My expereince at the Skin Walker Ranch, page 1

Not sure where the so-called Skinwalker Ranch was located, we thought we'd just go out near there and see if we could find it by feel. We were right around the Hilltop Road area adjacent to Bottle Hollow Reservoir when we got out to have a cigar.

The landmark we were after was an escarpment that stood between the reservoir and the boundary of the ranch. Both of us had a feeling specifically to the south and slightly east from the Southwest corner of Bottle Hollow, but it seemed too far away. So we got back in the truck and went tooling off on some rural roads looking for anything, a landmark, a UFO, an otherworldly beast, whatever.

This took us across a creek that feeds Pelican Lake, a beautiful waterfowl reserve, and we more or less followed that stream until we reached Randlett, Utah, which is on the Ute Indian Reservation. We passed a store in Randlett, turned around and went back. Inside there were the store employee, a rancher, and a Ute Indian.

When the time was right to ask someone, we asked the store employee if she knew where the Mystery Ranch (as it is known in that area), and she said she didn't know, "Don't get out much," she said. But when she said it, she was clearly nervous. We asked the Ute Indian, and he said something to the effect, "You want to see a UFO? They're everywhere. You'll see one if you can see one." Something like that. He was a bit obscure, but I knew what he was getting at. To him, seeing one is a mystical experience, like a vision quest, and you'd see one when it was time for you to see one. That sort of thing. We wound up giving him a cigar and left.

We continued east. We called someone who had an idea of where it was and got some pretty rough directions, which led us in the wrong direction a little further. She told us that we were looking for the big 45 degree angle in the road, and "it's right there." Turned out there were a few of those. I knew it was somewhere nearer Fort Duchesne (right next to Bottle HOllow) so we headed back there. At a crossroads, where in fact the road takes an angle somewhere between 45 and 90 degrees, there were some workers we'd passed earlier working on a power box.

We pulled up and got out and asked them if they knew. The younger of the two perked up and said a friend of his had been talking about it, and knew right where it was. He gave us directions to go up the road that pretty closely matched the road landmark given by the person we'd called. The worker told us if we reached the power substation we'd gone a little too far. We passed a dirt road on the left, just like the worker described, but decided to get our bearings against the power substation, which we reached within another thousand feet.

We turned around and went back down to the dirt road and took it. Handy landmarks along this paved and near this dirt road were the high-tension power towers and lines connected to the substation. We could spot these from quite a distance in any direction.

Down the dirt road that led to one of the entrances, we reached a gate. The gate was locked. I knew it was the place because property that prime doesn't have locked gates on it. It's either a going concern or it's for sale. If it's a going concern you don't have a locked gate in the middle of the day. If it's for sale, there's more than likely a sign on who to contact. If it's abandoned and there are no further plans, you'll most likely find a locked gate. We were tempted to go onto the property, but we had a hunch that the residents on the mini-ranches we'd passed on our way in keep an eye on the place.

We hung out and took a few pictures shot some video, used the binoculars to look around. Directly to our north was an escarpment that struck me as that talked about in one of the books about the place. It bordered the entire property on the north. You can clearly see it on Google Earth at 40 15'32.80 N 109 53'12.85 W.