[1] Claims about the ranch first appeared in 1996 in the Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret News,[2] and later in the alternative weekly Las Vegas Mercury as a series of articles by investigative journalist George Knapp.

Among those involved were retired US Army Colonel John B. Alexander, who characterized the NIDSci effort as an attempt to get hard data using a "standard scientific approach".

[4][5][6][7] In 2005, Colm Kelleher and co-author George Knapp published a book, Hunt for the Skinwalker,[8] in which they describe the ranch being acquired by Bigelow to study anecdotal sightings of UFOs, bigfoot-like creatures, crop circles, glowing orbs and poltergeist activity reported by its former owners.

[9] Kelleher and Knapp's book was read by Defense Intelligence Agency official James Lacatski, who contacted Bigelow and obtained permission to visit the ranch.

Reid and Ted Stevens, a UFO experiencer, quickly agreed that the ranch deserved attention and inserted a line into the Department of Defense budget appropriating $22 million to study unidentified aerial phenomena.