Scary Encounters with Skinwalkers

In Native American legend, skinwalkers are shapeshifters or hybrids, kinda like werewolves or Bigfoot. Here are several eyewitness accounts from people who have encountered such creatures.

Terrifying Stories Of Skinwalkers, The Legendary Shapeshifters

Nida SeaUpdated October 18, 2019

Every culture has scary stories about mysterious beings, and Native Americans are no exception. The Navajo legend of the skinwalker is particularly chilling because so many individuals claim to have had real-life encounters in the present day. Modern stories of encountering a skinwalker mostly take place in the American Southwest, but they’ve also been reported as far away as Australia.

You may be wondering, what is a skinwalker and why are they so scary? According to legend, a skinwalker (also known as yee naaldlooshii) is a witch or medicine man who specializes in shapeshifting and wields supernatural powers to prey on others. Commonly confused with other myths, such as werewolves or wendigos, the legends of skinwalkers tell a different a tale in which evil humans can change into any animal just by using that animal’s skin.  

Some say the legend of the skinwalker is very real, and others refuse to speak of them in fear of tempting them to appear. Whether you are a believer or a skeptic, stories about skinwalkers can be terrifying. If you’re looking for a new nightmare or two, check out these scary skinwalker stories and decide for yourself whether the legends are true.

• Maybe Trying To Hit It Wasn’t The Best IdeaFrom Redditor /u/Neptune420: My Father owns a small delivery service that operates out of Farmington, NM. We mostly deliver small packages out to the middle of nowhere that are too much of a hassle for the larger delivery companies to bother with. My Dad is the only employee and we have a few pickup trucks and a trailer. One day we get a delivery out to Window Rock, AZ, on the Navajo reservation about two hours from Farmington. My Dad gets the call for the job while he is chilling with his Navajo friend, Travis and his girlfriend. Travis mentions how he’s got family in Window Rock that he hasn’t seen in ages and suggests they go with him. I was about six or seven at the time and it was the summertime so Dad decides we’ll go down together, he can do his delivery really quick, then while Travis sees his family we can go check out the Window Rock (big rock face with a large hole in it that goes to the other side, pretty cool.) We had to convoy in separate trucks since my Dad’s was loaded down with freight. We decided to bring along some talkie talkies so we could communicate with one another. We spend our time in Window Rock, everything is generally uneventful and we start heading home along the old highway with my Dad and I in front, and Travis and his girlfriend in their truck behind us. I honestly don’t remember most of the Window Rock trip but this next part I can never forget. We’re somewhere on the highway between Window Rock and Gallop, NM. It had just rained earlier in the day and the road was kind of slick so we were taking it pretty slow. On the left of the highway there is nothing but sandstone cliffs and on the right there is a huge field separated from the road by a small barbed wire fence. We crest the top of this hill and down at the bottom of the hill we see what appears to be a very large dog, sitting back on its haunches in the middle of the road, facing the cliffs. My Dad calls over the radio “Hey Trav, do you see that big ass dog?” Travis starts yelling back over the radio “That is not a dog! Speed up right now and hit it!” He sounds almost hysterical. He just keeps screaming “Hit it! Jj you have to hit it! Please! PLEASE! Hit that f*cking thing right now!” So my Dad starts to speed up and as we get a bit closer I can begin to see it a little more clearly. It’s covered in this brown, wiry, matted hair that appears to have dried blood all over it. It’s still facing the cliffs but the moment our headlights hit it, it turns and looks at us and it has a…face I don’t know how else to describe it other than a mix between a bear’s and a humans’ face. It looks twisted and distorted and almost in pain. As we get closer to this thing we start to realize it’s actually f*cking huge. Though it was still sitting on its’ haunches it is about shoulder height with the hood of the truck. We get literally inches from hitting it when it lets out this scream that sounds like someone screaming as their lungs were filling with water and it leaps backwards, towards the field, landing just on our side of the barbed wire fence. Then with another leap it was gone from sight. Travis is comes over the radio again, “Holy sh*t! Keep driving! We have to get out of here! We have to go faster!” he kept repeating that last part. We have to get out of here and we have to go faster. Pretty soon we a speeding like crazy and just as we start to come near the outskirts of Gallup we get pulled over. Travis pulls his truck over with us. Naturally this makes the cop, a Navajo man himself, very on edge and he immediately asks why Travis felt the need to pull over as well. Travis says “We just saw a skinwalker a few miles back and it’s been following us!” The officer immediately turns white, stammers something about a verbal warning gets in his car and takes off. We do the same. We didn’t see anything else that night but when we got home Travis refused to let us leave without taking some kind of Navajo totem thing that was supposed to keep it away.

Tap Tap At The Window

From Redditor /u/Navajo_Joe: 

I was a kid when this happened… My uncle and I were finishing up chopping/gathering firewood for my grandmother because it was getting dark. Driving back on a dirt road at about 30mph (give or take 5mph) I had this awful sense of being watched. Before I could turn to look out my window (passenger side) my uncle quickly shouted, “Don’t!” I completely froze. My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest then completely stopped when I heard a tap tap on my window. My uncle sped up and was loudly praying in my native language. I didn’t know what was going on and thought it was over till our truck suddenly dipped from the bed. My uncle then started saying, “Look at me” and “Don’t turn away” over and over. Then I heard it again, tap tap but from the window behind me. It was getting harder for me to breathe and I wanted to cry. A minute or two passed and the truck dipped again. My uncle looked around and sighed. It was quiet besides the truck and the road. He looked at me and said, “We will ask your father to do a prayer in the morning. So the evil will forget our faces.” (Navajo to English equivalent). I remember curling up on the seat and just staring at the radio watching the time. Listening to my uncle sing an old prayer till we got to my grandmother’s house.

I called my uncle because I had a nightmare about that night. We talked about it for a bit. He said, “I didn’t see faces. Just eyes. Like brake lights you see on the road. It watched you.” (Navajo to English equivalent) Before hanging up I tried joking with him about it. “Why didn’t you just step on the brake when it was in the back?” No laughter. Just a pause. “Because it wasn’t alone.”

Don’t Get Off The Bus

From Redditor /u/Iron_Jesus:

Anybody that has been on the Navajo reservation has either probably heard of some creepy things or have experienced pretty creepy things. Namely skinwalkers. I have only seen one. Here is my story.

I come from a small town in northern Arizona that’s sandwiched between the Paiute reservation to the north and the US’s largest Navajo reservation to the south. My high school being so small (a 1A high school that has, on average, 80 students enrolled every year.) always had to travel south about five to 10 hours one way to play another high school in any sport. This means that we traveled A LOT on the Navajo rez. And we also usually stayed at hotels when we would head out to play and come home in the morning but this trip was a little bit different. I remember the basketball coach saying that the school didn’t have enough money to put up the teams in a hotel that trip so we were going to be on the road for a total of about 12 hours.

I was the only male senior to play basketball that season. We had just got done playing our game and headed home on our bus “Big Blue.” We were headed out and it wasn’t long, about two hours of driving, before we had entered the rez. By this time, everyone was asleep with it being about two in the morning. When we had crossed the rez’s border I noticed the bus driver had sped up and was now going about 85 mph. I thought this was a little weird because he never exceeded the speed limit, at least not in my high school career. For some reason, I couldn’t fall asleep like the rest of my teammates, and I just sat at the back of the bus staring out across the desolate desert landscape that was lit up by the full moon.

As I looked out, I could see a figure running towards the bus at an angle of pursuit…and keeping up with the bus at 85 mph. As the figure got closer I saw that it was a humanoid form. As a matter of fact it looked exactly like a human, only that the face was painted half black and half white with glowing eyes. Glowing eyes like a rabbit’s eyes reflecting light from a spotlight. I immediately thought, “Holy crap! It’s a skinwalker!!” The skinwalker ran up to the edge of the road and just kept up pace with the bus hurdling sage brush and rocks while staring at me. After I made eye contact with the thing, I COULD NOT look away.

It was as if something was holding my head and eyes in place. The skinwalker just smiled at me this inhuman smile that went ear-to-ear, showing crooked, yellow, pointed teeth. I felt like I was going to throw up and I was panicking through the whole ordeal. The skinwalker started to crumple down on to all fours, still keeping up with the bus. I could see his bones crack and reform, hair started appearing all over the skinwalker’s body and in about 3 seconds was now a coyote and it ran off back into the desert out of view. As soon as it was gone, I ran to the onboard bathroom and puked a mixture of food and blood.

I didn’t want to tell anyone for fear they would think I was crazy. I confided in my Navajo friend. She told me that I needed to see the chief, who also happened to be a friend of mine, and get a blessing. I saw him the next school day in the parking lot. He just came up to me and mumbled something in Navajo while waving a feathered scepter-like thing, turned around, got in his truck and drove away. To this day, I haven’t seen another skinwalker. It might be due to the fact I moved away from that town and rez, and, if I do have to go south, I go around… WAY around.

Stay Away From Ruins Of The Inquisition

From Redditor /u/jibbyjam1:

This all happened about five years ago. One night, a few of my friends decided after a night of hanging out that we’d go on an adventure at about 3 AM. We took a ride about 50 miles to this old Spanish ruin (in New Mexico), that was once the seat of the Inquisition. I can’t for the life of me remember what the place is called.

So we jump the front gate to the place and start exploring. One of my friends brought a flute with him and he started playing it and about 30 seconds into his (mediocre) playing, something started screaming really really loud on the tops of the long-destroyed walls of the place. It was going from wall to wall really quick, screaming the most blood-curdling scream you’ve ever imagined. We noped the f*ck out of there (one of my friends pissed his pants) and drove for a few hours to Bandelier National Monument where we planned to camp out at for the rest of the weekend.

We got to bandelier at probably like 6 or 7am and set up our camp. After a few hours just talking about what the hell happened at the ruins, I went to talked a piss behind a probably only like 300 feet from our camp. This is where everything starts getting a little fuzzy. I remember seeing 2 dust devils coming my way and when I turned around again, 2 of my friends were there and they were motioning me to follow them. I couldn’t help but to follow them, like I was being pulled behind them in shackles.

I followed them for what seemed like 10 or 15 minutes and then I snapped out of it. These weren’t my friends they had bright red hair, with my friends faces and cat eyes. Both of these friends were brunette. I stopped walking and they looked at me with probably the most terrifying gaze I’ve ever seen. Monsters in movies are nothing compared to this. I turned around and ran as fast as I could back the way I came from.

After like 5 minutes of a full sprint, I got back to that rock that I pissed at and found our camp. Everyone was there, still sitting around talking and didn’t even notice that I was gone. I told them what happened with the look-alike skinwalkers and we packed up everything and left probably within like 10 minutes and got the hell back to Albuquerque.

Convinced I Saw A Skinwalker

From Redditor /u/NordicAlchemist: 

As many of you might already know, many Navajo people (including my own family), are very reluctant to speak about skinwalkers because it is believed to attract their attention. Well, I however, grew up away from the Navajo Nation and was very naive about the subject. When it came to skinwalkers, I was an absolute skeptic. My mom used to tell a story of how back in the 80’s when she lived with her siblings and my grandparents (still in Shiprock, but the southern outskirts) about how she and my aunt saw a skin walker just outside their driveway under a street light. She described it as a black dog with dirty fur, a twisted noodle-like front leg, and these unnatural eyes with a soft burnt orange glow. Me being my own closed minded self doubted every word, but I never said my doubts aloud.

BUT, these doubts totally changed last year when I went to my grandparents house last October. Me and my family had just finished scourging the carnival at the Navajo Nation Fair and called it night. The house was close enough where we could walk home in just 10 minutes, so we did. When we got there it was about 9 at night where we stayed up until about 2 catching up about family affairs and the local news. It was during that time that I just decidedly opened my mouth and blurt out the question, “Hey are skinwalkers real?”. “guys?”, I asked. “You shouldn’t be speaking about that!” my grandma said with almost a disturbed yell in her voice. So she and my grandfather both decide to go to bed. After being scolded by my mom, one of my aunts chimes in with a very cautious tone and says, “They’re real alright, had a few start screaming outside of my trailer in Farmington just a few night ago. You’re cousin had nightmares the whole night and woke up crying that morning.” Not wanting to push the discomfort any further, we all decided to go to bed. Now the trailer/home is pretty old and it was a really nice night, so we slept with the windows open with screens to prevent bugs coming in. Everyone had drifted off to sleep except me, because my mind was still going a million miles a minute about skinwalkers and wondered if I ever encounter one while here on the reservation (As a kid I was told its taboo to think about skinwalkers because it can still call their attention). That’s when the sh*t totally hit the fan.

Just as I was settling and finally getting relaxed for sleep, I started to hear something moving outside. I get up from the couch and start wandering over to the kitchen window. In the trailer, all of the rooms have the lights out so the only visible light that can be seen is from the porch light out front. I was thankful for this because I told myself if it really was a skin walker outside then hopefully it wouldn’t notice me seeing it. So I muster up the courage and take a quick scan of outside. From the porch light all I can see is the dusty ground and the vehicles that my family drove along with some old metal trashcans that stood beside the road. Looking for about a good 5 seconds, I wasn’t able to see anything so I was getting ready to turn around and walk back to bed thinking it was just a stray cat or something. Only have taken two steps, I hear what sound like a distorted scream coming from outside, definitely close by. Fear rising, I look outside again and there I see it! A coyote-like figure was staring at my direction from behind the cars, just outside of the reach of the porch light. Only it looked, awfully wrong, and gave off an evil vibe just from seeing it. It was grey with very disheveled hair and a horrific orange-red soft glow came from its eyes. I noped the hell out and ran back to the bedroom. It was at this moment I had begun to also notice an awful stench in the air that smelled like rotting meat. I started trying to wake up my mom who was like, “omg, its almost 3am, what do you want?”. I immediately began in a shaken voice, “there’s something scary outside!”. Then she said (now annoyed because I woke her up), “Ugh it’s probably just a stray animal or something, it’s the rez, animals wander all the time at night.” She obviously wasn’t getting the drift of what I was saying so I screamed, “THERE’S SOME BLAIR WITCH PROJECT SH*T GOING ON OUTSIDE, MA!!!”

that got her attention

“What?! What the hell are you talking about??” she said. Then we heard it, the thing outside started making more of it’s dreadful like screams and started what sounded like thrashing outside on the ground. “Hear that?! That’s what I’m talking about!” So both her and I got back up looked outside the window and the coyote-thing was making it’s way to the door. It walked with an odd limp and dragged it’s back right leg as if it has handicapped. We could hear it start to scratch against the door and make this odd muffled moaning sound. My mom went and got my dad and they both started shouted in Navajo all sorts of words telling the thing to go away and saying it’s not welcome here. Well all this commotion was enough to get the rest of the trailer up as they came out into the hallway. The only thing my mom did was turn to them and said “skin walker” while proceeding to point to the door (noises STILL happening). Apparently they already knew exactly what to do as my grandfather got out a handgun from a drawer and a bag of ashes. He coated a few bullets and loaded them into the gun and went straight to the door. Yelling out more Navajo that was too fast for me to comprehend he swung open the door and fired twice. Nothing. The thing managed to escape before my grandpa could put a bullet in it. “That’s the fastest one I’ve ever seen”, said my grandpa. Next thing you know my aunts and my parents are freaking out about what just happened saying stuff like, “What if it comes back tomorrow?” and “It saw us, does that mean we’re targets now?”. Afterwards my grandparents calmed everyone down (myself included) saying we’ll be fine and we all went to bed (around 3-ish)

Morning comes and my grandparents call one of their neighbors and explain to them what happened. Apparently one of them was a medicine man who used to partake in Yei Bi Chei’s (Navajo ceremonies used for healing and curing sickness) and came over to bless each family member and the grounds outside.

It Nearly Got Him And His Brother

From Redditor /u/NavajoJoe00:

This is my father’s story written from his perspective …

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.

Say Their Name, And It Will Kill Them

From Redditor /u/lyshaninja:

We live in a rural community on the Navajo Reservation. My aunt and her two brothers were home alone while my grandparents had left for the evening to attend a chapter house meeting. They were in the house and like many people from the reservation they didn’t have electricity. It had been dark outside for about an hour and my aunt and my uncles were getting ready for bed.

Outside they heard noises, as if someone moving things around outside. My oldest uncle went to look out the front window and saw a figure out by the truck. This was immensely out of the ordinary becuase the closest neighboor was miles away. Whatever it was opened the truck door and began to dig through the personal items that my family had left in the vehicle.

My aunt and uncles were frightened by the sight and knew that they should take action. They took out the rifle and all steadied themelves to hold it up. They flung open the door and aimed the gun at the dark figure. The figure turned and started to walk towards them, totally unfaised by the weapon. My uncle pulled the trigger but nothing happened.

The figure drew closer and my aunt began to smell something like a rotting corpse. It was so strong it made her gag. My uncle continued to pull the trigger with no luck and the figure came closer and closer. Off the the distance, headlights were coming up the road. My grandparents were returning.

The figure looked toward the lights and started to move away and tucked itself behind a tree near the house. My oldest uncle ran toward the truck with the gun. My grandfather got out of the car and my uncle pointed to the tree. The thing was poking out its head to observe what they were doing. My grandfather ran into the house and over to the stove and grabbed a hand-full of ashes and rubbed over the gun and placed a ash covered bullet into the chamber.

He walked out onto the porch and fired toward the tree. Whatever that thing was didn’t expect the gun to go off. The gunshot echoed and the dark figure began running. My grandma chased my aunt inside and my uncles and my grandfather went after it.

There weren’t many roads or paths so as my grandfather and uncles chased after the figure, the truck was bouncing and the headlights we’re not fixed on one particular spot. My uncle swears that when ever the headlights would hit the figure he saw a woman, not only that… Whoever it was running on all fours like a bear.

My grandfather eventually stopped the truck and as they neared the ditch that drops about 20 feet. He got out and began to yell in Navajo. My uncle says that he was yelling about a local woman. He yelled that he wasn’t scared and that he knew it was her and to leave his family alone. A few days passed and there was news that the woman that my grandfather was yelling about, had passed.

I’ve always been told that if you know who the skinwalker is, say their name, and it will kill them.

An Attack On A Party Van

From Redditor /u/Trey_Lightning:

Whenever my mom would take us on a road trip to her hometown on the Navajo reservation I’d occasionally ask her to tell me a skinwalker story along the way. I remember every story she’s told me was when we were driving through miles of nothing at night. Luckily, nothing ever happened to us during those drives. Anyways this is one of those stories and it came from my auntie.

So my auntie and some of her friends use to party a lot back in the day. They’d hop in a beaten down van, drive out to the boondocks and just drink and have fun. Of course this all took place on the Navajo reservation after sunset On this particular night that’s what they were doing. Everything was going good and whatnot when all of a sudden they hear what sounds like rocks being thrown at their van. Everyone gets quiet as they wonder what the hell is going on. The sounds of rocks being thrown stops and then suddenly something jumps on top of the van roof! (I should mention my family owned a white van that we would use for road trips because it had enough room for all my brothers and me, so imagine young me being told this story in a van. TERRIFYING) Everyone starts panicking as the realization sets in and hurry to lock all the doors. My auntie jumps in the driver seat and tries to start the engine. Of course, the beaten down van then refuses to start. Whatever is on the roof is still up there making banging noise at this point like it’s jumping up and down. My auntie is freaking out when she then sees a hand with long nails reach over the roof and start scratching the windshield. (At this point in the story my mom would take one hand off the steering wheel and scratch the windshield to simulate it). Then whatever was on the roof jumps off. Everyone is still freaking out yelling at my auntie to start the van and she keeps trying. That’s when she sees the skinwalker walk up to the driver side window and stare at her just a few inches away. Well, that’s when my auntie jumped in the back and started praying for her life. Minutes pass and the skinwalker appears to leave. My auntie hops back in the driver seat and gets the van to start and off they go!!

A Mysterious Legend Encounters Mormon Missionaries

From Redditor /u/OuttaSightDude:

While trading stories around a campfire, my friend recalled an encounter he had while serving an LDS mission.

My friend’s mission region had a reservation within its boundaries. However, it was relatively far from where he was serving. On one occasion, him and his mission companion were asked to travel further than usual to meet with some investigators. This took them near the reservation. On their way home, their car ran out of gas, and it wasn’t until late at night that they were able to continue the journey home.

My friend (who was driving while his companion slept in the passenger seat) chose a different route that took him through some backroads in an attempt to get home sooner. He told us he was driving above the speed limit when he noticed movement in the woods lining the road. Because coyotes were common in the area, he took little notice at first. Then he looked out the window and slammed on the brakes.

The sudden stop jolted his companion awake, who immediately wanted to know what was wrong. My friend was shaken and said he would tell him once they got home. He asked him to say a prayer.

By the time they made it home, his companion was dying to know what had happened. My friend told him,

“I looked down at the road next to the car and saw six men running on all fours, keeping up with the car. I was driving 40 miles an hour.”

The Yenaldlooshi Has Found Me

From Redditor /u/Fireclawiswoot: 

My grandmother on my mothers side has always been very Superstitious, for lack of better word, she’s not religious, but she does believe in a lot of paranormal stuff.

Her mother was full blooded Navajo and her father was Irish. Either way, she’d never been anywhere East of Montana and she grew up in Nevada.

One year, when I was in Gradeschool, we went to visit her, most of the visit was pretty uneventful, typical boring old people stuff, except she always kept her curtains drawn shut and would always peek out the window and when someone asked what she was doing, she would simply reply ” Yenaldlooshi is watching me”

This went on for nearly the entire visit until a few days before we were due to leave, My grandma and my (then) baby brother (he’s 19 now lol) were in the front yard that evening, planting flowers when all of a sudden, my grandmother starts shouting “Insert little brothers name here get away from that creature! It’s not safe!” of course, being in Nevada, we all assumed that my brother had found a scorpion or a rattle snake, so we all run outside, to see my Grandmother clutching my little brother and shaking in terror against the side of the house, standing out in the yard, was a large, black, great-dane sized dog, it was staring at my grandmother with an intensity I’d never seen before. It looked up at us, gave a little huff and bounded off, I don’t remember if it moved unusually fast or not, but do remember it had really deep yellow eyes.

When my mother asked my grandmother what had happened, she kept repeating “The Yenaldlooshi has found me”. She moved a couple weeks after that. 1,327395Is this scary?111407 VOTES

A Coyote Walking On Two Legs

From Redditor /u/Endulos:

I was told this story once. My Dad isn’t a bull sh*tter or a liar, so I know the story is true.

So, this was the VERY early 80’s, and my Sister, who lived in Toronto came down to visit our Parents for a weekend. She was staying at a friends house, who loaned her a car so she could come out. After her visit, she left a little after 9 pm. She got maybe 7-8 miles away when the car broke down.

Thankfully, she broke down in front of a friend of the families house. They let her in to call Dad, and Dad came to get her. The family said she could leave the car in their driveway for the night, and my Sister decided to just stay at my parents for the night.

It was now a little after 10 pm and pitch black (Late november), while my Sister and Dad are driving back to the house and they pass through a heavily wooded area.

Out of no where they hear this INCREDIBLY F*CKING LOUD inhuman SCREAM that was heard over the engine, them talking and the radio. Dad SLAMMED on the brakes and they both started freaking out, when suddenly a 6 foot tall Coyote walking on TWO LEGS with a black/white stripped tail appeared on the side of the road and proceeded to walk in front of the car.

As soon as it passed, that same scream played again only this time 10x louder. Dad SLAMMED on the accelerator and they got the f*ck out of there.

It was never seen again.

The Creature Had A Human Face

From Redditor /u/nakedreagan: 

My roommate has told me this story a few times, and I want to see if anyone else has had similar experiences. As he tells it, he was driving home super late at night, maybe around 3 or 4 a.m. in a suburb of Phoenix, AZ both times that this occurred. The first time, he was driving alone on a road that has an open field to the left of it when out of nowhere a black figure on all fours bounds up out of the field and across the road in front of his car. As soon as the figure got to the other side of the road, it stops with inhuman quickness, turns around, and looks directly at my roommate. He described the figure as looking simian, completely black except for the face. The creature’s face was a stark white human face. Not white as in Caucasian, but white as snow.

This happened again a few weeks later, but this time the creature was sitting in a tree. As his car approached, it climbed down the tree, again with inhuman quickness, bounded across the road, stopped on a dime and turned around and made eye contact with him. This time he had a friend in the car who also saw it and began freaking out. It was the same exact thing as the first time, a simian, black body with a snow-white, expressionless human face. My roommate, ever the curious one turned the car around and began searching for the creature, but it was nowhere to be seen. 

This Was No Normal Girl

According to an account from Darkness Prevails, not all skinwalkers are found around reservations, or even within the US, for that matter. This tale of terror comes all the way from Australia. While walking her dogs out in the Australian bush, a woman encountered a fearful sight. She was enjoying the trail when suddenly her two dogs started barking uncontrollably and becoming extremely agitated.  

Soon she saw what appeared to be a small female child, no older than seven. The child had her back to the woman, who was only a bit startled at first, as she believed the child was just part of a camping party. However, when the girl turned around, her eyes were lifeless and entirely black.

Before the woman could make a break for it, the creature let out an earsplitting howl and ran off into the bush, never to be seen again. She was left wondering if the child she saw was someone pulling a prank on her or if it was really a shapeshifting skinwalker. She may never know. 

The White-Masked Creature

In Hunt for the Skinwalker, George Knapp and Colm Kelleher relay the stories of those who came into contact with skinwalkers near Native American tribal lands. One account from a New Mexico highway patrol officer states that while patrolling the highways of New Mexico, he saw a skinwalker on two separate occasions.  

In his first encounter, a creature wearing a white mask appeared next to his window, seemingly attaching itself to the car door. But then he realized it was simply running beside the vehicle, keeping pace at highway speeds. A few days later and around the same area, he encountered the creature again. What makes this tale even more intriguing is that at least one other officer claimed to have seen the same ghoulish being while patrolling the area.

There Were Two Skinwalkers

On the ghost stories blog Darkness Prevails, user John shared his story of how a relaxing midnight stroll turned terrifying when he came face-to-face with two skinwalkers. According to his chilling story, John was out late one summer night. While listening to music and enjoying the cool weather, he walked near a large empty field that was adjacent to a college campus. Suddenly, he felt something staring at him. Shining his flashlight out into the darkness, he saw two sets of glowing orange eyes staring back at him. The eyes were at least seven feet off the ground and stared at him without blinking once.

John made a mad dash for safety. As he was running, he turned back to see one of the creatures chasing him. John became even more frightened when he got a better glimpse of the fast-moving creature behind him: It looked like a giant wolf. Quickening his pace, John reached his home safely, but he remains fearful of the monsters he saw that night, which he believes were skinwalkers.  

Faster Than Any Dog

From Redditor /u/Half-eaten_Waffle:

There was one time I went camping with two of my buddies, but neither of them are real outdoorsy type. I was just kind of getting them into the whole camping/hunting scene. Now, I love hiking. Exploring, more like because I hate just walking a trail. You’re seeing nothing new. So took the two friends out there a ways, and got two miles from camp when they just wanted to go back. I said fine and showed them where to go on my phone, and made them put a waypoint on the other little GPS thing I had to follow. I wanted to keep going, so I did so by myself. They wanted the pistol I had on me for safety reasons, leaving me to walk alone in the forest with water and nothing else. No big deal, I thought.

I found a steep hillside with rocks all the way down when I was about five miles from camp, and decided to go down. I followed the “path” at the bottom of this thing, which was at this point just a dry river bed. I walked down and it got steeper as I went further south. When I crossed a certain point, something just felt wrong. I started trying to look around for anything, but there was a huge log across the two hillsides, and when I crouched down to crawl under it, it felt like I was being watched.

I looked up to my left, saw nothing. Looked around to see if there was anything in the middle of the riverbed, then looked up to the right. Huge, huge black canine. Too small to be a bear, but it looked like a wolf on steroids. That dog creature and I held glances for what felt like hours, but I know it couldn’t have been more than ten seconds. Every passing moment made the feeling of dread worse. I moved backwards to get the hell out of there, and when I moved the wolf thing just booked it into the forest, further from camp. In hindsight, this thing was moving faster than any dog I’ve ever seen.

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