COAST TO COAST RADIO: In the second half, Stanley Milford Jr. discussed how the paranormal became part of his job when he joined the Navajo Rangers — a law enforcement branch of the Navajo Nation who are police officers, conservationists, and historians. He recounted how he was thrust into the role of investigating supernatural phenomena during a case where an elderly woman claimed a Bigfoot stole her laundry. "You may not understand these cases... but people are asking for help," he explained.
Milford spoke candidly about his upbringing that straddled two cultures: Navajo and Cherokee. "It was kind of a clash of two worlds," he noted. His experiences on the reservation informed his understanding of Navajo traditions, including the serious implications of witchcraft. He recalled a chilling encounter with a skinwalker, a shape-shifting entity. "At that point, there was like ice water running through my veins," he shared. "Shape-shifting... is a part of witchcraft, black witchcraft," he said.
Milford also outlined the daunting task of enforcing the law with only eight officers available across the 27,000-square-mile Navajo reservation. "You didn't have somebody standing there holding your hand," he recounted, before describing a harrowing manhunt for fugitives who killed a police officer. "I spent the next month out there crawling in the river bottoms... learning what it meant to be a tactical operator," he recalled. Milford then went on to detail a bizarre investigation involving the mysterious deaths of 26 sheep. "All of these sheep were dead, but you didn't see the telltale evidence of a predatory kill," he noted, describing how the sheep were precisely slit open and drained of all blood. A veterinarian on the scene was equally baffled, leading Milford to connect the case to cattle mutilations seen elsewhere.
The Paranormal Ranger
A Navajo Investigator’s Search for the Unexplained
On Sale: October 1, 2024
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A Navajo Ranger’s chilling and clear-eyed memoir of his investigations into bizarre cases of the paranormal and unexplained over the course of his illustrious career serving the Navajo Nation.
Stanley Milford, Jr., was raised with the inherent belief that the supernatural regularly touches our lives. Growing up between multiple worlds and cultures, as a Native American with parents and family of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, he was raised to respect his roots with a firm upbringing in traditions from both tribes.
That would serve him well when he joined the fabled Navajo Rangers, who are equal parts police officers, archeological conservationists, and historians, responsible for overseeing the massive 27,000-square-mile Navajo Nation. When Milford first became a ranger, he handled mundane, everyday cases such as cattle inspections and domestic disputes, but that quickly gave way to utterly bizarre and shockingly frequent cases of mysterious livestock mutilations, skinwalker and cryptid sightings, unidentified aerial phenomena, and malicious hauntings.
In The Paranormal Ranger, Milford recounts all the stories from the logical, factual, and serious perspective of a law enforcement officer. Far from the tinfoil hat and conspiracy crowd, Milford’s Native American worldview and investigative training provide a chilling, realistic perspective on what logic dictates should not be possible.
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