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The Skinwalker Asylum_ Where The Patients Were Never Human _ The Macabre History · The Mind of a Man

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In 1987, 14 people walked out of an asylum and
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: left the doors wide open. The lights stayed on. The
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: patients stayed inside. But when authorities arrived at dawn, the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: patients had vanished. All 37 of them. Because they were
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: never human to begin with. There's an asylum that doesn't
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: appear on Google Maps. The Navajo elders know exactly where
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: it stands. And they'll tell you with absolute certainty. Never
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: go there after dark. Never look through the windows of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Ward 7. And never, ever say its name three times.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: They call it the Skinwalker Asylum. And what happened inside
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: between 1952 and 1987 represents the most disturbing chapter in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: American psychiatric history. A chapter the government tried to erase completely.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: The facility was officially called Red Mesa Psychiatric Treatment Center.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Built in 1952 in the remote desert borderlands of the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Navajo Nation. It was designed to house 200 of America's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: most severely mentally ill patients, isolated, surrounded by endless canyon lands,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: 47 miles from the nearest town, the perfect place to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: hide people society wanted to forget. But there was one problem.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: The Navajo had marked this land as forbidden for centuries.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Ancient petroglyphs nearby showed figures that were neither human nor animal,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: engaged in rituals that anthropologists still forget. can't interpret. The
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: elders said this was where the Yi Naldushi were born,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the witches who could wear the skins of animals and humans.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Construction workers reported seeing figures watching from the cliffs, figures
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: that moved with wrong joints, that shifted between human and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: animal when you looked directly at them. Three workers quit
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: in the same week, all saying they heard voices calling
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: their names from directions where no one stood. But construction
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: continued because federal money had been allocated. The asylum opened
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: in November 1952. The first patients arrived in winter, and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: within two weeks, a nurse filed a report that would
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: be buried for decades. Night shift nurse Patricia Chung found
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: patient 17 standing in his room at 2.14 a.m., speaking
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: in a language that she said made my teeth hurt.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: He'd been completely catatonic since arrival, unresponsive to everything. But
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: that night, he stood facing the wall, speaking in rapid
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: clicks that seemed to come from behind his throat. When
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Chung called for backup and they entered... He turned around.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Her incident report contained one sentence that was highlighted by
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: every supervisor who read it. His face was not the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: same face from his admission photo. The proportions were wrong.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: The eyes were set differently, but it was still him
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: same body, same scars, same wristband, just a different face underneath.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Three days later, patient 17 was found dead. The autopsy
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: revealed he'd died of starvation and dehydration as if he
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: hadn't eaten in weeks. Yet staff had watched him eat
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the day before. More disturbing was his skin. The medical
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: examiner wrote that it appeared to have been removed and replaced,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: though no incision marks present. The director ordered immediate cremation,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and the death was recorded as natural causes. But the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: staff knew something was wrong. Because the patients were changing,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Nurse Maria Gonzalez started secretly taking Polaroids of patients during intake,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: keeping them in her locker. Weeks later, When she compared
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: them to the patients, the faces were different. Subtly, but definitely.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: A nose slightly wider. Eyes closer together. Ears shaped differently.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: She wrote in her private journal, They wear faces like
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: we wear clothes. Either I'm losing my mind, or something
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: is stealing pieces of them. By Spring, 1953. Surveillance footage
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: showed 47 patients sitting in silence, all turning their heads
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: in the same direction at the exact same moment, tracking
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: something invisible across the room, all standing simultaneously and walking
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to windows, pressing their faces against glass, breathing patterns that
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: fogged the windows in identical shapes. The doctors called it
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: mass psychogenic illness, but it was something far worse. The
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Navajo maintenance workers were the first to understand. Thomas Begay,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: a groundskeeper, tried to warn the director in summer 1953.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: He explained that the patients were in, that the asylum
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: had been built where skinwalkers gathered, and that by bringing
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: mentally ill, people, vulnerable people, with fractured minds, they decreated
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: perfect vessels for these beings to inhabit. The director had
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: him removed from the office. The next morning, Begay never
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: showed up for work. He never returned. His family said
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: he performed a cleansing ceremony and refused to speak about
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the asylum, saying only, The things inside are learning how
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: to be us. When they finish learning, they'll leave, and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: we won't be able to tell them apart. Within weeks,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: all seven Navajo workers quit in a coordinated exodus. They
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: left without collecting final paychecks. Vanishing in the night, Ward
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: 7 became the epicenter. It housed the most violent patients.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: transferred from maximum security facilities. But within weeks of arriving,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: they became unnaturally calm. They sat quietly, staring at walls,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: whispering to each other in unknown languages. Dr. Sarah Chun
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: interviewed them and emerged, shaking. One patient, a man who'd
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: killed his entire family in a psychotic break, spoke with
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: perfect clarity. We've been here longer than you. We walked
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: these lands when your ancestors crossed the ocean. You built
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: your prison on our gathering place and brought us food.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Broken minds are easiest to wear. We're learning everything about you, Hal.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: You speak, move, think. When we've learned enough, we'll walk
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: into your cities wearing faces you trust. You'll never know
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: we're not who we appear to be. Dr. Chun recommended
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: immediate evacuation. The director refused. He wanted proof. He wanted documentation.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So he began experiments. that would doom them all. Between
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: 1954 and 1956, the director conducted experiments that were never
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: officially documented. He isolated patients in observation rooms with one-way
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: mirrors and subjected them to psychological tests. What he discovered
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: terrified him. The patients demonstrated knowledge of events happening miles
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: away in real time. They described conversations between staff in
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: locked offices. They knew personal details about doctors, families, their fears.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Their secrets information they couldn't possibly access. In one session,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: patient 73, a woman who arrived completely nonverbal, suddenly described
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the director's childhood home in Massachusetts in perfect detail. The
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: wallpaper in his bedroom. The crack in his ceiling. His
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: mother's perfume. The dog he buried in the backyard at
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: age nine and the guilt he still carried. Then she
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: smiled with too many teeth and said, We can be anyone.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: We can be your mother, your wife, your son, and
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: you'll never know until it's too late. The director didn't
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: return to work for three days. When he came back,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: colleagues noted he'd aged dramatically, hair graying, hands shaking constantly.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: He began drinking heavily but continued the experiments, obsessed. Film
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: footage that survived shows patients sitting motionless for hours, then
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: moving with sudden insect-like speed. Patients whose faces blur on
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: camera as if it couldn't capture their true appearance. Patients
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: staring into the lens with eyes that reflect light like animals,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: a biological feature humans don't possess. Nurses reported nightmares where
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: they couldn't tell which colleagues were real and which were
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: skinwalkers wearing stolen faces. Two doctors had complete breakdowns. The
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: facility struggled to maintain staff, but the federal government kept
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: funding it, and patients kept arriving. Then, in 1958... Everything
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: accelerated with the arrival of Patient 101. Patient 101 was
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: transferred from a federal prison psychiatric ward. His name was
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: redacted from all records. He'd been convicted of multiple murders
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: across the Southwest Killings, with ritualistic elements and removal of
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: victim's skin. From the moment he arrived, other patients became
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: violently agitated, as if his presence disrupted everything. The director
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: saw him as the key to understanding. During recorded interviews...
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Patient 101 explained the transformation process. You have to kill
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: someone you love. That's the first step. Take something sacred
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and destroy it with your own hands. Then you wear
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: an animal skin. Let it merge with your flesh. You
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: become neither human nor animal. You become fluid able to
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: wear any skin, any face, any form. When asked why
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: anyone would do this, he laughed with a sound that
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: had too many tones. Because you... Live forever. When a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: body wears out, you take another. When a face becomes known,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: you change Italiano. There are skinwalkers among you older than
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: your civilization. We're patient. We're learning. Soon there will be
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: more of us than you. The implication was catastrophic. The
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: asylum wasn't just housing skinwalkers who'd possessed patients. It was
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: a training ground where these beings refined their ability to
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: pass as human in modern society. Every patient potentially released
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: was a skinwalker wearing a stolen identity, walking into the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: world to blend into human populations. By the 1960s, the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: facility was falling apart. Staff turnover was catastrophic. Doctors lasted
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: six months on average. Orderlies refused night shifts, claiming they
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: heard their own names called from empty rooms and saw
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: shadows moving with wrong proportions. But the patients thrived. Violin
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: episodes dropped 90%. On paper, Red Mesa achieved unprecedented psychiatric success.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Federal bureaucrats proposed expansion. What the statistics didn't show was
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: that the patients had become too perfect, too controlled, too synchronized.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: They were learning to be human, and they were almost
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: ready to leave. The 1970s brought deinstitutionalization. Psychiatric facilities across
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: America began closing, releasing patients into community care. Red Mesa
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: was no exception. Between 1972 and 1985, over 130 patients
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: were released or transferred. Tracking their outcomes revealed something horrifying.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Records were lost, destroyed, or deliberately erased. Of 130 released patients,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: fewer than 40 were reliably tracked. Twelve died under bizarre
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: circumstances within years. Seventeen simply vanished social security numbers never
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: used again. No death certificates. No trail whatsoever. One patient
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: released in 1976 was arrested for identity fraud two years later.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Police discovered he'd been living as six different people simultaneously,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: maintaining separate homes, jobs, and social circles across Albuquerque. None
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of his acquaintances realized they knew the same person despite
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: similar appearance. He'd changed his mannerisms so completely he became
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: different people. During interrogation, he sat silent for seventeen hours
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: before saying, You can't hold me. This body is just
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: one of many. When it wears out, I'll take another.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: He died in custody that night. The autopsy showed his
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: skin had separated from his musculature like a suit being removed.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Another patient released in 1981 walked out of the desert
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: three months after disappearing from a Phoenix care facility. Tribal
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: police found her covered in dust. She spoke fluent Navajo,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: a language she'd never known. So told Tim they're coming
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: out now. They've learned enough. They can pass as you,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: live as you, replace you, one by one. You won't
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: know until your neighbor looks at you with different eyes.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Until your spouse forgets things, they should remember. and remembers
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: things they shouldn't know. She was institutionalized again. Three days later,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: she escaped and was never found. But inside Red Mesa,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: as patient numbers declined, the remaining inhabitants grew bolder and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: stopped pretending to be human. Between 1983 and 1987, staff
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: members who later violated nondisclosure agreements described incidents that defy explanation.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: One night in 1984, orderly Marcus Webb arrived for his shift.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to find every patient in Ward 7 standing at their doors,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: faces pressed to windows, absolutely silent, watching. When he made
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: eye contact with one woman, she smiled and mouthed words
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: through the glass. He and another orderly went to check.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: When they opened her door, she was in bed, apparently asleep.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: When Webb looked back down the corridor, all patients were
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: in their beds. It was like they showed us they
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: could be in two places at once, he said years later.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: or that what we saw wasn't necessarily real. In 1985,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the longest-term patient, subject to one, told his psychiatrist, We
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: don't need this place anymore. We've learned everything. How to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: talk like you, think like you, blend in. We've been
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: practicing on your staff for decades. Did you wonder why
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: so many workers here change? Why they become different, colder, stranger?
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Some of them aren't your people anymore. We've been walking
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: out in stolen skins for years, and you never noticed.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: The psychiatrist investigated personnel records. Several long-term employees showed dramatic
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: personality shifts, noted in reviews, but dismissed as stress. Three
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: who left were later investigated for identity theft or disappeared entirely.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: One former nurse was found living under a false identity,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: claiming she couldn't remember her real name. When shown photos
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: of herself from Red Mesa, she insisted the woman in
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: them was someone else. Despite matching fingerprints and dental records,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the psychiatrist submitted findings recommending immediate closure and maximum security,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: isolation for remaining patients. This time, federal authorities listened. The
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: closure was scheduled for December 1987. But something went catastrophically
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: wrong in the final weeks. Staff reported time distortions arriving
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: at 6 p.m., looking at their watches to find it
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: was 3 a.m. with no memory of intervening hours. Patients
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: already transferred appeared in hallways. The building malfunctioned, impossibly doors
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: locked from inside empty rooms. Lights and sealed wings flickered
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: in patterns, resembling communication. By November 1987, fewer than thirty
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: patients remained. They stopped eating, stopped speaking, gathered at windows
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: staring at the desert. Night staff saw figures in the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: darkness beyond the perimeter desans, standing motionless in sagebrush, watching.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: When searchlights hit them, nothing appeared. But the moment light
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: swept past, figures reappeared in peripheral vision. The final director
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: ordered emergency sedation and early evacuation. His last report on
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: November 29th stated, The situation has deteriorated beyond my control.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: The facility has become unsafe for reasons I cannot explain professionally.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I'm requesting immediate federal intervention. On November 30th, 1987, at 8.45 p.m.,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Every patient in the facility began screaming simultaneously, not words.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: A unified sound that night Nurse Catherine Yang described as
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: animals imitating humans screaming, getting all the tones wrong. It
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: lasted exactly three minutes, then stopped, leaving total silence. In
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: that silence, staff heard movement, footsteps in empty hallways, doors
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: opening in locked wards, and voices calling their names. Catherine
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Yang heard from Ward 7, though patients there didn't know
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: her name. Catherine, we need you. But it wasn't one voice.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: It was her mother's voice, her sister's voice, her own voice,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: layered together. The director ordered immediate evacuation. All fourteen staff
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: members exited through the main entrance. Yang looked back and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: saw faces pressed against every window to Zenz of patients
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: who should have been secured individually. Oh, watching... All smiling.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: They weren't human smiles, she said. The mouths were too wide.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Teeth too visible. Expressions too perfect to be real. The
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: staff gathered in the parking lot, watching the facility. Light
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: stayed on. Through windows, they saw figures moving through hallways,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: gathering in common areas. More figures than the patient's senses
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: could account for. Then, from the desert darkness, others emerged.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Dozens walking toward the facility from all directions, figures that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: moved wrong, that seemed to shift between human and animal forms.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: The staff watched, paralyzed, as these figures entered through doors
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that opened for them, through windows that shouldn't open. The
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: director tried calling for help, but phone lines were dead.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: This was 1987, no cell phones. An orderly drove 47
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: miles to the nearest working phone and called federal authorities.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: By the time help was summoned... It was 3.47 a.m.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: On December 1st, federal agents and military personnel arrived at dawn.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: What they found was a building with every light on,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: every door open, and not a single living person inside.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: The patients were gone. The figures from the desert were gone.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: The facility was completely empty. But empty isn't accurate. The
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: facility was empty of people but full of evidence. In
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Ward 7, every room had been marked with symbols painted
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in blood-blood that was never identified. The symbols matched ancient
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Navajo pictographs associated with Skinwalker legends. Transformation Markers In Common
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Areas Furniture was arranged in circular ritualistic patterns, matching ceremony
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: sites found in ancient Southwest ruins. Most disturbing was the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: director's old office, sealed since his hospitalization in 1959. The
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: seal had been broken from the inside. It contained his
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: research files. That should have been archived decades ago. Notes. Photos. Recordings.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Documenting years of studying the patients. And on his desk,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: a journal that hadn't been there before. Handwriting matched his.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: But paper and ink were far too fresh for someone
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: who de-died in 1974. It contained one entry. They were
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: leaving now. I was right about everything. They learned what
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: they needed. They can walk among you now. Perfectly human
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: on the surface. Perfectly other underneath. You'll never tell them apart.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Your doctors, neighbors, family, anyone near this place. Could be
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: one of them. We gave them a school. They graduated.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: God forgive us for what we've unleashed. The facility was
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: seized and classified as contaminated. All records remain classified today.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: The building was fenced and placed under federal protection. No demolition.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: No cleanup. Just secured and forgotten. Staff members were interviewed extensively,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: then required to sign the most restrictive NDAs the government offers,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: with severe criminal penalties for violations. Most kept silent until death.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: The few who spoke did so late in life. Deciding
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: truth mattered more than consequences. The 37 patients who... vanished
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that November night were never found. No bodies, no sightings,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: no records beyond archived files. They simply ceased to exist. Or,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: as Navajo elders say, they removed their human skins and
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: walked back into the desert as what they'd always been.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: But here's what keeps researchers awake at night. In the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: decades since Red Mesa closed, there have been reports scattered, dismissed,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: but persistent. People across the Southwest describing encounters with individuals
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: who seem slightly wrong, who know things they shouldn't, who
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: forget crucial details about their own lives, whose faces look
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: subtly different in photos taken weeks apart. In 1993, a
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: woman in Phoenix reported that her husband of 15 years
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: suddenly couldn't remember their wedding anniversary, their daughter's birthday. or
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: where they'd met, but he remembered intimate details about neighbors
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: they barely knew. She filed for divorce, claiming he wasn't
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the man she married. During proceedings, his childhood friends testified
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: they didn't recognize his mannerisms or speech patterns. DNA testing
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: confirmed his identity, but his own mother said something had
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: changed in her son, something fundamental she couldn't articulate. In 2001,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: A software engineer in Albuquerque was investigated when his employer
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: discovered he'd created seven different employee profiles with different names
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and backgrounds, all with his photo. He'd been collecting multiple
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: salaries for three years before detection. During the investigation, co-workers
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: gave conflicting descriptions of his personality. Some said he was
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: shy and quiet. Others said he was aggressive and talkative.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Security footage showed him exhibiting completely different body language, depending
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: on which identity he was using. He vanished before trial
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and has never been found. In 2015, a tribal police
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: officer on Navajo, Nationlands encountered a hitchhiker on a remote
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: highway at 2 a.m. The hitchhiker got in the vehicle
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and engaged in normal conversation for 15 minutes. Then he
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: turned to the officer and said in perfect Navajo, We're
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: everywhere now, in your cities, your governments, your families. You
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: trained us well at that place in the desert. We
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: learned to be you better than you are yourselves. When
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the officer looked over again, the passenger seat was empty.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: The door had never opened. These reports are dismissed as
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: urban legends, hoaxes, but researchers who've studied Red Mesa's sea patterns.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Many witnesses lived within 200 miles of the former facility.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Many reported the incidents occurring on dates close to November.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Trinta teache. and many witnesses themselves displayed personality changes after
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: their encounters, changes noted by family and friends. The Skinwalker
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Asylum still stands. Surrounded by land the Navajo Nation refuses
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to reclaim. It sits empty and off-limits, guarded by federal
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: prohibitions and tribal warnings. The locals say if you approach
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: at night, you'll see lights and windows, shadows moving through
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: empty hallways. If you get close enough, you'll hear voices
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: calling your name, beckoning you inside. In 2018, a group
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: of urban explorers ignored warnings and breached the perimeter fence.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Their helmet camera footage, uploaded to YouTube before being taken
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: down by federal request, shows them entering the main building
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: for 12 minutes. The footage is normal abandoned hallways, peeling paint,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: rusted equipment. Then they reach Ward 7. The camera's audio
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: picks up whispers in multiple languages. The temperature drops, visibly
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: their breath becomes fog. Then one explorer stops and says,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Did you hear that? Someone just said my full name.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: His companions deny hearing anything. The camera swings toward a doorway,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and for three frames less than a tenth of a
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: second something is visible in the darkness beyond. Something with
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the rough shape of a human, but proportions that are wrong.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Limbs too long, a face that's too flat, with eyes
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: that reflect the camera light. The explorers ran. Two made
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: it back to their vehicle. The third, the one who'd
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: heard his name, was found six hours later wandering the
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: highway 12 miles away, confused and disoriented. He had no
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: memory of leaving the facility or the intervening time, but
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: his friends say he came back different. He developed unusual
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: dietary preferences, became fluent in Spanish, though he'd never studied it,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and began exhibiting personality traits completely unlike his previous self.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: His family intervened, taking him to psychiatric evaluation. Doctors found
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong. But his mother insists, that's not my son anymore.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: He looks like him, sounds like him. But something behind
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: his eyes is different. Something watching me that isn't him.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: The footage was analyzed by video forensics experts before federal seize.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: They confirmed it hadn't been manipulated. Whatever appeared in that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: doorway was actually there, actually recorded. The government classified the
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: footage and threatened criminal prosecution for anyone redistributing it. But
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: copies survive in dark corners of the internet. watched by
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: people trying to understand what they're seeing. Here's what the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: government won't tell you. In 2003, a Freedom of Information
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Act request partially released documents from Red Mesa. Most were
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: heavily redacted, but enough survived to confirm the basic facts.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: The facility existed. Unusual incidents were reported and investigated. Staff
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: members did file complaints about unexplained phenomena. And in 1987,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: 37 patients did vanish without trace. On the same night,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the facility was abandoned. But the most revealing document was
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a memo from 1988, one year after closure. It was
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: sent from the Department of Health and Human Services to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the FBI Special Cases Division. The portions not redacted read,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Ongoing monitoring required for individuals with documented exposure to subjects
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: from Red Mesa facility. Behavioral assessment protocols should be implemented
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: for any personnel exhibiting post-employment personality alterations. Recommend tracking all
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: release patients and establishing surveillance parameters for population centers. Within
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: 200 mile radius of former facility location. Threat assessment level. Ongoing.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Threat assessment level. Ongoing, not historical. Ongoing. As if whatever
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: was released from Red Mesa in 1987 is still a
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: threat today. Still being monitored. still considered dangerous enough to
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: warrant federal surveillance 40 years later. Former FBI agent Carl Morrison,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: who worked in the Special Cases Division during the 1990s,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: spoke to a podcast in 2019, shortly before his death.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: He confirmed that Red Mesa remained an active case file.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: We tracked incidents, he said, identity anomalies, personality discontinuities, unexplained
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: knowledge transfers, most centered in the Southwest, but they spread.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: By the time I retired in 2005, we had flagged
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: over 200 individuals as persons of interest. People who displayed
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: characteristics consistent with Red Mesa subjects. But we couldn't prove anything.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: They passed every test DNA, fingerprints, retinal scans. Legally and biologically,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: they were who they claimed to be. But behaviorally, psychologically,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: something was wrong. Like they were performing humanity rather than
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: living it. When asked what he believed... Morrison said. I
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: believe something was housed at Red Mesa that learned to
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: mimic us perfectly. I believe it escaped into the general population.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: And I believe it's still out there, still spreading, still
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: replacing us one by one. The scary part isn't that
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: they're different from us. The scary part is we can
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: no longer tell the difference. The Skinwalker Asylum is real.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: The documents are real. The testimonies are real. What happened
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: inside those walls between 1952 and 1987 is documented, classified,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: and actively suppressed by federal authorities who don't want you
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: asking questions. They do you unto want you knowing that
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: something was released into society that can wear human faces
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: like masks, that can adopt identities and live among us undetected.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Think about the people around you, your coworkers, your neighbors,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: your friends. How well do you really know them? Have
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you noticed small changes? inconsistencies in their behavior? Do they
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: sometimes seem like they're performing rather than being themselves? The
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: patients from Red Mesa learned to be human by studying us,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: by practicing on the staff, by perfecting the imitation. And
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: then they walked out into the world. The government says
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the facility was just an asylum, the closure just routine,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the disappearances just missing paperwork. But the classified memos say otherwise.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: The surveillance programs say otherwise. The ongoing threat assessment says otherwise.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Something is still out there. Something that graduated from the
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Skinwalker Asylum and integrated into human society so successfully that
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: we coo and identify it anymore. So the next time
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: someone you know seems slightly off, slightly wrong, slightly different
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: than you remember, ask yourself, are they having a bad day?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Or are they something else wearing the face of someone
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: you used to know? The asylum may be empty and abandoned.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: but what it released is everywhere. Walking our streets, working
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: our jobs, living in our homes, and we train them
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: so well that we can no longer tell them apart
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: from ourselves. Sleep well, tonight, if you still can. And remember,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: never say its name three times, never approach the building
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: after dark, and never, ever trust that the face looking
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: back at you in the mirror is the only one
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: wearing your skin.