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Spooky or Not Podcast: Shape-Shifters of the Night: The Skinwalker Legend
In this chilling episode of Spooky or Not, we explore the terrifying world of Skinwalkers—a dark legend rooted in Navajo folklore. Known as powerful witches capable of shape-shifting into animals, Skinwalkers strike fear into the hearts of those who believe in their existence. Join us as we explore the origins of these eerie beings, the disturbing powers they possess, and the bone-chilling encounters people claim to have experienced. Are Skinwalkers simply a cautionary tale, or is there something more sinister lurking in the shadows? Listen, if you dare.
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https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/strange-creatures/skinwalker.htm
https://www.newmexicoexplorer.com/native-american-skinwalkers/
https://mythos-and-legends.fandom.com/wiki/Skinwalker
https://allthatsinteresting.com/skinwalker
- Broadcast on:
- 26 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
Hello, friends. Welcome to Spooky or Not, a podcast where anything spooky, bizarre, paranormal, or not is up for discussion. Deeply rooted in Native American folklore, the legend of the skinwalker describes powerful witches who can shape shift into animals. Today, we'll look at some bone-chilling encounters and the sinister powers these entities possess. This is Ari, and I'm Julia, and if this is up your alley creep on listening. All right. Well, before we get started in the topic today, we want to acknowledge that the topic we're covering, Skinwalkers, is rooted in Navajo beliefs and culture. We approach this subject with the utmost respect, understanding that discussing these beings can be sensitive and even considered taboo in some traditions. Our goal is to explore this folklore with care and curiosity while honoring the cultural significance it holds. We encourage our listeners to learn more about the Navajo people and their rich history beyond just the stories we're sharing today. I also want to clarify a point here that I saw getting twisted sometimes with my research. Windigo, which is another supernatural being associated with Native American folklore and skinwalkers, are different entities. We'll probably end up doing an episode on Windigo at some point, and there are some similarities in the legends, but they are different, and today we're just talking about Skinwalkers. Julia, growing up in Oklahoma, we are surrounded by Native American culture and history, and it's something I've always found interesting and have enjoyed learning about it. Do you have any Native American in your DNA? I don't. My family kind of had this running joke that we did, and several years ago, I did a 23andMe, and it came back, and it was a big fat zero, 0.0 percent Native American ancestry. So no, none in me. What about you? Same, 0.0, which I had always been told growing up. I had zero, but I did 23andMe a couple of years ago, and that was confirmed. One thing I do find kind of fascinating is that growing up in Oklahoma, I have been friends or were close acquaintances with people who did have. I'm a high percentage of Native American in them, because that's what a lot of the tribes use as a qualifying, like a qualifier, right? So growing up, a lot of people would travel to a reservation for health care, because it gets paid through the tribe, or they might travel to go have their child in hospital on a reserve, that kind of thing, to cut down a cost. Growing up, that was just normal. It was just the way of life. Some people went there, and that was fine, and it was all good. But it wasn't until I was in college where I was working for an organization, and we had a consultant come in from Chicago, and he was flabbergasted. He was just like, "I don't understand." And I was like, "Uh, I mean, this is just the way it was." And he was just like, "You know, we don't necessarily have tribes like this in Chicago." So he was just like, "This is fascinating." And I'm like, "It's so weird that you don't know what's like normal here." Right. Yeah. The standard everyday, day to day, that kind of thing. Yeah. Never having been around that, or exposed to it, and knowing how those things can work. That is funny. Have you ever been to a powwow? Um, no. Growing up, I went to a handful of Native American cultural events. They were like open to the public to like learn, and they would teach you about stuff. They'd do dances. So, so cool. Growing up, I was in dance, and we danced with a girl who was a princess. So she was like, "We would go see her dance." And like, at her little powwows, that's so cool. It was very cool. Well, unfortunately, we're not going to be talking about princesses, and dancing, and powwows today. Um, we're going to be talking about skinwalkers. A skinwalker, known as Yee-Nal-Dluci in Navajo, is a type of witch in Navajo culture believed to have the ability to transform into possess or disguise themselves as animals. Unlike benign shape shifters found in other folklore, skinwalkers are malevolent figures associated with dark magic and evil intent. To term Yee-Nal-Dluci, Rushly translates to "with it, he goes on all fours," reflecting their ability to transform into creatures like wolves, coyotes, foxes, or bears, though they can transform into any animal. Skinwalkers are believed to don the skin of the animal they wish to become, adapting their form based on the task at hand, such as assuming the guise of a bear to gain immense strength. So this is not a curse. Some of you may be thinking of a werewolf right now, which is a human who can transform into a superwolf. Most werewolf legends, it's a curse placed on the human and the transformation is involuntary, not something they necessarily wanted. Skinwalker transformation is a voluntary act. What are your thoughts on shape shifting? Does the concept of it freak you out? No, I think it's so cool. I think that if I was going to be cursed, yeah, I want the werewolf curse. Of all the curses, that's not the worst one you could be inflicted with. No, it doesn't freak me out. I think it's cool. Besides skinwalkers being the bad guys, I think it's cool to be like, I need to change to become stronger. I'm going to change into a bear. Like it makes sense in my mind. Hmm, so your spook spook meters running pretty low right now, it sounds like. Yep. Yep, yep. So I've got work to do. In Navajo legend, becoming a skinwalker requires breaking a profound cultural taboo, often through the murder of a close family member, cannibalism, necrophilia, or committing other heinous acts of evil. This act is believed to give these malevolent beings a range of terrifying abilities. Some of the common ones noted are reading minds, controlling nocturnal animals like owls, summoning spirits of the dead, inflicting pain, shape shifting, and possessing superhuman speed and strength. The skinwalkers' animal forms are typically nocturnal predators, and these transformations allow them to stop and terrorize their enemies in secrecy. So this is really powerful. Like they commit some heinous crime, and they get superhuman strength, supernatural powers, and the ability to do more terrible things. Like it's exactly what they want. Yes, yeah, if I'm gonna be the bad guy, this is, this is the one. He just moved up to number one on the list. Um, I do think it's funny that they're like, oh, you can read minds, you can inflict all these pains, you can shape shifts, you can talk to the spirits of the dead, also you can control owls. Okay, I said controlling nocturnal animals like owls, so other nocturnal animals, owls was just the example. Nothing owls are not mean. But the way to control anything adds a level of terrifying, though. Even if it is an owl or a bat, I don't know. That's still scary. Totally. I agree. Don't patronize me. Let's keep going. Skinwalkers are also believed to have other eerie abilities. They are said if you mimic the voices of loved ones, to lure victims into traps or confuse them, and with their ability to take control of other people or animals, they can use this power to manipulate or harm those who stand in their way. Skinwalkers often appear unassuming. According to legend, you can identify a skinwalker by their eyes. When illuminated in animal form, their eyes are said to glow a sinister red, while in human form, their eyes retain an unsettling animal-like quality. I find that to be interesting. Have you ever met someone who, like, you look at their eyes and you think they're kind of animal-ish? I have, yeah. That totally makes sense. There are definitely some people who have. I think we hear this a lot like cat-like. It just essentially created a trend with cat eyeliner, like winged eyeliners that people wanted that shape for their eyes without having surgery. So we figured out a technique to make them look pointier than my big round eyes look by themselves. So, yes, definitely have met people who have animal-like eyes. Is it ever to an unsettling level? Have you ever been unsettled by someone's eyes? No, I don't think that I've ever, I think it like works in reverse for me. Like, I don't think I've ever met somebody. Like, I've never met a human that I've like, then like, your eyes look so much like a cat or a fox's. This is weird. I think it's the other way around where you like meet animals that have like almost human eyes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those can get unsettling. It's like, who's in there? Totally. Who were you before you were a dog? I think the ability to mimic voices of loved ones, that to me so far of everything we've talked about is the scariest thing, like just such a like high form of manipulation that, of course, if you hear a loved one crying out for you, you're going to go follow that to help. So how, how easy that power is, you know, to to get someone right where you want them? It would be hard. And in the moment, if something is chasing you or you're in the dark, then you're, of course, your first instinct is to want to. It's to want to help, right? If you're scared, you don't want your loved one to being out there scared to. Well, one of the most terrifying aspects of the skinwalker legend is their near invulnerability. According to tradition, killing a skinwalker is incredibly difficult as they possess magical protections. Their elusive nature makes them nearly impossible to capture or eradicate, and they are driven to kill regularly to sustain their powers. Some believe that the only way to kill one is by calling out their true name, revealing the human identity behind the mask of the creature. So if you were Navajo and you were a skinwalker, I would just have to call out Julia and you die. Oh, that seems like so anticlimactic for like such a good bad guy. Like, he did these terrible things. He has all these super cool powers. You can like, not kill him because they possess all this magical protection. And like, the only way to do it is to just say their name. Like, that doesn't seem like, but you won't you the. I think you don't know. Like, it's really difficult to know who it is. It's not like you see a bear in the woods and you're like, that's Peter. That's Peter. Like, it's, it's like, oh my gosh, I don't know what this is. I don't know who this is. So while yes, it seems, I agree, it seems like a rather simple thing. I do think that it must be nearly impossible to know who it is at the time. And to even like people who've had skinwalker encounters, it crosses their mind. This could be a skinwalker or I'm pretty sure this that's what I encountered. But in the moment, it's also like, oh my gosh, that's a big wolf. That's a big bear. I need to like, get away or, you know, so it's not. I don't, I think that even though this sounds like an easy kill, I think it just doesn't come up a lot. Also, I need you to stop looking at this from like, the mindset of you are a skinwalker and become a victim. I'm ended, but I was, as you were just talking about this, I was just thinking almost like commentary as seen in my mind. I was like, I was being chased and you sang to the skinwalker. You just start saying names, right? You're just like one thing to the one. Tom, Peter, Jerry, Justin, Tim, you're just saying it to like, hoping he dies. But he's cool. Of all of the ones that we have, it's secret. He's super strong. He can change into any animal. He's using mimic powers to lure people to their deaths. He's controlling animals. Not cool. I don't know. It sounds like people need to be smarter. Oh, another thing I want to mention is that the Navajo are often reluctant to speak about skinwalkers, both because of the fear associated with them and the belief that discussing these things may attract their attention. So we've talked about being respectful about the folklore around this. And another thing to keep in mind is to be sensitive about this topic. If you happen to encounter a member of the tribes who passed the legend from generation to generation, it's definitely not something to taunt them about as they do not take it lightly. Obviously, we're having a little bit of fun discussing this just as a topic. But if we were to talk to someone, a member of one of these tribes, it would be, first of all, whatever, they're comfortable sharing and just a very different discussion. Now, because throughout time, some Navajo have been reluctant to say much about skinwalkers. Much of what we know comes from fragmented accounts and secondhand stories contributing to the air of mystery and fear surrounding these malevolent beings. Have you heard of skinwalker ranch? I have, but I kind of thought it was not necessarily an actual place. I thought it was more just like a vague, more like a vague term that is used. Well, buckle up, because skinwalker ranch, also known as Sherman Ranch, is a 512 acre property located in the Uinta Basin of Utah. Near the Uinta and Uray Indian reservation. This cattle ranch has gained notoriety for being a hotspot of strange and unexplained phenomena, earning its name from the Navajo legends of skinwalkers. The ranch first came to widespread attention in the 1990s when Terry Sherman and his family, who were property owners, reported a series of bizarre occurrences. These included UFO sightings, mysterious cattle mutilations, and other various paranormal activities. The notoriety of these reports led to the ranch being dubbed skinwalker ranch, drawing on the Navajo folklore associated with the shape-shifting entities. In 1996, the Sherman family sold the ranch to billionaire Robert Bigelow, a well-known figure in the field of paranormal research. Bigelow, intrigued by the ranch's mysterious phenomena, established the National Institute for Discovery Science to investigate the occurrences. Under his ownership, the ranch became a focal point for paranormal enthusiasts and researchers. In 2016, Robert Bigelow sold the ranch to Brandon Fugel, who continued the investigations into the property's strange events. Despite Fugel's initial skepticism, he reported witnessing UFO activity in broad daylight within six months of purchasing the ranch. That's cool. It's a place. They got a lot going on. A lot going on. Could it all just be aliens? I think everything could all just be aliens, so I am not willing to throw that theory out. I am there for that. And the skinwalker ranch has become synonymous with a range of paranormal phenomena. Reports from the property include sightings of mythical creatures, poltergeist activity, crop circles, glowing orbs, and flying saucers. In addition to these phenomena, there are historical accounts of paranormal activity at the ranch stretching back a century, including alleged skinwalker sightings. Now here's something really interesting. The Yute tribe, which resides on the nearby Uinta and Uray Indian reservation, has its own reasons for avoiding the ranch. According to tribal beliefs, the Yute were cursed by the Navajo, who accused them of various wrongdoings. The curse supposedly included leaving shapeshifters among the Yute, which is why the tribe is said to steer clear of the ranch. I like that. I think it just adds on to the spookiness of the spite of the sight. It's almost like the the skinwalker ranch is like one of the cursed grounds we've talked about in the past. It seems like there's a lot going on in this one section that doesn't really seem to span outside of the ranch, right? It's not like this is the town's issue. This is Utah's issue. It's just like it's just this 500 acres that has a lot going on at the moment. And not even the moment for generations. It sounds like centuries. Yeah, and I think that's the thing. I think that always adds a layer of interest and maybe credibility in some cases when things like stretch back. Various owners have witnessed these things, people that were previously skeptical came here and had experiences that they couldn't explain. Now skeptics of skinwalker ranch point out the lack of concrete evidence to support the claims of paranormal activity. However, there have been intriguing reports such as those from a biochemist involved an investigation in 1997. He claimed to have seen a humanoid creature in a tree, which vanished after he fired a shot at it. The creature left behind a large unusual footprint, which added to the mystery but remains unverified. It is crazy. Again, this is a story where somebody is just like shooting at a creature that they do not know what is up. Like he's like a humanoid creature in a tree going to shoot it. We're shooting at it. This is so shocking that people just have guns and I just like it's you. That's one of us. It's going to be that kind of thing. Yeah, it is shocking, but also living in Oklahoma, not shocking at the same time. It's on a ranch. We kind of talked about this before, like with all the main gee coyotes. The ranchers have to protect their cattle. This is literally their business. So it probably becomes a little less shocking when it's just part of your day to day. But from an outsider looking in, I want to be like, y'all shoot all the things on the ranch, which is what they got to do. I get it. Lesson learning. Do not trespass. Listen for everybody here. Don't walk on to someone's land. Don't walk through the woods where there might be hunters like, don't do it. Also, this was a biochemist. You're pointing about ranchers needing to protect. Totally valid. But yeah, I mean, that's a good point. Biochemist was out there with the gun. Well, this guy, like in our, in the previous episodes that we've talked about people like shooting things in the dark or out of our ranch, I want to be like, they thought they were killing a coyote, right? Or a big animal. This person was like, this looks like a humus. Get the gun. Oh, yeah. The intrigue surrounding Skinwalker Ranch has been captured in various media, including the book Hunt for the Skinwalker, a feature-length documentary of the same name, and the History Channel series, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. The latter features a team led by astrophysicist Dr. Travis Taylor, who employs cutting-edge technology to explore the ranch's enigmatic occurrences. Despite the ongoing investigations and media coverage, the true nature of the phenomenon Skinwalker Ranch remains shrouded in mystery, continuing to fuel debate and fascination among those interested in the unexplained. The Center Me Fascinated. I didn't know a lot about Skinwalker Ranch. You've given me a lot of things to consider. I want to, this is one of the things where I want to be like, can we go today? Can we put it on the Travel List today? Can you tour it? They should be making money off of it, but maybe they don't want to talk about it? I don't really know. Yeah, that's, and that's the whole thing. It's, it is interesting. It is something that, man, I'm curious. I'd like to learn more. I'd like to go visit stuff, but at the same time, the tribes are understandably very sensitive about this, so it's, you don't want to approach a Navajo and be like, "Hey, let's talk about Skinwalkers." That's, you don't want to do that. In fact, throughout a lot of my research, when people have tried to interview members of these tribes, which don't do that, unless that comes up in a conversation naturally, and it's their idea, but when people have tried to do that, they're like, "We're not talking about this. We don't want to talk about this," and it's going back to that fear of not wanting to speak it into existence, not wanting to draw attention to it, and also just wanting to protect the legend, which is totally understandable. It is just, it is out there now, so people do talk about it. They make documentaries about it. They do podcasts about it because it is interesting to people. So where's your spooky meter at? Are you too scared, or are you ready to hear a first-hand encounter of a potential Skinwalker? I'm ready. I think this is spooky. I'm not, I'm not super scared yet, but I'm into it. I think this is a really cool topic. Okay. Well, I read a lot of potential Skinwalker encounters on Reddit, and I found a few that really interested me. I reached out to the users of some of the stories, and I have one that I'd like to share. And this comes to us from username SaladGoats, and I have the link to the story in the description of the podcast, so you can go check it out. Shout out to SaladGoats. Thank you for letting us share your story. SaladGoats says, "This experience is one I never shared with anyone besides my brother. When I was about 13 years old, I was living in rural BC. One night, I was in the hot tub on the deck outside just watching the woods, taking in the silence. It was winter time. We had just recently had a snowfall that left around me high deep of snow. Now I have to pause here and say that that setting sounds phenomenal. Like I'm here for that. Like you get it SaladGoats. What a great night." It's around 2 or 3 a.m. and out of nowhere, this very large wolf, bigger than one I've ever seen by far, came out of the woods. I remember its coat being a shimmering silver and its bright piercing green eyes. As this wolf was walking along the fence of our paddocks, it locked eyes with mine, and we just kind of stared at each other as he walked past me, both alone in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. What happened next till this day instantly makes my spine shiver. As the wolf walked past, he walked towards our barn with our horses in it. It became darker as it entered the barn, but the other side of the barn still had a bright light illuminating the outside that I could clearly see. This wolf, as it entered, halfway through, went from the shape of a wolf to a very large broad-shouldered person. The horse nut didn't make a single sound, and this person that now stood roughly seven feet tall rounded the corner towards the open field, but didn't emerge from the other side, and I never saw it again. My brother had his own encounter with the same wolf I'm guessing. He told me that he woke up randomly one night from the feeling of being watched. He then looked out his window to see a very large wolf walking away from his window, so I'm guessing it was watching him sleep. Now this place we lived was Old Native Ground. Our barn was an old schoolhouse where the Catholic priest would teach native children. It even had the old desk and chairs inside still. My brother and I both saw children's faces in the panes of the glass from the barn and lights turning on randomly. We had closet doors slammed repeatedly for minutes at a time, footsteps, and the feeling of being watched. In my room, I saw glowing red eyes on the ceiling and hid under my covers till morning. Salad goats also added, "Nothing struck me as abnormal about this wolf besides its massive size until it literally changed its entire form right in front of me." I also understand that the term skinwalker is Navajo lore and doesn't correlate with BC tribes, but this is just a representation of what I saw with the closest accuracy. I'm going to touch on that point more in a minute, but what do you think of the story? I got chills reading it and just putting myself in their shoes. Yeah, I think it's one of those things that if it happened to me as a child, I probably would've been scared out of my mind. But, like, what a cool setting. As an adult, I'm going to be like, you need to make this into a movie or write a book about it because I want to be like a beautiful setting. The whole history, like, the site is like historical, has something going on with it too. The fact that the horses didn't freak out. I know which could be the whole animal control thing, right? Skinwalkers can control animals, so with skinwalker, like, settle down now. Or was it just like they didn't freak out because he wasn't a wolf anymore, right? He was a guy when he got into the barn. He transformed in the barn. There was nothing for a horse to be scared of because there's just another dude. I think you overestimate the courage of horse, which I know nothing about admittedly. Yeah, no, but I agree. I agree that just the wolf/potential skinwalker part of the story was terrifying, but then as this user also described that where they lived was native ground, not Navajo, but native ground, and that they've had other encounters sounds like some poltergeist activity potentially. That just adds to the creep factor and kind of reminds me of its skinwalker ranch where it's not just a skinwalker encounter. There's other stuff going on, so I thought this story was really fascinating. And what I wanted to touch on based on kind of how salad goats rounded out, saying that they understand that skinwalker's Navajo lore doesn't correlate with the tribes around the land they lived on. I noticed when reading through the dozens of skinwalker encounters on Reddit that I'd see recurring similar comments regarding the exclusivity of skinwalkers to the Navajo. Because skinwalkers are a Navajo legend, it said that their activity would be centered in places where Navajo live now, which are often reservations. Some people say that unless you're on Navajo land, or some, even a Navajo yourself, what you're encountering is not a skinwalker. There are a variety of shape-shifting entity legends in addition to the skinwalker that people seem to think are the culprit for many potential skinwalker stories. And I think that makes sense. I get why people call that out, but I do wonder, because I didn't see anything definitive in my research, if skinwalkers can travel. It makes a lot of sense that there are more sightings on Navajo land, and that that's where the initial transformation takes place. But I didn't see anywhere that really addressed if skinwalkers were permanently tied to Navajo land. Obviously, I'm not an expert, so I may have missed that. But I do wonder about the possibility of skinwalkers traveling off Navajo land to terrorize other people. So is there a possibility that the many people that think they've had a skinwalker encounter could, even if they're not on Navajo land, because skinwalker bear Peter scurried over to the east coast, you know? It's such an interesting distinction, but I totally get it, right? It's one of those things where they're like, it has to happen this way for you to consider it a skinwalker, but I don't know, a shape shifter is still equally as scary, especially if it gets all the cool powers that come along with it, that kind of thing. So yeah, skinwalkers spooky or not, you're going spooky? Yeah, I think spooky and scary. They're not seems like they're not doing a whole lot of good with any of their powers. They didn't get the powers because they were doing good in the world, so definitely spooky, definitely scary. Cool. They got a pretty high cool factor. I do think, yeah, that the fact that these came, that these are witches that had to do evil things to become an even more evil being does make it super terrifying. And I understand why someone in the Navajo tribe would not want to speak about this if this is something that's very real that they've had grandparents and great grandparents that have had terrifying encounters with this. You don't want to continue to have your family terrorized. You don't want to speak about that, so I totally get that. But it is really fascinating. It is interesting and terrifying, which is right up our alley. It is. I mean, I think the closest thing that we've probably touched through so far would be like a werewolf, and these guys are way more intricate in all of the sense than a werewolf is a greed skinwalker versus werewolf. Just go ahead and lie down werewolf, just let it happen because there's no way you're winning any sort of encounter with a skinwalker. Yeah, totally. But it is also interesting and other skinwalker encounters are like this, but like in Salad Goat's story, they locked eyes with this potential skinwalker, like the skinwalker was aware of their presence and didn't do anything to harm them. So I wonder, I guess maybe they have specific targets, people that they specifically want to terrorize in some instances, and maybe they're trekking through your land. Maybe you come across one, but hopefully you're lucky enough to not be running into them on the wrong day where they're just going to go after anyone, or you run into one who has a specific enemy in mind. That's a really good point. I had not thought about that, but he had been hanging out around the ranch because brother saw him too. Oh yeah, that's a good point. Which just adds on to your point of them, like not just lacking out at anybody, right? That they have like specific targets in mind. Or it could have been a different shape shifting entity that's not as evil, you know, that has someone that possesses these powers maybe and could be evil, but isn't inherently evil like a skinwalker is. Who knows? It's a mystery. Well, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the legend of the skinwalker and any other shape shifting entities you'd like to hear an episode about. You can send us an email to spookiernotpodcast@gmail.com and tell us what you think. We'll have everything linked in the description, including sources for more information, our email, and a link to our Instagram spookiernotpodcast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time as we tackle another spookier knot topic. [Music]