Erik Bard went looking for a rational answer—and found a strange electromagnetic clue.

Whether you’re a paranormal believer or cynic, there’s no denying that there’s something strange about Skinwalker Ranch in northeastern Utah.

Weird noises, glowing orbs, shadowy figures, mysteriously killed animals, long-lasting hauntings. All of these odd happenings (and more) have reportedly occurred on the 512-acre, high-desert ranch since its establishment in the early 1900s—but why? People have spent decades trying to piece together the puzzle, and many point to the paranormal as a part of the explanation.

Skinwalker Ranch, which is currently owned by Utah real-estate mogul Brandon Fugal, Skinwalker Ranch has evolved into a property rife with surveillance tools, scientific instruments, and military-grade technology, with the hope that the root of the so-called paranormal activity can one day get uncovered. It’s a seemingly larger-than-life operation dedicated to the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The HISTORY Channel even developed a seven-season TV show—The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch—dedicated to documenting the experimentation for audiences at home, and it effectively turned Fugal and other ranch workers into recognizable faces.

But what if aliens, ghosts, or UFOs aren’t to blame for all of the weird stuff happening at Skinwalker Ranch? Instead, a peculiar patch of physics may explain everything, according to one of the ranch’s most esteemed experts.

This Popular Mechanics feature takes you through the long, unsettling history of the Skinwalker Ranch, and showcases how it’s garnered immense intrigue over the years from developers, scientists, TV producers, and even government officials. One of those people brought into the realm of Skinwalker was X-ray physicist Erik Bard—and he may have discovered a huge clue into the ranch’s eeriness.

Now, Bard admits he was a skeptic before even stepping foot on the ranch. In our full story, he says he initially dismissed Skinwalker Ranch’s supposed paranormal happenings as “E.T. interdimensional religious whatever.” But when Frugal invited Bard for a visit in 2016 with the intention of bringing him on as a principal property investigator, what happened on that trip completely changed Bard’s mind. Not only did he notice his phone screen oddly flickering while examining the site’s mesa, but he also experienced balance issues when he returned to the homestead. Others on the visit with him said they felt the ground spinning.

So Bard quickly went to work to find a scientific explanation for the phone glitch. At first, he hypothesized that poor cell reception resulted in the flickering screen, caused by extra energy emitted to connect his phone to a cell tower. But when Bard went to reproduce that in an experiment, he couldn’t.

Bard then turned his focus to an entirely different test—one that involved a gigantic magnet. Placing his phone on the edge of a rare-earth magnet able to lift 1,750 pounds of iron, he waited to see if his device would glitch. Sure enough, it did.

Thanks to the magnet test, Bard came to a relatively simple conclusion: The ranch must have an unusual electromagnetic field. Electromagnetic interference can cause technological malfunctions, like Bard’s phone screen flicker and other past electronics issues observed at Skinwalker. (People have reported witnessing drone, battery, computer, and surveillance system glitches while on the property.) It could even explain the loss of balance Bard felt while on his ranch visit. That’s because strong magnetic fields can affect the human nervous system—even MRI technicians sometimes experience vertigo, nausea, and other balance-related symptoms, according to Bard.

Bard’s revelation appeared to be one of the first practical reasonings applied to the unusual events occurring at Skinwalker Ranch. “That was the beginning of trying to put a physics interpretation on some part of the phenomenon,” Bard says.

But even with a seemingly plausible culprit identified, plenty of other questions remain unanswered. What’s the source of the strange electromagnetic activity? Could something technological, or a blip in physics, be responsible? Bard continues to search for answers to his questions, as do other experts. For now, though, the mystery of Skinwalker Ranch—and the search for the paranormal—lives on.

Dive into the curious story behind Utah’s most notorious site for unexplained phenomena by reading the full Pop Mech feature now.