George Knapp and the Hunt for the Skinwalker

Colm Kelleher and George Knapp reveal at last, in detail, the numerous strange phenomena which happened on a ranch in Utah, ranging from weird lights, poltergeist happenings in the farm house, to frightening, ghostly apparitions and cattle mutilations.

These events were studied very discreetly, almost secretly, during several years by a scientific team of NIDS under the direction of Dr Kelleher. NIDS stands for “National Institute for Discovery Science”. It is a private organization which was set up in 1995 by a rich businessman from Las Vegas, Robert Bigelow, who happened to be interested in UFOs and related phenomena.

Although NIDS is a purely private organization, it is known to have some working relations with governmental services, so that everything NIDS has said and published has been listened to with great attention. And, although Kelleher and Knapp insist that they are independent authors (Kelleher no longer works with NIDS), their book stands somehow as the NIDS account of these strange events.

Let’s add that, after a decade of active studies by NIDS on UFOs and related subjects, such as cattle mutilations and abductions, Robert Bigelow has apparently closed inquiries on UFOs and has turned to space projects and studies, in relation with NASA, while keeping the NIDS web site freely accessible, with some very interesting reports.

At the heart to the debate lies the question of the nature of UFOs, which has long been debated. In the book Hunt for the Skinwalker, the classical “ET hypothesis” is put in doubt by the authors, not only as an explanation for the events on the ranch but, by extension, for UFOs and related phenomena in general.

They compare the events at the Utah ranch with similar events which occurred in other places, such as a ranch in Colorado, and in the area of Dulce, New Mexico. They also compare them with Indian legends, such as otherwordly entities called “tricksters”, and “skinwalkers”, which have the reputation of being malevolent.

The whole chapter five, entitled “The Curse”, is devoted to these legends, and it explains the strange title of the book. We learn that the ranch has a bad reputation among the Ute Indians of the area. A local researcher, named Hicks, has told them that “they have stories about the place that go back fifteen generations”.

They say the ranch is “in the path of the skinwalker” (p. 16). The legend of the skinwalkers is present among several Indian tribes of the American southwest, such as the Navajo, Hopi, and Utes. For them, it is “a malevolent witch capable of being transformed into a wolf, coyote, bear, bird, or any other animal” (p. 35). The skinwalker would be, not only what we call now a “shape-shifter”, but it would be also capable of mind control and other trickeries.

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