Hunt For The Skinwalker

by:

Kelleher, Colm A. PhD and George Knapp

Publisher:

Paraview: Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Location:

2005

Cover:

Tom McKeveny

Type:

Softcover

reviewed by:

Lynard Barnes

11/3/2006

Comment:

**** Recommended but not necessary reading. Some good side trips

Report the facts. Evaluate the facts. Present an analysis of the facts. Next case.

HUNT FOR THE SKINWALKER reports the facts and terminates in process. Or maybe it is the scientific approach brought to bear in a paranormal arena that makes it just seems like a premature termination. In any event, there is a valuable conclusion beyond the sense of abrupt ending to be reached from reading the book.

On the way to that valuable conclusion is some highly informative and interesting peripheral material.

The National Institute for Discovery Science (NDIS) conducted a scientific study of paranormal activity on a ranch, dubbed the Skinwalker Ranch by the authors, located in the Uinta Basin in the northeast corner of Utah. The paranormal activity included sightings of strange animals, non-human forms, lights in the sky and ground. There were also animal mutilations. All interesting, unexplainable stuff. In walks NDIS with high-tech gear and the scientific attitude. An explanation forthcoming NOT.

Some of the more mundane but highly interesting subjects the authors touch upon is passing are the Buffalo Soldiers and Utes Indians.

Twenty percent of the U. S. Cavalry soldiers fighting the Indian wars of the 1800s were African American. As the authors point out, "what isn't widely known about the Buffalo Soldiers stationed at Fort Duchesne is that many, if not most, of them were Freemasons." Kelleher and Kapp go on to use this little known fact to raise the possibility that the strange going-ons in the Uinta Basin may be related to these soldiers. A small graveyard once existed for the soldiers which abuts the land of the SkinWalker Ranch. The gravesite is now covered by a 420 acre reservoir. Those who are so inclined may take from all this that the spirits of the Buffalo Soldiers are now responsible for the oddities in the area. But of course, this conclusion is not scientific, so we trudge on to the science in search of a more rational explanation.

In September of 1996, the NDIS brought in a bevy of equipment to study the phenomena at the ranch. The authors briefly discuss the precedent for doing this. Project Hessdalen in Norway and Gulf Breeze in Florida were among the first attempts to scientifically quantify the

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phenomena of strange lights. The Hessdalen Valley in central Norway was studied by engineer Erling Strand and others in 1984. From the equipment deployed--"a magnetometer, a radio spectrum analyzer, a seismograph, cameras. . .a Geiger counter, an infrared viewer, and a laser"--it was discovered that the mysterious lights and related phenomena were measurable. A protocol was developed and Strand, along with Bjorn Gitle Hauge, designed a real-time automated observatory.

The authors state that initially "there were indications of correlations among sunspot activity, geomagnetic storms, and the appearance of the lights, although subsequent, more intensive analysis ruled out that correlation". Another study with equipment came to pretty much the same result. The Hessdalen Valley study was finally suspended in 2004 for financial reasons.

By the time a UFO "detection van" was deployed to Gulf Breeze, Florida, to examine the lighting, UFO phenomena there (which occurred between 1990 and 1992), the phenomena ended. But there was an attempt to scientifically record the UFO sightings.

The authors state that the "full impact of these studies would elude us for several years". It is a curious statement.

The intensity, or lack thereof, of the phenomena studied at the ranch was driven by reports from the former owner of the ranch, Tom. After the NDIS brought the ranch from Tom, he was retained as the manager of the day to day operations. The NDIS wanted to utilize him as an information resource on the strange goings-on. He came through, reporting lights, cattle mutilations and the searing death of his two dogs. He made "frantic" phone calls to the NDIS headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada. The research team would suit up and go to the ranch to check their equipment and make observations. This seemed to be a pattern.

It is easy to surmise that there was some deception going on here. However, everything clearly points against that. Tom was not alone in detecting strange things happening on the ranch. His wife was often by his side. In addition, there was the physical aftermath--missing animals, dead animals. Though you detect the repetitive Tom-reporting-scientific-team-reacting pattern you logically exclude the possibility of deception by Tom because of the long history of such events occurring in the area. Still, only in two instances cited by the authors for the scientific team did they experience something akin to paranormal phenomena. So, what's going on?

Once, two members of the scientific team reported a mysterious "huge black thing" moving in a tree line some two hundred feet away at night. The two team members were in separate areas communicating via radio. Curiously however only one of the team members actually saw the object. The other was pointing his camera in the general direction but not seeing anything other than the dark tree line. Eventually the other member reported that the thing was talking to him. It reportedly told him, "We are watching you", and then vanished. Later this team member reported that the thing had taken control of his mind and it was on that level that the communication took place.

It is not until the later chapters of the book do the authors explore the possibility that the paranormal activities on the ranch might have something to do with mental capacity of the observer. But their efforts in this area are just as circumscribed as their examination of the physical phenomena. It could be that there "scientific" approach precludes the possibility of a bridge between the mental and physical worlds. So, the nearest they approach the matter is to haul out the standard paranormal fare of another dimension, an Indian curse (the Skinwalker mythology), and Jacques Vallee's "hypothesis that the phenomenon represents a

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technologically advanced control system that may reside on this planet" and interacts with humans on multiple levels. Right, none of this comes even close to offering an explanation of what Tom and his family experienced on the ranch, but it sounds intriguing.

HUNT FOR THE SKINWALKER is worth reading for the wealth of peripheral information it provides on so called "hot spot" paranormal activities. But in offering an explanation, even a wide-eyed, exclamation saturated guess as for the how and why of the activity, it is lacking.

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