Sherman Ranch phenomenon¶
The Sherman Ranch phenomenon is the umbrella name for the cluster of unexplained happenings centered on the Wilmarth family ranch near Ballard, Utah: a night hum, heat and electromagnetic anomalies, lost time, livestock deaths and, late in the story, levitating metal.
| Type | Anomalous phenomenon (umbrella) |
| Aliases | Ranch hum and anomalies; EM anomalies; EM meter spikes; the curse |
| Location | Sherman Ranch, within about half a mile |
| Cause | Never explained |
| First appearance | Walkers 01 |
Reports before the party arrives¶
In Walkers 01, Alberta Wilmarth calls the ranch "cursed", citing boiled cattle, missing pets, UFO lights and Navy people investigating radiation. The players place the ranch in northern Utah, southeast of Ballard, on 512 acres, not near Hill Air Force Base but "close enough" (Walkers 01).
In Walkers 02, the Salt Lake City field office passes on local reports of lights and lost time, which the office blames on drinking, and of cattle mutilation, which it blames on lightning. See Livestock mutilations. Asked about droning, buzzing or humming, Alberta says the place "always" sounds weird at night, with something electrical making a hum that she thinks might be the substation, and Rita remarks that Howard is "vibrating" with excitement (Walkers 02).
Bigelow's measurements¶
Robert Bigelow rents the big house and runs a research operation on the property. His team measures electromagnetic and electrostatic fields, radio waves, and thermal and acoustic anomalies, recording onto big tape reels. The results show many unexplained heat signatures and electrical events, plus the exploded sheep, localized to the ranch and about half a mile around, with nothing unusual in town. When Dante (as Kurt) asks about the church's big antenna, Bigelow replies that the substation is probably unrelated (Walkers 02). See Bigelow's research operation and Bigelow's recordings.
Escalation during the case¶
- The dusk event. The van's electronics die and it slides sideways at the ranch gate (Walkers 03). See The dusk event.
- Burned crow and vanished car. In Walkers 04, the party finds a crow burned to a crisp that tumbled out of the sky. The rental van vanishes and is found pancaked in Roosevelt. Asked about electrical phenomena, Bigelow says the ranch's EM meters "went nuts", with spikes matching both the substation pop and the time the car shifted, though the graph is noisy. See The vanishing car.
- Ground-penetrating radar. In Walkers 05, the radar rental man Drebin spots a big signal 70 feet down that he says is "like a cave". A roll shows that the cavern extends under the whole area, deeply buried, with no shallower gradient on the property. When Dante (as Kurt) tells Alberta, she guesses it is a natural gas bed and asks him to tell nobody (Walkers 05). See The cavern.
- The night event. Hallucinations, levitation and a flood of white light hit the party's house (Walkers 05). See The night event and The white ring.
- The beam. A switchable line of heat and magnetism at the yard fence launches sheet metal along an arc toward Roosevelt (Walkers 06). See The beam.
The finale¶
By Walkers 09, the phenomenon has grown into a regional event. Ferrous metal levitates near the ranch, and Dante (as Kurt) relays reports of bursts in which all of Bigelow's cameras went out, sometimes together with the magnetic events. Waves knock vehicles around, give everyone headaches, make time skip a second or two ahead, and leave people freezing mid-sentence. The ranch farmhouse floats in the sky and is then launched toward Roosevelt in a vapor cone, a kilometer-wide white ring forms, and nothing is left on the horizon but the little wooden barn, which has no major metal components (Walkers 09). The party wrecks the skinwalkers' portal beneath the community center the same night.
What remains unknown¶
No episode explains the ranch phenomenon, and the episodes never say who runs the hazmat teams and the silent black triangular craft that arrive at the end (Walkers 09). Whether it is connected to the skinwalkers is never stated. In Walkers 03, the party finds the community center at the end of a dirt road, with the little house they are staying in visible from it, and Dante (as Kurt) concludes that if it was placed there for some untoward reason, the reason is the ranch.