"The truth is around here... someplace" - Paul Ross ...
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“The truth is around
here... someplace”
PAUL ROSS attends a UFO conference with a difference: it’s run by Native American tribes
living around the town of Dulce, New Mexico – and they’re as likely to tell you about their
Bigfoot and skinwalker encounters as to share their saucer sightings. Photos by the author.
I
was going to my first LEFT: Sheldon Nuñez-Velarde,
UFO convention and the Jicarilla Apache artist, relives a
key questions were: moment when he encountered
Will the guests of honour a Bigfoot at the spot where it
show up? Or are they happened.
already here?
Among conspiracy
cognoscenti, Dulce, New Mexico, DAY ONE: UNDER THE
is prime alien country; it’s where MOUNTAIN
“they” – the secret governments Sheldon Nuñez-Velarde is a big,
that really control the world – friendly, openly “two-spirited”
are working with “them” – the (gay) artist, renowned as a potter
Greys, Nordics, Reptilians and, and beader. 1 Before he told me
for all I know, Klingons. about – and showed me – the
The Internet is rife with places where he’d encountered
leaked secret footage of a Bigfoot, he introduced me to his
local but massive underground uncle, Hoyt Velarde, a 22-year-
complex in Dulce, where plots veteran Bigfoot hunter, whose
and cross-species hybrids are creds include a spate of TV
hatched. And it’s all linked to appearances as an expert on the
the capitals of the world by a elusive creature. (He was lead
network of tunnels, with trains tracker on the Finding Bigfoot
that can relocate passengers series.) In contrast to his affable
from northern New Mexico nephew, Hoyt was aggressive
to Washington, D.C., in seven and challenging, informing me
minutes. that while he’s both educated
What’s different about the and experienced, I was just
Dulce Base UFO Conference an unqualified outsider who’d
is that it takes place on the done no fieldwork stalking the
land where the events being mystery hominid.
discussed actually happened He demanded that I tell
– and are still occurring – and him what I knew about local
that it’s organised and run occurrences and people,
by Native American tribes questioned me about stories
– Jicarilla Apache, Southern I’d heard, and wondered aloud
Ute and Dineh or Navajo. It if he should even talk to me.
includes tribal members taking Though tribal members had
conference attendees onto legally restricted
sacred lands where not only have there
“I bait him with been told about my assignment and that
many appointments had been scheduled,
been close encounters of at least two kinds,
but also paranormal experiences which run
the gamut from ghosts to a resident Bigfoot
apples, chicken, he threatened that, if I wrote anything, he’d
deny meeting me. I calmly replied that I
was not there as an authority, nor to draw
population. I hoped to speak to indigenous
folk who’ve had personal interactions and
donuts and Vienna conclusions or offer personal opinion. My
goal was to research, interview and report
encounters with unusual phenomena and
learn what tribal legends and oral histories sausages...” only what I saw and was told. Satisfied,
Hoyt’s façade cracked and he admitted he’d
have to tell us. been testing me. (For what reason,
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361 NATIVE AMERICAN FEATURE.indd 42 23/11/2017 15:18
ABOVE: Archuleta Mesa rises over the New Mexico town of Dulce, in the heart of the Jicarilla Apache Nation. BELOW: Bigfoot tracker Hoyt Velarde has been an
eyewitness to both the legendary cryptid and UFOs.
I still don’t know. It’s not like I was trying “I bait him with apples, chicken, donuts,
to become Apache.) Then he opened up not Vienna sausage, horse feed,” he replied.
only about Bigfoot but also about the other When pressed about Bigfoot’s natural diet,
subject of the conference: UFOs. “We’ve got Hoyt wrinkled up his nose and said the
a word for them, yatah-naht’ai,” he began. “It creature is omnivorous. When desperately
means ‘thing that flies in the sky.’” hungry, it can rip a full-grown deer apart,
As a retired law enforcement officer and it’s drawn to human habitation by
whose beat had been the entire reservation, garbage ... and worse. “It will push an
he doubted that there’s something nefarious outhouse over and eat that up... that’s why he
going on inside neighbouring Archuleta smells so bad.”
Mesa. “They don’t understand what ‘under The characteristic reek is how most
the mountain’ means,” he said, waving his of the people that I met interacted with
hands around to indicate the town where Bigfoot. More had smelled than seen
most of the Jicarilla Apache live and the him, and the creature’s pungent odour
nearby lands at the foot of the imposing had obviously made quite an impression
butte. “I’ve been all over that mountain, on them. Observations and descriptions
looking [for the hidden base]. Call me included: “stinks bad”; “like a big, dirty
with any information about Archuleta dog”; “sweaty”; “terrible”; “mould and dead
Mesa and I’ll go with you! Nobody calls.” deer”; “sulphurous and really rank”; “a cross
But, even though he discounts stories of between a billy-goat and human body odour
covert activities within the imposing rock from someone who has not taken a bath for
formation, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have months!”; “makes you gag and your eyes
a close encounter. He claimed that, while water”.
working with Paul Bennewitz, 2 the storied In spite of the overpowering stench given
UFO researcher credited with introducing off by the big creature, when hunting him
the concept of the vast underground base “He’s an individual,” claimed Hoyt, Hoyt must mask his own human smell. “I
at Dulce, he found a futuristic, unmanned returning to his principal subject, “who is use scent-killer [a hunter’s camouflaging
aircraft, which was “probably ours”. smart. [In the woods] he knows you’re there product] and baby powder when I go out
Returning to the site the next day, he found and is watching you.” ‘squatchin’.”
that the ship was gone and “there were If the creature (we’ll stay with Hoyt’s “It screams like a woman!” declared
tracks of military boots and tires all over”. choice of a singular to stand in for various Geri Julian, describing how many tribal
He has seen many unexplained aerial members of the putative species) is so wary, members first became aware of the animal.
objects since that time; but his overriding how it that he’s been able to successfully She said that her grandmother had heard
obsession is Bigfoot. stalk him, I asked. it as a girl and remained frightened her
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ABOVE LEFT: Etched into the “desert varnish” on a rock face, this petroglyph seems to show creatures with large feet and an enormous footprint. ABOVE RIGHT:
Taken just last spring, a footprint cast with a pen showing relative size. BELOW: The obligatory blurry Bigfoot photo, and a surprise for “Little Miss Jicarilla”.
entire life. Several witnesses told me of quickly outdistanced and then lost sight of it
yells, yowls, grunts and roars. Hoyt went when their prey effortlessly leapt around a
so far as to imitate the guttural, rumbling sheer cliff face.
mutters he’s heard over the years but, as for Like many others raised on the ‘rez’, or
understanding the intra- and interspecies reservation, Sheldon had been warned to
communication, “I can’t make head or tail always be indoors by nightfall with all the
of it.” window shades drawn. He said he no longer
ventures into the forest alone by night or day.
DAY TWO: ON THE REZ Some tribal members described Bigfoot
Sheldon Nuñez-Velarde drove me to where as “curious, like a child… peeking out
he’d seen a Bigfoot. We left the car and from either side of a tree, which wasn’t
walked through a picturesque, steep-walled hiding him.” Others reported outright
and heavily wooded canyon, dappled with aggressiveness: charging attacks, throwing
sunlight and deep shadows. It opened to rocks (common) and, on one occasion,
a vista of distant mountains. When the rocking a truck from side-to-side in a display
incident happened, Sheldon was taking a of territorially defensive fury.
friend to see an ancient stone ruin, but didn’t In the course of two interviews I was told
tell him the destination because “he’s Navajo that, if you are close enough to see a Bigfoot
and superstitious [about such places].” They face, “you have to consult a medicine man,
spotted a large black “bear” seated behind because it can affect your mind”. Others said
a trashcan. Then it stood up, way up, on two
feet, before vanishing into the forest in three
He’d been warned they had not heard such a thing nor do they
believe it.
six-foot strides.
Superstition aside, the duo scampered to be indoors by Throughout the interviews on the rez –
and prior to arriving, when I was setting
nightfall with all
up a two-storey ladder and hid in the ruins up meetings in phone conversations – I
before fleeing home. The following day, kept seeking oral histories, tribal stories,
tracks were measured at 13in (33cm). There lore, art, ceremonies, and religious aspects
was another sighting in the area soon after,
when trained hunter-trackers caught a
the shades drawn of observations pertaining to paranormal
phenomena. People either couldn’t or
glimpse of a Bigfoot; in stalking it, they were wouldn’t tell me anything. I thought that
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ABOVE: The Paranormal Rangers – Jonathan Dover and Stanley Milford Jr. BELOW: Chuck Wade, with some of his extraterrestrial scrap.
it was perhaps a recent development New Mexico.4 Chuck’s theory about the high
or a forbidden topic. I know that many FROM THE FILES OF THE number of downed aircraft is that “they
indigenous people tend to be taciturn, if were shot down by high-powered radar from
not secretive, and there are many reasons
PARANORMAL RANGERS Los Alamos” (the government laboratories
why, from exploitation to persecution. A (REAL CASES FROM THE SPECIAL PROJECTS UNIT) where the atom bomb was born).
lot of locals were generous when revealing As I held a twisted piece of light grey
their personal stories, but links to historic “THE CASE OF THE BIGFOOT TRACKS” material, Chuck identified it as basically
chronicles were not apparent. I found While on the trail, 25lb (11.34kg) boulders aluminium overlaid with a perplexing
a photo of a parade featuring a home- are suddenly thrown 135 metres at Stan amalgam of alloys that defied attempts to
built flying saucer float from 1978, but I and Jon. destroy or even scratch it.
encountered no keeper of the past that I was “THE OLD MAN CASE” There were a few outright loons in the
able to access… with one minor exception. A respected tribal elder reports a late-night conference mix – to be expected whenever
Late in the day, Bryan Vigil drove sighting of “children” whose description there are more questions than answers about
me out to a rock dike to show me an matches that of aliens. a topic – who presented just enough science
ancient petroglyph, which he said was “THE ORB CASE” jargon to make warp jump conclusions sound
a representation of a Bigfoot footprint. No one believes a hysterical woman who vaguely credible. They delivered their talks
He proved to be another – in old Western claims that she was chased by glowing in a confident, self-convinced way, and were
frontier terminology – “hostile”, bitching orbs, until Stan and Jon detect mysterious a tad hostile towards any truth which was
magnetic residue on her car.
about his life and blaming everything on the inconvenient. When it came to discussion of
dominant culture around him, while seeing “THE SATAN BUTTE CASE” other worlds, they were creating their own.
me as either mogani (whitey) or a source of Both unexplained lights and unmarked black Then it was back down to Earth with the
money. Finally, fed up and on the way back choppers terrify the residents of a small most interesting speakers of the day: the
to the convention, I called him on his racism town. Paranormal Rangers.5 Stanley Milford, Jr
and reminded him of two factors: I was a “THE COIN CASE” and Jonathan Dover are Navajo Rangers,
guest and his elder. He became much more After investigating a poltergeist, the law enforcement officers charged with
civil. phenomenon follows Stan home, where serving America’s largest Indian reservation
coins materialise out of thin air. (174,544,500 acres, which sprawl across three
DAY THREE: PARANORMAL “AND SOMETIMES, IT’S JUST A states). Dover is retired, Milford actively
RANGERS CASE” serves, but they travel together telling
At the Dulce Base UFO Conference, A noisy backyard Sasquatch is fascinating tales of their adventures, which
local tribal presenters were joined by revealed to be criminals trying to sound like a Tony Hillerman novel by way
Anglo (white) participants who had scare a woman off her property. of The X-Files. The duo have professionally
spoken before at various paranormal investigated cases involving UFOs and
conventions. One couple, Chuck Bigfoot, as well as hauntings, witchcraft and
and Nancy Wade, researched even skinwalkers (maleficent shape-shifters
or collected debris from what in Najajo lore, believed by many to be real
they claimed were seven (see Tea Krulos, “The Accidental Werewolf
alien ‘crash sites’ throughout Chronicler”, FT329:38-41). Strange cases
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amounted to “less than one per cent of our witnesses. And here is what I was told: Bigfoot is “about eight to nine feet in
job,” they said, but they outlined a few of height” and, in colour, is “almost white to
their most memorable examples. UFO ENCOUNTERS perfectly black”; but no bodies have been
Stan openly wonders if some paranormal Noraline Vicenti: “I see a lot of orbs... going found because they’re in remote areas and
activity is inter-dimensional. Jon comments: down the line of the [Navajo] river. One “scavengers take them apart”.
“We’ve been attacked by non-physical actually shined a light at us and then – Geri Julian: “I saw one with a baby. Our
forms”, but hastens to add that the two zoom!” forefathers said that they are going to come
Rangers “have collected evidence that could Geri (Geraldine) Julian: “I saw silent back to us.”
be used in court”. twinkle lights in the sky. One was a small Cleo Wells: “I saw a grey one with gold
The Paranormal Rangers weren’t triangle, another was two multi- eyes, like an owl or a coyote.
the only Native American law coloured joined circles – like a It had yellow skin partially on its face.”
enforcement officers linked pair of glasses, and a house Timothy Anderson, a former police officer,
to cases of paranormal shape.” has found “structures [and] nests with bones
activities. The late Gabe Sookie Vicenti: “My in them.”
Valdez (1944-2011) is cat was hissing. I turned Bryan Vigil: “I was told that they can jump
a legendary local who around and saw big eyes, on pine trees and hide. Holy Shit! Now, I look
heavily investigated a little nose, on a little up before I look down.”
UFO incidents around figure, four feet tall. It was
Archuleta Mesa 6 – the white, white, white.” A COMBINATION OF UFO & BIGFOOT?
purported Dulce Base – and Nina Zaentz: “I’ve seen Tales and speculation connected the two
cattle mutilations, which are [livestock] mutilations. It thematic elements in stories I was told
rumoured by many locals to still wasn’t done by an animal. There of Bigfoot instantaneously vanishing
occur. was no blood. They took organs, tail, when shot at, dimensional portals, and
ears – like using a razor blade.” simultaneous sightings of hovering lights
DAY FOUR: MEET THE LOCALS Lorene Willis: “People don’t want to talk” and hairy hominids. Finally, I found someone
I skipped the morning’s featured presenter for fear of ridicule or being “harassed by the who spoke about her personal encounters
(Ken Johnston, a “Civilian Astronaut military.” involving the two.
Consultant Pilot,” on NASA image cover-ups) Cleo Wells, a Medicine Woman, had been
in favour of more interviews with local tribal BIGFOOT ENCOUNTERS warned in childhood about “a scary man
members who were UFO and/or Bigfoot According to Hoyt Velarde, a fully-grown who lives in the sky named ‘Gobble’”. Years
ABOVE LEFT: Medicine Woman Cleo Wells stands next to a painting of her relative, whose traditions she proudly carries on. TOP: A souvenir beaded pin made by
artist Sheldon Nuñez-Verlade. ABOVE RIGHT: Timothy Anderson with some large footprint casts he had made in the spring of 2017.
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ABOVE LEFT: Abductee Travis Walton spoke about his close encounter and alien visits to Earth. ABOVE RIGHT: Dulce Base UFO Conference Master of Ceremonies
Alan Tafoya is a man of many talents: actor, singer, songwriter, and someone still fighting mad at the aliens who frightened his little brother decades ago.
later, on 16 April 1986, she was on the rez names had not been listed in the event’s neutral.”
and climbing up out of a canyon when: “I programme. “They’re here. There are aliens here...
felt a cool mist going all over me, like when The conference ended with two celebrity nothing supernatural, mystical or magical
you come out of a shower”. She could just guests: one was somebody in a costume about it.”
discern a figure standing at the crest. She got (organisers delivered on their promise to “Overall, what we’re going to find is
to the top and followed as it appeared and “feature Bigfoot”) and the second was that life forms are going to be amazingly
disappeared in the trees. “I saw a big, hairy arguably the most famous alien abductee of familiar.”
man with pink hands and feet... but couldn’t all – Travis Walton. [6] Far from flogging a Walton hinted that, in the near future,
catch up with him.” mutilated horse, Walton’s talk revealed that there may be another film or television
In a second incident, she was walking his 40-plus- year-old Close Encounter of the version of Fire in the Sky, the 1993 film based
by nearby Mundo Lake when, again, a Worst Kind had become the basis for a life on his book The Walton Experience.
“sprinkling fog” enveloped her before she of reflection, contemplation, and carefully So now I have been to my first Native
smelled and saw something “big, tall and considered speculation. American UFO & Bigfoot conference. Am I
hairy with pink elbows, hands and feet”. Here is a summation of the main points of his a believer? No – but I do have questions I’ve
Again, she tried to follow the vision but the Dulce Base talk. never considered before. And, if invited back,
creature was too fast and eluded her. “We’re not alone. It’s just a fact of life.” I will go, with an open mind, a seeker’s eye,
Her most recent encounters were in March (Of his famed abduction) “I was injured and a hopeful heart.
of 1997, but proved to be a be-careful-what- in an accident. I was fortunate to be taken
you-wish-for situation, when 4ft- (1.2m) tall aboard and revived. At that time [1975], NOTES
Bigfeet turned vicious, and went on the they’re the only ones who could have [done 1 www.jicarillaapachepottery.com
attack, chasing Wells, her boyfriend, and her this].” 2 See Christa Tilton, The Bennewitz Papers,
two dogs halfway down a mountain. Though “I showed symptoms of extreme stress and Inner Light Publications 1994.
she has not seen another since, the eerie was worried in the immediate aftermath. 3 www.chuckwadeufo.com
mist once enshrouded her home and she Nothing developed. If anything, I was having 4 www.youtube.com/user/
subsequently discovered a large handprint exceptional health... never called in sick in TheParanormalRangers; FaceBook:
and what she surmised was an enormous 40 years.” ParanormalRangers
forehead print on her bedroom window. “In the 1970s, the aliens put us on notice. 5 www.gabevaldez.com
Back at the conference, I found the They’re engaged in deliberate exposure. 6 www.travis-walton.com
afternoon was largely devoted to “Meet the Their purpose is to get us ready. We’re a part
Locals”. There they were, ready and willing of the galactic community, but we need to be ✒ PAUL ROSS is a travel writer, photographer
to talk to attendees, after I’d spent the more mature.” and videographer based in Santa Fe, New
whole morning running around searching “If they wanted this planet, it’d be a done Mexico. With Judith Fein, he runs the website
out the same people to interview! Their deal. I believe they’re benevolent, or at least, www.globaladveture.us.
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