Skin-Walker
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The Navajo are a tribe of Native Americans whose earliest settlements lay in the southwestern United States, primarily in what are now the states of New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona.

Along with their own ancient tribal war history, throughout the Pacific Island campaigns, Navajo men proudly fought alongside fellow Americans during the Second World War. The now-famed Navajo code talkers and their unusual language was used to great effect for the encryption of American radio transmissions, which confounded the Japanese cryptologists who intercepted them. But the Navajo people also speak about things which confound the rest of us.

They tell stories about strange things that creep and crawl around the wild desert expanses and forests of the Americas, legends which persist until the present day. One such popular Navajo legend is about evil witches, something that native people call Ye Natloshi. With it, he goes on all fours, skinwalkers. Such a creature is considered half person and half animal,

It starts as a medicine man or woman who once used their powers of healing for good, but for some reason they turn to evil, to murder, and to eating the flesh of their human victims. And so, they are cursed. They are believed to be immortal. The only way to destroy one is to kill them in their animal form.

Not only do skinwalkers bring pain and suffering to their victims, but they can crawl inside a person's mind and control them. They can make them hear things and see things that are not really there. Or so the legends go. But while the Navajo people continue to pass down stories about encounters their ancestors have had with these creatures,

It seems there are more than a handful of American service members who, while out training in the field, have likewise come face to face with something they could not explain. Something that terrified them out of their wits. Something that looked like an animal, but spoke like a human. This is the Smoke Pit, and these are their stories about skinwalkers. I'm Luke LaManna.

And this is Wartime Stories. Before we enter into the stories from our military service members, it might help our understanding of these creatures to hear one story that is told by the Navajo people. Modern times may have quelled these superstitious fears that many native people once held, always cautious of certain creatures, always on the lookout for skinwalkers. But it was once, if not still is, a very real fear

Navajo parents would warn their children that skinwalkers could look like anyone else during the day, then at night transforming into creatures with glowing eyes. Skinwalkers appear during the day too, they said, waiting and watching for their victims. They could run like the wind and easily track down a person. One Arizona Navajo man tells us a story that took place about a hundred years ago.

This man's name is Art Tracy Jr., and his story was published by fellow natives from the Ponca and Tongva tribes in a book they subtitled Chilling American Indian Stories. As his mother relayed the story to him, in the 1920s or 30s, there was a Navajo man working as a ranch hand for a wealthier Navajo landowner somewhere around the western part of the Navajo reservation in Tuba City, Arizona.

One day, he decided to ask his employer for a few days of leave to go and visit his family where they lived in New Mexico. Riding horseback through desert canyons, mesas, and open range, he eventually stopped along his route to rest for a while. While paused, staring out at the desert expanse around him, he suddenly spotted an old, mangy coyote sitting on top of a hill not too far away. The man pulled out his rifle, took aim, and fired, watching the coyote drop to the ground.

He then walked over to inspect his kill. Reaching the top of the hill, he was shocked to find not the body of a coyote, but a young Navajo man with long hair. At least part of a young man. And he was dead. The top half of his body was human, the skin painted with designs, and his lower half that of an animal covered in the fur of a coyote.

Now horrified, the man who shot him looked around, wondering what to do. Spotting a deep crevice along the canyon's edge, he dragged the creature's body to the cliff and hurled it over the edge. His fear growing, he then mounted back up and rode his horse near to death, riding even past nightfall, trying to put as much distance between himself, the creature, and the place where he'd killed it. Finally crossing the Chuska Mountains, he reached his relative's home just past Shiprock, New Mexico.

After recounting his story to them, they too experienced an unnatural fear. "You must never go back to your employer," they told him. "You have to stay here. The relatives of the Skinwalker will be looking for answers, and they'll be out looking for you." It stands to reason that a creature that takes the form of a wild animal would more than likely be encountered in the wild.

It should be no coincidence then that the majority of these following stories take place in the wild, unkempt regions of various military installations, what service members would call "the field." After all, military bases are often built on the more undesirable expanses of undeveloped land, those which are often still covered in dense forests or vast expanses of unusable desert.

These portions of land are therefore only differentiated from wild land by the long fence surrounding the base's perimeter, maybe with a mess of barbed wire adorning the top. But a fence only keeps out law-abiding people. Animals and unexplained creatures with a mind of their own will always find a way around such trivial, man-made barriers. This first military encounter would seem to verify that.

They agreed not to tell their commander. You got any plans for this weekend? Yeah, I'll probably go see that new Rocky movie. There's another Rocky movie coming out? Yeah. Who's he fighting this time? Apollo's kids? No. Some comic bastard. Some Russian, you think. That looks alright. Alright. Mind if I come see it with you? Sure. That girl just dumped me. Aw, again? Yeah, again. Oh, jeez! Hey, get your hands up. Damn!

Sir. Old man, you scared the shit out of me. Sir, get your hands in the air. Get your hands up. Do you have any idea where you're at right now, old man? I think there's something wrong with him. Either he's deaf or he's got some sort of mental problem. Sir, get your hands in the air. Go ahead and call this in. Let me get it. HQ, this is Rover One. Come in. Over.

HQ, this is Rover One. The following account was submitted to the curators of the Paranormal Scholar website by Stacy C on behalf of her uncle Bob R. My uncle Bob was in the army. Last Thanksgiving, he got drunk and told us all a story that shocked me. It was around 1985 and he was still new to the army, only being about three years in. He was on patrol duty on a base in Arizona.

It was late and he and another guy were walking along the fence line. Bob and the other guy were focused on looking out beyond the fence outside the base when they heard a sound behind them. The sound came from the inside, from their side of the fence. When they turned around, they saw an old man dressed in buckskin with long hair and braids. Bob described it as being so gray that it almost glowed in the moonlight. The man was standing approximately 30 feet behind them.

Both men drew their weapons as the old man was in a restricted area with warning signs all over the place. They could have shot him if they'd wanted to, but neither my uncle Bob nor his buddy wanted to shoot an old man. They figured that he must have Alzheimer's and had wandered into the base or something. After all, he wasn't threatening them and he appeared harmless. The men shouted to the old man, telling him he was in a restricted area and that he needed to put his hands in the air

Bob thought they'd walk him back to post and then call the local police department, who would be able to get him back home. Bob tried to call in a report, but it was just static. Asking his friend to help, both he and Bob turned to tinker with the radio. Although they only looked away for half a second, to quote my uncle, when they turned back, the old man was gone. In his place was a massive rabbit, just sitting there, watching them. That's what he said.

that when he and his partner looked back up, the man had disappeared and there was this large rabbit sitting in his place. Both men looked around right to left and back again to see where the old man had wandered off to, but he was nowhere to be seen. In that time, the rabbit took off towards the fence. Then again, they heard a noise behind them. And when they turned around, the same as last time, the old man was there. This time, however, he was now on the outside of the fence.

The fence was a good eight to ten feet tall. There was no way this old man could have jumped it. Bob described how that sent him and his buddy off running, and they agreed not to tell their commander. Keep in mind that my uncle was drunk, but despite over 30 years having passed since that night, he still looks scared as hell when he told us that he had seen a skinwalker.

Although Stacey doesn't mention the name of the base where her uncle's story took place, I was curious if the base in question might be rather obvious. Arizona has several military bases, three of which are Army: Yuma Proving Grounds on the western border with California, Fort Huachuca near the southern border with Mexico, and Camp Navajo, which is up north near Flagstaff. Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that her uncle was stationed at the third one?

The base was formally named Navajo Army Depot in the early 80s and was and is still used as a munitions storage facility. Definitely seems like the kind of base that would call for routine perimeter fence patrols to ensure that no one unauthorized is entering into the base to steal something or cause damage. And as the name would indicate, the land it occupies lies very close to what remains of the Navajos land.

and was undoubtedly occupied by the Navajo people in previous generations. Skinwalker Guns The following story comes from an unnamed Marine who spent time training in a desert wasteland that is otherwise known as Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Southern California. He submitted this story to Nick Orton, who runs the Tales from the Grid Square project,

I've personally spent quite a bit of time roaming the desert on that base, both day and night. Plenty of wild animals that a Marine can run across at any time. There's rabbits, mice, deer, skunks, coyotes, a few bobcats, quail, roadrunners, hawks, owls, and the more dangerous animals like the odd buffalo, rattlesnakes coiled around the base of shrubs, and even one Marine in my group that was stalked during a nightland navigation course by a mountain lion.

I've otherwise had my share of strange hallucinations out there, probably due to sleep deprivation and the mesmerizing effect of the green-tinted night vision goggles. But to my knowledge, I'm the only one who saw those things. Whatever this Marine and his buddies saw would arguably creep anybody out. He writes, My squad's name is Skinwalkers, and there's a story behind it.

A little over a year ago we had a division level exercise called "Steel Knight". My gun squad was attached to a platoon in a defense position above the Camp Horno combat town. While we were out there, one of my buddies told me how he had seen this "Skinwalker" when he was younger. It creeped us all out when he said it was still following him to this day.

We only had one boot in our squad, a Marine just out of boot camp I mean. So me and my buddy took an hour of gun watch so my boot could get a little sleep. But instead of sleeping, it's 30 minutes into this watch shift, so maybe around 01:30 give or take, and this boot keeps saying he's hearing weird noises, like the sound that the Predator makes, but says it sounds faster and louder. My other buddy that told us he had seen a skinwalker when he was younger

He then tells us that the one he saw made that same noise. So that freaks us out and we get real quiet and start listening for whatever this noise is. Sure enough, we hear it. This strange sound along with a screech and rustling in the brush that's coming from down the front side of the hill. We had a 13 golf on the gun, which is a thermal optic. And I looked down the hill and saw this deer looking thing.

but it was standing on two legs. As soon as I caught sight of it, it then ran straight up the hill past our defense on the right flank. And then it dropped back down on all four legs and disappeared down the backside of this hill. My buddy Rick had a Skeeter, which is another type of thermal. He saw that thing too. Since then, we came up with the name Skinwalker Guns, since we just say that's what it was and embrace it. And that's how our squad name came to be.

Now, I'm not one to knock a good story, but I have seen deer stand up on their hind legs and walk. Usually when two bucks are fighting or some other instance where one deer is showing signs of aggression, possibly trying to reach the lower branches of a tree to eat the leaves. I've never seen one that made predator noises run up a hill before, nor did I see it through thermals in the dead of night after one of my buddies had just told me a skinwalker story.

All of that happening at the same time would make for a creepy experience in any case. But the following stories are not so easy to offer a rational explanation for.

Sounds a hell of a lot...

This next account comes from an unnamed soldier who is likely a member of the California National Guard and was serving on a security detail during a massive wildfire. The Dixie Fire of 2021 was the single largest wildfire recorded in California history. It burned nearly a million acres of land and destroyed multiple communities in the area.

And with the rapid spread and size of the growing fire, it would seem the California Guard was assisting local authorities in blocking roads, preventing civilians from driving into areas that were burning or were in the direct path of the fire. The fire undoubtedly disrupted a vast amount of wildlife in the area, but for this soldier and his group, they appear to have encountered something in the forest that was in and of itself disturbing. He writes:

This happened during the 2021 Dixie Fire in North Cal. My lieutenant, our driver, PFC Bravo, and myself were driving around making the rounds and checking on all our guys out at their checkpoints. We got to one where our guys were blocking a road and they had one of those generator lights. So we stopped for a bit and we're all just standing around talking and making conversation when we started hearing a woman screaming. It startled the hell out of all six of us.

My LT and I ready up our weapons as we take a few steps towards the wood line. We had been told that if we hear a woman screaming, it's usually a mountain lion attacking a deer or something like that. But this sounded close. And honestly, it just sounded too much like a woman screaming. So my LT yells out, "Hello?" And I shit you not, in his same exact voice, we hear back,

This wasn't an echo at all. It came clear as day from the direction we heard the screaming, and it was his exact voice. We all immediately said, screw that. My crew and I got back in the truck and noped the hell out of there after telling Specialist Sierra and his crew to stay in the truck and to combat lock all their doors. Pretty sure a skinwalker was out there trying to get one of us. Creepy as hell.

As I mentioned earlier, these last few stories were shared with me by Nick Orton, a man who is currently serving in the U.S. Army and has dedicated much of his free time to gathering these kinds of short and often spine-chilling stories from his fellow service members and veterans. Here is one final Skinwalker story from his collection, another unexplained tale from the grid square. Here goes the radio.

Considering the man telling this story has Navajo blood, I thought it might tie up these encounter stories nicely. Not to mention that his is by far one of the most bizarre. Another military police officer out on night shift seeing terrifying things in the woods. He writes, "I'm an MP at Quantico and there's definitely been a couple of weird things I've seen on nights patrolling Westside. So I've been at Quantico for about two years as an MP.

For those that don't know about Quantico, it's set up with two sides: Mainside, where everything is, east of Interstate 95, and the appropriately named Westside, where they do TBS, the basic school for officers, and all the ranges.

Westside is pretty damn massive. Like, I'm talking it would take two to three hours to drive around it, and it has all of these unused back roads and old cemeteries from homesteads dotting the landscape. Plenty of forgotten training areas too, dating back to World War II.

When I was on night shift, I always asked to be the roving unit out there, because it would give me a chance to scout out places to hunt or fish on my off days, and being the only unit out there and being left alone was pretty nice to just skate or, you know, do my own thing over my 10-hour shift.

Now, I'm not a stranger to the woods, or to the outdoors, or anything. I grew up running around the mountains for quail and deer in Southern California as a kid, and spent a ton of nights out camping by myself in my teens, so there's really not much out there in nature that freaks me out. But one night, in about November, when the nights get really dark real fast, I was done posting Marines out on the gates and was heading up to a far-off training area.

I had my tree stand and trail camera that I'd previously set up and wanted to go take a look to see if anything had been around. To get there, you have to drive about 30 minutes up one road and then another 15 until you hit a long dirt road that dissects that part of the base in half. And in this particular area, comms always sucks. So without a working radio, you're pretty much out there on your own.

I park my Durango on the offshoot. I grab my flashlight and started off heading into this creek bottom about a mile or so off the road. I've done this a ton of times, so I got there pretty fast. I grab the chip out of my trail cam and I hop up into my tree stand to take a look at it and to kill some time. And not even five minutes into flipping through pictures, most of which were of just some turkey that were hanging around, I hear someone. And I say someone because I thought it was a person.

walking through the woods about 30 yards in front of me. Now this is like the middle of the night on a training base, so a lieutenant who got lost doing night land nav isn't out of the question. So I'm thinking maybe this is my chance to mess with them from up in my stand. I quickly close my laptop and I turn off my flashlight and I try looking out to see where they were. I hear them walk closer and closer and then stop about 20 yards in front of me.

And at that point, with the illum being fairly bright that night, I could make out the outline of what looked like a deer, which was kind of disappointing. So I just stayed quiet to watch where he was heading so I wouldn't spook him. And all of a sudden, this thing starts bashing its head against a tree over and over and over and over.

until its entire skull cap was crushed and it was leaking blood and brain matter. Then this effing thing stands up on its hind legs and turns towards me as though it was staring directly at me, even with its eyes being clearly now useless. And then it spoke in the clearest tone I have ever heard in my life. My stomach dropped.

And I was too frozen in fear to even think to draw my pistol. But then, as quickly as it had walked up, this thing dropped back down onto all fours and walked away. I waited about 10 minutes, shaking like a leaf, trying to calm down before I left my laptop. I left everything. I just hauled ass out of there, got out of my stand, ran back to my patrol car,

And I grabbed my shotgun and I sat for the rest of the night in the lit parking lot of the MCX. It took about a month before I summoned up the courage to go back, grab my laptop and stuff I'd left there. And I went with a friend who I didn't tell what had happened, but I told him to bring his long gun as well. When I got there, I grabbed my stuff and I looked towards where the thing had been.

And the tree was busted up with splinters everywhere and what looked like, you know, the bone fragments and the mess, the blood scattered on the ground. Needless to say, I don't go out checking stuff in the middle of the night anymore. And I hunt on the complete opposite side of the base. And anytime I do need to go by there now, I always take a shotgun in condition one. I told my Navajo grandpa about this.

and he told me not to speak about it, but clearly I don't listen well. It freaked the hell out of me. Got me so messed up to the point where I really, I don't even like going in the woods anymore. As I say, I've seen deer do strange things, but talk? While the idea seems completely ludicrous,

Navajo legend does say that skinwalkers possess the ability to enter a person's mind and make them hear and see things that aren't really there. So perhaps the voice he heard was only inside his own mind. It's no less terrifying either way.

As for the animal's strange behavior, if it indeed was just an animal, I found at least one more account online where a young man recalled seeing this kind of behavior while hunting with his grandfather. No idea where it took place, but the two men apparently watched a deer slam its head repeatedly into a rock until its antlers and skull were shattered.

The animal then clumsily licking its own brain matter off of the rock before standing upright like a human, he said, and then walking into the nearby river and drowning itself. Both the young man and his grandfather were also terrified by the experience. It likewise kept them from wanting to return to the woods.

And quite strangely, the story ends with the young man saying his grandfather moved to Florida shortly afterward for what he put in quotes as "safety reasons." He makes no mention about having any suspicions about what this animal was other than just being a deer, acting strangely, but it does make you wonder what about the animal's behavior by itself would have scared them so badly.

Strange as it may seem, these are only a handful of the available Skinwalker stories we have left to share. It would seem another particular Marine Corps installation in California likewise has no small amount of reported encounters with strange creatures roaming the desert backlands. And with all of the artifacts that have been found in the area, it would seem that the installation, 29 Palms,

appears to have been built on what was once tribal land, a place where native people once undoubtedly lived and died, and quite possibly practiced dark magic.

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke LaManna. Executive produced by Mr. Ballin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt. Written by Jake Howard and myself. Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Lacascio, and Whit Lacascio. Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidham. Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain. Production supervision by Jeremy Bone. Production coordination by Avery Siegel. Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden. Artwork by Jessica Clarkson-Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picotta. If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartimestories.com. Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.