Skinwalker Stories from Reddit

Story 27 : My father's experience on Navajo reservation

Written by : u/NavajoJoe00

Year written : 2016

This is my father's story written from his perspective. It follows an experience he had with a Skinwalker on the Navajo reservation.

When I was about 11 or 12, we lived in a small house made of mud and stone. A lot like our house now. It was two of my brothers and I in the house. Everyone else had gone to the Jamez Feast and left us to tend the sheep. We were getting ready for bed when we heard the dogs going crazy outside. Thinking it was nothing more than coyotes howling in the distance, we told them to be quite. We began to drift off into sleep, and the dogs would not shut up. Somehow, I was able to go to sleep for a few hours. Then I woke up very late in the night. It was very quiet and still in the house, save for my brothers snoring and breathing. I realized I needed to use the outhouse and woke up my brother to take me there. He teased me about being scared, which I certainly was.

We went out with our flashlight to the outhouse. The dogs began with their crazed barking out in the sagebrush, going from one place to the next. My brother went first and I waited outside for him. While waiting, I tried to follow the dogs with my flashlight. Suddenly there was a very loud whine from one of the dogs. Then everything went quiet again. It was really too quiet for that time of year. Not even the sheep were making noise. Suddenly I heard a few of the dogs going completely mad by the truck. When I looked over, there was this man.

He was unbelievably tall, leaning one arm on the cab roof of the truck. He was looking at the dogs for a little, and then suddenly kicking one of them. They all scattered in different directions. The thing looked up at me and I saw its face. It had a pure white face (like a full moon), two burning red eyes, and a slight smile that was pure black. I could not move or make a sound. It began to walk toward me with long strides, until if finally towered over me. All I began to see was a dark red. Like the colour of the blood when you cut the throat of a sheep.

I kept getting deeper and deeper into its eyes. I could faintly hear my brother coming out of the outhouse. With this, the thing looked up at him. Reality came rushing back to me. I noticed that my brother was too distracted with his buckle to realize what was going on. I also noticed this things long hands hovering just inches from my head. Its skin was black ash, and he smelled like a bloated dead animal in summer. I was still unable to move or speak, the skinwalker began to move toward my brother. Finally noticing this figure, my brother became paralyzed as I was. Closer and closer it drew, reaching an arm out toward my brother’s head. Something finally snapped in me, I became unbearably angry.

I broke from the trance and lunged at the skinwalker. Raising my arms like a wild animal and barring my teeth at it. A growl came out that I never knew I could make. I became more and angrier at the thing that was trying to hurt us. It kept that smile at first, but the angrier I got the more the smile faded. Finally, with everything I had, I began to make this primal roar at it. It fell backwards and ran away into the night. Looking back at me, its eyes were dim and dull, its smile now long since gone. The next morning the family returned home from the feast. After relaying the story to my parents, they quickly hired a medicine man.