The Dulce New Mexico Anomalies - Overlaps with the Skinwalker Ranch Events
Article by Contributor, Hunt The Skinwalker
The small town of Dulce New Mexico is nestled in a picturesque valley that is overshadowed by the majestic Mount Archuleta and ringed by spectacular mountainous vistas. Dulce is the administrative center of the Jicarilla Apache tribe and back in the late 1990s, when National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) investigations were ongoing, the town boasted a Best Western Hotel with a restaurant that served superb food and arguably the best liver and onions dish one of the invisible college authors has ever eaten.
Dulce became notorious in the anomalies field during the late 1970s and 1980s when a rash of cattle mutilations happened on land owned by the influential Gomez family. Multiple cattle were found dead with characteristic organs removed allegedly with surgical precision. A central driving force in the investigation of these cattle mutilations during this period was highway patrol officer Gabe Valdez who soon showed himself to be a fearless and relentless pursuer of the truth. Valdez uniquely combined an outgoing avuncular personality with a hard edged investigative acumen where he refused to back down when his work brought him controversy and opprobrium even from his superiors.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Valdez accumulated a wide ranging network of interested professionals, including some fellow law enforcement personnel, local officials from the district attorney’s office, veterinarians who were prepared to absorb the scathing criticism from colleagues and political people, even moving up to the office of Senator Harrison Schmidt who publically rallied support behind investigating cattle mutilations. In modern parlance, Valdez was a consummate “player”.
Cattle mutilations in Dulce NM were part of a much bigger picture in which literally thousands of cattle were mutilated and killed throughout 17 Western states between 1965 and 1999. Amazingly, in spite of several high profile investigations throughout the Western United States, not a single individual was caught or charged for the crime of mutilating cattle. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Valdez’ reputation spread nationally and internationally as the “go to” person for information on cattle mutilations, UFOs and assorted bizarre activity in Northern New Mexico.
In 1996, Gabe Valdez joined the staff of the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) and very quickly began to reconnect with dozens of members of his old network in Dulce NM. Valdez’s access into the normally closed ranks of the Jicarilla Apache Nation was unique and unparalleled. Without his presence, NIDS would never have gained access to ANY Apache testimony, not least the high quality testimony from the highest level of the Apache Nation Council. NIDS’ first trip to Dulce with Valdez occurred in early 1997 and one of the first ports of call was to the legendary Apache Sheriff Raleigh Tafoya.
Raleigh Tafoya was born in Dulce NM on August 4 1937 and lived in that community all of his life. In 1960 Raleigh began work as a patrolman and in 1962 he became Chief of Police and in 1972 he served as a committee member of the Land Claims Commission. Tafoya was a giant of a man and as NIDS investigators sat in his office his gruffness quickly became kindliness as he relaxed. Gabe Valdez was the interlocutor and intermediary and as Raleigh Tafoya described the rash of cattle mutilations and unidentified flying objects in the Dulce area during the 1970s, he invited the NIDS group to have free reign in Dulce interviewing multiple witnesses. This carte blanche invitation was a uniquely high honor for NIDS and was a highly unusual departure from the omerta that prevailed in the Apache Nation regarding discussing anomalous events with outsiders.
Over the next four years NIDS interviewers, always accompanied by Valdez, crisscrossed Dulce and interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses to remarkable events. Chief Tafoya died not too long after the interview with him. Over his lengthy career, he had served the Jicarilla Apache people for over 44 years as a law enforcement officer and even after his death, Tafoya’s large presence still dominated the small town of Dulce NM.
The following is a summary of different reports of UFO and unusual creature sightings that happened in Dulce and surrounding areas during 1970s-1990s as told to NIDS investigators. Taken as a whole, the breadth and scope of these anomalies constitute a very significant overlap with the events that were documented on Skinwalker Ranch in Utah.
During the 1990s, Moose Muniz worked in the office of a facility for repairing large farm machinery in Dulce, NM. Moose described an incident that happened in summer 1979. Moose and his friend Terrance Notsinneh were driving a truck out by Mount Archuleta (about five miles from Dulce) on a Friday evening at about 20.30 hours. It was just beginning to get dark. They were driving on a little used road, intent on relaxing after work. Moose spotted a disc shaped object hovering above the trees between a quarter and half a mile away. They stopped the truck and shut off the engine to get a better look at it. The object had a dome on top and was hovering silently. It then began to move towards the truck, moving smoothly and silently. It stopped and hovered noiselessly about 150 feet directly above the truck. Moose noticed that on the bottom of the circular craft was a continuously rotating set of blue and yellow lights. He estimated that it was about fifty feet in diameter and contained a metallic dome of mirror like material. Moose thought that the dome might have had a one-way mirror like outer surface. Terrance then climbed out of the passenger side of the truck, walked to a position 30 feet in front and began yelling and waving his arms at the object as it hovered silently above him. Moose became progressively more frightened. Terrance continued yelling and waving until Moose told him to get back in the truck. There was no response from the craft, it continued to hover silently and the lights continued to rotate quickly in an anti-clockwise direction. Moose described it like a tube of light. Moose also said that he thought that the craft might be observing them although it made no attempt to communicate with them.
The object then slowly climbed, remaining flat but climbing at a 45 degree angle away from them for a short while. Then from a stationary position it suddenly took off across the valley, accelerating from standstill to an extremely high speed. In the process, Moose estimated that the object covered some 60 miles in four seconds (yielding an estimated speed of 54,000mph). The craft left a flash of light in its wake. There was no noise or sonic boom. Neither of them noticed any turbulence during the incident.
NIDS investigators also interviewed Terrance Notsineh separately and independently. He confirmed all details of this incident with the exception that he said that in addition to getting out of the truck to yell and wave at the craft as it hovered 150 feet above them, he also flashed a flashlight at it. The craft did not respond.
Neither of Moose Muniz or Terrance Notsineh reported any ill effects from the close encounter. Although Moose had been scared by the incident, he had no trouble sleeping.
Moose also described an earlier incident that occurred when he was 15 years of age and he was driving with his family in the direction of Dulce. It was daylight at about 17.30 in August when they crested a rise and all family members saw a huge craft hovering above the valley. According to Moose the craft stretched from Dulce Lake all the way across to Archuleta Mesa which would put it at over five miles across. The craft appeared to be light colored and was semi-transparent but with definite boundaries. It was shaped according to Moose like the Tacoma dome and was flat bottomed. It had huge windows arranged in a single row along its side. Moose said that he could see the landscape behind the object. All family members saw it but continued to drive to their home in Dulce. When they arrived and got out of the car, the object was gone. The following day, his father packed all family members into the car and drove back to the same spot at the same time but they could see nothing.
NIDS investigators separately interviewed two senior Jicarilla Apache officials, Gomez and Martinez, about an incident that occurred in mid 1990s. Since the interviews took place, both men have occupied increasingly senior positions in the Jicarilla Apache tribe and in 2016 both are members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation Legislative Council. We have changed their names out of respect for their current occupations. At the time, Gomez was the Executive Director of the Public Works Department of the Jicarilla Apache tribe and Martinez was Executive Director of Public Health. Even in the 1990s, both men occupied cabinet level positions in the tribe and were judged by NIDS investigators to be credible witnesses.
The incident described below was witnessed by 9 Jicarilla Apache officials and their families who were travelling in four cars in a convoy returning from a basketball game towards Dulce. It was 23.30 hours on a clear moonlit night. Visibility was excellent. Gomez described first seeing a large object in the distance with what looked like pylons of blue and red lights on the top. He initially thought it was a large natural gas platform but was puzzled because he had never noticed a platform in that position before. It was only when they got much closer that they saw that it was huge flying object moving slowly and as they entered a canyon, Martinez noticed it as a massive aircraft that appeared to be just about to crash into the cliff on the edge of the canyon. All four cars were now travelling quickly through the canyon at about 65mph. Martinez was travelling alone in his car. Gomez had his wife and children with him. Martinez reached for his cell phone in order to report an aircraft accident when he suddenly noticed that the huge object was now moving slowly directly over the four cars as they drove through the canyon. According to both Gomez and Martinez, the object was huge. Gomez said that it was about 200 feet above them, Martinez said no more than 100 feet. According to Gomez, the object was so big that it spanned the entire canyon from wall to wall and he still could not see the ends of it. The craft was over a mile across. As it moved slowly over their cars both people described the structure of the underneath. Both independent descriptions matched. The underside consisted of rows of interlocking dull metal sheets woven like roof slates. Gomez described seeing large rivets about a foot to two feet in diameter. Gomez described the shape of the object from underneath as roughly circular, Martinez said that he did not know the shape from underneath but that the object from the side had three large domes on top. Both men got the impression of an extremely heavy and massive object. Gomez pulled his car over and got out just in time to see the object disappearing over the canyon wall. There was no sound. The object seemed then to instantaneously appear a long distance away as if it had silently moved at great speed away. Gomez said that he did not see it moving and he heard no sound. Both men described it as a floating motion over the canyon. Martinez said that by the time he had maneuvered to stop his car also, the object had gone.
The following morning, after the interview, NIDS investigators drove to the exact site of the sighting and they verified that indeed the distance from canyon wall to canyon wall was about a mile.
Neither of the occupants of the car felt any ill effects from the incident. They did not feel any air displacement when they got out of their cars. They did not understand how an object of such magnitude and apparent weight could move so silently and easily. Both men remarked on the extreme danger of flying so close to the canyon walls. Martinez was sure that when he first noticed the object it appeared to be just on the point of colliding with the top of the far canyon wall and it must have abruptly and smoothly changed direction in order to be suddenly flying over the witnesses. Martinez marveled that such a huge object could execute a 90 degree turn at such low altitude without tilting or banking.
A third member of the current (2016) Jicarilla Apache Nation Legislative Council also told NIDS investigators about a series of incidents that had happened earlier in his career and out of respect for the sensitivity of his position, we also have changed his name. During the 1990s, Juan Gonzales was active on the Jicarilla Apache Cultural committee and earlier in his career, used to work as a Fish and Game Officer and the incidents that he recounted occurred when he worked in this latter capacity.
As a Fish and Game officer he was driving in his truck on one of the back road near Dulce one night in 1988 when he noticed out of the corner of his eye a bright light. Almost instantly a pencil beam of light came through his open truck window and hit the back of his hand as it held the steering of his vehicle. He felt a burning sensation. The beam then vanished and he could see nothing else. He noticed the following day that several layers of skin on the back of his hand appeared to have been removed, as if burned. The area on his hand corresponded exactly to the position where the beam of light had struck the back of his hand. Juan was not unduly worried about the incident and his hand healed without further complications.
Also in 1988, Juan at dusk noticed what appeared to be a low flying aircraft a couple of hundred yards away from him. Juan was not sure of the time or the date of the incident. He was concerned that the aircraft was so low that it would crash so he stopped his vehicle. He saw that the craft was about the size of an old DC-6 or a DC 7. He noticed that the object was flying completely silently. He then noticed that as it flew it hit the tops of a group of trees. The sound carried clearly in the night air. As he watched the object appeared to hit several different trees as it flew over but without any accompanying engine sounds. The object then flew away and disappeared.
Juan spent a long time describing some of the customs and the old folklore of the Apache tribe. He mentioned that he is responsible for attempting to translate a set of over 60 songs that the tribe has passed down from generation to generation verbally. The songs deal with the emergence of the Apaches and their origins. According to him many of the songs describe flying objects and flying “mountains” which have always played a part in the origins of the Apaches. He said that it is his opinion and of some of the elders that many of the traditions and customs of the Apaches are imitations of the traditions of the occupants of the flying “mountains”. He gave an example of some of the traditional ceremonial headdress being imitations of the head apparel of the occupants of flying craft. All of the traditions apparently were given to the Apaches in ancient times. Juan offered to translate some of these songs for us.
In 1963, long before Whitley Strieber‘s iconic book “Communion” was published and had introduced the meme of the large head and oversized almond eyed creatures that became inserted into twentieth century culture and vernacular as the “grey”, Jicarilla Apache Cultural committee member Sookie Vicente had a face to face encounter with a classic “grey” on her door step. Sookie was returning to her home after being on an errand when she was greeted by her cat at the front door of her house. When she lifted the cat up, the animal suddenly arched its back, hissed loudly and dug its nails into her shoulder. It was focused on something behind her. Sookie looked over her left shoulder, saw nothing, then over her right shoulder she saw a small figure standing very close to her. It had a large head and large eyes and was not human. The creature simply stood there, unmoving. Sookie was extremely frightened and quickly opened the door of her home and with the cat still on her shoulder ran inside her home where she stayed for some time. When she plucked up the courage to go outside, she circled her house more than once but the creature was nowhere to be found.
Raleigh Elizondo has occupied positions of increasing responsibility in the Jicarilla Apache tribe over the past 30 years and in 2016 currently serves as a member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation Legislative Council. Raleigh told NIDS investigators of an encounter that he had with a Sasquatch while on his property in the summer of 1991. In was during late afternoon. Raleigh was sitting on his horse and three of his dogs were in the vicinity when he saw a Sasquatch break cover running from the trees. The creature appeared to be running from a pursuer which Raleigh could not see. It was running on two legs like a human. It passed him about 150 feet away, it was brown and according to Raleigh was as tall as he was as he sat on his horse. All three dogs reacted to the creature by running to a point where they were under the horse. This was unique behavior for the dogs. The creature then saw Raleigh since it had been looking over its shoulder on the opposite side, but it did not react to him. It still appeared to be fearful of something that was pursuing it. The creature ran swiftly towards a nearby hill and suddenly disappeared “into thin air” as Raleigh described it. He was certain that the creature did not run out of sight, but actually ran through some kind of “opening” before vanishing. The dogs continued to walk almost under the horse, keeping very close as all five went to the top of the hill. Suddenly, the horse jumped several feet as if clearing an obstacle, but Raleigh could see nothing. He noticed the dogs also jumping, but he could still see nothing.
Commonalities Between Dulce NM and Skinwalker Ranch Utah Events
Low flying metallic UFOs, bizarre non-human creatures including the Sasquatch, have been reported/documented by dozens of eyewitnesses over multiple decades at the remote locations of Dulce NM and at Skinwalker Ranch Utah. Dulce lies in the center of the Jicarilla Apache Nation lands and the Skinwalker Ranch is a small homesteaded area embedded in the middle of Ute Nation lands.
This congruence of unusual phenomena appears to be associated with locales that are dominated by Native American tribes. Is this correlation a coincidence or simply a statistical blip? NIDS investigators asked representatives from both Jicarilla Apache and Ute Nations this question and received essentially the same reply. The answer is as follows:
The Indian Nations have had a close relationship with these phenomena for centuries because the Native Americans have enhanced perception and enhanced ability to “see” other realities. The Native American culture has always emphasized the unseen world and this phenomenon is a part of the unseen world. The phenomena are neither a help nor a hindrance, they are simply part of humanities’ world. According to testimony from both Ute and Jicarilla Apache Nations, the existence of the phenomena is denied by the majority of White People, so the phenomena are experienced by Native Americans because they perceive differently.
As Colm Kelleher and George Knapp wrote in “Hunt for the Skinwalker”: … it is perhaps not a coincidence that many of the regions in the United States where UFO hotspots have been documented, Yakima, N. New Mexico, NE Utah are also centers of native American populations with the Yakima, Jicarilla Apache and Ute tribes figuring prominently. The constant references to the “star people” that suffuse the oral traditions of the Hopi and other tribes show that the alternate realities recounted by native Americans commonly contain the UFOnauts. The question then becomes: does the presence of the native American shamans and their practices provide a window, a portal or a wormhole from inner space for the entry of the strange denizens into our reality? Can native American shamans “summon” UFOs from another dimension through their rituals, just as the Siberian shaman Olga Kharitidi told the authors that the shamans of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan can? Dr Doughlass Price Williams, an emeritus anthropologist from UCLA, wrote a lengthy dissertation on the remarkable parallels between the journeys to the other worlds described by the shamans from numerous cultures and the emotional testimony from hundreds of people who claimed abduction by aliens (Price Williams’ essay is published on this website). Are these abductions occurring in physical reality, or are they occurring in “inner space” a dimension that exists through a portal in human consciousness?”