Terrifying Skinwalker Encounters

For the first episode of Real Unexplained Stories, Leon takes a look at one of the most disturbing legends in unexplained folklore Skinwalkers.

Feared for generations and spoken about in warnings rather than conversation, Skinwalker stories have unsettled people for years. In this episode, we explore terrifying encounters, eerie accounts, and the chilling details behind a subject many believe should never be taken lightly.

From strange sightings to stories that stay with people long after they happen, this is a dark beginning to the podcast.

Transcript

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Some stories stay with people for years. Not because they have proof. Not because they understand what happened. But because even now, they still cannot explain what they saw. Welcome to Real Unexplained Stories. I'm Leon. This is where we explore strange encounters, unexplained events, and the stories that continue to haunt the people who live through them. And for our very first episode, we're starting with one of the most unsettling legends of them all. A name that carries fear, a subject surrounded by warning and accounts that have disturbed people for generations. This episode, we're talking about skin walkers. Story 1. The Roar in Holbrook. This story is from Daniel Mendoza. My name is Daniel Mendoza. I used to run long haul freight routes across the southwest, mostly New Mexico, Arizona, and sometimes Utah if I was lucky. This happened back in 2010, outside a little town called Holbrook, Arizona, just east of Flaxtaff, not far from the edge of the Navajo Nation. I never really told this story in full. And not because I think people won't believe me, but it's because part of me still hopes it wasn't real. It was late, maybe half past midnight. I'd made good time on my route and figured I'd stop early for once. I found a cheap motel off I forty with a diner next door and a gravel parking lot that looked like it hadn't been levelled since the nineties. The sign buzzed, the lights flickered. But I didn't care. I was used to sleeping in worse conditions. I parked my rig around the side, close to a channeling fence, and a line of low trees that bordered what looked like old reservation land. Nothing marked, no signs, just red dirt and cactuses. I checked in, got my key and went inside to drop off my gear. I remember everything being quiet, too quiet. No traffic on the road, no crickets, just wind. Not a breeze, but a dry dead wind that moved like it was watching. After a quick snack in my room, I went back to the truck to grab a clean shirt and my duffel bag. That's when I noticed it. The passenger door was open about an inch. I stopped cold. Now I'm not careless, especially not with my cap. I always locked up. It's second nature to us, but the door was open, and when I climbed in, it looked like something had been rummaging through my stuff. The glove box was hanging open, my backpack dumped out, my maps, log book, scattered across the floor, but nothing was missing. It didn't look like a robbery, it looked like something searching for something. That's when I heard it. A roar, but not like any animal I've heard. It came from behind me, maybe twenty feet back towards the tree line. Low gudrel, vibrating in my chest, like someone was dragging metal through sand and gravel and rage. I froze, turned slowly and saw something that still shows up in my dreams. It stepped out behind a cluster of junipers. At first I thought it was a tall man wearing a long coat, but then I saw the arms too long, thin, bend wrong. The legs were degraded, bent back like a dog's, with thick, matted fur tailing down into clawed feet. Its head it was a wolf's head, but stretched like someone had taken a coyote's skull and twisted it to fit something human underneath. And its eyes, they didn't reflect the light. They glowed like embers, deep orange, red, focused right on me. It didn't move. It just stared. Then it opened its mouth and screamed. It was like hearing a scream from inside your own bones. I turned and ran, full sprint back towards the motel. I didn't stop to look behind me. I didn't check the truck. I didn't lock the room door. I just slammed it shut, threw myself into the bathroom, locked the door too, and sat in the tub in the dark, breathing, listening, and then footsteps. Heavy, slow, deliberate. They circled the building, then stopped. And I swear to God, for a moment I heard something sniff the window, just one long inhale, then silence. I stayed in the tub for hours, didn't sleep, didn't move, eventually mooring broke, and I forced myself outside. Sunlight made the world feel wrong, too normal. The truck was untouched, my gear still tossed, but nothing stolen. But by the front tire and the red dirt, three deep claw marks spaced like fingers dragged parallel into the gravel. Like whatever it was had brushed up against the wheel on its way past. I told the motel clerk. He didn't laugh. He didn't question me. He just asked one thing. Did you park near the edge? I nodded. He shook his head. You shouldn't have done that. Things walk out there, things that aren't supposed to. I later learned that the area I'd parked near was an old boundary point, part of the path once used by medicine men. Now it's just sand and memory. But the stories they linger. Locals say if you hear footsteps at night and they stop suddenly, don't look out the window. Because it's not afraid of you. It's waiting for you to see it. I've never driven that route again, and to this day, if I hear a low growl outside my motel window, I turn off the lights, lock the door and wait until morning because I don't want to see it a second time. This is called The Voices at Wheatfield Lake. This next story was sent in by a woman named Arlene. She's Navajo, born and raised in Arizona, and after this she told me she never went camping again. It was summer of 2010. Arlene had been taking her two nieces aged 13 and 15 out for a weekend camping trip. They went to Wheatfield Lake, a remote spot about an hour east of Tuba City. No cell service, no towns, just red clay roads, low pine and stars. They got there just before dark. The girls helped gather firewood while Arlene set up the tent. They roasted hot dogs and sat by the fire as the sun went down. The moon was bright enough to reflect the lake like silver. Arlene remembers thinking it was the calmest she'd felt in months. That didn't last long though. It started with the silence, total silence. Not just quiet, but the kind that presses on your ears. No birds, no wind, no bugs, just silence. Arline looked up and said out loud, something's not right. The girls asked if it was a bear, but Arlene knew better. The air felt heavy, electric, like something was watching them. Then they heard it. Footsteps moving through the brush. Just outside the circle of light. Then there was more than one. At least five or six sets. They didn't run, they didn't charge. They just moved slowly, carefully, all around them. Then a voice came out of the dark. Aunt Arlene, it's me. I'm lost. Arline turned, but her younger niece was right next to her. The voice was mimicking her perfectly, but it didn't sound alive. It sounded hollow, like someone copying a voice without knowing how it should really feel. Arlene grabbed both the girls and told them to get in the tent. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a small pouch. Inside was white ash, cedar bark and corn pollen. Things her grandmother had given her, things for protection. She made a circle of ash around the tent. Then she whispered a prayer in Denis. She hadn't said those words since she was a little girl, but they came back so easy. Outside the tent the laughter started. Low raspy, male and female at once, like broken people trying to act human. Then came a second voice. Let us in. We're cold. Let us sit by the fire. Arlene held the girls so close, told them to cover their ears, not to speak, not to move. The wind stopped. The fire hissed. Then something touched the tent. Claws, thy fingers scraping slowly from top to bottom. The girls cried. Arlene stayed still, holding her breath, repeating the prayers, then silence. She doesn't remember falling asleep, but only waking up to pale morning light. When she stepped outside there were no footprints, no broken branches, no damage to the tent, but on the ground, just behind where they'd slept, six deep prints pressed into the dirt. They looked like hooves, but not normal, split, misshapen, but somehow wrong, and nearby a clump of what looked like fur, but when Arlene touched it, it felt like leather. They packed up without eating and drove straight back to Tuba City. But the weirdest part hadn't happened yet. That night Arlene woke up to a burning pain in her shoulder, and when she looked in the mirror, three long scratches ran from her collarbone to her back, but there was no rip in her shirt, no blood, no scab, just the marks. She went to a medicine man the next day, and he said nothing at first, then asked her to sit down. He lit sage and prayed over her shoulder, then used a small obsidian blade to gently cut the skin. What he pulled out was a thin shard of bone. Old, burned. An animal? He said it was a warning, a marker. A skinwalker had touched her, but the protection had held. If it hadn't, she might not have woken up at all. Arlene still carries that pouch with her everywhere. She sleeps with it under a pillow, and she never goes camping again. She told her nieces never to speak of it, because once a skinwalker knows your name, it doesn't need to find you again. It already knows where you dream. This story comes from Caleb, a guy who grew up in the hills outside Vernal, Utah. If this area sounds familiar, it should. The Utah Basin has long been connected with skinwalker lure, citing stories and things that don't show up on any map. This is what Caleb says happened to him on a cold night in October 2009. It was late. Caleb had just finished a long shift working at a supply store in town. He was nineteen, lived with his mum in a house just off three pine road, a quiet road. No street lights, no neighbours for miles, just dirt tracks, low cotton woods and the kind of silence that rings in your ears. It was just past eleven PM. He climbed into his old pickup, flipped on the heater, and started the drive home. The drive usually took twenty minutes. He liked the road, he said it felt peaceful, but that night something felt off. The air was colder than usual. The trees looked darker, the radio was fuzzy, cutting in and out, like something was interfering with it. Then it started to give way to silence, and that's when he saw something. A figure standing in the middle of the road. At first he thought it was a deer, so he slowed down, leaned forward, squinted through the glass, but this was no deer. It was standing upright, thin, pale, almost naked, just a tall human shaped figure, with its back to him, not moving. He dropped the truck into neutral and coasted forward slowly. The thing's arms were long and hanging at its side. Its legs were too thin, like sticks covered in skin. Its spine stuck out unnaturally, high and bony, like it was built wrong. He was maybe twenty feet away from it. It tilted its head. Not turning, just tilting. Slowly left, then further left, like it was listening. Then it turned. Its face was stretched, almost like human, but the eyes were too wide, too dark, no whites, just black circles that didn't reflect any light. The mouth was open, no lips, just yellow, uneven teeth, and then it moved. It didn't walk. It jerked forward like something glitching, covering half the distance in a single lurch. Caleb panicked, floored the pedal. The engine roared. He sped forward, swerving slightly to miss it, and then it looked in the mirror. It was following, not walking, running on all fours. It moved like a spider, arms splayed, limbs bending at wrong angles, and it was fast. Caleb said it didn't seem like it was chasing to catch him. It was pacing him, mocking him, keeping up with the truck just out of reach. He hit fifty, then sixty, then seventy, dust flying, trees whipping past, every part of him screaming, and still it stayed with him. When he finally hit the driveway, he didn't stop. He jumped out, slammed the door behind him, and then ran inside. His mum was sitting on the couch, with a blanket over her knees. Before he could say a word, she looked at him and said You saw it, didn't you? Caleb froze. She stood up slowly, walked to the window. That thing's been around here since I was little, she said. It shows up to remind us. You don't go down that road after dark. He asked her what was it? She didn't answer. She told him never to speak about it out loud again. Then she sprinklas across the doorway, said a short prayer, and went to bed. That night Caleb didn't sleep. He sat in his room with the lamp on, staring it at the window. Then just after three AM, a knock. Not on the front door, on his second story bedroom window. He didn't move, he didn't breathe. He just listened, and after a few seconds it knocked again, this time slower, more deliberate. The next morning he went outside. There was no footprints on the ground, no broken branches, but the window screen was bent outward from the top, and something had scratched deep gouges into the wood beneath the sill. A week later his friend Tyler went back down Three Pine Road during the day and said he wanted to see what the fuss was about. He came back pale, said he found a half dead deer lying just off the road, body still warm, eyes wide open, not a mark on it. Just one thing wrong. Its legs had been bent backwards at the knee, like they'd been forced into the shape of humans. Caleb doesn't drive at night anymore, doesn't listen to static on the radio, and to this day he refuses to say the name of what he saw. Because in Navajo belief once you speak its name aloud, you're inviting it back in. If you're ever in Utah and you're driving down a road with no signs, no lights and nothing on the radio, and you see something in the distance that looks almost human, don't stop, don't slow down, and don't ever look back. It walked on two legs. This one comes from a guy named Mason, sent in from northern New Mexico. Him and his cousin Joe were out on a weekend hunting trip. Just the two of them, deep in the backcountry. No cell service, no other people for miles, just forest. They hunted these woods for years, but something about this trip felt different from the start. This is what Mason told me. It was October 2021. Cold mornings, clear skies, perfect conditions for deer. They hiked in about six miles from their truck, set up a small tent camp between two ridgelines overlooking a wide pine valley. They saw elk tracks, heard coyotes that night. It felt good, like old times. But the second night things started to feel a bit off. It started with the woods going silent. They were sitting by the fire eating jerky when Joe stopped. Mid sentence and looked up. Not a single sound. No bugs, no owls, no wind. Mason says it felt like the air itself was holding its breath. That kind of silence doesn't happen in the wild unless something's really wrong. They stayed up for a while, rifles close, but nothing happened. No howls, no movement, just dead quiet. Eventually they turned in, but neither of them really slept that night. Around two AM, Mason heard something outside the tent. Not scurrying, not small, footsteps crouching slowly through the brush, measured deliberately, and it wasn't four legs. He sat up and held his breath. The steps were pacing back and forth, about twenty feet from their tent. Big steps, heavy, then they stopped. He nudged Joe awake. Joe they listened. Then a sound that made his skin crawl. Joe, come out here, bring your light. Mason grabbed his rifle, because that was Joe's voice. Exactly. But Joe was right next to him, wide eyed and frozen still. Joe whispered, Did you hear that? Mason nodded. Then it repeated. Joe, come on man, it's me. Only this time it was closer. They didn't move, they didn't speak, they just held their breath. And after about thirty seconds it laughed. Not human laughter. Not real. It sounded like something that had heard people laugh and was trying to copy it. Then it took off fast, loud crashing through the brush, and gone within seconds. Mason says they waited until dawn before unzipping the tent. When they did, there was nothing. No prints, no blood. But every tree around the tent had scratch marks on it, about shoulder height, and on one tree was a handprint. Not a paw, not a hoof, an actual handprint. Four fingers, no thumb, long and thin, like something had dipped it in mud and splattered it on the bark. They broke camp fast. On the high couch they didn't say a word, but both of them kept hearing something behind them in the brush, following, pacing, never close but never gone. When they reached the truck, Mason turned around one last time. Way back up in the ridge between two trees, he saw something tall, still watching. He didn't tell Joe, he didn't say a word until a week later. Joe admitted he'd seen it too, standing there, and he was too afraid to speak about it. Neither of them have been back since, but sometimes Mason still dreams about it, waking up in the tent, hearing it walking, calling out in Joe's voice, and knowing in the dream that if he answers it, he won't wake up again. This next story comes from a man named Jack, a quiet guy with a strange past and a ranch no one wanted to talk about. A few years back he inherited his grandfather's land in northern Arizona and what he found buried beneath that barn floor changed the way he saw his family forever. Jack moved in during the winter of 2019. He didn't have much just to pick up, some tools, a cotton set up in the front room. The place was rough, dust everywhere. The power was spotty, but he liked being alone. He figured he'd start by fixing up the barn. Get some chickens, maybe some goats, just like his grandfather had. But locals they warned him. When he went into town for supplies, people give him strange looks. One old guy at the feed store asked where he was staying when Jack told him the man went quiet. You're cane to Hank Matthews? Jack nodded. Don't leave that barn alone, son. That ground's not right. Jack laughed it off. But looking back, that was the first warning. The barn was falling apart. Loose beams, rusted nails, slats warped from years of sun and storms. He started by cleaning debris, then decided to replace some of the old floorboards. That's when he noticed it. There was a strange smell coming from the far corner, like rot, but dry. Not fresh decay, something older. He picked up the boards, and beneath them dirt. But not just dirt, bones. Small bones at first, animals probably, but they were arranged. Circles, spirals, some tied with string, and others fused with wax or hair. Some of the bones had been carved like they'd been used for something. He felt sick. He covered it back up for the night, planning to burn the stuff the next day, but that night he started hearing strange things. At first it was the wind, or so he thought. But around one thirty AM in the morning it changed. He was lying on the cot, half asleep when he heard footsteps on the porch. Slow, deliberate, then a tap on the front window. He froze. He didn't look. He just held his breath. Another tap, then nothing. He stayed like that until sunrise. When he checked the porch in the morning, there were no footprints, but the porch dust had been brushed, like someone had dragged a brush across it and wiped them away. He tried to stay focused. Told himself it was just a local animal. Raccoon maybe. But every night that week it got worse. One night lying in bed, he heard his name whispered from the back room.

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Jack.

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It sounded like his mother. But she died in twenty sixteen. He didn't move, he didn't speak, he just listened. And then it laughed. Same brokey raspy chuckle he'd heard once as a kid during a thunderstorm when he got lost in the woods. He slept in his truck that night. The next morning he went back into the barn and started ripping out more of the floor, angry, panicked, and there it was, in the middle, buried under layers of dirt, a large stone slab black, cold to the touch, etched with lines that didn't make sense, like symbols half worn away by time, and took beneath the slab a photograph. It was old curled at the corners. In black and white, maybe the forties or fifties, it showed his own. Grandfather standing in front of a barn, but next to him was something else. A tall figure blurred at the edge, its head turned towards the camera, face stretched pale, eyes wide open. No one else in town ever mentioned that photo. Jack never showed it to anyone, but he kept it, tucked it in a locker box far away from the ranch. He sold the land a year later, and sometimes when he dreams, he sees the barn door creaking open and something crawling out from the dirt below, wearing his grandfather's boots. Stories like these are not easy to forget, whether they come from folklore, fear, or something people generally can't explain. They leave a mark on those who've experienced them and on those who hear them. This has been the Real Unexplained Stories. I'm Leon. Thank you for listening to our very first episode. If you'd like to hear more strange encounters and eerie mysteries and unexplained stories, be sure to follow the podcast wherever you're listening. Until next time.