By Nancy Rynes, author of Awakenings from the Light
Article copyright Nancy Rynes, 2022. You may share links to this article freely, but you do not have permission to copy or re-use this content in any way with my written permission.
Skinwalker Rach (TM) is a registered trademark of Adamantium Real Estate)
My guess is that if you're reading this, you've become intrigued by the events happening on a ranch in northeastern Utah, called Skinwalker.
My Intent: My intent with this series of articles is to provide an independent analysis of the events depicted on the television show, Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, airing on the History Channel. I'm not here to debunk; I simply want to provide the non-science public an independent, expert analysis of the data and events that appear on the television show. I'm not being paid by Mr. Brandon Fugal or anyone associated with the ranch, the History Channel or anyone involved in the television production, any governmental agency, or past owners of the ranch. There are a lot of debunkers out there who are very negative about what is being depicted in this TV show. I personally listen to them but don't necessarily buy into their rhetoric, nor do I buy into the rhetoric of absolute believers in the paranormal explanation either. I want to look at the information from an unbiased, objective viewpoint to see if there really is anything there that cannot be explained and warrants deeper investigation.
My Background: Well then, who am I? I'm a geologist by training, specializing in the geology of sedimentary rocks and landforms such as you would see in this area of Utah. I'm also very experienced in satellite image analysis and other forms of remote sensing, LIDAR, 3-D modeling, environmental data analysis, and science writing. I also have a background as an archaeologist, with study in the ancient history of the Americas. I appreciate the scientific method, but at the same time I am extremely curious, open, and willing to get in there and stir up the hornet's nest from time to time. Perhaps more importantly, I've had many so-called "paranormal" events and experiences happen all throughout my life: multiple near-death/afterlife experiences where I died and got glimpses of the afterlife, have learned remote viewing, and over the years have experienced some "interesting" phenomena on my own in the general area of the Uintah basin. I've come to the conclusion that the universe is much more interesting and complex that anything I learned at university. This all makes me curious to learn more about the events happening in this area of Utah, and share that learning with the public in a way they can understand.
The Ranch: The ranch in question encompasses 512 acres on the northern edge of the Uintah Basin. The area has been inhabited by Native Tribes for many thousands of years. More recent historical information about the ranch and the television show can be found here.
Why this Analysis: As someone with a background in the sciences and interested in the history of Utah, I want to give the non-science public an unbiased review of the events depicted on the television show, as well as provide additional context for what is being described in each episode. My intent is to help the viewers understand some of the nuances of the science and data analysis depicted in this TV series. Remember, I'm watching this as you would: without any special access to data other than what is disseminated in the TV show itself, or what I can find in my own research into the geology and history of the area.
Disclaimers: I don't have any special access to data from the ranch, to the ranch itself, nor have I been invited to the ranch. I am not employed by anyone involved with the ranch or the television show, past or present.
Assumptions: This analysis is based on several assumptions that we cannot ignore:
- That the owner of the ranch, the team on the ranch doing the investigations, and those involved in the television show are being truthful and honest in their reporting.
- That no one, either from the television show or the ranch team, is hoaxing any of these events.
- That no one from the outside is hoaxing the people on the ranch or the television crew.
- That the ranch team is truly conducting their experiments according to the scientific method, and that they are reporting their findings honestly.
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| The Uintah Mountains and the Uintah Basin (not the ranch in question). (By Staplegunther at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34832295) |
Challenges:
- Due to the nature of the TV show, we don't have access to most of the data the ranch team has collected. And as far as I have been able to find it has not been released to the public in any other forum.
- Also due to the format of the show, and the limited time available for each episode, they are not able to give the viewers much context on what is being observed or recorded.
- I'm limiting my analysis to those events depicted on the current TV show, "Secret of Skinwalker Ranch." While I might mention past events that were reported to occur in the area, they are out of scope for this analysis.
Basic Geology of the Area: The Uintah Basin truly is a structural basin, meaning it's a large depression of the bedrock that was formed at the same time that the Rocky Mountains were created. The area of the ranch is underlain by many different layers of sandstone, siltstone, shale, and similar rocks going back several hundred million years. The most important minerals in the area of the ranch are coal, oil shale, and oil sands, and the whole region is now a hotspot for oil exploration and extraction. The area also has numerous geologic faults (places where huge blocks of bedrock are broken and slide past each other), gilsonite veins (a form of asphaltum/tar derived from the congealing of oil and petroleum deposits...it is not from meteors or asteroids), and uranium deposits. There is no actual indication in the geology, at least so far, that the Uintah Basin is derived from an asteroid strike.
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| The Uintah and Piceance Basin of Utah and Colorado ( By USGS Uinta-Piceance Assessment Team - The Uinta-Piceance Province - Introduction to a geologic assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources, USGS Digital Data Series DDS-69-B, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59529271) |
That's the background of the analysis I'll present in the next several articles. I'd like to invite you to join me in looking at this television series with a fresh perspective, from someone who is both a scientists and an open-minded, curious armchair investigator.
Nancy
TODAY Show: Nancy's Interview on NBC TV's TODAY
Article: Lives Changed by NDEs (Boulder Daily Camera)
Article: The Meaning of Life (Excellence Reporter)
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