, as I already mentioned earlier, the Navajo people are very hesitant to talk about skinwalkers even among themselves, let alone with strangers. According to Navajo folklore, talking about skinwalkers, or even mentioning their names, could make you a target. Plus, the Navajo feel like non-Navajo people lack the necessary context to understand skinwalkers anyway, which is why they refrain from having such discussions with strangers and caution strangers to avoid doing the same. The point of all of this is to say that a lot of what we know about skinwalkers from the internet is pure speculation. There's really no way to know for sure what these beings are and the full story behind their existence, unless the Navajo themselves tell their story, which is highly unlikely to happen. In the meantime, all we can do is propose theories. So, feel free to drop your theories down in the comments if you think I missed something. And if you want to go even deeper into exploring the skinwalker mystery, feel free to check out our extensive video on the skinwalker ranch.