What’s the Connection between Bob Lazar and Skinwalker Ranch?

With the addition of Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers to its library, Netflix is becoming a hotbed for buzzy documentaries about the paranormal and extraterrestrials. Now that you know about Bob Lazar and George Knapp and the films of Jeremy Corbell, you might be ready to move onto the next topic–one even creepier than Area 51! That topic is, of course, Skinwalker Ranch.

What is Skinwalker Ranch?

Also known as UFO ranch in the ’70s and Sherman Ranch in the ’90s, the 512 acres now known as Skinwalker Ranch is a hotbed of strange, sometimes violently strange activity. Named after a malevolent witch in Navajo culture, paranormal activity has been documented at the ranch stretching back to 1974 at the latest with the publication of The Utah UFO Display: A Scientist’s Report. The ranch gained larger notoriety in UFO and conspiracy theory circles in the 1996 when investigative reporter George Knapp wrote a series of articles published in Salt Lake City’s Deseret News about the ranch. Knapp was drawn to the stories of the Sherman family, who moved onto the property in 1994 and say they were immediately terrorized by pretty much every thing that ever went bump in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

Knapp reported that upon moving onto the property, the Sherman family noticed bolts screwed into both sides of the windows, doors, and even kitchen cabinets. The family then claimed that creepy, indestructible animals began tearing into their livestock, they were attacked by Bigfoot-like creatures, heard weird noises nonstop, found mutilated cattle, and even spotted UFOs overhead.

The Sherman family sold the ranch to a private research organization called the National Institute for Discovery Science, which was founded in 1995 by real-estate developer Robert Bigelow (he owns Budget Suites of America). The goal was to study the anomalies from a scientific perspective. NIDSci shuttered in 2004. A year later, Knapp co-authored a book with Colm Kelleher titled Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah.

NIDSci remained the ranch’s owner until 2016 when they sold it to a shell company for $4.5 million. The shell company’s name? Adamantium Holdings, LLC. Since then, security has been beefed up considerably on the ranch in order to deter the curious, trespassers, and vandals that flock to the site due to its spooky rep. All roads to the ranch have been cut off.

Also, fun fact: Adamantium got a trademark for the name “Skinwalker Ranch” in 2018.

What is the connection between Bob Lazar and Skinwalker Ranch?

If you’ve watched the doc Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers, you know a lot about controversial figure Bob Lazar. Lazar claims to have worked at Area 51 in the ’80s, specifically trying to reverse engineer UFO propulsion systems. Lazar himself is not connected to Skinwalker Ranch in any direct way, although I want to point out that Skinwalker Ranch is located 800 miles NW of Roswell, New Mexico and 500 miles NE of Area 51 in Nevada, which forms a triangle.

512 acres, southeast of Ballard, Utah – 800 miles NW of Roswell / 500 miles NE of Area 51 at Groom Lake — is this the Bermuda Triangle of UFOs? I think maybe!

The connection actually comes behind the scenes. George Knapp, the guy that wrote the book on the ranch, is the same investigative reporter that interviewed Lazar in 1989, and he’s a co-producer on the Lazar doc Area 51 and Flying Saucers.

Another connection: there’s also a documentary about the ranch called Hunt for the Skinwalker, featuring George Knapp and directed by Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell–the same guy who made Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers. So while Lazar himself is not directly connected, he definitely runs in the same circles and Hunt for the Skinwalker is probably a solid “what to watch next” after you stream Area 51 and Flying Saucers.

Is Hunt for the Skinwalker on Netflix?

Unfortunately it is not. You can, however, rent it via Prime Video on Amazon. You can rent another one of Corbell’s documentaries, though: 2017’s Patient Seventeen, which is about alien microchips implanted in human beings.

Can we just back up a second, though? “Adamantium Holdings“? Are you for real?

Somehow yes, I am for real. A company named after the fictional indestructible Marvel metal that coats Wolverine’s bones and claws now owns Skinwalker Ranch. Sidenote: As an X-fan, I love the shout out, but I would’ve really been impressed if the mystery owners had named their shell corp Landau, Luckman, and Lake. But, as is often the case, I X-digress.

There is no information on who owns Adamantium Holdings, which just makes things even more mysterious. There were rumors that Robert Bigelow was involved in Adamantium, but that’s just hearsay. If you do some deep Googling, you can find business pages for Adamantium Holdings, LLC that list exactly one employee contact, someone named Laurine A. Wright. Further Googling on my part didn’t dig up any discernible connection between Bigelow and Wright, nor between Wright and Lazar.

The truth is out there, it just might not be searchable on Google.

Rent Hunt for the Skinwalker on Prime Video

Stream Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers on Netflix