Natalie RandallFollow

Date Collected

Winter 12-6-2017

Place item was collected

Logan, Utah in the collector's apartment

Informant

Corban Goodrich

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Corban is 20 years old and is an undeclared freshman at Utah State University. He has recently returned home from serving a two year proselyting mission for the LDS church in Atlanta, Georgia. He is from Tridell, Utah which is an extremely small town near Vernal. He grew up on a farm and has six siblings. He is the second oldest and loves spending time with his family. He’s also a soccer player and enjoys reffing for the university.

Context

Corban grew up about 20 minutes away from Skinwalker Ranch, so he hears stories about it frequently. He came over to my house to tell me the story and the only other person that was present while the story was told was his roommate who came with him. We were all sitting on the floor of my living room and the overall feel of the room was very relaxed. He told the story very easily. He heard this from a previous teacher who claimed to have known the individuals it happened to.

Text

So, in rural Utah, there’s this place called Skinwalker Ranch. And on this ranch, it’s pretty well known that there are some weird things that happen in regards to humans there. And nobody knows exactly what goes on in this place, but one time this group of high school kids, being high school kids, drive up on the ridge that is on the east end of the ranch, (I think it’s the east, I’m not positive), and they’re out away from the ranch a little ways, but if you park your car along the side of the road, and off the dirt path or whatever on the road there on top of this ridge, and you walk out to the edge of the ridge, you can look down and see Skinwalker Ranch. You can look and see what’s going on down there. And so this group of kids went up and did that, they parked their SUV, a little ford explorer type vehicle, along, off to the side where if a police officer happened to be driving down the dirt road, they wouldn’t have been able to see it. And so they go there, park the car, and they walk to the edge of this ridge, by the end of the fence or whatever that’s the edge of Skinwalker Ranch. They’re looking down and they can’t see much, they can’t hear much. There’s no flashing lights, no weird noises or anything, so they’re kinda disappointed and they stay there for the first half hour and nothing happens, they’re there for an hour and they don’t see anything, and some of their friends are getting frustrated and so they after and hour or two, however long they decided, they headed back to the car and just retraced their footsteps and the dust, in the sand there, and they come across where the car was parked and they can see the tracks up to where the car was parked, but the car was gone. And they were close enough that they would’ve been able to hear it if it started. But for whatever reason, the car has just vanished, and these friends, they look at each other and they have no idea what to think or what to do and ‘course they’re out of cell service, so they can’t call anybody for help or call the police or something, so they start heading back and they start retracing the tracks, they’re gonna head back to the highway where someone can pick ‘em up hopefully and give ‘em a phone to use, but as they’re walking back, about a quarter mile up the road, sitting in the middle that dirt path where they’re at is the car. But the car is just, it’s exactly 90 degrees from the way it was parked. There were no track to or from how this car got there. And none of them had any idea, any clue about what happened to it. But they get in the car, start the engine, it fires right up and they drive away and that’s the end of their evening.

Texture

As he told this story, there was a hushed feeling. The audience he told it to, me and his roommate, were totally enthralled in what he was saying. He believed that the story happened even though it was told to him from a friend of the people it happened to. He told it with no doubts in its credibility. He also expressed to me that because of where he lives, he hears about things like this happening a lot. This type of story, in this specific place, is something he is very familiar with and comfortable talking about. He is very knowledgeable about Skinwalker Ranch and what goes on there.

Course

Introduction to Folklore

Instructor

Lynne S. McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G7: Revenants

EAD Number

2.5.1.2.18

Download

Share

COinS