Topic
The Utah ranch studied by NIDS and a Pentagon-funded program, and the Uinta Basin sightings before it. 24 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Open Skinwalker Ranch as a timeline
Skinwalker Ranch3 Jun 2025
History began the sixth season of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, 14 episodes centered on what the show calls an invisible 'Bubble' anomaly, with drone and radar flights, rocket launches and tests of material found on the mesa. No independent confirmation of its claims has been published.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch4 Jun 2024
History aired the second season of its spin-off Beyond Skinwalker Ranch, eight episodes with Andy Bustamante and Paul Beban. Episodes covered a ranch linked to Robert Bigelow, a Colorado cattle-mutilation site, a petroglyph site and a California desert.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch23 Apr 2024
History began airing the fifth season of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, its series on investigations at the Utah property. The network's episode listing shows weekly episodes from April 23 into late July 2024.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch6 Jun 2023
History launched Beyond Skinwalker Ranch, a spin-off in which owner Brandon Fugal, Travis Taylor, Erik Bard and others investigate reported phenomena at other U.S. sites, including Bradshaw Ranch in Arizona and the Bridgewater Triangle in Massachusetts.
Photo: US Army, Public domain
Skinwalker Ranch18 Apr 2023
History began airing the fourth season of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, continuing the team's investigations on the Utah property. The network's episode listing shows weekly episodes from April 18 through early August 2023.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch2023
AAWSAP program manager James Lacatski, deputy Colm Kelleher and journalist George Knapp published Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations, an insider account of the DIA-funded AAWSAP program. Its claims are the authors' own and have not been officially confirmed.
Photo: Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch3 May 2022
History began airing the third season of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, the series following owner Brandon Fugal's team as it runs tests on the Utah property. The network's episode listing shows weekly episodes from May 3 into July 2022.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch28 Dec 2021
Former Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada died at 82 after a four-year fight with pancreatic cancer. NBC News coverage noted that as majority leader he had pushed for funding of a UFO program.
Photo: United States Congress, Public domain
Skinwalker Ranch4 Dec 2021
Robert Bigelow's Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies, launched in 2021, handed out prizes to 29 essays on evidence for survival of consciousness after death, with Jeffrey Mishlove taking first place. Coverage noted Bigelow's earlier funding of UFO research.
Photo: Bill Ingalls, Public domain
Skinwalker Ranch2021
James Lacatski, Colm Kelleher and George Knapp published an insider account of AAWSAP, the DIA-funded program run through Bigelow's company that studied UFO reports and Skinwalker Ranch. A Pentagon review cleared it with amendments; DoD said clearance did not imply accuracy.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch2016
Robert Bigelow's company sold the ranch in 2016 to Utah real estate executive Brandon Fugal, whose ownership stayed private until a 2020 History series. The Salt Lake Tribune cited a reported price of about $500,000.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker RanchJul 2010
Utah State University plant scientist Frank Salisbury's 1974 study of Uintah Basin UFO reports, written with local teacher Joseph Junior Hicks, was republished in an expanded 2010 edition that, according to Salt Lake Magazine, added interviews with neighbors of what became Skinwalker Ranch.
Photo: BLMUtah, Public domain
Skinwalker Ranch11 Mar 2010
A Defense Intelligence Reference Document, Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human Biological Tissues, produced under DIA's AAWSAP program, studied burns and neurological effects reported after close encounters and proposed electromagnetic fields as a cause. DIA later released it.
Photo: Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0
Skinwalker Ranch18 Aug 2008
The Defense Intelligence Agency publicly posted a small-business request for proposals for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, seeking studies of possible breakthrough aerospace technologies. The contract that followed went to Bigelow's BAASS.
Photo: Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0
Skinwalker Ranch2007
Former Senate leader Harry Reid later said he asked Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye, who ran the defense appropriations subcommittee, to fund a study of aerial phenomena. He said they agreed to unpublicized money in the defense bill, and that the Pentagon put the study out to bid, which Bigelow won.
Photo: Office of United States Senator Ted Stevens (R- Alaska), Public domain
Skinwalker Ranch2005
Former NIDS deputy administrator Colm Kelleher and Las Vegas reporter George Knapp published Hunt for the Skinwalker, describing incidents the authors say NIDS researchers recorded at the Utah ranch, including UFO sightings, unknown animals and cattle mutilations.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch2004
Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science, which had studied the Utah ranch since 1996, ended its work after operating from 1995 to 2004, according to former associates. Its research later continued in a new form as Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies.
Photo: Bill Ingalls, Public domain
Skinwalker Ranch1999
Las Vegas real-estate owner Robert Bigelow founded Bigelow Aerospace to build expandable space habitats, later flying Genesis 1 and 2 and NASA's BEAM module. A Bigelow spin-off, BAASS, later held the Pentagon's AAWSAP contract and ran studies at the Utah ranch.
Photo: Bill Ingalls, Public domain
Skinwalker Ranch10 Mar 1997
NIDS researchers said a calf the ranch manager had just tagged was found dead about 45 minutes later, its body cavity empty and no blood on the carcass or ground. The account comes from NIDS scientist Colm Kelleher and was published years later; no independent investigation has confirmed it.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Skinwalker RanchSep 1996
Weeks after the Shermans went public, Robert Bigelow offered about $200,000 for the ranch and the sale closed in September 1996. His NIDS team set up an observation post; a spokesman said in 1997 that researchers had seen no flying craft.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
