A Spiritual Biography Of The UAP Disclosure Cult

An essay series on the history of belief in extraterrestrials nears its end

This essay series on the history of belief in extraterrestrials will conclude in 2026 as I compile and edit a book draft. The Latter Day Saints are just one legacy of a forgotten 19th century American spiritual landscape in which the belief in aliens was common. Telling this ‘long durée’ history resolutely requires over 100,000 words. There is simply too much evidence for a shorter book.

This essay consists of new material that brings the history up to date on what may yet prove to be the last great UFO ‘flap’ on Capitol Hill. Occasional essays on this topic will follow as I look to write about other areas of esoteric history and draft another book about a very different faith movement. The Skeptic Spirit vertical will continue to examine other arcane and esoteric mysteries.

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Robert Bigelow

Introduction

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Grieving for the death of his 24-year-old son, Rod Lee, by suicide, leaving behind a baby son and unborn daughter in 1992, Robert Bigelow and his wife took appointments with George Anderson, a psychic medium. Anderson was unable to contact Rod, but did console Mr. Bigelow that his son was alive in spirit, according to his 2021 interview in The New York Times. Bigelow then funded a $3.7 million Chair of Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, employing two parapsychologists in the role, but shut the project down years later because “we just couldn’t make enough progress in research aspects”. Bigelow told reporter Ralph Blumenthal about his new initiative offering $1 million for scientific evidence supporting “the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death”. Life after death is not a new religious idea. It is the original religious idea.

Bigelow made his fortune in real estate, but he had always wanted to make that substantial fortune so that he could learn the truth about extraterrestrials. In an interview with CBS in 2017, Bigelow described seeing nuclear tests over Nevada as a child and a close encounter his grandparents had with a UFO. “It really sped up and came right into their face and filled up the entire windshield of the car. And it took off at a right angle and shot off into the distance”, he told Lara Logan. “I’m absolutely convinced” extraterrestrial beings exist. “That’s all there is to it.” Asked whether he thinks aliens visit earth, Bigelow was certain of it. “There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence. And I spent millions and millions and millions — I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.” Let us take him at his word.

“When I was 12 or 13, I made a commitment to myself to really get involved in something to do with space, and something to do with U.F.O.s if I ever had the money to do it”, he told the NYT in 2021. “So I made a premeditated contract to myself to get into some kind of field where I could make a lot of money.” Paranormal activities were another keen interest. In 1996, Bigelow bought a large ranch from Terry Sherman for $200,000. Although the previous property owner, Garth Myers, says that he never saw anything unusual, Sherman told Bigelow that he was spooked by a series of supernatural events. Local news coverage had carried sensational stories from Sherman and his wife, Gwen, about werewolves, will-o-the-wisps, and bloodless cattle mutilations. Bigelow named the property Skinwalker Ranch after the shape-shifting witches from Navajo mythology and made it the research reserve for his National Institute of Discovery Science, or NIDS. Let us appreciate that Bigelow made his paranormal ghost hunting preserve sound official.

In 2005, the investigative team published their findings. Hunt for the Skinwalker, a volume produced by Bigelow’s scientist Colm Kelleher and his journalist George Knapp, purports to document paranormal events at Skinwalker Ranch and in the surrounding area going back “fifteen generations”, citing the Ute Indians who have lived on the reservation adjacent to the ranch for seven generations.¹ Location is everything in real estate and the book is a brochure for the ghost hunting reserve. “If the Uinta Basin has any claim to fame today, it’s as a heavyweight contender for UFO capital of the world”, the authors write. “Since the 1950s, thousands of UFO sightings have been reported in the area, and it easily ranks among the most active UFO areas anywhere. By some estimates, more than half of the residents of the basin have seen anomalous objects in the sky.”

Of course, the implication here is that the reader will have a 50-50 chance of seeing anomalous objects in the sky if they visit the ranch themselves, or better yet, buy the property for millions of dollars. “Admittedly, 90 to 95 percent of so-called UFO reports are misidentifications of known phenomena. But even by that rigid standard, a very large number of sightings in the Uinta Basin can be categorized as unexplained.” You, too, can see whatever you want to see, at Skinwalker Ranch, and explain it to yourself any way you please. Another Mecca of American Harmonialist religion has been created.

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