The Closing Reception

 

Saturday night marked the end of this fabulous conference.  There was lots of food, a costume party, and a very loud rock band.  The band was called Hitchhiker.  It featured Travis Taylor as the lead singer, and included several other speakers from the conference.  Travis is the somewhat kooky head  scientist for Skinwalker Ranch. Here he is.

A few people wore costumes, but not as many as I assume you would see at other national conferences.  I also think that we had more last year.

So there you have it.  Good bye until next year.  I am already looking forward to it!

Skinwalker Ranch

 

During the PhenomeCon conference, quite a few extra activities were offered before, at lunch time, and in the evening after the actual presenters were speaking.  After the first day of presentations, I chose to go on a field trip up to the main gate of Skinwalker Ranch.  BTW—this is as far as they will allow you to go for obvious liability purposes!

The ranch is 512 acres of land mainly surrounded by the Ute Reservation near Fort Duchene, Utah, in the Uintah Basin.  It is literally out in the middle of nowhere.  The Uintah Basin has a number of geological and electromagnetic anomalies that seem to cause a wide variety of paranormal phenomena.  These include sightings of criptids, UFO’s, orbs, portals opening and closing, ghosts and dark figures, and any number of unexplained things.  These have been happening for hundreds of years, not only on the ranch, but in the whole surrounding area.  The “Secret of Skinwalker Ranch” show on the History channel depicts many of these strange things.  Check it out!

So on that night, about 50 of us loaded up onto 2 buses to head out to the ranch, about a 35 minute drive.  One bus was hosted by Thomas Winterton.

The other was hosted by “Dragon” Arnold.

They then switched buses on the way back.  We were highly entertained by their personal stories and stories of the happenings on the ranch.

The sun had just set by the time we got to the gate.  During the day there is a guard there.  Note the “Keep Out” signs!

Here is the mesa where a lot of the mysterious happenings occur. 

After a photo op, we loaded back onto the buses and drove to a spot south of the ranch property and where we could see the lights of neighboring properties on either side.  Everyone was pretty attentive to seeing if anything strange happened while we were out there. I did have a sighting of sorts.  At one point, I looked straight upwards and saw a small light blue orb.  I glanced down briefly and then back up to see if I was looking at something that was moving, like an airplane or a satellite.  The orb was gone.  No one else saw it.

So that was my entertainment for the evening.  In spite of not seeing much of anything odd or unusual, just listening to Thomas and Dragon was a real treat in itself.

My First Day of Adventure

 

On the day before the conference began, I drove up from Cedar City and went directly to McConkie Ranch to view and photograph the petroglyphs.  I visited the ranch last year, and hiked to a different rock art panel.  There are 2 here.  This is private property, but the family that has owned it for many generations graciously allows people to come and experience the magic.

My first order of business was to climb up a very steep and slippery switchback trail to reach the rock art, which was located about half way up this canyon wall just beyond the trees.

The very tall figures below are done in the Classic Vernal Style of Fremont rock art.  They are characterized by having a trapezoidal figure with broad shoulders and narrow waists.  Because they have been protected by the property owners, they are pristine. 

Now, take a look at the feet on this guy.  I have seen other petroglyphs with very big hands, but not big feet like this.  I have no idea what this symbolism means.  One of the presenters at the conference even suggested that this represents "Bigfoot" but I highly doubt that.

So after scrambling down that slippery slope, I checked into my hotel.  This is what greeted me!

PhenomeCon 2026

 

This past week, I attended the annual PhenomeCon conference in Vernal Utah at the Uintah Conference Center.  What fun!  It is a very doable 5 ½ hour drive from my house.  Last year the featured topic was Bigfoot, but this year, because of other very meaningful events taking place on the national stage, the topics ranged more towards disclosure and the 25^th anniversary of 9/11.  Always predominantly featured was the Skinwalker Ranch TV show and that cast. 

Speakers included Dr. Avi Loeb, Dave Schrader, and George Knapp.  Jay Stratton spoke about the road to disclosure.  He coined the term UAP, and was actually in the pentagon when it was hit.  There were several presenters on ghosts and psychic phenomenon.  I especially enjoyed retired police officers Marianne Robb and David Rich speaking about why many first responders do not report their paranormal experiences.  They have created a non-profit organization to support these first responders by recording their stories. 

There were also extra activities involving field trips off property and having meals with some of the speakers.  I had a dinner with the Holzer Files panel, and I have not laughed that hard in a long time.  Dave Schrader is so funny when he tells about his paranormal experiences.  Cindy Kaza and Shane Pittman are also part of that group. 

I will do a few other posts on my experiences last week.  If you are interested in going next year, the dates are September 8-11, 2027.  As of now, it looks like the 2026 website is still up if you want to look at the activities and speakers.  Go to www.phenomecon.net.