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August 15 - August 19, 2025
The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the United States, consisting of over 27,000 square miles of diverse land that spans Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado—roughly the size of the state of West Virginia.
There is so much more to this world and our vast universe than we can imagine, and we have only just begun to scratch the surface.
This forced march was later known to the Navajos as the Long Walk, an event in Navajo history comparable to that of the Holocaust suffered by the Jewish people under Hitler.
He taught me to treat elders with respect and to listen to their stories because their knowledge of our history, language, customs, and heritage would one day die with them.
To this day, I consider the loss of Native and non-Native elders one of the greatest losses of the human race.
She was slender but strong enough to work just as hard as any man. There were times we didn’t have a lot of money—and there were even times we counted pennies to buy a loaf of bread. But she made sure we never did without. She provided us with good food, a roof over our heads, and an appreciation for education. She also made our house a home, filling it with paintings and artwork, most memorably a sculpture of Venus de Milo.
What if some of those stories were part of everyday reality, glimpses into a wider, stranger world that most Westerners were either unaware of or simply chose to ignore?
Despite my lack of interest in going looking for the paranormal, the paranormal certainly seemed determined to come looking for me. Skinwalkers, ghosts, UFOs, and other entities had so far been unavoidable in my life, so when they became a part of my career, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised.
There are numerous taboos related to the paranormal in Navajo culture. Many taboos are a way to avoid contact with spirits. Children are taught not to speak idly of the dead or to use the name of a person who has passed on after the sun goes down. For the same reason, Navajos do not whistle at night, wash their hair or chop wood after dark, stack rocks, place ash at the base of a tree, or have any contact with owls, who are thought to be omens of death and spies for evil spirits.
So, for some Navajo people, witnessing a UFO or extraterrestrial is actually a deeply spiritual experience, harkening back to our creation mythology and traditions.
MUFON is an international organization that investigates UFO reports, alien abductions, and extraterrestrial contact. Its investigators are highly trained and often have law enforcement or technical backgrounds.
It was sung in the Navajo language without accompanying instruments and seemed fast in tempo. It sounded as if it were coming from the very ground beneath his feet. He went inside and got his wife, who was fluent in Navajo, to listen and interpret. The song soon evolved into a chant. His wife said that it was a curse against him and their land and property. Hoss became angry at this news and started swearing loudly at whoever was doing this.
Sightings at Bradshaw Ranch included UFOs, orbs, Bigfoot-like creatures, portals, Grey aliens and other extraterrestrial beings, military helicopters, and official-looking men dressed in black—all the usual paranormal hotspot fare. It was later purchased by the US government for several million dollars and fenced off.
Gettysburg is one of—if not the—most actively haunted paranormal hotspots, not only in the United States but around the world.
The lands in and around Gettysburg are forever stained with the blood, bodies, and souls of 51,000 American soldiers, both Confederate and Union, who were either killed, wounded, or ended up missing—the largest number of casualties of the entire war. Five thousand horses also died on that field. These individuals fought for or against the cause of slavery between Wednesday, July 1 through Friday, July 3, 1863, in what is called the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. The amount of human carnage and trauma that occurred at that one location is so monumental it is nearly impossible for the human
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think my own country in particular needs to look to these hotspots to understand and acknowledge our violent history, the harm done to Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, women, the elderly, and those with disabilities. We also need to look at the harm we have done to one another in our stubborn pride and refusal to cooperate. Just as the separation of men and women in the Navajo creation story gave birth to violent and terrifying monsters, so too have we created haunted, tormented places through our division and strife.
I think we could all benefit from a trip to Gettysburg—to take the time to walk among the endless fields that stretch as far as the eye can see, littered with an unthinkable number of American graves; to feel their spirits and energy, their loss, their sadness, their regret and their pain; and to examine what is in our own hearts and consider how we can live with hózhó, or harmony and balance. I think in doing so, the world would be a much safer, more enjoyable, and overall better place to live, raise our children, and care for the sick and elderly. We should view paranormal hotspots as
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I felt an invisible finger touch my upper lip. The finger moved slowly across my moustache, from one side to the other and then back again. I held completely still, though a jolt of excitement went through me. Goose bumps spread across my skin and the hair on the back of my neck stood up, an automatic physical reaction I couldn’t control like I did my emotions. Something was clearly happening!
I began to think about how humankind prides itself on moving away from so-called primitive belief systems, magical thinking, and superstition and toward logic and science. But what wisdom and knowledge were we losing? Just on the Navajo Reservation, we have fewer medicine men than we used to and even fewer medicine men who have been reared from childhood for the role, as they were in the past, steeped in shamanic culture, ritual, and history. Thus, the knowledge to undo certain curses has been lost; the songs and chants and medicine that would break that curse and provide healing for its
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Our planet is in crisis, multiple countries are at war, we have mass drug-overdose epidemics, and so many people are suffering. We must recognize how out of balance our world and lives are, how grotesque our treatment of the earth and one another is. And we must live better. We must do better. We must come back into balance with our environment and find clarity of purpose.
tools at my disposal as a law enforcement officer and a Navajo. I do not believe in the paranormal; rather, I acknowledge its reality. My skepticism is as intact as it ever was, but I no longer doubt the existence of powers beyond our comprehension.
How can I acknowledge skinwalkers in Navajo culture but not vampires in European cultures, which have rituals to ward off vampires just as Navajos ward off the evil energies of witchcraft? How can I accept the Little People from Hopi culture but not fairies in England and Ireland?
In prizing Western culture and values, we have abandoned old ways of knowing.
It was a sweet experience, but it was also sad. In that moment, I realized that so many people have had paranormal experiences they’ve kept hidden, waiting for a perfect moment to share them—a moment that for many will never come. They will carry that heavy burden for the remainder of their lives. But Jon and I had helped to give this Native American grandmother her moment, and she walked away from the conference unburdened.
