'Project Blue Book' Season 2 Episode 7: The true story of Skinwalker Ranch and its cursed Navajo witch legends
This article contains spoilers for Season 2 Episode 7 'Curse of the Skinwalker'
In the upcoming Episode 7 of 'Project Blue Book' Season 2, we are introduced to the concept of the sinister Skinwalker folklores through Dr J Allen Hynek and Captain Michael Quinn's latest investigation in a Utah Rach.
Titled 'Curse of the Skinwalker', the episode sees Hynek and Quinn arrive at the ranch on the request of the Chapman family, who feel threatened by mysterious balls of light and forest creatures attacking them out of nowhere.
The family's neighbor believes they have been afflicted by the titular 'Curse of the Skinwalker' which eventually turns out to be a local airbase Fort Duchesne experimenting on the family as part of their routine tests for secret weapons being crafted.
In real life, however, things got way more complicated than the mysterious werewolf type "skinwalker" we see on the show.
Also known as the Sherman Ranch, the oldest odd sightings happened on Skinwalker Ranch way back in 1776, when an expedition led by a missionary, Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, camped for the night on the land now known as the ranch.
The entire group was left startled when the alleged fireballs appeared overhead ± the same kind that we see the Chapman family get attacked by on the upcoming episode.
Again, way later in 1905, when the Locke family had just moved into a property on the ranch, they claimed to have a rather odd visitor on their property, who even though clad in time-appropriate outfits, sported a dazzling blue piece of clothing underneath.
After requesting for water and having a lengthy conversation with the family on where exactly they shouldn't dig on their land, he disappeared.
And this brings us to the legends that the Skinwalker Rach has been believed to be associated with. Located on approximately 488 acres (2.072 km square) southeast of Ballard, Utah, this ranch has garnered the reputation of being a paranormal and UFO hotspot.
Its name is derived from the Navajo skinwalker legends revolving malevolent witches, who are not to be confused with healers in the Native American culture.
Also known as "yee naaldlooshii", the creature refers to a witch, or magician gone bad, who can turn into, possess, or even disguise themselves as an animal for their sinister pursuit — the way we see on the History show, with a werewolf type half canine, half-human creature lurking to harm the Chapmans.
Whether the creepy forest of life-size voodoo dolls hanging from trees was actually one of the discoveries by experts investigating the ranch is yet to be revealed, but the crisis the Chapmans went through on the show are a clear portrayal of what family went through in 1996 after moving into the same property on the Skinwalker Ranch.
In his investigative articles on the same, George Knapp reported how the new owners of the property of the same ranch claimed inexplicable and frightening events had been happening to them ever since they moved in.
On the History show, the Chapmans' neighbor warns them of the Skinwalkers curse, sticking true to the original legends that claim how these creatures can continue to grow by simply possessing a human or embodying an animal.
In real life, however, rather than the Skinwalker appearing in all its animal tattered animal fur-clad glory, the ranch also saw a disturbing pattern of cattle mutilations that had been part of the folklore surrounding the area for decades.
Also while the show makes the scientists working at For Duchesne responsible for the panic that the Chapmans went through due to their secret experiments, even though the airbase Fort very much exists, there's been no insinuation that they were responsible for the mass hysteria that has surrounded the ranch and its past.