Brandon Fugal

Brandon Fugal is a Utah-born real-estate magnate who co-founded Coldwell Banker Commercial Advisors (later merged into Colliers International) and established a dominant position in Utah's commercial property market. In 2016 he acquired the 512-acre Skinwalker Ranch in northeastern Utah from Robert Bigelow and thereby became the central private actor in today's UAP research landscape. Birth year unknown; active as of 2023. Initially skeptical, Fugal converted after a personal 2016 sighting and built out the ranch into a scientifically operated field study of anomalous phenomena.

• Co-founder of Coldwell Banker Commercial Advisors; subsequent merger with Colliers International
• 2016 purchase of the Skinwalker Ranch (512 acres, northeastern Utah) from Robert Bigelow
• Prior AAWSAP context (2008–2013): Pentagon-funded study of UFOs, cattle mutilations and anomalies on the same ranch
• Deployment of independent scientists with sensors, drones, ground-penetrating radar and custom instruments such as SATAN and EVE
• Personal 2016 sighting of a silver UFO triggered his change of mind and intensified the research
• Confidential testimony in Washington, D.C. roughly two years after purchase (2018)
• History Channel series The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch as a public-facing window that avoids sensationalizing the research

Fugal makes Skinwalker Ranch the one place where anomalous phenomena are investigated systematically, privately funded and instrumented. His significance is that of a bridge between business and frontier science: he provides the frame in which data-driven research on UAP, electromagnetic anomalies and so-called portals can happen at all outside government programs.