What Skinwalker Ranch TV shows are there?
There is one flagship series and one spinoff, plus an alternate title that confuses many viewers outside the United States.
- The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch is the main show. It premiered on the History channel on March 31, 2020, and has run for seven seasons and 86 episodes, each about an hour long with ad breaks.
- The Curse of Skinwalker Ranch is not a separate show. It is the title the same series carries in the UK, which is why both names turn up in listings and episode guides.
- Beyond Skinwalker Ranch is the spinoff, which ran in three series from 2023 to 2025 with a different presenting team.
Both Skinwalker Ranch TV shows come from the same production world as History’s long-running treasure hunt The Curse of Oak Island. The flagship was developed by Letter 10 Productions alongside the producers of that show, with Prometheus Entertainment as a production company, and History green-lit it in 2019. Robert Clotworthy narrates, and the format will feel familiar to Oak Island viewers: a recurring team, a mapped-out property, heavy equipment, and a slow build across a season.
The ranch itself is a private property of roughly 500 acres in Uintah County, in Utah’s Uinta Basin. For more on the land, its owners and why visitors cannot simply drive up to the gate, see our companion piece on where Skinwalker Ranch is and who can access it.
The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, season by season
The seasons have grown longer since the cautious eight-episode debut. Here is the release history as it stands in October 2026.
| Season | Episodes | First aired | Last aired |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 | March 31, 2020 | June 2, 2020 |
| 2 | 10 | May 4, 2021 | July 13, 2021 |
| 3 | 11 | May 3, 2022 | July 19, 2022 |
| 4 | 15 | April 18, 2023 | August 8, 2023 |
| 5 | 14 | April 23, 2024 | July 23, 2024 |
| 6 | 14 | June 3, 2025 | September 2, 2025 |
| 7 | 14 | May 19, 2026 | August 18, 2026 |
An eighth season of 14 episodes has been tipped for 2027, but no premiere date has been set. Until the network announces one, treat it as expected rather than confirmed.
The arc of the seasons
Season 1 introduced aerospace engineer Travis S. Taylor joining an existing group already working on the ranch, and much of it centred on a site the team calls Homestead 2. Season 2 returned to that spot with new tools, including a laser experiment and a lidar scan (lidar measures distance by bouncing laser light off surfaces) that the team said revealed a dark mass underground. Instrument work remains the backbone of the series, with ground-penetrating radar and radiation measurements among the tools it regularly features.
Season 4 opened with one of the series’ bigger moments: Taylor saying he had secretly been working as chief scientist for the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, the Pentagon effort to study UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena, the official successor term to UFO). That revelation tied the ranch more tightly to the wider government disclosure story, and the Pentagon UFO videos appear frequently on the show. Readers following that thread can find more in our UFOs and UAP section.
For a closer look at individual seasons and the specific claims within them, our deeper dive on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, its seasons, cast and claims picks up where this overview leaves off.
Beyond Skinwalker Ranch and the UK title
Beyond Skinwalker Ranch ran for three series, in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Its main faces differ from the flagship’s, with narrator Mocean Melvin, former CIA intelligence officer Andy Bustamante and investigative journalist Paul Beban among them. Ranch owner Brandon Fugal appears across both shows.
The UK title, The Curse of Skinwalker Ranch, catches out a lot of people who assume it is a separate production. It is the same series under a different name, a choice that echoes the Oak Island show it was modelled on. If an episode guide lists a “Curse” season that seems to duplicate a “Secret” season, that is the reason.
It is worth being clear about one other source of confusion. The ranch takes its name from a figure in Indigenous folklore of the American Southwest, but the television series is about the property and the modern stories attached to it, not about that tradition. Anyone curious about the legend in its own right, and how it differs from other shapeshifter figures, can read our piece on how the skinwalker and wendigo legends differ.
Who is on the show, and who has left
The cast of the Skinwalker Ranch TV shows has shifted over seven seasons, but the core has stayed remarkably stable.
The steady core
- Travis S. Taylor, aerospace engineer, a main cast member in every season.
- Erik Bard, principal investigator, also a main cast member throughout the run.
- Brandon Fugal, the ranch’s owner and an executive producer, a recurring presence across every season.
Faces that came and went
Several people prominent in season 1 are not part of the main cast later on. Ranch superintendent Tom Winterton and scientist Jim Segala were main cast members early on. Security chief Bryant “Dragon” Arnold has been a main cast member in some seasons and absent in others. Ranch staff such as manager Jim Morse, caretaker Tom Lewis and anthropologist and caretaker Kandus Linde appeared on a recurring basis before stepping back to occasional guest roles. Security staffer Kaleb Bench moved from recurring to main cast. Brandon Fugal’s brother Cameron, a pilot, has also appeared.
The show has not given a detailed public account of every departure, and viewers should be wary of online claims about falling-outs or secret reasons. The plainest reading is that the roster changed as the project’s focus moved from the original ranch staff toward specialist investigators and outside experts.
Guests
The guest list is a large part of the show’s appeal. It has included SETI scientist Seth Shostak, journalist Linda Moulton Howe, retired Colonel John B. Alexander, television journalist George Knapp, former Utah governor Gary Herbert, Utah senator Mike Lee, Utah attorney general Sean Reyes, Lunasonde CEO Jeremiah Pate, radiation specialist Casey Smith of Qal-Tek, and Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok, who was brought in after the lidar scan unsettled the team.
What the episodes claim: a worked example from season 1
The best way to understand Skinwalker Ranch TV shows is to take one episode apart and separate what is shown from what is said. Season 1, episode 6, “Poking the Nest” (May 12, 2020), packs several of the series’ signature claims into an hour.
According to the episode, Taylor is hit by ionizing radiation (radiation energetic enough to strip electrons from atoms, the kind that can damage tissue) when he opens an old sewer at Homestead 2. Alpacas brought onto the ranch for experiments are attacked, and the team suggests the culprit was “dire wolves”, an extinct Ice Age species. And everyone’s iPhones behave strangely at the same time.
| Layer | What it amounts to |
|---|---|
| Documented | The episode aired; the team opened the sewer, kept alpacas on the ranch and filmed their phones. |
| Claimed by the team | A radiation exposure linked to the site, an attack on the alpacas by an extinct predator, and electronic interference with no ordinary cause. |
| Ordinary explanations to rule out | Instrument error or naturally occurring radiation sources; ordinary predators such as coyotes; software glitches, signal loss or magnetic interference from nearby equipment. |
| Still open | Whether any reading was independently checked, calibrated and published outside the show. |
That pattern repeats across the run. In season 1, the team also reports a “double UFO” during weather balloon experiments, a headache that forces Tom Winterton to step back, a human bone found in the basement at Homestead 2, and a cattle mutilation (the phenomenon of livestock found dead with apparently surgical wounds) that brings Brandon Fugal to the site. In season 2, a re-examination of that mutilation case turns on the colour of the cow, and a guest investigator points the team to rock carvings depicting the mesa.
None of this is invented on screen in the sense of being scripted fiction, as far as the record shows. What the episodes rarely provide is the follow-up that would turn an experience into evidence: raw data, independent labs, or published results others can test.
Ratings and reception: how the series has been judged
The audience was there from the first night. Reported viewing figures for season 1 put the premiere, “Bad Things Happen When You Dig”, at about 2.7 million viewers. Numbers then eased across the season: 2.1 million for “Night Visions”, 1.9 million for “Looking Down”, 2.1 million for “High Strangeness”, 1.7 million for both “Dangerous Curves” and “Poking the Nest”, and 1.5 million each for “Surveillance” and the finale, “Revelations”. Added together, the eight episodes drew roughly 15.2 million viewings. Reliable figures for later seasons are harder to pin down, but the network’s decision to keep renewing it and to expand the episode count says enough about its pull.
Critics have been far cooler. Jason Colavito, an author who writes about fringe history, has argued that the legends attached to the ranch are “entirely a modern creation” dating from the late twentieth century, and described the show as a slow-paced attempt to reproduce The Curse of Oak Island. Science writer Russell Moul has made a related point: the show presents itself as a scientific effort, and it is entertaining, but the team has yet to back up its experiences with actual evidence.
Supporters answer that the show is not a peer-reviewed paper and was never meant to be. They point to the seniority of some guests, to Taylor’s government role, and to the sheer volume of strange incidents reported over years as reasons to keep looking. Both camps agree on one thing: the series has made the ranch a household name among fans of the paranormal.
How to watch Skinwalker Ranch TV shows with a critical eye
You can enjoy the atmosphere and still keep your footing. A few habits make the difference.
- Separate the event from the narration. Mute the music in your head and ask what the camera actually captured. A spike on a meter and a voiceover saying it was “unexplained” are two different things.
- Watch for the cliffhanger structure. The Oak Island format builds tension across ad breaks and episodes. A revelation teased before a break often resolves into something smaller after it.
- Ask what was ruled out. For any light in the sky, consider aircraft, satellites, drones, balloons and reflections. For any animal death, consider ordinary predators and decomposition. For any electronic glitch, consider the crew’s own equipment.
- Look for follow-up outside the show. Strong findings tend to leave a trail: data releases, lab reports, independent replication. When nothing follows, that absence is worth noting.
- Respect the witnesses anyway. People on the ranch describe experiences that clearly affected them. Taking them seriously as accounts is fair; treating them as proof is a separate step.
Common mistakes viewers make
- Treating the UK title, The Curse of Skinwalker Ranch, as a second show with extra footage.
- Assuming a guest’s appearance means they endorse the show’s conclusions. A scientist or official visiting the ranch is not the same as one signing off on its claims.
- Reading cast changes as evidence of a cover-up. Reality shows rotate cast for many mundane reasons.
- Planning a visit. The ranch is private land, and turning up uninvited is trespassing. Watch the show instead.
If the ranch’s mix of government interest and secrecy appeals, a similar debate surrounds another famous restricted site in the West, covered in our look at what is inside Area 51.
Where to watch, and what comes next
In the United States, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch airs on History, and the network’s own site and app are the most dependable place to start for current and past seasons. Streaming and purchase options for both Skinwalker Ranch TV shows shift between services over time, so check current listings before paying for a season you might already have access to. In the UK, look for the Curse title.
For newcomers, season 1 remains the best entry point. It is the shortest, it sets up Homestead 2 and the core team, and it introduces the kinds of incidents the series is built around. Viewers short on time can watch the first season, then jump to the season 4 premiere for Taylor’s task force revelation and see how the show changed its scale.
As for the future, a 2027 season is expected but unconfirmed. Whatever it brings, the central question the Skinwalker Ranch TV shows have circled since 2020 stays the same: is something genuinely anomalous happening on this land, or has a compelling place, a determined team and a well-tuned television format produced the appearance of one? Seven seasons in, the record supports the experiences as reported, and leaves the explanation open.
For long-form conversations about cases like this one, the Troubled Minds Vault collects the radio show’s back catalog, and the full journal has more on the strange edges of the American West.
Questions and answers
Where can I watch the first season of Skinwalker Ranch?
The first season of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch aired on the History channel in the US from March 31 to June 2, 2020, across eight episodes. History's own website and app are the most reliable starting point for past seasons. Streaming and purchase options change over time, so check current listings on the services you already use before paying for a single season.
Who is no longer on Skinwalker Ranch?
The core of the show has stayed steady: aerospace engineer Travis Taylor, principal investigator Erik Bard and owner Brandon Fugal. Several early faces, including ranch superintendent Tom Winterton and scientist Jim Segala, were main cast members in the first season but are not part of the main cast in later seasons. Security chief Bryant "Dragon" Arnold has appeared in some seasons and not others. The show has not publicly detailed every departure.
Is the Skinwalker Ranch show real?
The show is a real, ongoing reality series on History, filmed on a real ranch in Uintah County, Utah, with a real team. Whether the phenomena it presents are real is another matter. The episodes show equipment readings, injuries and sightings described by the team, but critics argue the series has never produced evidence that would satisfy independent scientists. Viewers are left to weigh the claims themselves.
What are the ratings for The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch?
Reported viewing figures for season 1 show the premiere drawing about 2.7 million viewers, with later episodes falling to around 1.5 million, for a combined total near 15.2 million across eight episodes. Critics have been less enthusiastic. Fringe-history author Jason Colavito called it a slow-paced imitation of The Curse of Oak Island, and science writer Russell Moul said the team has not backed up its claimed experiences.
How many episodes of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch are there?
Through season 7, which ran from May 19 to August 18, 2026, the series totals 86 episodes. The seasons have grown longer over time: 8 episodes in 2020, 10 in 2021, 11 in 2022, 15 in 2023, and 14 each in 2024, 2025 and 2026. An eighth season has been tipped for 2027, but no premiere date has been confirmed.
Where is Skinwalker Ranch?
Skinwalker Ranch sits in Uintah County in northeastern Utah, in the Uinta Basin region. The property covers roughly 500 acres and is privately owned by Brandon Fugal, who appears on the show. It is not open to casual visitors, and turning up uninvited would be trespassing, so the TV series is the main window most people get into the place.
Stay curious. Keep the question open.
Follow the evidence wherever it leads.
