NIDS buys the ranch
Robert Bigelow bought the Sherman ranch in 1996 for his National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), which put researchers and surveillance equipment on the property.
1996 CE · 40.26, -109.89 · status: account
The account
NIDS, founded by Bigelow in Las Vegas in 1995, studied UFOs, cattle mutilations and other anomalies with a staff of scientists that included deputy administrator Colm Kelleher. Its team arrived in March 1997, and the Shermans agreed to keep quiet as a condition of the sale. NIDS set up a hotline in 1999 that drew over 5,000 reports, many explained as missile launches and meteors. Kelleher said phenomena faded after 2000, and NIDS disbanded in October 2004.
The sceptical view
Despite years of cameras and staff on site, the investigators admitted they could not get evidence fit for scientific publication. The Hunt for the Skinwalker authors themselves wrote that they obtained very little physical evidence.
Connections in the atlas
- The bloodless calf (10 March 1997)
- Dugway sheep kill
- Hunt for the Skinwalker (2005)
- The Sherman family's ranch reports
- Robert Bigelow's role
- AAWSAP at Skinwalker Ranch
- Skinwalker Ranch