Lore - Episode 101: Worn Away

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

Like a well-loved pair of shoes, or those jeans you bought in college and never gave up on, some things become worn out over time. But when that thing is a physical location, eroded away by thousands of years of human activity and deep, rich folklore, what sort of nightmares might we expect to pour in through the hole? There’s only one way to find out. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Archaeologists believe that it's over 2,000 years old. It's a mound that stands over 60 feet tall, with a base that's almost as wide as a football field. The folks who built it had to move something like 60,000 tons of dirt and rock to make it happen. And that mound is standing right in the middle of a town in West Virginia, a town called Moundsville, creative, I know. It's a burial mound, constructed by the pre-Columbian culture known as the Edina, and one of the

many they left scattered about the Midwest. And while it's been studied for its physical qualities, such as the items and remains hidden inside, it's the reason for the mound's existence that has been discussed the most. Some believe that it's an example of what's known as an Axis Mundi, a place that's considered to be a cosmic access point, or the center of the world. It's an idea found in countless cultures around the globe, from Yggdrasil in Norse mythology and the Hebrew Garden of Eden, to Mount Olympus and the pyramids of Teotihuacan. Where people live throughout history, they have treated certain places as sacred and

different. The Axis Mundi is thought to be a place where heaven and earth connect, where the world beyond is pressed right up against our own, like two sheets of paper that have been pinched together. For some cultures, like the ancient Egyptians, that connection provided a highway into the afterlife, while the ancient Greeks viewed them as places for communication with the gods. For others, though, these sacred places are doorways that worked in the opposite direction,

and rather than inspiring awe and wonder, that notion filled people with fear. They believed there were places where supernatural forces could spill out into their lives, where the darkness beyond the boundaries of this world could creep in and deliver a gift that no one wanted to receive. Chaos, destruction, and death. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. There are so many awe-inspiring locations on the North American continent. The Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Lakes, even the wide expanse of the

Midwest Prairies. But one of the often ignored areas of the country is the Great Basin, and it's hard to understand why. It's a massive area of land, covering something close to 400,000 square miles, roughly 10% of the continental United States. It sits in the southwest corner of the country, between the edges of the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Mountains. On a map, it's hard to ignore, but for centuries, very few people dared to step inside.

In fact, some older maps simply labeled the region Mysterious Land. Even as explorers were traveling all over the continent, paving the way for settlers to move west and build new lives in fresh locations, the boundaries of the Great Basin seemed to prevent people from stepping inside. It wasn't until the late 18th century when European settlers finally crossed that boundary line and explored parts of it. But that doesn't mean the Great Basin was empty. In reality, it was quite the opposite.

The basin was filled with thriving Native American communities. People such as the Pueblo, Apache, Hopi, and Navajo were spread out all over the area. The most significant tribal group was the Utes, and they were also known to be the most aggressive. They lived in a smaller region of the Great Basin, known as the Uinta Basin, up in the northeast corner of modern-day Utah. Interactions between the Utes and the neighboring Navajo were particularly tense. The Utes were known to raid Navajo settlements, and the Navajo, not to be pushed around,

defended themselves. As a result, the two communities were at war with each other for a very long time. After the westward expansion of white settlers, the Ute were driven from their homeland of about 23 million acres and moved into the Uinta Reservation, which was roughly 10 times smaller. Many viewed their new home as valueless, with one early land survey even referring to it as one vast contiguity of waste. But that wasn't entirely true.

But the Uinta Basin lacked in lush green space and more than made up for with deep ancient folklore, and no topic was more prominent there than the idea of the shapeshifter. Stories about the shapeshifter have been around for a very long time, and they're present in nearly every culture around the world. People with the ability to transform into something else, typically one of the many animals that populates the area where they live. In Norse mythology, of course, we have Loki, the trickster god who has the power to become other things.

One of the creatures in the folklore of India is the were-tiger, and African folklore has the were-leopard and the were-jackal. Thanks to Hollywood and popular American culture, we're most familiar with the were-wolf, but all of them share the same core elements, a person with a supernatural ability to become something else. And that last example, the were-wolf, is the one that seems the most common. It's quite possibly the oldest, too, found in proto-Indo-European mythology, as well as that of the ancient Greeks.

Among the ancient Turkic people of Central Asia, those with the power to shapeshift into an animal were known as Kurtidam, which literally meant Wolfman. And wolves, it turns out, are one of the most common animal forms taken by shapeshifters in Native American folklore. Of course, there were always others, there are stories of people who could change into bears or foxes or birds or coyotes, but the primary animal always seemed to be the wolf. Like a lot of folklore involving supernatural transformation, these shapeshifters were seen as evil, and the mere mention of them was enough to terrify even the bravest person.

In fact, there's so much fear of the shapeshifter in Yute culture that there's very little written down about them. For that, one has to lean on the oral traditions and the whispers of story that are passed down from generation to generation. One last detail for you. In the Navajo culture, those people who can transform into animals are thought to be witches. It was a belief that was so common that there were more than one word for these witches

in the Navajo language. One of them, ma-itso, means wolf, which probably doesn't come as a surprise. But the other term, yinodlushi, certainly should, because it means something very significant, very powerful, and very dangerous. It means the skinwalker. Technically, the word yinodlushi means he who trots along here and there on all fours with it. And most agree that the it in that sentence refers to the skin that allows the shapeshifter

to, um, shape. By putting on the skin of an animal like a piece of clothing, they were able to transform into that animal. Not everyone had this power, and some were limited to only animals that were compatible in size, but the most powerful among them could switch between any animal with ease, and it had been that way since the beginning of time. In Navajo mythology, it is said that there was once a period of time in the distant past when things that we would consider impossible were normal, and that included shapeshifting.

There was a magical bond between humans and animals, and each could communicate with the other, as well as transform into the other's form. Since those days, however, something has changed, and it's no longer possible for the majority of humans. But some can still do it, they say. It's easy to assume that this was one of those abilities that a culture would believe to be hereditary, but the Native Americans are clear that it's not. This is a matter of training, where the individual who seeks the power to transform into animals

must learn how to do it. They learn from those who have already mastered the power, and become part of an elite group just like themselves. This group is viewed almost like a cult within the community, but is also seen as evil and dangerous. It's dark magic, and because of that, these communities of shapeshifters are said to meet in caves at night. New members are initiated into the group, and when they decide to go out into the world

to attack and kill, they decide on those victims together. And that's where things get tricky, though. If there is someone living inside your community who has the power to transform into someone or something else, how do you know who they are? It's obvious that these communities viewed those individuals as dangerous, and there was a large amount of fear surrounding their mythos. So naturally, people wanted to be on guard for the danger and chaos they brought into their lives.

A skinwalker is said to have eyes as red as hot coals, sometimes described as red, other times as a bright yellow. Some stories describe how, even after transforming into an animal, some of the skinwalker's facial features can still be recognized, such as the contours of their cheeks or the shape of their jaw. But that's not the only thing that carries over. If the stories are true, changing into an animal doesn't mean the person gives up their human mind and intelligence.

There is one other detail about skinwalkers that needs disclosed. It's said that they have the ability to control the minds of other people. Most commonly, they're said to be able to fill another person's mind with overwhelming feelings of fear and dread. This fear can have a paralyzing effect, but can also prompt their victims to harm themselves. Sometimes, fatally. And this is where the Uinta basin lives up to its reputation as an axis moondi. Not only do skinwalkers represent the blending of the mundane and the supernatural, but it

also seems as if those unnatural powers have been witnessed first hand. One modern story told among the Navajo of Arizona illustrates the dangers of that realization. It's said that a Native American woman was out in her car early one morning delivering newspapers in her community. She was a young mother and had brought her infant along in the rear car seat. Then as she drove slowly along one of the dark country roads, she began to hear a scratching noise on the passenger door. As she turned a glance at it, the door was thrown wide open.

There, clawing its way into the car from the dark roadside was a creature she described as half man, half beast. Its eyes glowed brightly as it extended a hairy arm into the car, reaching for her baby. The woman pressed down on the accelerator and assumed she would outpace the creature, but to her surprise, it kept up, running alongside her car. She drove quickly down the road, watching the monster through the passenger window until she finally saw a convenience store in the distance. When she arrived, she grabbed her child and ran inside.

Creature, though, had vanished. There have been many more stories over the years with a similar plot. One new Mexico police officer claimed to have witnessed something he described as unearthly that chased his car along the highway, not once, but twice. And in 1983, a family driving along Route 163 in Arizona were followed by something unexplainable. The creature they witnessed had been a sort of hybrid between a man and a beast, and had been covered in dark hair.

It would have been easy to assume it was some animal native to the area, except for the bright glowing yellow eyes that had looked back at them with a human intelligence. Oh, and one other disturbing detail. This creature, they said, was wearing clothes. When Tom and Ellen moved into the Uinta Basin with their two children in 1994, they thought they were escaping the prying eyes of small town life and trading it in for paradise in the great wide open. They'd found a large ranch for sale and, after closing on the property, had packed up their

lives and moved north from New Mexico. The property itself was ideal. Tom wanted to raise cattle, something he was very skilled at, and the 480 acre plot of land offered them more than enough space to do that. There were groves of cottonwood trees, a creek with clear drinkable water, and huge pastures for grazing. But the house was a different story. Tom and Ellen had assumed the place would be moving ready, but they were very wrong.

The fence needed repair, and the house itself was in bad shape. Apparently the previous owners hadn't even lived in it during the previous seven years, so there was a lot of cleanup that needed to happen, as well as painting and repairs on the home. Inside the house, things became more unsettling. Tom and Ellen found that every single door in the house had several heavy-duty locks installed. The windows, too, had been firmly locked shut.

Most unusual of all, though, were the two thick chains that were found anchored to the exterior of the home, one on each end of the house. Pushing the oddities aside, the family began to settle into life there on the ranch. The children, son, tad, and daughter Kate, both took roles in helping Tom set up the cattle business, while Ellen laid the groundwork for the bookkeeping. All of them were described as highly intelligent, experienced, and ready for anything that this new adventure might throw at them. But if you ask me, that sounded a lot more like an invitation than a casual assessment.

It was during one of their first days at the ranch when something unexplainable happened. They had moved most of their belongings into the house, and Tom had taken delivery of a number of black Angus showcaddle when Tom's father, Ed, arrived with more boxes from their old home. It was raining lightly as Tom and Ed unloaded the last remaining things from the truck, giving the wide open property a sort of gray, hazy appearance. At some point, Ed glanced up and noticed something standing in the field about half a mile from the house, and he pointed it out to Tom.

Tom had better eyesight and noticed how large the animal appeared. He had seen a number of coyote in the area since moving in and was familiar with their shape and color, and this newcomer didn't seem to fit the bill, but they were about to get a closer look because as they watched it, the animal began to casually trot in their direction. When it was about 20 yards away, it stopped again and Tom was able to get a better look at it. The animal was massive, many times larger than any coyote or wolf he had ever seen.

It was tall and gray, with hair that appeared wet and matted, but that wasn't the detail that caught his attention the most. No, it was how calm the animal seemed to be. When it began approaching them, it didn't charge or run or even growl, it just glanced at them with calm eyes and walked toward them. It wasn't so much that the animal was friendly, but more disinterested, and when it arrived, it stood directly beside them. Tom was understandably frightened.

The wolf-like creature stood so tall that its head was level with the top of Ed's chest, making it perhaps five feet tall. It was well-muscled and reeked of wet dog, but those eyes were what he kept coming back to, those bright, penetrating eyes. A moment later, the creature turned its head and noticed that one of the calves had extended its head through the gate of the corral. In the blink of an eye, it leapt away from Tom and Ed, landing with its large mouth clamped around the head of the calf.

Tom forgot his fear, running up behind the animal and kicking it with one of his boots, but it didn't budge. He kicked again, and as he did, Ed found a baseball bat and pounded on the back of the beast, but it kept its jaws firmly clasped around the head of the young calf. Tom panicked. He was about to lose one of his brand new cattle, so he shouted for his son, Tad, to bring him his handgun, a .357 Magnum. When he had it in his hand, Tom fired directly into the creature's ribs.

He watched the bullet strike it and saw the skin open up, but the creature didn't flinch or cry out. More disconcerting, though, there wasn't even a sign of blood from the wound. Frustrated, Tom fired twice more, and it was finally after that third shot that the beast let go of the calf and slowly backed away to stand near Tom and his father. The men prepared themselves for the coming attack, but it never happened. The wolf-like animal simply stood in front of them, its disinterested eyes watching them. Tom fired more bullets into the beast, and with each shot, it slowly stepped back a few

more feet. One of the bullets entered right where the heart should have been, while others literally tore pieces of flesh off the creature, but it still refused to walk away, let alone cry out in pain. So Tom asked his son to grab the rifle. It was an old thirty-odd six that he occasionally used to hunt elk from a hundred yards away. Surely a shot from the rifle at just forty feet would be enough to finally kill the creature, whatever it was, so he raised the firearm and pulled the trigger.

The wolf-like creature recoiled from the force of the shot, but remained completely silent. After another large piece of flesh fell off its chest, it finally turned and began to calmly walk back the way it had arrived, heading toward the creek and the grove of cottonwood trees that surrounded it. Tom and Ed gave chase. The animal didn't run, but the men still had trouble keeping pace. They eventually watched it slip into the trees and race to catch up. It wasn't that difficult to track the animal because it had left enormous paw prints in

the mud. Once they had lost sight of it, it was clear they were never going to catch it. They didn't give up, though. Following the tracks, they finally reached the muddy banks of the creek and saw that the creature had walked beside the water for a short distance. But eventually, even that trail went cold. The tracks, they say, had stopped in the middle of a wide patch of fresh mud. The beast had vanished, without a trace.

It's hard to deny the existence of certain places in our world that feel more connected to another universe than others. Places where time has worn away at the edges, making them so thin that they almost feel otherworldly. The great pyramids of Egypt, Teotihuacan in Mexico, even the dome of the rock and the western wall in Jerusalem. Some locations just feel more significant than others, than every culture seems to have one.

I know, it's difficult to believe that there are places around the globe with literal holes in reality, through which supernatural beings slip into our world. Then it's an idea that's just as challenging to prove. But we can't deny that cultures have believed in them for thousands of years, and centered much of their folklore and community around them. The Uinta Basin seems to be one of those locations. Along with the experiences that Tom and Ellen had on their ranch in 1994, the area has been home to countless other moments of wonder.

Unusual lights have been seen in the sky, as have glowing shapes near the ground. One regular occurrence was the appearance of a ball of orange light that seemed to hover above the cottonwood trees near the creek. The creek, where the wolf-like creature had appeared, and then later vanished. Tom and Ellen lived with their family on the ranch for less than two years before packing up and moving away from the unexplainable activity. Perhaps the idyllic nature of the place had been worn away, like that spot on your pocket where you keep your wallet.

Or maybe the peace and quiet they were looking for just never showed up, because so many other things did. The wolf-like creature eventually returned. Ellen retells the story of driving toward their property one day a few weeks later, when something unsettling happened. She had approached the gate that closed off their ranch from the main road, and then gone through that dance anyone with a manual gate would be familiar with. Exit the car, open the gate, drive the car through, get out to shut the gate, and then

return back to your car. Back in the driver's seat, Ellen closed the door and then paused. She had the uneasy feeling that she was being watched. Slowly, she turned her head to the side, and then caught her breath. The beast had returned, and it was standing just ten yards away from her. This time, though, it wasn't alone, because another animal was standing right beside it, something that she said resembled a large dog, but with a head that seemed a bit too big for its body.

Ellen decided that was more than enough. Clearly, someone in the area kept a pet wolf, but had refused to limit its movement, and now it was back, trespassing on their land. Not knowing where else to go, Ellen made a trip the following day to the local Ute Tribal office to see if they could help her. Standing at the counter, Ellen asked if anyone in the area kept a wolf as a pet, but the people in the office simply shook their heads. No one, they told her, had seen wolves in the area for almost 80 years, and no one they

knew of had brought one to live on their property as a pet. She must be mistaken. But Ellen insisted, and then began to describe the beast she and her family had seen. One of the officers there pulled a book off the shelf and flipped through the pages before passing it over to her. It was a sheet covered in images of different kinds of wolves, and sure enough, right there on the page was the creature she had described. It must have been a relief to know she hadn't invented it.

She pointed to the image, but the officer frowned in response. It can't be, he said, because that wolf doesn't exist anymore. It's a dire wolf, and no one alive has ever seen a dire wolf. Why, she asked him. Because they're from the Pleistocene period, he replied, and they went extinct 10,000 years ago. I hope you've enjoyed your brief tour through the location that's become known in popular culture as Skinwalker Ranch.

Tom and Ellen Gorman's story is a unique one, and full of so much more than I was able to cover in a single episode. I owe a big thank you to filmmaker Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell and journalist George Knapp for their help in sifting through the plethora of stories to find something truly terrifying. If you want to learn more about Skinwalker Ranch, the best place to start would be Corbell's brand new documentary film, Hunt for the Skinwalker, as well as Knapp's 2005 book by the same name written with Dr. Colm Keller.

Be sure to check them both out. But I'm not done. There's one more tale from the ranch that I want to share with you. It's not for the faint of heart, but if you're up for it, I'll tell you all about it right after this short break. Cattle was Tom's passion. Before moving to the ranch, he had already established a reputation for himself as an expert at raising registers, purebred cattle with documented pedigree.

He tended to focus on cemental cattle, as well as black angus, and from everything I've read about him, he was a pro at it. So it's important to put cattle into the proper framework when we talk about Tom. He wasn't just a rancher. He was an expert at raising them in a very particular way, for a very particular purpose. And he was attentive to them, as the story of the dire wolf and the calf clearly demonstrates to us. There was another experience that tested that love as well.

In the spring of 1995, the ranch had experienced a few mysterious disappearances of Tom's prized cattle. Now, loss was normal. There were predators, and disease was always a possibility. So there was always loss built into a rancher's plans, usually around 5%. But that spring, Tom lost 14 members of his small but valuable herd, which meant that he was on alert and anxious most of the time. That's why, despite the downpour of rain that was pummeling the ranch, Tom and his

son, Tad, were out on horseback checking up on the cattle and making sure all of them were accounted for. At some point one April day, Tad rode off in pursuit of a runaway calf, and as he did, he passed a heifer that had become stuck in the muddy side of a hill. It was kicking and crying out in frustration and fear, and clearly needed their help. Tad probably made a mental note to come back and help once he'd trapped down the calf, because that's exactly what he did. Only when he returned 20 minutes later, things were very different than he remembered, because

not only was the cow no longer moving, it was dead. Tad called his father over to help him. The cow was motionless, still stuck in the mud of the hillside, but its body had a few new unnatural qualities. The most obvious change was that it looked as if someone had taken an enormous drill to the cow's backside. A deep hole, roughly 6 inches in diameter, had been cut into the animal's rectum. Now we probably need to step back for a moment and acknowledge just how odd that is.

Gross, yes, but also highly unusual. And there are so many questions you probably want to ask. Who would do such a thing? Why? And honestly, how could any person's stomach that sort of operation? But the hole wasn't the weirdest part, as crazy as that might sound. No, the most unusual evidence was something that couldn't be seen at all, because it wasn't there, and that's what makes it the most frightening detail of all.

Sometimes the scariest things are those we can't see, and this mutilated cow was no exception. As I said before, a large hole had been drilled into the backside of the heifer, and yet it had been done with a cold, clean precision that seemed lifted straight out of our nightmares. But missing from the cow's body was the one thing you would have expected after such a brutal mutilation. There wasn't a single drop of blood to be found. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Sam Alberti and music by Chad Lawson.

Lore is much more than a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime TV show was recently released. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I make two other podcasts as well, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured. Each one explores other dark areas of history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic, and I think you'd enjoy them. You can always learn more about everything going on over in one central place.

TheWorldOfLore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on social media, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.