NIDS Scientists Observe Humanoid Emerging from Portal at Skinwalker Ranch
In August 1997, at 02:30 local time, two National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) scientists at Skinwalker Ranch reported watching a dim light expand into a four-foot-diameter tunnel, from which a six-foot, four-hundred-pound humanoid emerged before walking away into darkness.
Background
The Ranch
The Skinwalker Ranch — a 480-acre property in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah — was purchased in 1996 by real estate mogul Robert Bigelow, who created the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) to investigate persistent reports of high-strangeness phenomena on the land.
The Observation
In August 1997, two NIDS scientists were on overnight observation at the ranch. At approximately 02:30 they reported seeing a faint point of light in the darkness that slowly expanded into what they described as a four-foot-diameter tunnel or portal. From the opening, a six-foot tall, roughly four-hundred-pound humanoid figure emerged, stepped out, and walked into the surrounding darkness. The light then contracted and vanished.
Documentation
The incident was logged in the NIDS field report by Colm Kelleher, the institute's deputy administrator and a biochemist. Kelleher later co-authored Hunt for the Skinwalker (2005) with investigative journalist George Knapp, in which the event is recounted in more detail.
Significance
Coulthart cites the case in In Plain Sight as one of the best-documented high-strangeness sightings of the 1990s, precisely because it came from credentialed scientists embedded in a private institutional investigation funded by a known industrialist — not from anonymous witnesses.