Clearview

During one of our previous episodes, we examined a series of strange incidents which are believed to have taken place at an isolated cattle ranch located in eastern Colorado.

But as inexplicable and fantastic as those occurrences may have been, they are utterly eclipsed by a somewhat unrelated series of events which are alleged to have transpired on another property, a rural homestead which would come to be known as Clearview.

The concern on the faces of the two men was palpable as they watched the white cruiser drive in through the entrance gates of the property and head towards their location.

Had it not been for the vehicle's high beams cutting their way through the dawn and the contrasting livery on the driver's side door, it might have been entirely lost against the snowy white backdrop.

It would be only their second time meeting the county sheriff, the first being the day they had moved onto the ranch some months prior, when he had stopped by to introduce himself.

That encounter had been easygoing and cordial, but something told them this next interaction would be anything but.

The carcass at their feet belonged to the neighbouring property, and they simply had no explanation as to how or why it was now lying dead, in the middle of one of their pastures.

The cruiser pulled up in front of the ranch house some 300 meters away, and two men got out.

John Priestley, the ranch owner, was surprised to see the local vet accompanying the sheriff, especially at this early hour.

as he watched them trudge through the snow towards his location.

He was standing there in silence with his two two young sons and business partner Jim, and as the two other men halted in front of him, he went about introducing everyone before gesturing to the buffalo lying dead in the snow.

The only thing he had to say was that the current state of the animal was exactly how his eldest son had found it.

The bull's neck was snapped completely in two, its head bent impossibly backwards, so that its horns were now digging into its shoulders.

It was not unheard of for buffalo to break their own necks, especially if they got caught up in a fence line and thrashed around in a panic, but this was extremely rare, and in any case, they were in an open pasture.

There wasn't anything nearby which might have ensnared the animal in this way.

The vet suggested that the buffalo may have booked whilst running at full tilt, its head hitting the ground in the first instant and its body gamboling right over the top, snapping its neck in the process.

But John could tell that the young man entirely doubted his own explanation.

The sheriff on the other hand remained silent, studying the carcass with an air of familiarity.

He'd clearly seen this kind of thing before.

There were no tracks in the snow besides their own, meaning that the animal must have been there long enough for the snowfall to cover its hoof prints.

Jim glanced at John's eldest son Joe before asking the vet if there were any bears in the area, and if so,

could they take down a buffalo in this way?

The vet shook his head, saying that it was rare to see bears this far east of the Rockies, unless they were in the Black Forest or Purgatoir River Canyon.

And whilst they were strong enough to snap a bull's neck, his money would be on the buffalo goreing the bear to death long before it could.

I told you it wasn't a bear, Joe suddenly blurted out.

It was something else, something huge in those trees down there.

He gestured to the woods at the bottom of the slope, but before he could say anything else, His father had told him to be quiet.

The vet and the sheriff said nothing, only shared a look with one another, which told Jim everything he needed to know.

They knew perfectly well what was going on here, but they just didn't want to say what it was.

It all started with a hum,

an incessant low vibration which would come and go infrequently, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, and sometimes even in the dead of night.

The noise level itself wasn't too offensive, but it was the nature of it which bothered the owners, to the point where they were hiring professionals to come out and check their electrical wiring and gas mains, all of which offered no explanation.

There seemed to be no obvious source, and although the hum itself was relatively quiet, It had a way of disrupting sleep and completely irritating those who heard it.

Oftentimes it was accompanied by far-off metallic grinding or clanging sounds, like machinery, muffled either by distance or some form of barrier.

It wasn't long before they realised that these other disturbances were coming from the ground beneath their feet.

The Priestley family, a pseudonym, had moved onto the 40-acre property in October of 1975,

and from the very first week of their tenure, they had experienced this strange disturbance.

Located about 30 miles east of the Rocky Mountains, they had initially been captivated by the breathtaking vistas which surrounded them, not to mention the simple charm of their relatively small holding.

It came complete with expansive woodlands, wide open pastures, and even a few natural springs which fed into a pond near the ranch house.

It had remained abandoned for several years before their purchase, with whispers of strange happenings and an unspoken mystery concerning the disappearance of an entire building which had stood on the property a decade before.

John Priestley was a former military man however and he had no patience for such stories.

He and his family pooled their resources along with an old acquaintance named Jim Tarr, also a pseudonym, and together they bought the property outright as a business partnership.

Jim would also stop on the ranch in his own accommodation, tending to the business of running the place with John, his wife Barbara and their two teenage boys, Joe and Miles.

And whilst the hum and other strange sounds would become more frequent and sustained, This phenomenon also brought with it sightings of strange-looking entities, which would often be seen watching the family from the trees.

The first mutilation in the winter of 1975 would be discovered by the eldest son, Joe, whilst he was out hunting rabbits with one of his friends in the dawn hours.

They found the buffalo with its head twisted right back in a pasture located some 300 meters from the ranch house beyond a nearby rise.

The field stretched over a gentle downward incline leading towards a thicket of of trees, and it was as the boys were examining the dead animal that they caught sight of a large shadowy figure regarding them from the brush at the bottom of the slope about 40 meters away.

It seemed to have a huge hulking frame, standing somewhere between 7 and 8 feet tall, but its features were lost in the ambient gloom.

Alarmed by the presence of this strange creature, they hastily retreated up to the crest of the hill, only to turn and see that the figure had emerged from the tree line and was now hurrying towards them.

Bursting in through the front door of the ranch house in a state of sheer terror, the boys breathlessly related what they had seen.

John and Jim immediately armed themselves and went out to investigate.

Upon finding the dead buffalo, They checked the immediate vicinity for any sign of the alleged creature.

Sure enough, they discovered a trail of huge footprints, each of which was around 46 centimetres or 18 inches in length, with 1.5 metres or 5 feet between each stride.

They were located near the tree line and headed in an easterly direction around the edge of the pasture.

leading up towards the rear of the horse barn.

They found more of the footprints in the manure inside the horse barn, after which they came to an abrupt halt.

However, whatever had made them was nowhere to be seen.

These Sasquatch-like creatures became a regular sighting on the ranch itself, with many people, even visitors, reporting that they had seen them stalking across the landscape or regarding them from wooded areas.

On one occasion, John, Barbara and Jim had gone to a conference in Denver, leaving the two teenage boys on their own.

Joe and Miles were out playing near one of the thickets when they heard an almighty roar emanate from inside the tree line.

They turned to see a huge creature standing in amongst the pines, which then immediately began to sprint towards them at an inhuman pace.

Tearing back towards the ranch house as fast as they could, they looked back to see that the creature had stopped at the edge of the woods, seemingly reluctant to move out into the open.

But as darkness fell, they found themselves at the mercy of this terrifying entity, which they could hear pacing back and forth outside their home, its huge feet thudding as they hit the ground.

It also took to banging and scratching on the walls as they cowered inside.

These creatures, however, were not the only strange things to be witnessed on the property.

Since the family had moved on to the ranch, they had witnessed lights off in the distance, sometimes out over the pastures, but more frequently in and around the wooded areas.

They were very small, no bigger than a football, and when John Priestley had first caught sight of them, he believed that someone was trespassing upon his land.

They presented in different colours, either red, white, green or blue, and their movements were slow, staying very close to the ground as one might expect of a lantern or flashlight held by an individual walking over the terrain.

But when John went out to challenge these alleged intruders, the lights would zip away at incredible speeds, sometimes even rising into the night sky.

He had no idea what they were, and could only assume that they were some kind of fluorescent insect, appearing larger due to the glow they exhibited, but this tentative belief would soon unravel in startling fashion.

In the early hours of one morning, the family were awoken by the humming sound, as they had been on many other occasions, but this time it was much more intense.

John and Barbara decided to get up and investigate, and upon entering the living room, they were surprised to find Jim standing there, staring out of the window.

As they followed his line of sight and looked out into the early morning darkness, they were shocked to see nine disc-shaped objects descending from the heavens in front of their home.

Eventually, they landed on a small rise nearby and stayed there for a matter of minutes, before Jim announced that he was going out to take a closer look.

As Barbara stood at the window watching their business partner walk hesitantly towards these objects, she was suddenly struck by an unseen force which lifted her off her feet and threw her backwards onto the floor.

The nine objects then began to ascend into the sky, leaving no trace of their passing.

Luckily, Barbara had not been physically harmed during the encounter, but mentally, everyone present had been utterly shaken to their core.

From that moment onwards, UFOs were frequently seen above the ranch, often interacting with the smaller orbs which had been there since the beginning.

But as troubling as these developments were, they paled in comparison to another phenomenon which began to occur shortly after the arrival of the bizarre aerial objects.

One evening, John's eldest son Joe noticed a strange dim light on the crest of the rise in front of the ranch house.

A few months prior, a large cone-shaped craft had landed in that exact spot, and all the vegetation in the immediate vicinity had withered and failed to grow back.

Jim and Joe got into a pickup truck and headed to the top of the small hill to investigate, but as they reached the summit, they realized that the light had disappeared.

Exiting the vehicle, they saw that the strange dim glow was now emanating from the same thicket of trees in which Joe and his friend had seen the Sasquatch-like creature the previous winter, and with some trepidation, they began to descend the slope leading down towards the anomaly.

Jim fully expected the light to recede as they approached.

but on the contrary, it remained where it was.

As they entered the tree line, they saw that the source of the light was a small, translucent box-shaped object, which seemed to be emitting an odd buzzing sound.

They would later state that it was similar to a beehive, and that the closer they got to it, the buzzing sound increased in both volume and pitch.

Jim got the feeling that it was trying to ward them off, and not wanting to put his young companion in any unnecessary danger, walked Joe back to the truck and told him to return to the ranch house.

Alone, he then headed back down the slope towards the woods and noticed that the glow had changed, seeming to have become more intense.

Feeling no small degree of fear, he re-entered the tree line and was greeted by two strange-looking men, wearing what looked like black flight suits.

They were slender, around five and a half feet tall, with very large eyes.

Although Jim described them as human, he said that if you were to see them walking down a city street, you would have to look twice, as there was clearly something off about their appearance.

In any case, They greeted him as if they had fully expected his company, and what followed was a somewhat pleasant exchange in which they apologised for all the disturbances taking place on the property, saying that a more equitable arrangement would be worked out.

They warned Jim not to approach any of the small boxes like the one he had seen earlier, saying that he had been right to back away.

They then nodded to a point 50 feet further into the clearing, where a disc-shaped object rested on the ground, with one of the small boxes sitting in front of it.

At that moment, moment, a Sasquatch-like entity emerged from the trees beyond and approached the small container, which began to buzz erratically.

When it was close enough, the hulking creature reached out with its arm, and the moment its hand or paw or whatever it was made contact with the box, it dropped to the ground, dead.

The two strange men then reiterated that they were quite lethal and should never be approached.

They finished by saying that they would talk again, and Jim sensed that this was his cue to leave.

As he walked back up the slope, he looked back towards the small woods and saw that the glow had now completely dissipated.

He stood there in the darkness in a semi-trance, not quite believing what he had just witnessed.

These strange-looking men were seen on a number of occasions by different people, often from a distance and sometimes looking in through the windows of the house at night.

Aside from these weird men and the Sasquatches, one other type of humanoid was witnessed.

These were very tall, thin beings with insect-like characteristics who made only very rare appearances on the ranch.

For some time after the surreal meeting in the woods, all paranormal activity on the property seemed to lessen or cease altogether, and for a few weeks at least, the family could sleep easy in the knowledge that their lives were returning to some semblance of normalcy.

However, this relative peace would not last.

Early one morning, Jim was lying on the sofa in the living room after breakfast, on the cusp of dropping back off to sleep, when a slight movement off to his right caught his attention.

Standing there in the dawn light, on the other side of the patio doors, was a very tall and thin figure wearing a strange-looking helmet over its head.

Shocked at the sight of this entity, Jim went to get up but found that he was completely paralyzed.

The only thing he could move were his eyes, as he lay there transfixed by this motionless figure.

It remained staring at him for only a couple of minutes, but it had felt like an eternity at the time.

Eventually it turned and walked away, and it was only then that Jim found he was able to move freely again.

After this sighting, all the previous activity on the ranch seemed to not only return, but intensify.

to a much greater degree than it ever had before.

Some of the phenomena was downright terrifying, with certain members of the family being awoken in the night to find shadow figures standing at the ends of their beds, or glowing eyes staring in at them through the windows.

Others described a localised hum that would enter the house itself and follow them from room to room.

Even some visitors to the ranch would report being followed by whatever force resided there, experiencing similar sightings in their own homes for a short period afterwards.

In most cases, however, the activity on the property itself would lessen whenever the family received guests.

As a result, their claims would oftentimes be ridiculed by any newcomers, and so Jim, who was not too pleased about being called a liar, found ways to provoke the activity for the viewing pleasure of any disbelieving friends or relatives.

He would go out into the pasture or woods and lay barbed wire in the ground or bury metal to make it look as though he was installing some kind of equipment.

Afterwards he would make his way back to the ranch house only to see a swarm of small orbs descend on the area in which he'd made the apparent changes.

These lights would then scout around as if searching for the reason behind this mini upheaval.

It would be just such a provocation, however, that would result in one of the most spine-chilling episodes to ever occur on the ranch.

In the autumn of 1976, John invited a former colleague over from Texas who brought with him his wife and two young daughters.

They would be staying on the property over the weekend, celebrating Joe's birthday.

At some point in the evening, they got into the subject of the strange activity, which was roundly dismissed by their guests.

Sure enough, Jim accepted this challenge and got to work on trying to stir up a response.

He had inadvertently discovered that whoever or whatever was responsible for the strange occurrences had an aversion to precious metals.

He had some old Native American silver jewelry, which he had buried on the ranch in the past, and it had always provoked a spectacular reaction.

On this evening, he went up to the top of the rise where the patch of dead vegetation was and buried copper wires and silver before returning to the ranch house.

Much to his disappointment and that of John's guests, nothing happened.

But then at around 2am,

when the adults were sitting in the living room playing a game of risk, All the lights in the house suddenly went out, and a disturbing, metallic voice was heard to come through every single radio and TV speaker in the home.

It simply said,

With that, the lights came back on, and John's John's colleague, although shocked, maintained that it was some kind of trick.

He just so happened to be an electronics expert and asked if he could take apart the stereo and TV set to check them over, promising to put everything back together once he was finished.

Despite his thoroughness, he found nothing.

stating that the transmitter required to cause a signal of that intensity to go through every speaker was beyond the family's means to install.

Needless to say, he cut his stopover short, and less than six months later, the Priestleys themselves would leave the ranch for good.

The events which took place at Clearview first came to our attention through a subscriber by the name of Sean Ellis.

After watching part 3 of our Skinwalker Ranch episode, where we mentioned the Buffalo Ranch in Colorado in our closing statements, he had assumed that we were referring to Clearview and subsequently contacted us in the hopes of providing valuable research materials.

It quickly became clear, however, that we were each talking about different properties.

Obviously Clearview, at 40 acres, is much smaller than the property Jeff Saylors talks about.

And although they have much in common in terms of strange phenomena, there are many aspects of the activity which clearly differ.

Neither UFOs nor humanoids were ever witnessed by Jeff Sailors, but the small orbs and poltergeist-like occurrences were certainly similar.

Regardless, we do have reason to believe that both ranches are either within the same county, or at the very least in neighbouring ones.

As with the Buffalo Ranch, The name Clearview is a pseudonym.

The real identity of the property has never been disclosed, but we do know that it's within the borders of Elbert County, and that it's very close to a small town which we have been asked not to name.

That said, there is a lot more information readily available on this acreage than its much larger cousin, not least of which is a 26-page report published by Dr.

Arleo Sprinkle and Dr.

John S.

Durr, which we have linked in the description.

This fascinating document provides an almost word-for-word transcript of an interview with the Priestley family, in which they relate these experiences and many others which we did not have time to cover.

When asked who or what they thought was responsible for the high strangeness, they had two overriding theories.

The first was that it was some sort of military psyop.

given the property's close proximity to a military testing ground.

The other was that the humanoids they witnessed were genuinely extraterrestrial, and that the more human-looking beings seemed to be in conflict with the taller insect-like creatures, with the family unintentionally caught in the middle.

The Sasquatches seemed to be completely under the control of either one or both factions.

Ultimately, John, Barbara and Jim came away from the property with more questions than answers, much like we have seen with the other ranches we have covered.

There are those who believe that the activity is not extraterrestrial at all, but rather something more demonic.

They reference the triangle seen on the Buffalo Ranch as an example of the mocking of the Holy Trinity, which is common in both Satanism and occult practices.

It seems unlikely that we'll ever understand the high strangeness which seems to affect many properties across the west and southwest states of the USA.

Whatever unknown force is responsible for this activity, it seems content in showing only glimpses of its power, yet completely unwilling to offer any explanation for its actions.

And perhaps, when all is said and done, we are just not supposed to know.

Benton is glorious.