Who is Erik Bard? The physicist tackling the enigma of Skinwalker Ranch
What’s the science behind the spooky stuff you see on Sky HISTORY series Curse of Skinwalker Ranch? Physicist Eric Bard is determined to find out.
Image: Erik Bard | Curse of Skinwalker Ranch
What’s happening at Skinwalker Ranch? It’s a question thought to have foxed past residents of this mysterious 512-acre property in eastern Utah.
This initially innocuous-looking ranch has reputedly long been a hotbed of disturbing paranormal activity. So, it’s unsurprising that after acquiring the site in 2016, businessman Brandon Fugal was eager to get to the bottom of the mystery.
In a bid to do that, he dispatched a bevy of researchers — including physicist Erik Bard — to the area. Many fruits of their extensive efforts can be seen on the hit Sky HISTORY show Curse of Skinwalker Ranch.
With his stringently academic approach and unfailingly level head, Erik helps to ensure that the team’s conclusions have a strong scientific grounding. However, what else do we know about this long-term associate of Brandon’s?
Erik Bard’s background
Erik Bard was born on 2nd April 1973. After studying physics at Brigham Young University, Erik embarked on a prodigious scientific career. This has included helping to develop the M-DISC archival optical data storage technology.
Erik’s early scepticism about Skinwalker Ranch
In an April 2023 interview on That UFO Podcast, Erik revealed that he first heard the term ‘skinwalker’ in 1993. A skinwalker is a legendary shapeshifting creature in stories shared by the Navajo, a Native American tribe.
The Uinta Basin is said to be teeming with skinwalkers. Many bizarre occurrences at the ranch — itself located in the Uinta Basin — have been linked to skinwalkers. This explains how Skinwalker Ranch got its modern name.
Residents of the ranch have — according to journalist George Knapp — spotted the likes of 'UFOs, Sasquatch, cattle mutilations, [and] psychic manifestations'. As you can imagine, Erik was sceptical about such reports when Skinwalker Ranch first came to his attention in the early 2010s.
'It sounded very far-fetched, … [like] a mashup of every paranormal theme and meme convergent upon one property,' Erik recalled to That UFO Podcast.
Erik’s role on the show
Are we alone in the universe? This conundrum has long fascinated Brandon, motivating his decision to snap up Skinwalker Ranch. However, Erik first met Brandon years before then, in 2011. According to Erik, Brandon quickly realised 'what a straight shooter I tend to be when it comes to speculative subject matter'.
In Brandon’s eyes, this must have made Erik the ideal person to add to his research team at Skinwalker Ranch. Not that Erik himself was entirely keen on the idea at first. He eventually changed his mind after meeting other researchers already involved.
As the Curse of Skinwalker Ranch team’s principal investigator and chief scientist, Erik has had plenty of opportunities to burnish his already impressive scientific credentials.
His valued contributions to Skinwalker Ranch have included a sophisticated 24/7 surveillance system across the site. From his command centre on the ranch, he has been able to capture crucial video footage of spooky goings-on.
Erik’s biggest moments on the show
Erik has made good use of technology — even if it has, on many occasions, seemingly been struck by the curse referenced in the show’s title. For example, during the physicist’s time on the ranch, his smartphone has sometimes mysteriously stopped functioning.
Fortunately for Curse of Skinwalker Ranch viewers, many of Erik’s more eye-opening encounters with the ranch’s shadowy forces have been televised on the show itself. Here’s a highlights reel…
Erik spots… a mischievous alien visitor?
One specific area of the ranch, the Triangle, has seen an especially large concentration of strange happenings. It’s no wonder, then, that the crew have opted to carry out many of their experiments there.
These tests have included attempting to send rockets soaring directly above the Triangle. Suspiciously, those rockets have veered off course for no obvious reason. Could some extraterrestrial entity be trying to jeopardise the team’s plans?
In the third season’s ninth episode, Erik spotted a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon) on his monitor. The timing suggested that this UAP could have been responsible for deflecting a rocket fired by the Skinwalker Ranch team.
A tree-mendous discovery
Erik’s canny observation skills also came into play in the fifth season. Erik noticed that one tree on the ranch site had an unnatural-looking circular hole in its canopy.
Closer inspection of the hole suggested that it could have formed more than 30 years earlier, when a UFO allegedly crashed at the ranch. Could this craft have damaged the tree on the way down?
Many other historical mysteries abound, too. To learn more about how academics are striving to unravel them, subscribe to the Sky HISTORY newsletter today.
