In Navajo tradition, the yee naaldlooshii are witches who wear animal skins to shapeshift. Possessing terrifying supernatural powers, they are so feared that speaking of them is itself considered dangerous.
Do not ask a Navajo person about Skinwalkers.
This is not a matter of etiquette. In Navajo tradition, speaking of Skinwalkers attracts their attention. Naming them draws them closer. Discussing them extends an invitation. This taboo is not a relic of the past—it is observed today with deadly seriousness.
But in the desert nights of the American Southwest, there are things that demand to be spoken of, taboo or not.
The Navajo word is "yee naaldlooshii"—"with it, he goes on all fours."
In Navajo tradition, Skinwalkers are medicine men who have corrupted their sacred knowledge. Navajo culture possesses a sophisticated system of healing and ceremonial practice, entrusted to trained practitioners. But a medicine man who perverts this knowledge—particularly through the ultimate taboo of killing a close family member—gains access to terrifying supernatural abilities at the cost of his humanity.
By donning the skin of an animal, these corrupted practitioners can shapeshift into coyotes, wolves, owls, crows, and other creatures. In their transformed state, they can run faster than any vehicle, read human thoughts, and mimic voices to lure victims into the darkness.
On the Navajo Nation—the vast reservation spanning Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico—Skinwalker encounters are not folklore. They are lived experience.
A typical report: driving a desert highway at night, the witness spots an animal on the roadside. A coyote, perhaps, or a large dog. Then it stands on two legs. It begins running alongside the car. At sixty miles per hour, it keeps pace effortlessly. Through the window, human eyes stare back.
Reddit communities like /r/skinwalkers and /r/Navajo contain hundreds of such accounts. Many come from members of the Navajo Nation or residents of neighboring communities. The consistency of detail across these independently posted stories is difficult to attribute to coincidence or imitation alone.
In the 1990s, a cattle ranch in Utah's Uintah Basin became the most famous Skinwalker-associated location in the world.
The Sherman family, who purchased the property, reported an extraordinary range of paranormal phenomena: UFOs, poltergeist activity, a massive wolf-like creature impervious to bullets, and unexplained livestock mutilations. In 1996, billionaire Robert Bigelow acquired the ranch and funded scientific investigations into the anomalies.
The property spawned the popular television series The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch in the 2020s, making the term "Skinwalker" globally recognizable. However, the televised version of "Skinwalker" bears little resemblance to the traditional Navajo concept.
The popularization of the Skinwalker legend raises serious ethical concerns.
For the Navajo people, Skinwalkers are not entertainment. They are part of a sacred knowledge system, and their casual discussion by outsiders is an act of cultural disrespect. Many Navajo community members have expressed deep discomfort with Hollywood and internet culture transforming their spiritual beliefs into consumable content.
"Our fears are not your entertainment"—the words of a Navajo activist carry significant weight. The commercialization of Skinwalker lore strips the concept of its cultural context and reduces a complex spiritual tradition to a monster-of-the-week narrative.
At the same time, the core terror embedded in the tradition—the fear that something wearing a familiar shape is not what it appears to be—resonates across every human culture. The uncanny valley of a thing that looks almost human but is fundamentally other.
The deserts of the American Southwest achieve a darkness at night that most modern humans never experience. No streetlights. No ambient glow. Only moonlight on red earth.
In that darkness, something moves. On four legs. Or perhaps—on two.
The Navajo people have coexisted with this fear for thousands of years. Too afraid to speak of it, yet too certain of its reality to forget.
Let us hope that reading this article has not drawn their attention to you.
