U.S. Soldiers Were Sent to Observe Skinwalker Ranch — It Started Watching Us Back

Welcome to Battleground Stories. This is where war turns into dark and unsettling stories. Before we begin, don’t forget to subscribe and like the video. Let us know in the comments where you’re watching from. Thank you for your support. Now, let’s begin. It was October 14th, 2100 hours, when our convoy passed through the final gate leading into the ranch. We had three Hummers, a total of 12 of us, our headlights slicing through the darkness of the desert like scalpels. I sat in the left seat of the lead vehicle, the night vision goggles pressed against my face, monitoring the dirt path that led out into the darkness. The scents were of sage brush, dust, aid, clean. No diesel fuel yet. That would come soon enough. The orders were swift that morning. We were told to prepare for a perimeter security sweep of a private research lab in the vicinity of the Uenta basin.
Routine observation protocol at the briefing officer told us, but we knew better from the look in his eye. He pushed non-disclosure agreements in front of us before the mission briefing had even begun. Nobody questioned authority in this operation, neither ours nor that of the general who had signed off on our deployment papers. The facility was Skinwalker Ranch, though they never called it that in the briefing. They used coordinates instead, 40.2583° north, 109.8878° west. But everyone knew. You don’t grow up in the Southwest without hearing the stories. Navajo legends about skin walkers, shape shifters, beings that wear human skin like a coat. Most guys in the unit laughed it off. I didn’t. My grandmother was from the Four Corners region. She told me stories that kept me awake as a kid. Stories about things that walked on two legs but weren’t human. Things that called your name in voices you recognized. Staff Sergeant Miller commanded our unit. He was quiet, methodical, the kind of NCO who read every word of a brief twice before moving. He had done tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, seen things that didn’t make it into afteraction reports. When we loaded the trucks, he checked every piece of equipment himself. Thermal cameras, night vision rigs, radios, motion sensors. He told us once, “If you’re going somewhere the brass doesn’t want to talk about, you bring everything.” Specialist Cain handled our thermal imaging systems. He was younger than most of us, maybe 23, techsavvy, always fiddling with settings and calibrations. He treated his cameras like they were gospel. “Thermrals don’t lie.” He used to say, “Heat signature doesn’t care what you believe.” that confidence would change before sunrise.
Private first class Reyes rode in the second Humvey. He was our communication specialist, but more than that, he knew the area. His family came from the Navajo Nation, and he had spent summers near the reservation, learning the old ways. When he saw the briefing location on the map, his face went pale. He didn’t speak for an hour after that.
Finally, he told me, “My grandfather said never go near that place. Not for money, not for orders. Never.” I asked him why. He said, “Because what lives there doesn’t follow rules. It learns.
It adapts. And once it knows you, it never forgets.” The convoy moves slow through the basin, kicking up plumes of dust that glowed red in the tail lights.
The landscape was empty, lunar, ridges of rock and scrub stretching for miles.
We passed a few abandoned homesteads, windows dark, gates hanging loose. The kind of places people left behind without looking back. Every few minutes, the radio gave a soft squelch, the static hiss that keeps you company on long deployments.
I counted the mile markers under my breath to keep the pace steady. Counting helps when there’s nothing else to focus on. At 2130 hours, we reached the outer perimeter. A chainlink fence topped with barbed wire ran along the property line, maybe 10 ft tall. No signs, no warnings, just fence. A civilian contractor met us at the gate. A man in his 50s wearing a worn jacket and a radio clipped to his belt. He didn’t introduce himself. He handed Miller a sealed envelope and said, “Your observation posts are marked. Stay within the grid. Do not approach any structures after dark. Do not engage with anything you see. Record everything.” Reported dawn. Miller asked, “What exactly are we observing?” The contractor looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Ananomalies.” That was all. We set up three observation posts forming a triangle around the central property. Each post had two soldiers, thermal cameras, motion sensors, and night vision. The equipment was high-end militarygrade optics I’d only seen on overseas deployments. Someone wanted clear footage. Miller assigned me to the northwest post with Cain. Our position overlooked a dry creek bed and a cluster of low buildings about 300 m out. The buildings looked abandoned. Sheet metal roofs rusted through. Windows boarded up, but the grass around them was trampled flat. Something had been there recently. Cain powered up the thermal rig, adjusting the gain and focus. The screen lit up green and black, heat signatures glowing like ghosts. The ground registered cool, the building slightly warmer from residual sun heat.
Nothing moved. He logged the baseline readings and timestamped the footage. I scanned the horizon through night vision, counting the structures one by one. Seven buildings, one water tower.
Two livestock pens. All empty. The radio crackled softly. Miller’s voice came through calm and even. All posts, radio check, confirm positions. We confirmed.
Northwest Post set and active. The other two posts checked in. Everything normal.
At 2200 hours, the temperature dropped fast. Desert nights do that. But this felt sharper, colder than it should have been. The air smelled different now. Not sage, something metallic, faint, but distinct. Cain noticed it, too. He checked the thermal screen and frowned.
“That’s weird,” he said. I looked over his shoulder. On the screen, a heat signature appeared near the largest building. Human- sized, moving slow, but the temperature reading was off. Too cool for a living person. Like something halfway between warm and cold.
Animal? I asked. No, Cain said. Animals read hotter or colder. This is in between, like it’s adjusting. We watched the shape move along the side of the building, smooth and deliberate. Then it stopped for a full minute. It didn’t move at all. Just stood there facing our direction. Cain zoomed in. The resolution wasn’t perfect, but we could see the outline clearly. Bipedal, human proportions, arms, legs, head. But the posture was wrong. Too straight. Like someone standing at attention but not breathing. I keyed the radio. Miller, we have movement. Northwest Post, thermal contact, human-sized, stationary, 300 m out. Miller responded immediately.
Describe behavior. Standing still, not moving. Temperature reading is anomalous. There was a pause. Then Miller said, “Do not approach. Maintain observation. Record everything.” Cain kept the camera locked on the figure. I watched through night vision, but I couldn’t see anything with my own eyes.
The buildings were too dark, too far.
The thermal was the only thing showing us the truth. Then the figure moved again. It dropped to all fours. Cain’s hand tightened on the camera mount. What the hell? The shape moved faster now, low to the ground, crossing the open space between buildings in seconds. The gate was smooth, predatory, like a wolf, but larger. The heat signature flickered, pulsing between warm and cool. Cain adjusted the settings, trying to stabilize the image.
It’s like it’s changing temperature on purpose, he said. The figure stopped again, this time near the water tower.
It stood upright, then it raised one arm, slow and deliberate, and pointed directly at our position. My breath caught. Cain went silent. The radio squaltched once, sharp and loud. Then a voice came through. My voice. Northwest Post. All clear. Repositioning to sector 2. But I hadn’t said that. I was standing right there staring at the radio in my hand. Cain looked at me, his face pale in the green glow of the screens.
That was you? No, I said that wasn’t me.
I keyed the mic. Miller, that was not us. Repeat, that transmission did not come from Northwest Post. Static. Then Miller’s voice tight and controlled.
Copy all posts. Authenticate. Use secondary call signs only. We had backup call signs, codes we’d memorized before deployment. I gave mine. The other posts confirmed. Miller waited then said, “Someone just used your primary call sign and voice. Do not respond to any transmissions unless they use secondary authentication. The figure on the thermal screen moved again. This time it walked on two legs, slow and steady, straight toward the treeine. It moved like a soldier on patrol, shoulders square, arms swinging naturally. But the heat signature still flickered, unstable. Wrong, Cain whispered. It’s mimicking us. I didn’t respond. I was counting under my breath, trying to steady my pulse. 1 2 3 4. The numbers helped. They always did. At 2300 hours, the figure vanished into the treeine.
The thermal screen went blank, just the cold ground in empty buildings. Cain rewound the footage frame by frame, analyzing the movement. He said, “Look at this. Every time it changes posture, the heat signature drops for exactly 3 seconds. Then it stabilizes.
It’s like it’s resetting. I radioed Miller again. Contact lost. Subject entered the tree line. Thermal shows no residual heat trail. Miller’s response was immediate. Do not pursue. Maintain position. Eyes on the perimeter. But the perimeter felt meaningless now. Whatever was out there had already crossed it. It had watched us, mimicked us, and vanished without a trace. The air grew colder. I could see my breath now, faint clouds in the night vision glow. The smell intensified, that metallic tang mixing with something else, something organic, like wet earth and old leather.
Cain checked the motion sensors.
Nothing. No [clears throat] alerts, no triggers, but I could feel something watching us. The kind of feeling that crawls up your spine and sits behind your eyes. The radio squaltched again.
This time it was Miller’s voice, but the phrasing was off. Too formal, too slow.
All units returned to base. Mission complete. Cain reached for the radio, but I stopped him. Secondary authentication, I said. The voice didn’t respond. just silence. Then the squelch clicked three times. Rhythmic, deliberate, like someone tapping Morse code. But it wasn’t Morse. It was just noise. I keyed the mic. Miller, authenticate. A long pause. Then the real Miller came through, his voice sharp. I did not send that order. Do not move. Stay in position. Something is on our frequency. Cain looked at me, his hand shaking slightly on the camera controls.
How is it doing this? I didn’t have an answer, but I remembered what Reyes had said. It learns. It adapts. At midnight, the contractor’s voice came over the radio, calm and business-like.
Observation teams, be advised. You are witnessing adaptive mimicry behavior. Do not engage. Do not make direct eye contact if visual contact occurs. This subject has been active in this area for over 50 years. Your presence is being studied. Cain turned to me, his face pale. Studied? The contractor continued.
Maintain your positions until 0600 hours. Document all behavior. You are safe as long as you follow protocol. I wanted to ask what protocol meant in this context, but the line went dead before I could key the mic. We sat in silence after that, watching the thermal screen, waiting for the figure to return. The smell of wet earth and metal hung in the air, thick and cloying. I counted the seconds between radio squaltch bursts. 15 seconds, then 20, then 30. The intervals were random. Or maybe they just felt that way. At 0100 hours, Kane’s thermal camera picked up movement again. Not near the buildings this time, closer, maybe a 100 meters out, just beyond the creek bed. The shape was different now, taller, thinner, standing perfectly still. The heat signature was human normal this time, 98.6°, as if it had learned to regulate its temperature. Cain zoomed in. The figure’s posture was perfect. Military standard parade rest. feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind the back. It looked like one of us. Then it spoke, not over the radio, out loud.
From a 100 m away, in the dead silence of the desert night, a voice carried across the distance, clear and precise.
It was my voice. Northwest Post, I have visual on sector 2. Recommend repositioning. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. Cain’s hand hovered over the radio, frozen. The figure tilted its head just slightly like it was listening for a response. Then it smiled. I couldn’t see the smile through night vision, but I knew it was there. I could feel it the way you feel a predator’s eyes on you in the dark. Cain whispered, “We need to get out of here.” I shook my head. We follow orders. We hold position. That thing is using your voice. I know. The figure took one step forward. then another. Slow, deliberate, each step perfectly measured like someone counting cadence. I keyed the mic using my secondary call sign.
Miller, subject is advancing on northwest Post. Request guidance.
Miller’s voice came through immediately.
Do not engage. Do not retreat. Maintain eye contact if it approaches visual range. It’s testing you. Testing for what? To see if you’ll run. The figure stopped 50 m out. It stood there motionless, bathed in the green glow of night vision. I could see it clearly now. It wore no uniform, no gear, just smooth, featureless clothing that absorbed light. Its face was wrong, too symmetrical, like a mask carved from wax. And it was still smiling. Then slowly, it raised one hand and waved.
Not a threatening gesture, a friendly wave, the kind you’d give to someone you knew. Cain made a sound in his throat, somewhere between a gasp and a sob. The radio squaltched three times again. Then a new voice came through. Not mine, not Miller’s. A woman’s voice, soft and calm. Hello, Cain. Cain went rigid. His hand dropped from the radio. He whispered, “That’s my sister.” The voice continued. You should come home, Cain.
It’s cold out there. His sister had died 2 years ago. Car accident. I knew because he wore a memorial bracelet on his wrist every single day. I grabbed Cain’s shoulder. It’s not her. It’s reading you. How does it know her voice?
I don’t know. But it’s not her. The figure in the field waved again, then turned and walked back toward the treeine. slow, unhurried, like it had all the time in the world.
It vanished into the dark and the thermal screen went blank. The woman’s voice on the radio whispered one more time, “See you soon, Cain.” Then silence.
We sat there for an hour, neither of us speaking, watching the empty field and the blank thermal screen. The smell of wet earth faded, replaced by the dry scent of sage again. The temperature stabilized.
Everything returned to normal except for the tight knot of fear in my chest. At 0300 hours, Miller’s voice came over the radio. All posts status report. We reported clear. The other posts confirmed the same. No further contacts, no movement. Miller said, “Maintain positions. Dawn extraction in 3 hours.” Cain finally spoke, his voice hollow.
What the hell is that thing? I didn’t answer. I just kept counting, one number after another, waiting for sunrise. The next two hours felt like days. Cain and I sat in silence, watching the empty field through our optics. The thermal screen remained blank, just cold ground and cooling buildings. But the feeling of being watched never left. It pressed against the back of my skull like a hand. At 0330 hours, Reyes broke radio silence. His voice was tight, controlled, but I could hear the edge in it. Miller, I need to brief the team on something. Historical context. Miller paused before responding.
Go ahead. Reyes spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. My grandfather was a medicine man. He told me stories about the ye nalduci, what you call skin walkers. According to Navajo [clears throat] tradition, they are witches who broke sacred laws. They can wear the skins of animals, take their forms. But the stories also say they can steal voices, memories, even faces. They study their prey, learn everything about them before they strike.
Cain whispered. Why are you telling us this now? Because Reyes continued, “The stories also say they can’t cross certain lines. Salt, ash, specific chance. But most importantly, they feed on fear. The more you show, the stronger they become. If that thing is what I think it is, we can’t let it see us break.” Miller’s voice cut in. Noted.
But this is a military operation, not a folklore lesson. We follow protocol, document behavior, and extracted dawn.
Clear, clear, Reyes said. But I heard the doubt in his voice. I keyed the mic using my secondary call sign. Miller, request intel. Has this site had previous contacts like tonight? A long pause. Then the contractor’s voice came through instead of Miller’s.
This location has recorded over 300 anomalous events since 1990.
physical manifestations, electronic interference, animal mutilations, and voice mimicry. 12 separate military observation teams have been deployed. You are the 13th. Cain looked at me, his eyes wide. 13? The contractor continued. Previous teams reported similar behavioral patterns.
The entity displays adaptive intelligence, learning from each encounter. It does not attack. It studies. Your mission is to provide updated behavioral data. I asked what happened to the other teams. Static.
Then all personnel returned safely.
Psychological evaluations were administered. Some requested transfers.
That information is classified. The line went dead. Cain turned off the thermal camera for a moment, rubbing his eyes.
They’re using us as bait. No, I said they’re using us as observers. There’s a difference.
Is there? I didn’t answer. I just kept counting under my breath, trying to focus on something concrete. Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t change. At 0400 hours, movement returned to the thermal screen. Not near the buildings this time. Directly between our position and the second observation post. about 200 meters out. The heat signature was different now. Multiple sources, three distinct shapes moving in formation, human-sized, walking upright, moving like a patrol.
Cain’s hand shook as he adjusted the focus. That’s not one anymore. That’s three. I radioed Miller immediately.
Multiple contacts. Three subjects moving in tactical formation between northwest and northeast posts. Miller responded, “Northeast post. Confirm visual.” The radio crackled. Then a voice came through calm and steady. It was Reyes, but the cadence was off. The words too smooth. Northeast Post confirms three subjects. Maintaining observation. I felt ice in my chest. Reyes authenticate secondary call sign. Silence. Miller’s voice cut through sharp and urgent. All posts authenticate now. The real Reyes came through. His voice tight. I didn’t send that transmission. We have visual on nothing. Thermals are clear. Cain’s screen showed the three figures still moving, walking toward the center of the triangle formed by our observation posts. They moved in perfect sync, shoulders level, steps matching, military precision. Then they stopped.
All three turned simultaneously, facing different directions. One toward our post, one toward northeast, one toward southeast, like they were triangulating us. The radio erupted with voices. My voice, Miller’s voice, Kane’s voice, Reyes’s voice. all talking over each other, giving contradictory orders, calling for extraction, reporting clear zones. The frequency became chaos, a wall of sound that made it impossible to distinguish real from fake. Miller cut through it with a different frequency, one we’d kept in reserve. Emergency channel, all post switched to backup frequency alpha. Now we switched. The noise stopped. Clean air, just static.
Miller’s voice came through real this time, authenticated with the correct call sign. That thing just hit all of our primary frequencies at once. It’s learning our communication structure.
From this point forward, no voice transmissions unless absolutely necessary. Use clicks only, one click for affirmative, two for negative, three for emergency.
The three figures on Cain’s thermal screen began moving again, but this time they weren’t walking. They were crawling fast, low to the ground, closing distance on all three observation posts simultaneously.
I clicked the mic once. Affirmative.
Contact confirmed. The other posts clicked back. Everyone saw it. Cain whispered, “They’re flanking us.” The figures moved with impossible speed now covering 50 m in seconds. The heat signatures flickered and pulsed, shifting between hot and cold so rapidly the camera struggled to track them. Then 30 m out, they stopped.
All three stood upright at the same moment. Through night vision, I finally saw one clearly. It stood at the edge of the creek bed, tall and motionless. The body proportions were human, but the movements were not. It tilted its head too far to the side at an angle that would break a human neck. Then it raised both arm above its head, fingers spled wide like it was reaching for something invisible. The radio clicked three times. Emergency signal from the southeast post. Then a voice came through the backup frequency. Not mimicked this time. something else entirely, deep, resonant, layered, like multiple voices speaking in unison. It said one word. Watching. Cain ripped off his headset, breathing hard. That’s not human. That’s not anything. I kept my headset on. I needed to hear. The voice spoke again, slow and deliberate.
We see you. All of you. You come here with your lights and your fear. You think you are observing us, you are wrong. Miller’s voice cut in tight with control. Do not respond. Do not engage verbally. This is a psychological tactic. The layered voice continued, almost amused.
Psychological. That is your word. You have many words for things you do not understand. Anomaly, entity, subject. We have words, too. Old words. words that taste like copper and ash. One of the figures near our position moved closer, now 15 meters out. I could see details through night vision, the texture of its skin smooth and uniform, like molded clay. No pores, no hair, no imperfections. It looked like a mannequin given life. It spoke without moving its mouth. You, the one who counts. We hear your numbers. 1 2 3 4 Always counting, always measuring. Do you think your numbers protect you? My blood went cold. It knew. It had been listening to me count under my breath for hours. Cain grabbed my arm. We need to leave now. No, I said we hold position. It’s inside your head. It’s inside all our heads. That’s the point.
We don’t give it what it wants. The figure tilted its head the other direction, bones cracking audibly even from 15 m away. What we want? You assume we want something. Perhaps we simply want to know you. The way you know insects under glass. The radio clicked once from Miller. Stand firm. I clicked back. Affirmative. The three figures began moving again, but not toward us.
They moved toward each other, converging at the center point between all three observation posts. When they met, they stopped inches apart, forming a triangle. Then, slowly, they began to circle each other, moving in perfect synchronization.
Cain’s thermal camera tracked them. What are they doing? The circling continued for a full minute, hypnotic and precise.
Then, they stopped, all facing outward again, and raised their arms in unison.
The air temperature dropped sharply, visible as fog forming around them, even through night vision. The layered voice spoke again, softer now, almost intimate.
You want to understand us. You want data. Here is data. We have been here longer than your government, longer than your roads, longer than your names for things. We were here when the first people crossed these lands. We will be here when your lights go dark. One of the figures pointed directly at our position, not randomly, directly at me.
The counter, the one who builds walls with numbers. We will remember you. When you leave this place, you will take us with you in your thoughts, in your dreams, in the spaces between your counting. I forced myself to breathe slowly, evenly. I keyed the mic and clicked twice. Negative. I reject that.
The figure lowered its arm, then it laughed. Not a human laugh. Something that started low and built into a sound like wind through broken glass. All three figures dropped to all fours and scattered, moving so fast they vanished from the thermal screen in seconds. One moment they were there, the next gone.
The temperature returned to normal. The fog dissipated. The field was empty again. Cain was shaking, his hands gripping the thermal camera so tightly his knuckles were white. It talked to you directly to you. It talked to all of us, I said. It’s trying to isolate us, make us feel targeted.
You don’t think you’re targeted? I didn’t answer because part of me knew he was right. At 0500 hours, the contractor’s voice returned to the radio, calm and clinical. Observation teams, excellent work. The interaction you just documented represents the most extensive verbal communication this entity has provided in over a decade.
Continue to hold positions. Dawn extraction in 1 hour. Miller responded his voice hard. With respect, sir, my team has been psychologically engaged by a hostile unknown. Request immediate extraction.
Denied. The contractor said, “One more hour. We need Dawn behavior patterns.” Miller didn’t respond, but I heard him take a long breath over the radio. The next hour was the longest of my life. We sat in silence, watching the empty field. The thermal screen showed nothing. The motion sensors registered nothing, but the presence never left. I could feel it out there, beyond the range of our equipment, watching and waiting.
Cain finally spoke, his voice barely a whisper.
Do you believe in evil? I looked at him.
What kind of question is that? A real one. Do you think some things are just born wrong? Not animals, not human, just wrong.
I thought about my grandmother’s stories, about the skin walkers, about witches who broke sacred laws and became something else. I think some things exist outside our categories, I said.
And maybe that’s what makes them dangerous. We can’t define them, so we can’t defend against them. That’s not comforting.
It’s not supposed to be. At 0545 hours, the sky began to lighten. Just a hint of gray on the eastern horizon. The desert slowly emerged from darkness, revealing the empty buildings, the dry creek bed, the trampled grass.
Everything looked normal in the pre-dawn light, almost peaceful. The radio clicked three times from Miller. Prepare for extraction. We packed our equipment quickly, efficiently, hands moving on muscle memory, the thermal camera, the night vision rigs, the motion sensors, everything logged and secured. Cain moved mechanically, his eyes distant. At 0600 hours, the Humvees rolled up to each observation post. We loaded the gear and climbed in. Nobody spoke. The convoy formed up and began the slow drive back to the main gate. As we passed the central area where the three figures had met, I looked out the window. The grass was scorched in a perfect triangle. Each point blackened and dead. The pattern was too precise to be natural, too deliberate to be random.
Cain saw it, too. They marked it. He whispered. The contractor was waiting at the gate with the same sealed expression he’d worn when we arrived. He collected our equipment, our footage, our written logs. He handed each of us a business card with a phone number and nothing else. If you experience any unusual symptoms in the coming weeks, psychological or physiological, call this number. A specialist will be assigned to you. Miller asked, “What kind of symptoms?” The contractor smiled faintly.
you’ll know. We drove back to base in silence. The sun was fully up now, bright and clean, burning away the night. But I couldn’t shake the cold feeling in my chest. The sense that something had followed us out of that place. When we reached base, we were separated for individual debriefings.
Different rooms, different officers, all asking the same questions. What did you see? What did you hear? Did you experience any physical contact? The questions felt clinical, detached, like we were describing a training exercise instead of something that had violated every natural law I understood. After my debriefing, I was handed another non-disclosure agreement, more extensive than the first. I signed it without reading. What choice did I have? I didn’t see Kain or Reyes for 3 days after that. When I finally found Cain in the Chow Hall, he looked like he hadn’t slept. His eyes were hollow, his hands shaking slightly as he held his coffee cup. “You okay?” I asked. He looked at me for a long moment, then said. I hear her voice sometimes. My sister in the static between radio channels just for a second. Is that normal? I didn’t know what to say. It knows us now, Cain continued. That’s what it said, right?
It knows us. What does that mean? It means we were there. We saw it and it saw us. That’s all.
But I didn’t believe my own words because I was still counting compulsively under my breath. 1 2 3 4.
And sometimes late at night, I swear I heard another voice counting with me.
The official report called it successful observation protocol with minimal psychological impact. Three pages sanitized language. No mention of voices or mimicry or the triangle burned into the grass. Just thermal readings, timestamps, and equipment performance metrics.
The report ended with a single recommendation. Further study required with enhanced personnel screening. They separated our unit after that. Miller was reassigned to a base in North Carolina. Reyes went to Fort Hood. Cain received a medical discharge 6 weeks later, diagnosed with acute stress reaction and insomnia. I stayed at the same base, but they moved me to a different unit, a logistics company with no field operations. I thought that was the end of it. It wasn’t.
3 months after the ranch, I started noticing things. Small things at first.
The smell of sage when there was no sage nearby. The sound of footsteps behind me when I was alone. Radiostatic that formed patterns rhythmic and deliberate like Morse code that spelled nothing. I told myself it was stress, hypervigilance, the normal aftermath of a psychological operation. But then the counting changed. I’d always counted to stay focused, to maintain control. But now sometimes I’d lose track. I’d be at 17 and suddenly jump to 23. Or I’d count to 30 and realize I’d said the same number three times without noticing. The numbers were slipping and with them the sense of order I’d built my entire life around. At night, I dreamed of the ranch. Not nightmares exactly, just presents. I’d be standing in that empty field, watching the buildings in the dark. And I’d feel something behind me, not touching, just there, breathing, waiting. And in the dreams, I could never turn around. My body wouldn’t respond. I could only stand there counting under my breath while something mirrored my numbers in a voice that sounded like mine but wasn’t. I called the number on the business card. A woman answered, “Professional and distant. She scheduled me for an evaluation at a private facility 2 hours from base. No military markings, no government insignia, just a converted office building with tinted windows and a waiting room that smelled of antiseptic.
The psychologist was a man in his 60s, gray hair, calm eyes. He asked standard questions about sleep, appetite, social functioning. Then he asked about the ranch. Not directly, just “Have you experienced any recurring thoughts about your recent deployment?” I told him about the counting, about losing track of numbers. He made notes, nodding occasionally. Then he said something that made my blood freeze. “Do you ever feel like you’re being watched when you’re alone?” “Yes,” I said. And when you feel watched, do you hear anything?
voices perhaps or sounds that don’t have a clear source. I hesitated then.
Sometimes I hear counting like an echo.
He wrote that down underlining it twice.
That’s a common report, he said, among personnel who’ve been to that location.
The entity you encountered appears to establish a psychological link with certain individuals. Usually those who exhibit strong coping mechanisms like your numerical counting. It’s attracted to structure to patterns and it enjoys disrupting them. You’re saying it followed me? Not physically, he said, but psychologically, yes. Think of it as an imprint. The experience was profound enough that your brain continues to process it and in doing so creates feedback loops. The entity likely anticipated this. It’s part of the study. I’m still being studied. He smiled faintly. In a manner of speaking, “The good news is these symptoms typically diminish over time, 6 months, sometimes a year. The brain adapts, finds new patterns, and the intrusive thoughts fade.
and if they don’t. He didn’t answer directly. Instead, he said, “We have medication that can help and weekly sessions if you’re interested. I declined the medication. I didn’t want to dull my mind. Didn’t want to lose the sharpness that kept me functional.” But I agreed to the sessions for 3 months. I drove to that office every Thursday. We talked about trauma processing, about cognitive restructuring, about how the brain interprets ambiguous stimuli. The psychologist never dismissed what I’d experienced, never called it delusion or hallucination.
He treated it as real, which somehow made it easier to discuss. But the sessions didn’t stop the dreams, and they didn’t stop the feeling of being watched. In month four, I received a message from Reyes. He’d tracked me down through mutual contacts, sent me an encrypted email with a single line. We need to talk in person. We met at a diner halfway between our bases, a quiet place off the highway with vinyl boos and coffee that tasted like rust. Reyes looked worse than I’d ever seen him.
Thinner shadows under his eyes, hands wrapped around his coffee cup like he was trying to draw warmth from it. It’s not stopping, he said without preamble.
The connection, it’s getting stronger. I asked what he meant. I went back to the reservation, he said. Talked to my grandfather, told him everything. He performed a cleansing ceremony, said prayers I don’t even understand. And for a few weeks, it helped. But then it came back, stronger than before. Like it was angry, I tried to sever the link. What does it want? Reyes laughed a bitter sound. That’s the question, isn’t it? My grandfather said the ye nalduci don’t want anything in the way we understand wanting. They exist to disrupt, to corrupt, to remind us that we’re not as in control as we think we are. They’re chaos given form.
So, what do we do? I don’t know, he said. But I do know we’re not the first.
I found records, unofficial ones, buried in archives going back decades. Military personnel, researchers, even civilians who worked near that ranch. They all reported the same things. Dreams, voices, the sense of being followed.
Some adapted, some didn’t. What happened to the ones who didn’t? He didn’t answer. He just slid a folder across the table. Inside were newspaper clippings, obituaries, incident reports, seven names spanning 20 years, suicides, accidents, disappearances, all linked to personnel who’d been stationed near the ranch.
This could be coincidence, I said.
Could be, Reyes agreed. But the statistical probability of seven deaths, all with similar circumstances, all connected to one location. He shook his head. That’s not coincidence. That’s pattern. I closed the folder, pushing it back toward him. So, what’s your point?
We’re marked. We’re doomed.
No, Rehea said firmly. My point is, we’re not alone, and we’re not helpless.
The ones who survived, who adapted, they all did something similar. They acknowledged it, stopped fighting the intrusive thoughts, stopped trying to rationalize them away. They accepted that something had touched their minds, and they learned to coexist with it.
Coexist with a malevolent entity with the memory of one. Reyes corrected. It’s not with us, not physically, but it left an imprint like you’d leave a footprint in wet concrete. The concrete dries, the foot is gone, [clears throat] but the print remains. We have to learn to walk around it instead of trying to erase it. I thought about that, about my counting, about how I’d been fighting the disruptions, trying to force the numbers back into perfect sequence.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe the more I fought, the stronger the feedback loop became. Reyes finished his coffee and stood. I’m working on something, he said. a support group, kind of people who’ve been to places like the ranch, encountered things that don’t fit in official reports.
Informal, off the books. If you’re interested, let me know. I took his contact information and promised to think about it. That night, alone in my barracks room, I tried something different. When the feeling of being watched came, when I heard the echo of counting in my mind, I didn’t fight it.
I acknowledged it.
I know you’re there, I said out loud. I know what you did, but you’re not here.
You’re just a memory, and memories fade.
The presence didn’t leave, but it shifted somehow. Less oppressive, more distant. I started counting again, but differently, not compulsively, not as a shield, just counting for the sake of counting, without attachment to the sequence. If I lost track, I accepted it. If the numbers jumped, I let them.
Slowly, over weeks and months, the symptoms diminished. The dreams became less frequent. The smell of sage appeared less often. The sense of being watched faded to background noise, something I could ignore if I chose. I never joined Reyes’s support group, but I stayed in touch with him. He found 12 others, people from different agencies, different branches, all with stories like ours. They met quarterly, shared experiences, provided mutual support.
Reyes said it helped, having people who understood without needing explanation.
A year after the ranch, I received a final message from the contractor. It arrived as a sealed letter handd delivered to my unit. Inside was a single page typed no signature. Your psychological evaluation has been reviewed. You are cleared for normal duty status. Note personnel who maintain long-term stability after exposure to anomalous phenomena are eligible for future specialized assignments. Should you wish to volunteer, contact the number below. I burned the letter. I had no interest in future assignments, no desire to encounter anything like that again. I’d done my time in the dark, stared into something that stared back and survived. That was enough. But sometimes late at night when the base is quiet and I’m alone with my thoughts, I still hear it. Faint, distant, like a radio signal from far away. A voice that sounds like mine, counting in rhythm. 1 2 3 4 And sometimes I count along. Not because I have to, not because I’m afraid, but because it reminds me that I’m still here, still standing, still whole, despite everything that place tried to take from me. The official record says I was part of an observation team at a research facility. Three pages, sanitized language, nothing unusual reported.
To anyone reading that file, it was routine, forgettable, just another deployment. But I know the truth, and so do the others who were there. We saw something that night in Utah, something old, impatient, and utterly inhuman.
Something that learned our voices, our fears, our patterns.
And it let us leave, not out of mercy, but because it knew we’d carry it with us in our thoughts, in our dreams, in the spaces between our counting. The skinwalker is still there on that ranch in those empty buildings and trampled fields. Still watching new teams, new observers, new people who think they’re studying it. They’re wrong. It’s studying them. 2 years after the ranch, I saw Cain one last time. He was working at a hardware store in Colorado, living quiet, staying away from anything military. His hands were steady now, his eyes clearer. He’d found his own way to cope, his own pattern to replace the ones that had been disrupted.
We didn’t talk about that night. We didn’t need to. But as I was leaving, he said something that stayed with me. You know what I realized? It showed us the truth. We think we’re the apex. the top of the chain. We build weapons and systems and hierarchies. It and we convince ourselves we’re in control. But that thing out there, it reminded us we’re not. We’re just another species stumbling through the dark, pretending we understand the shape of things. I asked if that bothered him. He smiled. A real smile this time. Not anymore.
There’s freedom in knowing you’re not in control. You stop fighting what you can’t change and focus on what you can.
I think about that sometimes, about control and chaos, about the patterns we build to make sense of a senseless universe. About the things that exist in the spaces between our understanding, watching us with ancient, patient eyes.
The skinwalker is still out there, still learning, still waiting. And somewhere deep in the desert night, it’s still counting. 1 2 3 4. Always counting, always watching, always there.