Stanley Milford, Jr. has stories that most people wouldn’t dare to believe.
A seasoned Navajo Ranger, he spent 23 years exploring the depths of the paranormal on the Navajo Nation. From hauntings and Bigfoot sightings to UFOs and the mysterious appearances of coins falling out of thin air — all of it happened on his watch, and all of it left a mark.
Milford, of Navajo and Cherokee descent, is a Fort Lewis College graduate who recently published his memoir.
The Paranormal Ranger is an account of Milford’s time as a Navajo Ranger, during which he investigated supernatural occurrences around the reservation. The author juxtaposes his personal accounts with Navajo creation stories.
The book is a personal account of Milford’s 23 years as a Navajo Ranger. The Rangers are part of the Navajo Nation’s Division of Natural Resources, and they're tasked with protecting the lands and natural sites on the reservation.
“We were assigned to investigate cases that were out of the ordinary,” said Milford, “involving what is commonly referred to as paranormal or supernatural haunting cases, Bigfoot cases, UFOs, extraterrestrial witchcraft, and Skinwalker-related cases.”
Skinwalkers are evil spirits that can take animal form and often move on all fours. They’re rarely discussed with outsiders unfamiliar with Navajo culture and beliefs. In The Paranormal Ranger, Milford shares some of these guarded stories, hoping to shed light on Navajo traditions and supernatural experiences.
He details an investigation he was a part of in Window Rock, Arizona.
“In two days, there were 66 U.S. coins that would apport or just appear out of thin air and fall on the floor, or they would come flying across the room,” said Milford. “Sometimes, they would hit us investigators. Out of all of those 66 coins, they all landed heads up.
I witnessed with my own eyes at least 10 of these coins falling out of thin air, out of nothingness. That, for me, was a life-changing experience. It made me realize that the coins had to be coming from somewhere, some other space.
From that time, this phenomenon followed me. I began having the coins appear in my home that would fall on the floor or fly across the room,” said Milford.
Milford juxtaposes his personal accounts of paranormal activities with Navajo creation stories in the book. These are the origin stories of the world and the Diné people. He says he drew parallels between the Navajo emergence stories and what he experienced with these paranormal cases.
“There's a different world that the Navajo people came [from]. They came into the physical world from four worlds or five lower worlds. When you look at the descriptions of the beings described in those tales, [they] fit with what I saw with the descriptions of the Bigfoot and extraterrestrial or alien beings,” said Milford.
Milford noted that he worked alongside 40 to 50 rangers as a Navajo Ranger. Today, there are less than ten.
Voices From the Edge of the Colorado Plateau is a reporting collaboration between KSUT Public Radio and KSJD Community Radio. It seeks to cover underrepresented communities in the Four Corners.
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