The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch (2020) s01e01 Episode Script
Bad Things Happen When You Dig
Hello?
Travis.
Hey, Thomas.
‐Hey, I'm not sure
where you're at
on the property,
but, uh, there's something
going on out here.
Come over here
and check it out.
Hey, y'all.
I'd recommend not to touch it
till we see
if it's radioactive or not.
Too late.
Tom and I rolled it over
just to see
if we could see
any animal markings on it.
‐No sign of trauma
What in the world?
There's no cat tracks,
there's no sign of struggle.
Middle of the day.
‐It's just dead.
It's hard to kill a cow.
Check it with
the Geiger counter, Dragon.
I saw her this morning,
but she was alive.
That late morning?
Lookit, the meter's
just going crazy, man.
Jumping high,
then it jumps back to zero.
13, 14, we're at 15‐‐ 16.
‐Is it still doing
‐Lookit‐‐ hey,
it's at, it's at five‐‐ it's 18.
It just jumped to 18 just then.
Jim, are you seeing anything
on the spectrum analyzer?
Actually, I am.
You are? What are you seeing?
Something down
in the lower areas.
So, I'm getting
some pretty high spikes.
‐Some of the stuff
like you saw yesterday.
‐See that?
‐What does this mean?
‐Well, uh, we don't know
what it is,
but we're seeing it
with multiple instruments.
‐So this is something
‐Something could be happening
right now
out of the ordinary.
We need to get
out of here, guys.
Is there really a safe place
on this ranch?
We're quickly losing places
that are safe to go
on this ranch.
Gentlemen,
I'd like to introduce
Travis Taylor.
‐I'll let Brandon
know you're ready.
‐Thank you.
‐You're welcome.
‐Hey, Travis. Jim Morse.
‐Hey.
I'm Dr. Travis Taylor.
I'm a scientist
and a physicist,
and I've got 25 years
or more, uh, experience
in the aerospace and defense
industry working with NASA,
the Department of Defense
and the intelligence community.
‐Travis?
‐I have degrees
in electrical engineering,
aerospace engineering,
astronomy,
physics, optical sciences.
And I was invited
to come out here
to work with this team
to investigate this area
known as Skinwalker Ranch.
‐Where'd you fly in from?
‐From Huntsville, Alabama.
‐All right.
‐Yeah, it's where
the rockets that went
to the Moon were built.
‐Hi, Travis.
‐Hey, Brandon. How you doing?
‐Brandon Fugal. I'm
‐Yeah, nice to meet you.
the new owner
of Skinwalker Ranch.
I see you've been able
to get acquainted
‐with our team.
‐Yeah.
Erik Bard is our
principal investigator.
Dr. Segala has been
the scientist.
Tom Winterton,
our ranch superintendent.
Jim Morse is our ranch manager
and Bryant Arnold,
otherwise known as "Dragon,"
head of security.
Thank you for coming together.
This is the most unique
science project of its kind
because we've verified
and documented
that some of the most
disturbing, unexplained events
in the past decades,
if not hundreds of years,
have occurred on this property.
That sounds exciting
and a litt‐‐
‐maybe even
a little bit scary, right?
‐Right.
I'm Brandon Fugal,
chairman and owner
of the largest commercial real
estate enterprise here in Utah.
I'm also an investor
and cofounder
of other enterprises
involving technology.
I grew up middle class,
with a very strong
religious upbringing.
And that upbringing has only
helped strengthen my belief
that there is more to our
existence than meets the eye.
And I am still looking
for the nature of the universe
and asking some
of these core questions:
Where did we come from?
Why are we here?
Where are we going?
I truly believe that
Skinwalker Ranch is a place
where some of the these
questions may be answered,
or at least better understood.
So this shows,
from an aerial view, the ranch.
Our 512 acres lies in
the center of the Uinta Basin.
The Uinta Basin.
I mean‐‐ is that, like, one of
the Indian tribes or something?
‐The Uintah tribe?
‐Yes. And it is named
‐after the Ute tribe.
‐Okay.
And the entire property
is surrounded
by, uh, Ute tribal properties.
Well, so, one question
I have is why
is it called Skinwalker Ranch?
What is the‐the lore
of it, right?
Well, it's a phenomenon,
is what it is.
‐It goes back hundreds of years.
Native Americans
talk of shape‐shifting demonic
entities called skinwalkers
that take on the form of a, of
a large werewolf‐like creature
‐and also a number
of other shapes.
‐Wow.
The Native American people,
for generations, referred
to this property as being
in the path of the skinwalker.
And they called the mesa
that runs the expanse of this
property Skinwalker Ridge.
So that's really
the namesake of the property.
I see, I see.
As early as 1911,
newspaper reports profiled
strange noises in the basin
and the homesteaders started
seeing unexplained phenomena.
And by 1979,
there were a lot
of UFO sightings
in the basin being documented.
People had
really acute medical episodes.
Everything from
incidents of nausea,
perception‐altering experiences,
vertigo, temporary paralysis.
And then the Sherman family,
in 1992,
acquired the property
and were witness
to some of the most
disturbing events on record.
Cattle mutilations.
These were daylight
cattle mutilations.
We're talking very surgically
precise dissections
of these cattle.
They were drained
of their blood.
And there was no blood
to be found underneath them.
As much as 25% of the herd
at that time were lost.
Wow.
In 1996,
the reports
of the Sherman family
led billionaire Robert Bigelow
to acquire the property
and to commence an
unprecedented scientific study.
Bigelow came in with his team,
National Institute
of Discovery Science, or NIDS,
that transitioned
to Bigelow Aerospace
Advanced Space Studies,
which was funded
by the U. S. government
and kept highly confidential.
It was a very aggressive effort.
And as part of that,
it was staffed at one time
by dozens of professionals.
Many of those professionals
to this day
refuse to ever set foot
on this ranch ever again
for the rest of their lives.
‐Really?
‐Literally.
‐That's right.
‐Wow.
That brings us to present day.
In 2016,
I purchased Skinwalker Ranch
and assembled our team
to carry this investigation
forward into the next level.
‐And what is that?
‐We've started
deploying technology
devised by Erik Bard,
our principal investigator,
related to monitoring
and recording the events
happening on the ranch.
Right, that makes sense.
One of the first things
that we captured:
a 500‐foot section
of the mesa
became totally illuminated.
That's‐that's wild.
We have seen several instances
of compact light pillars,
these columns of light that
have appeared above the mesa.
I'm looking at
this picture, and I believe
I'm seeing scatter
off of the lower cloud cover,
which implies
that it's going upward.
And there's no used car lot
on the other side,
where they're having
a spotlight
‐shining up?
‐Nope.
‐That's interesting.
‐There is also
a bright luminous object
that came into view
in the western sky
and disappeared
behind the mesa.
And it travelled at a speed
that was not consistent
with typical aircraft.
Plus, at that time,
there was no
historical flight data
showing commercial
or private air traffic.
That's intriguing.
Indeed.
I‐I really am curious
as to why exactly am I here?
What is it I'm supposed
to be figuring out?
Right. I think, you,
as an experimentalist,
you would bring
to the table a lot more
stringent protocols
than what's here now.
‐Okay.
‐We want your perspective.
We've noticed
that when we bring new people
onto the ranch,
the ranch behaves differently
than it normally does.
It's just a place, right?
I mean, and
And you guys think
that it's going
to behave
when I show up there, right?
Where there's smoke,
there's fire, and there's things
that go on that ranch that
I cannot get my head around.
That ranch can push back.
We'd like to fly you out
to the property tomorrow.
My brother will be
escorting you,
so you can see
the ranch firsthand.
I'm not sure
what we're gonna find,
but I can't wait to see
what we're gonna find.
Great.
So, Travis,
tell me honestly,
do‐do you think I'm crazy?
Well,
I think some of the stories
are crazy,
but just because the stories
sound crazy
doesn't mean that there's not
something to it.
So, no, I don't think
you're crazy, Brandon.
I think it's intriguing,
is what I can say.
There has to be
something more to it.
Yep. Are we truly alone
in the universe?
Welcome to Aero Dynamic.
‐So this is the hangar?
‐Yep.
Hey, Brandon.
‐These are my brothers.
‐How are you?
‐This is my brother Cameron.
‐Travis Taylor. Yeah.
‐Good to meet you, Travis.
‐My brother Matt.
‐Nice to meet you too, man.
Nice to meet you.
So we're going to be
in this helicopter today?
Yep, this is the Airbus H130.
H130, Okay.
‐We'll be flying
‐at 10,000 feet.
‐Aw, that sounds awesome.
Safe flight, uh, and good luck
at Skinwalker Ranch.
Go with engine startup.
All systems are check.
We'll proceed on our way.
You probably want to get
down there
‐and get boots
on the ground, don't you?
‐Yep, I do. Absolutely.
I want to get down
and start walking.
I want to cover every inch
of the place.
What do you think about
the ranch?
‐Those are some strange stories.
‐Oh, yeah.
What do you think
about all that?
Well, it's interesting.
I originally went from believing
that it was just kind of
all foo‐foo
to thinking there might be
something, uh, to this, based on
what I've
experienced personally.
Stuff has happened.
There's times where I've felt
I don't really want to be there.
Not knowing what's, what's
causing some of the anomalies
that are out there.
My main concern is just
to make sure that we're safe
going in and out
of the property.
‐Oh, I agree with that.
‐Especially in aviation,
you do the best you can
‐to minimize any danger
or risks.
‐Yeah.
You do your preflight checks,
you make sure the maintenance
is right;
but even then,
there's still some things
that you don't
have control over.
And so for every flight I go on,
I always say a little prayer,
just try to keep it simple.
‐Okay.
‐And so I'd love to do that
if you are open to that.
‐Absolutely, sure.
‐All right.
Heavenly Father, we're grateful
for this opportunity
to fly today,
and to do some exploring
and‐and research,
and explore the sciences.
We ask for safety today.
Protect us as we come
into this ranch.
And we say these things in
the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Amen.
We're approaching the ranch.
We're going to go low level
down over the entrance
to show you the guard shack.
All systems are check,
we're descending
down onto the property now.
Below you'll see the gate,
the concrete barriers,
‐and the signage.
‐Right. Yeah, I see that.
And then the guard shack.
As Cameron flew me into
Skinwalker Ranch,
my first impression is
it's in the middle of nowhere.
It's not anything unusual
to look at
from any of the other land
around it;
it's the things that are
supposedly happening here
that makes it unusual.
Now, where is it
where the mountain
is glowing in the video
‐that they showed me?
‐So I'll show you the ridge.
Skinwalker Ridge.
It's over in this area
that I don't typically fly over
based on reports they had of
light originating in the area.
So we'll kind of
skirt around this.
So, right there at your
one o'clock, the mesa plateau.
‐And it's this, this ridge here
that's glowing?
‐Yeah.
‐Yep.
‐Huh.
It's where they detected it
on the cameras.
Wow.
‐The scientists have
cautioned me to‐‐
to be careful here,
uh, due to the potential
for any energy
or any other disruption of
the helicopter. I stay away.
I just, I felt uneasy
flying over that
with what I saw in the video.
‐Really?
‐Just to make sure.
Well, you know,
if it's some kind of
electromagnetic phenomena,
‐it could affect the avionics,
right?
‐Yeah. Yeah.
Make it unsafe.
So, I can understand that.
My primary
goal is safety.
Oh, yeah.
So there's Homestead 1 here.
This is the primary homestead
down below in the trees.
Then along the ridge,
there's Homestead 2
and then, uh, Homestead 3
will be down
‐on the western side
of the property there.
‐Okay.
A lot of the activity,
for whatever reason,
seems to be centered around
the old homesteads.
These over‐100‐year‐old
structures.
And that activity is not only
UFO‐related,
it involves the full gamut
of unexplained phenomena
that we continue to monitor.
Really intriguing.
I hope not to leave here
more perplexed
than when I came in, right?
‐
‐That's right.
One of the things
that excites me the most
about this ranch, and, uh,
the investigation team,
and doing this, uh, research,
is what if?
That's the big thing.
What if some of it's real?
What if this really
is an answer
to one of the big questions
that Brandon had?
Maybe we'll get some insight.
Hey, guys.
Hey, Travis.
You made it.
‐Yeah. It was a great flight
coming in.
‐It was beautiful.
Good to see you. Welcome.
How you doing?
‐Nice to have you.
Yeah, it's good to see you guys.
Welcome to Skinwalker.
Yeah, thanks, man.
Glad to be here.
‐What's going on, Dragon?
‐Hey, Trav.
How you doing, buddy?
‐Let me introduce you
to Kaleb here.
‐Hey, Kaleb. How you doing?
This is my right‐hand man.
We'll be taking good care of you
while you're here.
My name is Bryant Arnold.
And my main role is the head
of security here.
The reason that we take
security so seriously is
we need to protect the
scientific integrity of things
going on, and protect
the people that live here.
Skinwalker Ranch piques
people's interest,
and so with that we get
a lot of people
that try to sneak
onto the property.
We carry weapons because
we don't know
what we're dealing with,
and it's a dangerous place,
between the natural things
that are here
and then also the unknown.
Well, it's nice to meet you.
‐I got to get back to it, so
All right,
‐thank you, man.
‐Yep. Have a good one.
I'm excited to be here, man.
I can't wait to start
looking around.
Well, let's show you
the command center,
real quick, and, uh,
start the tour.
Let's do it.
So this is the command center.
This is the command center.
A few things that
we've collected
over the last couple years
as we've been here.
Ah, cool.
I like all the pictures.
Erik, you ought to show him
the control room.
Sure. Travis, come take a look.
Is this where all
the instruments are piped into?
That it is.
‐The nerve center.
This is our inner sanctum.
Inner sanctum, I love that.
So it's a work in progress,
but you can see
‐Yeah
‐Surveillance assets;
see the systems that we've got
online right now.
My name is Erik Bard.
I've been acting
as principal investigator
at the Skinwalker Ranch site
since 2016.
Brandon has entrusted me
with the first phase
of the investigation
under his watch.
That phase is a phase of
observational science.
We're observing the property,
primarily looking
for phenomena,
and real evidence that
there's something here on site.
The idea of building
a control room
was born out of necessity,
so that I can observe
what's happening at all hours.
We have surveillance assets
allowing us to see
in various directions
across the property.
We have thermographic
imaging cameras,
night‐vision equipment.
And so we've got
the weather data.
Always important.
Temperature, humidity.
The daily rain
Right.
‐And what have we got here?
‐You're looking at the output
from the SATAN platform,
which is actually right there.
Okay.
We also have a platform
that I designed,
to which I've given the name
SATAN; it's an acronym
for Sentinel Assignment,
Telemetry and Notification.
It's a device
that allows us to measure
vibrations in the ground
and to record sounds
that are below the frequency
range of human hearing.
The device
is constantly measuring,
and whenever we get
a signal of interest,
‐it lets me know about it.
‐Okay.
‐This is the transponders
for the airplanes?
‐Right, so this
is air traffic over the ranch
right now.
We also have
an avionics receiver
that receives the signals
being emitted by aircraft
identifying them
by their tail numbers.
The purpose of
the avionics receiver
is to help us discern between
things of known origin‐‐
aircraft‐‐
and bright light sources
that have
no identifying information.
And we've seen things that are
actually quite unexpected
and confusing.
But I'm not here to believe,
I am not here to disbelieve,
I'm here to observe.
Well, what'd you think?
Oh, it's the inner sanctum.
That was awesome, man.
We got a lot to see.
I think we ought to get you out
‐and get going.
‐Yeah, I'd love to.
Okay. Let's go get started.
So, are we driving or walking?
It's more than a walk,
so why don't we take the UTV?
I got shotgun!
This is great.
All right, you're about
to see some really cool stuff.
Yeah?
We're gonna go
see the mesa.
You know, on our way
over to the mesa,
there's something I want
to show you real quick.
‐You want to see it
for just a second?
Yeah! Heck, yeah.
My hope for being out here
at Skinwalker Ranch
is to get some answers.
There's so many stories
about, you know,
boogeymen and aliens
and whatever else.
If there is something
happening out here
that's unusual,
I want to find out.
So, Travis, a lot of
interesting things.
So this used to be
a very operational ranch,
where they had the cattle,
they would process right here.
They had calves in this area.
They had bulls in this area.
You mean when the‐the Shermans
owned the place
When the Shermans occupied
the, uh, the ranch here.
Everything that
I have researched
relative to the Sherman family
leads me to believe
that they were subjected to
such an intense amount
of disturbing activity.
They experienced everything
from UFO sightings
to countless
cattle mutilations.
They had beasts or entities
that would appear to them.
I don't blame them
for selling the property.
They were terrorized.
There's a story where
a very large wolf
came in off the plains.
And a group of calves
were in this pen right here.
The wolf put his head through,
and started pulling one
of the calves out of the fence.
The Shermans, seeing that,
the father then went inside,
got a weapon, and came out
and started shooting at it.
Point blank, you know,
right here.
Shooting at the wolf.
Right, like a .357,
and then that
didn't do anything,
so apparently,
it let them go back in
and a bigger gun, and I guess
that's what it took to let it‐‐
to make it drop the calf.
And the story goes
that this animal
was strong enough
to withstand, allegedly,
six shots from a .357
and a couple shots
from a .30‐06 rifle.
So they pursued after it,
and as they got
to the part of the ranch
where the river
bisects the property,
they could see tracks
going down the mud
and starting up the side
of the bank on the other side
and then disappearing
into nothing,
as if the thing
had just vaporized.
And so, there are rumors
and stories that have come out
about all sorts of really
fantastic happenings here.
I‐I know, uh,
the stories of the skinwalker,
the shape‐shifter thing,
isn't one of the things
that it's supposed to turn into
is like a big wolf?
‐That's correct.
‐That's strange, right?
So to the mesa?
‐Yeah, let's head over
to the mesa.
‐All right.
I'm not entirely convinced
that this stuff
can't be explained.
So I'm really eager
to see for myself
what's happening on this ranch.
Okay, ready?
Yup.
So this is it?
Skinwalker Ridge.
Yeah.
That's right.
They call it
the Skinwalker Ridge.
Has any of you ever seen it?
The skinwalker shape‐shifter
thing walking the ridge?
Well, I haven't.
Have y'all talked to anybody
that claims to have seen it?
Jim Morse has seen it.
That's right.
When they talk about
the curse of the skinwalker,
um, back in the mid‐1800s, 1860,
uh, the Utes and the Navajo, um,
they crossed each other.
Unfortunately,
the Utes were utilizing
the Navajos as slaves.
So the Utes and the Navajo
got into a skirmish,
and because of that
the Navajos cursed this land,
which now is the, uh,
path of the skinwalker,
this shape‐shifting spirit.
I didn't want to believe
this phenomenon is real,
but then there was one evening
that we were combing
the ground,
and one of the guards
that I was with
carries, like,
an infrared lamp,
and as he was combing the rocs
he pointed out
two big red eyes.
It looked at me,
and then it left.
Call me what you will,
but I, personally,
am not comfortable out here‐‐
even with
my security background
as a military police officer‐‐
to be out here alone,
uh, in‐in the,
in the dark of the night.
Let's stop right here.
This is probably
the easiest place
to access the top of the ridg.
Climb the rest of the way.
So is this where the glow was
from the video?
That's right,
there's about a 500 to 600
foot long section of this mesa
that appears to pulsate
in some of our night footage.
I'm gonna check my compass
and see if it's acting crazy.
That's that's west, right?
So it seems like
it's doing fine.
You ought to check your TriField
meter, see what it's doing.
I'm getting a little tone
from it.
‐A little tone?
‐Whoa.
‐Let me see that thing.
‐Sure.
Out on the mesa,
we're using these electric
field measurement devices
called TriField meters.
‐Get out of the way,
make sure it ain't your radio.
‐Okay.
And they measure three fields:
magnetic field,
static electric field,
then it measures radio frequency
and microwaves, which is
electromagnetic dynamic fields.
Whoa, whoa, it's gone up.
Hold on, let me step back.
There are always radio waves
and microwaves
bouncing around everywhere.
We use that for Wi‐Fi,
for your cell phone
communications, everything.
The biggest thing
that piqued my interest
was the amount of energy
in these microwaves
we were measuring was getting
close to dangerous levels.
That's significant.
And the direction
continued to change.
It's coming from that direction.
What is doing that?
Look at that.
Sounds like it might be getting
louder as we get higher.
Let's go up the mountain
and see what happens.
Skinwalker Ranch is in
the middle of nowhere,
and I couldn't see a cell phone
tower as far as I could see.
I barely was getting a signal
on my phone,
and there were
no Wi‐Fi routers.
‐Whoo. Man, that was
a nice walk.
‐Man. That's a climb.
‐
‐Hey, hand me that meter.
What's yours saying, Erik?
‐So we're at four and a half.
‐Which way?
This way.
Yeah, this one's pegging out.
Along‐‐ It's kind of a‐along
the ridge line.
Yeah, I mean,
it's‐it's a real strong signal.
What's it saying?
Dude, it's‐it's in the
milliwatts per meter squared.
And, I mean,
that's a significant
amount of energy right there.
We went to the top of the mesa,
and what we found
was even more
electromagnetic radiation
that shouldn't be there.
That's a real strong signal.
And at dangerous levels
that could be harmful to humans.
Oh!
And it's shifted now.
Now it's coming
from that direction.
‐And it's all radiation.
Yeah, yeah,
it's all RF.
Wow.
The level of microwaves there
that we detected
were much stronger than
what you get
from your cell phone
or your Wi‐Fi routers,
and microwaves like that
just don't exist in nature.
So where was this microwave
radiation coming from?
Because I'd never seen that.
I don't know.
We've‐we've been here, what,
an hour and already
found something
that I don't have any idea
what's going on.
I‐I‐I don't understand it.
Well, I have no idea
fo what we just saw, e,
but we did see something.
Not bad for your first few hours
on the ranch, huh?
Yup, wasn't bad.
Wasn't a monster or an alien
or a UFO, but it was
still something weird.
At least it was something.
I certainly didn't expect
to see anything
the first day I got here,
much less the first hour,
but when we walked up
on Skinwalker Ridge,
we saw microwave radiation
at levels
that were close to dangerous.
Hey, guys, welcome back.
And I wasn't expecting that.
I can't explain it,
but we're gonna get
to the bottom of it.
There was some sort of source
of‐of electromagnetic radiation
hitting the bottom
of the mountain,
and as we moved
up the mountain, it seemed
to get a little worse,
and it was random, though,
'cause we'd point the meter in
one direction, and it'd peg out,
then it'd stop. Then we'd point
it in another direction,
and it'd peg out again.
Held my cell phone up to it,
‐it wasn't the cell phone.
Yeah,
electronics weren't‐‐
didn't seem to be the source
of it, which is
Well, and there was two of them
reacting the same way,
so it wasn't a bad meter or
anything like that, we had both.
And one time,
Erik was holding his pointed
completely opposite direction,
and both of them
were pegging out.
‐It was just‐just strange.
Well, and that
sort of thing
doesn't just happen on the mesa
or in the bowl like that.
We'll come across times where
we'll be carrying that equipment
and all of a sudden it'll
peg out for no reason.
Yup.
That's why we need to be
measuring this stuff
over a long period of time.
‐Right.
Exactly.
‐Right.
‐Exactly.
So I'd like to get about 50
of those TriField meters
and put them in known locations
around the ranch,
like, up on the hill where we
just measured the crazy stuff,
whatever that was,
and‐and have it real‐time,
right there, being recorded.
‐Yeah. Oh, yeah.
‐Right?
'Cause if something like that
is happening like we just saw,
I want us to capture
date and time
'cause that way we might‐‐
can figure out
where it's coming from,
what it's doing,
‐and what's happening to it.
‐Yeah.
Beyond that,
I would like to have
a complete sweep
of the radiation spectrum
over the entire ranch.
And that reminds me,
when they were doing
the nuclear tests
down in Nevada
‐Are you talking about
the atomic bomb testing?
‐Yes.
When they were doing that
down in Nevada,
uh, the Uinta basin was actually
‐a hot spot for the downwind.
‐Oh, really?
Some of the highest
concentrations measured,
if I understand right, were just
30 miles north of here.
Well, we should look
into that as well.
We‐we know what
the decay products are
from those particular tests
and that's all documented
really well. We should
look in to see how that
may have affected the ranch.
‐Right?
‐That's a great idea.
‐Yup.
Back during
the Manhattan Project,
as, uh, long ago as 1945
and on through the early '50s,
a few hundred miles away,
at the Nevada Test Site,
there were aboveground
nuclear tests,
meaning atomic bombs
were set off.
Nuclear fallout was thrown up
into the sky,
this is radioactive dirt,
dust particles, that then fly
around with the air currents,
and a lot of those winds
brought this radiation
over the Uinta Basin
where Skinwalker Ranch is.
So back in the '50s,
it's highly likely
that radioactive fallout
fell on this ranch,
and some of it
should still be there today.
It's possible that exposure
to radioactive fallout
could cause people
to have strange symptoms,
maybe even hallucinations,
and see things, hear things,
and maybe even do things
that would seem abnormal.
There might be uranium
or something
‐in the dirt here.
‐Right.
So we need to have
a complete radiation sweep,
‐so we'd have a map.
‐Sure.
‐That's right.
We need to look
for radon gas
'cause that's a by‐product
of uranium decay.
We should look for, uh,
gammas and betas and alpha
‐particles even.
‐Mm‐hmm.
We need to look
for radioactive trace
or something in the ground,
so we should see
what happens when we do
something like digging a hole.
And we create
a precisely controlled
experiment where
we're digging to this depth,
and to this size,
and this volume.
And every five feet,
you do a gamma test.
Right.
We can be looking at
the electromagnetic spectrum
while we're doing it in case
there is some kind of strange
microwave phenomena
that's occurring.
Look,
scientists by nature
want to explain everything.
‐Well
‐See, here's‐‐ The problem is,
those of us that don't think in
a scientific mind all the time,
talk about a feeling
or, you know,
something‐‐ the heebie‐jeebies,
whatever you want to call it
‐Right.
‐in us laypeople terms.
I mean, I'm not a scientist, but
I've spent a ton of time here,
I know for a fact,
crap goes down when people
start disturbing the earth.
If we start digging,
that's the trigger.
You know, if you're
gonna be a part of this,
I have to unequivocably say
"No digging."
When you guys talk about every
W time somebody digs out here
on the ranch
without asking about
where to and where not to dig,
it seems to me
like that's‐that's
a big blinking sign saying
"if you want to create the
phenomena to manifest itself,
‐you go and dig somewhere."
I'm not
the type that wants
to go looking for trouble.
There's enough going on
around this place
where I‐I'm not looking
to stir up trouble.
‐Yeah, I mean, I‐I hear you
‐Great.
The history of the place
has said that when you dig,
bad stuff happens.
I heard about not digging
as soon as I came
onto the property.
It goes back to previous owners
of the property.
They said that when you dig
or disturb the earth,
that is what seemed to trigger
whatever phenomenon is here
and caused harm, and that's not
what I'm looking to do here.
Well, how about you, Erik?
Well, do you want to go out
and start digging holes?
You're the eyes and ears
of the place.
I'm doing my very best
not to be superstitious
about this.
I am intensely curious
about what might be below
this‐this ranch.
But I do not consider
my own curiosity
an entitlement to knowledge.
There are some contexts in which
perhaps even I shouldn't know
about what's going on
on the ranch.
But until I'm advised
to that end,
I'm proceeding as if this
is an observational,
‐experimental undertaking.
Well,
I think that's
what it has to be.
My grandmother used
to always say,
"A hornet's nest
isn't interesting
until you poke it with a stick."
‐Right? And
Okay, well,
what kind of hornets
were you dealing with?
Well, hornets that sting,
so you use a really long stick
‐and then you drop the stick
and run really fast.
‐Okay, so
who's gonna do
the digging, then?
Well, that's a good question.
I don't know the answer to that.
Maybe we get volunteers
that don't mind the risk?
It's impossible
to explain the risk.
There's one person
that knows the risk,
and he's sitting
right there. Right?
Having been a person that's done
a lot of digging on this ranch,
the more serious
of digging I do,
the more serious of consequences
that follow.
I didn't believe
in the paranormal
when I came out on this ranch.
And I paid
a pretty hefty price.
When they told me not to dig, I
just thought it was ridiculou.
And so, one day,
I decided to do some digging.
And then, three days after,
I noticed that I had
a goose egg
on the back of my head.
By the time I let my wife
finally take me
to the emergency room,
the goose egg had actually
spread through my entire head.
My scalp separated
from my skull.
The pain is so excruciating,
I've never felt anything
like it before in my life.
The doctors had no idea
what caused it.
They didn't know how to fix i.
Basically they're telling me
what happened to me
was medically impossible, and
it caused me a severe injury
that to this day I'm still
having some repercussions with.
I know that I was warned,
"Hey, don't do digging."
I didn't have this preconceived
idea in my mind that if I dug,
something bad was gonna happen,
because I‐I didn't believe it.
Enough things have happened
to myself, to the equipment,
it is a possibility
that they are correlated.
This is real stuff.
This is nothing
to take for granted.
You're talking about
health and wellbeing.
T‐This is no nonsense.
I get it.
These guys are nervous.
When they've dug,
they've seen things happen.
Tom's injury was real serious.
It scares them a little bit
and they want to be careful.
And I get that.
I don't want anybody
to get hurt.
But I'm not sure
what caused the injury.
And I think we're only
gonna find that out
by doing a lot more
experimentation.
We are interacting with this
somehow or other,
and so we need to calibrate what
we're doing to the experiment.
Look, if we're gonna dig,
if we're gonna test this,
let's just do it in a way
that we're keeping
the possibility
that it may be dangerous and
let's put some safety nets up,
just in case.
Jim, what do, what do you
think about it?
I think we should dig
because I want to learn more
about what it means to dig.
I don't see an anomaly happening
as a warning,
I see it as an invitation.
Look,
it's not my piece of property.
You've been brought here
obviously for a purpose.
If the owner of the property
says, "I want this to happen,"
then I'm on board.
We ought to see if we can
get Brandon on the line
and talk to him
about some of the stuff
that we've talked about.
Erik, do you think
we can get him on video chat
‐or something like that, see if
we can give him an update?
‐Sure.
‐Sure, I'll bring him up now.
‐All right.
Hey, Brandon.
‐Greetings, team. How are you?
‐Doing well.
‐Doing great, how are you?
I am glad
that you patched me in
and I'm wondering how the
investigation is progressing.
Well, it's been an eventful day.
As the ranch usually does
when we bring new people on,
it seems to, uh,
liven up a little bit.
And we, uh, caught some
pretty interesting things today.
Yeah, Brandon, when we were up
on the mesa, the TriField meters
were measuring really strong
transient microwave fields
and‐and the power that,
uh, we were picking up
was on the verge
of being dangerous levels.
So, I'd like to get some
more precise measurements made.
Yeah, that's‐that's disturbing,
and that is also consistent
with what we've experienced
in the past.
What are the priority items
going forward
as we launch into this phase
of the investigation?
So, one of the first
things the guys want to do
is get some surveys
and some testing done.
They want to do some RF testing.
They want to do
radiological testing,
some thermography and
they want to dig.
Hmm.
You know, I
I'm not sure
I'm comfortable with that.
Uh, w‐which part are you not
comfortable with, uh, Brandon?
The digging. I think that
once we commence digging,
it opens up
a whole Pandora's box,
and there are certain risks
that I think
you just aren't privy to
and haven't been
properly briefed on.
When Brandon said
there was no digging
on the ranch, I was stunned.
How are we gonna get
to the bottom of things
happening on this place,
if we can't investigate
in every way we can?
Well, we need
to be briefed
on that data, then,
so we can understand
the phenomena
that we're being exposed to
or trying to uncover.
I understand. Erik,
do you happen to have
the, uh, the case?
I do. I've been saving it
until the right point in
the discussion to bring it up.
My first reaction
when Brandon tells me
that they haven't
showed us everything,
that we haven't seen
all the information they have
Well, how can I help them
if they don't give me
all the information?
And I was a little bit
concerned about that.
This is not
to be taken lightly,
and that's why we've kept
the material
under lock and key.
I think you'll understand
soon why.
This is a matter of, really,
the highest level
of seriousness and sensitivity.
‐Hmm.
These are hornets
that you've never
had to deal with before.
Hornets. All right.
Well, I want to see them.
Erik, with that,
proceed to show them
what is in the case.
Regrettably,
I have to go to a meeting,
so I'll look
for your update later.
‐Thanks, gentlemen.
Thanks, Brandon.
I came into this saying,
look, guys,
we're gonna follow
the scientific method.
You can't keep data
away from the experiment and
not show the rest of the team,
in order for it
to be a good experiment.
I've got a U. S.
government clearance,
and I don't see
why Brandon and the team
feel like they have
to keep anything from me.
Now, I'm beginning
to wonder what the heck
they've got in store for me.
So what I am going to show you
may offer an explanation
for some
of what we've been
seeing on the property.
You'll understand
as soon as I open this up.
Wow.
The legend is that things
happen on this ranch.
Okay, that's spiking.
‐That could be dangerous.
‐It's coming from up there.
The signal was coming
from the sky.
‐What is that?
Do you guys see that?
It flew from behind
the mesa. Foom.
‐There it is.
‐There it is again.
Whoa. That's a definite beam.
The moment that object appeared,
the cow reacted.
We are dealing
with some kind of intelligence
that has the ability
to paralyze.
It felt like someone was
knocking from under the floor.
‐What is that?
Is that
a fragmented bone?
It could be human remains.
We have something active
beneath this property.
It stinks in here.
I don't want to stay
in here very long.
We were just exposed
to ionizing radiation.
‐My head is killing me.
This is serious.
I think it's time
to go to the hospital.
I wanted to get out here
as soon as I could.
Who or what
could we be dealing with?
There is something of
significant size down there.
Is it saucer‐shaped?
‐Yes.
Let's dig it up.
Look at that.
What is that?
Why is that rocking like that?
Oh!
What we saw tonight was real.
Travis.
Hey, Thomas.
‐Hey, I'm not sure
where you're at
on the property,
but, uh, there's something
going on out here.
Come over here
and check it out.
Hey, y'all.
I'd recommend not to touch it
till we see
if it's radioactive or not.
Too late.
Tom and I rolled it over
just to see
if we could see
any animal markings on it.
‐No sign of trauma
What in the world?
There's no cat tracks,
there's no sign of struggle.
Middle of the day.
‐It's just dead.
It's hard to kill a cow.
Check it with
the Geiger counter, Dragon.
I saw her this morning,
but she was alive.
That late morning?
Lookit, the meter's
just going crazy, man.
Jumping high,
then it jumps back to zero.
13, 14, we're at 15‐‐ 16.
‐Is it still doing
‐Lookit‐‐ hey,
it's at, it's at five‐‐ it's 18.
It just jumped to 18 just then.
Jim, are you seeing anything
on the spectrum analyzer?
Actually, I am.
You are? What are you seeing?
Something down
in the lower areas.
So, I'm getting
some pretty high spikes.
‐Some of the stuff
like you saw yesterday.
‐See that?
‐What does this mean?
‐Well, uh, we don't know
what it is,
but we're seeing it
with multiple instruments.
‐So this is something
‐Something could be happening
right now
out of the ordinary.
We need to get
out of here, guys.
Is there really a safe place
on this ranch?
We're quickly losing places
that are safe to go
on this ranch.
Gentlemen,
I'd like to introduce
Travis Taylor.
‐I'll let Brandon
know you're ready.
‐Thank you.
‐You're welcome.
‐Hey, Travis. Jim Morse.
‐Hey.
I'm Dr. Travis Taylor.
I'm a scientist
and a physicist,
and I've got 25 years
or more, uh, experience
in the aerospace and defense
industry working with NASA,
the Department of Defense
and the intelligence community.
‐Travis?
‐I have degrees
in electrical engineering,
aerospace engineering,
astronomy,
physics, optical sciences.
And I was invited
to come out here
to work with this team
to investigate this area
known as Skinwalker Ranch.
‐Where'd you fly in from?
‐From Huntsville, Alabama.
‐All right.
‐Yeah, it's where
the rockets that went
to the Moon were built.
‐Hi, Travis.
‐Hey, Brandon. How you doing?
‐Brandon Fugal. I'm
‐Yeah, nice to meet you.
the new owner
of Skinwalker Ranch.
I see you've been able
to get acquainted
‐with our team.
‐Yeah.
Erik Bard is our
principal investigator.
Dr. Segala has been
the scientist.
Tom Winterton,
our ranch superintendent.
Jim Morse is our ranch manager
and Bryant Arnold,
otherwise known as "Dragon,"
head of security.
Thank you for coming together.
This is the most unique
science project of its kind
because we've verified
and documented
that some of the most
disturbing, unexplained events
in the past decades,
if not hundreds of years,
have occurred on this property.
That sounds exciting
and a litt‐‐
‐maybe even
a little bit scary, right?
‐Right.
I'm Brandon Fugal,
chairman and owner
of the largest commercial real
estate enterprise here in Utah.
I'm also an investor
and cofounder
of other enterprises
involving technology.
I grew up middle class,
with a very strong
religious upbringing.
And that upbringing has only
helped strengthen my belief
that there is more to our
existence than meets the eye.
And I am still looking
for the nature of the universe
and asking some
of these core questions:
Where did we come from?
Why are we here?
Where are we going?
I truly believe that
Skinwalker Ranch is a place
where some of the these
questions may be answered,
or at least better understood.
So this shows,
from an aerial view, the ranch.
Our 512 acres lies in
the center of the Uinta Basin.
The Uinta Basin.
I mean‐‐ is that, like, one of
the Indian tribes or something?
‐The Uintah tribe?
‐Yes. And it is named
‐after the Ute tribe.
‐Okay.
And the entire property
is surrounded
by, uh, Ute tribal properties.
Well, so, one question
I have is why
is it called Skinwalker Ranch?
What is the‐the lore
of it, right?
Well, it's a phenomenon,
is what it is.
‐It goes back hundreds of years.
Native Americans
talk of shape‐shifting demonic
entities called skinwalkers
that take on the form of a, of
a large werewolf‐like creature
‐and also a number
of other shapes.
‐Wow.
The Native American people,
for generations, referred
to this property as being
in the path of the skinwalker.
And they called the mesa
that runs the expanse of this
property Skinwalker Ridge.
So that's really
the namesake of the property.
I see, I see.
As early as 1911,
newspaper reports profiled
strange noises in the basin
and the homesteaders started
seeing unexplained phenomena.
And by 1979,
there were a lot
of UFO sightings
in the basin being documented.
People had
really acute medical episodes.
Everything from
incidents of nausea,
perception‐altering experiences,
vertigo, temporary paralysis.
And then the Sherman family,
in 1992,
acquired the property
and were witness
to some of the most
disturbing events on record.
Cattle mutilations.
These were daylight
cattle mutilations.
We're talking very surgically
precise dissections
of these cattle.
They were drained
of their blood.
And there was no blood
to be found underneath them.
As much as 25% of the herd
at that time were lost.
Wow.
In 1996,
the reports
of the Sherman family
led billionaire Robert Bigelow
to acquire the property
and to commence an
unprecedented scientific study.
Bigelow came in with his team,
National Institute
of Discovery Science, or NIDS,
that transitioned
to Bigelow Aerospace
Advanced Space Studies,
which was funded
by the U. S. government
and kept highly confidential.
It was a very aggressive effort.
And as part of that,
it was staffed at one time
by dozens of professionals.
Many of those professionals
to this day
refuse to ever set foot
on this ranch ever again
for the rest of their lives.
‐Really?
‐Literally.
‐That's right.
‐Wow.
That brings us to present day.
In 2016,
I purchased Skinwalker Ranch
and assembled our team
to carry this investigation
forward into the next level.
‐And what is that?
‐We've started
deploying technology
devised by Erik Bard,
our principal investigator,
related to monitoring
and recording the events
happening on the ranch.
Right, that makes sense.
One of the first things
that we captured:
a 500‐foot section
of the mesa
became totally illuminated.
That's‐that's wild.
We have seen several instances
of compact light pillars,
these columns of light that
have appeared above the mesa.
I'm looking at
this picture, and I believe
I'm seeing scatter
off of the lower cloud cover,
which implies
that it's going upward.
And there's no used car lot
on the other side,
where they're having
a spotlight
‐shining up?
‐Nope.
‐That's interesting.
‐There is also
a bright luminous object
that came into view
in the western sky
and disappeared
behind the mesa.
And it travelled at a speed
that was not consistent
with typical aircraft.
Plus, at that time,
there was no
historical flight data
showing commercial
or private air traffic.
That's intriguing.
Indeed.
I‐I really am curious
as to why exactly am I here?
What is it I'm supposed
to be figuring out?
Right. I think, you,
as an experimentalist,
you would bring
to the table a lot more
stringent protocols
than what's here now.
‐Okay.
‐We want your perspective.
We've noticed
that when we bring new people
onto the ranch,
the ranch behaves differently
than it normally does.
It's just a place, right?
I mean, and
And you guys think
that it's going
to behave
when I show up there, right?
Where there's smoke,
there's fire, and there's things
that go on that ranch that
I cannot get my head around.
That ranch can push back.
We'd like to fly you out
to the property tomorrow.
My brother will be
escorting you,
so you can see
the ranch firsthand.
I'm not sure
what we're gonna find,
but I can't wait to see
what we're gonna find.
Great.
So, Travis,
tell me honestly,
do‐do you think I'm crazy?
Well,
I think some of the stories
are crazy,
but just because the stories
sound crazy
doesn't mean that there's not
something to it.
So, no, I don't think
you're crazy, Brandon.
I think it's intriguing,
is what I can say.
There has to be
something more to it.
Yep. Are we truly alone
in the universe?
Welcome to Aero Dynamic.
‐So this is the hangar?
‐Yep.
Hey, Brandon.
‐These are my brothers.
‐How are you?
‐This is my brother Cameron.
‐Travis Taylor. Yeah.
‐Good to meet you, Travis.
‐My brother Matt.
‐Nice to meet you too, man.
Nice to meet you.
So we're going to be
in this helicopter today?
Yep, this is the Airbus H130.
H130, Okay.
‐We'll be flying
‐at 10,000 feet.
‐Aw, that sounds awesome.
Safe flight, uh, and good luck
at Skinwalker Ranch.
Go with engine startup.
All systems are check.
We'll proceed on our way.
You probably want to get
down there
‐and get boots
on the ground, don't you?
‐Yep, I do. Absolutely.
I want to get down
and start walking.
I want to cover every inch
of the place.
What do you think about
the ranch?
‐Those are some strange stories.
‐Oh, yeah.
What do you think
about all that?
Well, it's interesting.
I originally went from believing
that it was just kind of
all foo‐foo
to thinking there might be
something, uh, to this, based on
what I've
experienced personally.
Stuff has happened.
There's times where I've felt
I don't really want to be there.
Not knowing what's, what's
causing some of the anomalies
that are out there.
My main concern is just
to make sure that we're safe
going in and out
of the property.
‐Oh, I agree with that.
‐Especially in aviation,
you do the best you can
‐to minimize any danger
or risks.
‐Yeah.
You do your preflight checks,
you make sure the maintenance
is right;
but even then,
there's still some things
that you don't
have control over.
And so for every flight I go on,
I always say a little prayer,
just try to keep it simple.
‐Okay.
‐And so I'd love to do that
if you are open to that.
‐Absolutely, sure.
‐All right.
Heavenly Father, we're grateful
for this opportunity
to fly today,
and to do some exploring
and‐and research,
and explore the sciences.
We ask for safety today.
Protect us as we come
into this ranch.
And we say these things in
the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Amen.
We're approaching the ranch.
We're going to go low level
down over the entrance
to show you the guard shack.
All systems are check,
we're descending
down onto the property now.
Below you'll see the gate,
the concrete barriers,
‐and the signage.
‐Right. Yeah, I see that.
And then the guard shack.
As Cameron flew me into
Skinwalker Ranch,
my first impression is
it's in the middle of nowhere.
It's not anything unusual
to look at
from any of the other land
around it;
it's the things that are
supposedly happening here
that makes it unusual.
Now, where is it
where the mountain
is glowing in the video
‐that they showed me?
‐So I'll show you the ridge.
Skinwalker Ridge.
It's over in this area
that I don't typically fly over
based on reports they had of
light originating in the area.
So we'll kind of
skirt around this.
So, right there at your
one o'clock, the mesa plateau.
‐And it's this, this ridge here
that's glowing?
‐Yeah.
‐Yep.
‐Huh.
It's where they detected it
on the cameras.
Wow.
‐The scientists have
cautioned me to‐‐
to be careful here,
uh, due to the potential
for any energy
or any other disruption of
the helicopter. I stay away.
I just, I felt uneasy
flying over that
with what I saw in the video.
‐Really?
‐Just to make sure.
Well, you know,
if it's some kind of
electromagnetic phenomena,
‐it could affect the avionics,
right?
‐Yeah. Yeah.
Make it unsafe.
So, I can understand that.
My primary
goal is safety.
Oh, yeah.
So there's Homestead 1 here.
This is the primary homestead
down below in the trees.
Then along the ridge,
there's Homestead 2
and then, uh, Homestead 3
will be down
‐on the western side
of the property there.
‐Okay.
A lot of the activity,
for whatever reason,
seems to be centered around
the old homesteads.
These over‐100‐year‐old
structures.
And that activity is not only
UFO‐related,
it involves the full gamut
of unexplained phenomena
that we continue to monitor.
Really intriguing.
I hope not to leave here
more perplexed
than when I came in, right?
‐
‐That's right.
One of the things
that excites me the most
about this ranch, and, uh,
the investigation team,
and doing this, uh, research,
is what if?
That's the big thing.
What if some of it's real?
What if this really
is an answer
to one of the big questions
that Brandon had?
Maybe we'll get some insight.
Hey, guys.
Hey, Travis.
You made it.
‐Yeah. It was a great flight
coming in.
‐It was beautiful.
Good to see you. Welcome.
How you doing?
‐Nice to have you.
Yeah, it's good to see you guys.
Welcome to Skinwalker.
Yeah, thanks, man.
Glad to be here.
‐What's going on, Dragon?
‐Hey, Trav.
How you doing, buddy?
‐Let me introduce you
to Kaleb here.
‐Hey, Kaleb. How you doing?
This is my right‐hand man.
We'll be taking good care of you
while you're here.
My name is Bryant Arnold.
And my main role is the head
of security here.
The reason that we take
security so seriously is
we need to protect the
scientific integrity of things
going on, and protect
the people that live here.
Skinwalker Ranch piques
people's interest,
and so with that we get
a lot of people
that try to sneak
onto the property.
We carry weapons because
we don't know
what we're dealing with,
and it's a dangerous place,
between the natural things
that are here
and then also the unknown.
Well, it's nice to meet you.
‐I got to get back to it, so
All right,
‐thank you, man.
‐Yep. Have a good one.
I'm excited to be here, man.
I can't wait to start
looking around.
Well, let's show you
the command center,
real quick, and, uh,
start the tour.
Let's do it.
So this is the command center.
This is the command center.
A few things that
we've collected
over the last couple years
as we've been here.
Ah, cool.
I like all the pictures.
Erik, you ought to show him
the control room.
Sure. Travis, come take a look.
Is this where all
the instruments are piped into?
That it is.
‐The nerve center.
This is our inner sanctum.
Inner sanctum, I love that.
So it's a work in progress,
but you can see
‐Yeah
‐Surveillance assets;
see the systems that we've got
online right now.
My name is Erik Bard.
I've been acting
as principal investigator
at the Skinwalker Ranch site
since 2016.
Brandon has entrusted me
with the first phase
of the investigation
under his watch.
That phase is a phase of
observational science.
We're observing the property,
primarily looking
for phenomena,
and real evidence that
there's something here on site.
The idea of building
a control room
was born out of necessity,
so that I can observe
what's happening at all hours.
We have surveillance assets
allowing us to see
in various directions
across the property.
We have thermographic
imaging cameras,
night‐vision equipment.
And so we've got
the weather data.
Always important.
Temperature, humidity.
The daily rain
Right.
‐And what have we got here?
‐You're looking at the output
from the SATAN platform,
which is actually right there.
Okay.
We also have a platform
that I designed,
to which I've given the name
SATAN; it's an acronym
for Sentinel Assignment,
Telemetry and Notification.
It's a device
that allows us to measure
vibrations in the ground
and to record sounds
that are below the frequency
range of human hearing.
The device
is constantly measuring,
and whenever we get
a signal of interest,
‐it lets me know about it.
‐Okay.
‐This is the transponders
for the airplanes?
‐Right, so this
is air traffic over the ranch
right now.
We also have
an avionics receiver
that receives the signals
being emitted by aircraft
identifying them
by their tail numbers.
The purpose of
the avionics receiver
is to help us discern between
things of known origin‐‐
aircraft‐‐
and bright light sources
that have
no identifying information.
And we've seen things that are
actually quite unexpected
and confusing.
But I'm not here to believe,
I am not here to disbelieve,
I'm here to observe.
Well, what'd you think?
Oh, it's the inner sanctum.
That was awesome, man.
We got a lot to see.
I think we ought to get you out
‐and get going.
‐Yeah, I'd love to.
Okay. Let's go get started.
So, are we driving or walking?
It's more than a walk,
so why don't we take the UTV?
I got shotgun!
This is great.
All right, you're about
to see some really cool stuff.
Yeah?
We're gonna go
see the mesa.
You know, on our way
over to the mesa,
there's something I want
to show you real quick.
‐You want to see it
for just a second?
Yeah! Heck, yeah.
My hope for being out here
at Skinwalker Ranch
is to get some answers.
There's so many stories
about, you know,
boogeymen and aliens
and whatever else.
If there is something
happening out here
that's unusual,
I want to find out.
So, Travis, a lot of
interesting things.
So this used to be
a very operational ranch,
where they had the cattle,
they would process right here.
They had calves in this area.
They had bulls in this area.
You mean when the‐the Shermans
owned the place
When the Shermans occupied
the, uh, the ranch here.
Everything that
I have researched
relative to the Sherman family
leads me to believe
that they were subjected to
such an intense amount
of disturbing activity.
They experienced everything
from UFO sightings
to countless
cattle mutilations.
They had beasts or entities
that would appear to them.
I don't blame them
for selling the property.
They were terrorized.
There's a story where
a very large wolf
came in off the plains.
And a group of calves
were in this pen right here.
The wolf put his head through,
and started pulling one
of the calves out of the fence.
The Shermans, seeing that,
the father then went inside,
got a weapon, and came out
and started shooting at it.
Point blank, you know,
right here.
Shooting at the wolf.
Right, like a .357,
and then that
didn't do anything,
so apparently,
it let them go back in
and a bigger gun, and I guess
that's what it took to let it‐‐
to make it drop the calf.
And the story goes
that this animal
was strong enough
to withstand, allegedly,
six shots from a .357
and a couple shots
from a .30‐06 rifle.
So they pursued after it,
and as they got
to the part of the ranch
where the river
bisects the property,
they could see tracks
going down the mud
and starting up the side
of the bank on the other side
and then disappearing
into nothing,
as if the thing
had just vaporized.
And so, there are rumors
and stories that have come out
about all sorts of really
fantastic happenings here.
I‐I know, uh,
the stories of the skinwalker,
the shape‐shifter thing,
isn't one of the things
that it's supposed to turn into
is like a big wolf?
‐That's correct.
‐That's strange, right?
So to the mesa?
‐Yeah, let's head over
to the mesa.
‐All right.
I'm not entirely convinced
that this stuff
can't be explained.
So I'm really eager
to see for myself
what's happening on this ranch.
Okay, ready?
Yup.
So this is it?
Skinwalker Ridge.
Yeah.
That's right.
They call it
the Skinwalker Ridge.
Has any of you ever seen it?
The skinwalker shape‐shifter
thing walking the ridge?
Well, I haven't.
Have y'all talked to anybody
that claims to have seen it?
Jim Morse has seen it.
That's right.
When they talk about
the curse of the skinwalker,
um, back in the mid‐1800s, 1860,
uh, the Utes and the Navajo, um,
they crossed each other.
Unfortunately,
the Utes were utilizing
the Navajos as slaves.
So the Utes and the Navajo
got into a skirmish,
and because of that
the Navajos cursed this land,
which now is the, uh,
path of the skinwalker,
this shape‐shifting spirit.
I didn't want to believe
this phenomenon is real,
but then there was one evening
that we were combing
the ground,
and one of the guards
that I was with
carries, like,
an infrared lamp,
and as he was combing the rocs
he pointed out
two big red eyes.
It looked at me,
and then it left.
Call me what you will,
but I, personally,
am not comfortable out here‐‐
even with
my security background
as a military police officer‐‐
to be out here alone,
uh, in‐in the,
in the dark of the night.
Let's stop right here.
This is probably
the easiest place
to access the top of the ridg.
Climb the rest of the way.
So is this where the glow was
from the video?
That's right,
there's about a 500 to 600
foot long section of this mesa
that appears to pulsate
in some of our night footage.
I'm gonna check my compass
and see if it's acting crazy.
That's that's west, right?
So it seems like
it's doing fine.
You ought to check your TriField
meter, see what it's doing.
I'm getting a little tone
from it.
‐A little tone?
‐Whoa.
‐Let me see that thing.
‐Sure.
Out on the mesa,
we're using these electric
field measurement devices
called TriField meters.
‐Get out of the way,
make sure it ain't your radio.
‐Okay.
And they measure three fields:
magnetic field,
static electric field,
then it measures radio frequency
and microwaves, which is
electromagnetic dynamic fields.
Whoa, whoa, it's gone up.
Hold on, let me step back.
There are always radio waves
and microwaves
bouncing around everywhere.
We use that for Wi‐Fi,
for your cell phone
communications, everything.
The biggest thing
that piqued my interest
was the amount of energy
in these microwaves
we were measuring was getting
close to dangerous levels.
That's significant.
And the direction
continued to change.
It's coming from that direction.
What is doing that?
Look at that.
Sounds like it might be getting
louder as we get higher.
Let's go up the mountain
and see what happens.
Skinwalker Ranch is in
the middle of nowhere,
and I couldn't see a cell phone
tower as far as I could see.
I barely was getting a signal
on my phone,
and there were
no Wi‐Fi routers.
‐Whoo. Man, that was
a nice walk.
‐Man. That's a climb.
‐
‐Hey, hand me that meter.
What's yours saying, Erik?
‐So we're at four and a half.
‐Which way?
This way.
Yeah, this one's pegging out.
Along‐‐ It's kind of a‐along
the ridge line.
Yeah, I mean,
it's‐it's a real strong signal.
What's it saying?
Dude, it's‐it's in the
milliwatts per meter squared.
And, I mean,
that's a significant
amount of energy right there.
We went to the top of the mesa,
and what we found
was even more
electromagnetic radiation
that shouldn't be there.
That's a real strong signal.
And at dangerous levels
that could be harmful to humans.
Oh!
And it's shifted now.
Now it's coming
from that direction.
‐And it's all radiation.
Yeah, yeah,
it's all RF.
Wow.
The level of microwaves there
that we detected
were much stronger than
what you get
from your cell phone
or your Wi‐Fi routers,
and microwaves like that
just don't exist in nature.
So where was this microwave
radiation coming from?
Because I'd never seen that.
I don't know.
We've‐we've been here, what,
an hour and already
found something
that I don't have any idea
what's going on.
I‐I‐I don't understand it.
Well, I have no idea
fo what we just saw, e,
but we did see something.
Not bad for your first few hours
on the ranch, huh?
Yup, wasn't bad.
Wasn't a monster or an alien
or a UFO, but it was
still something weird.
At least it was something.
I certainly didn't expect
to see anything
the first day I got here,
much less the first hour,
but when we walked up
on Skinwalker Ridge,
we saw microwave radiation
at levels
that were close to dangerous.
Hey, guys, welcome back.
And I wasn't expecting that.
I can't explain it,
but we're gonna get
to the bottom of it.
There was some sort of source
of‐of electromagnetic radiation
hitting the bottom
of the mountain,
and as we moved
up the mountain, it seemed
to get a little worse,
and it was random, though,
'cause we'd point the meter in
one direction, and it'd peg out,
then it'd stop. Then we'd point
it in another direction,
and it'd peg out again.
Held my cell phone up to it,
‐it wasn't the cell phone.
Yeah,
electronics weren't‐‐
didn't seem to be the source
of it, which is
Well, and there was two of them
reacting the same way,
so it wasn't a bad meter or
anything like that, we had both.
And one time,
Erik was holding his pointed
completely opposite direction,
and both of them
were pegging out.
‐It was just‐just strange.
Well, and that
sort of thing
doesn't just happen on the mesa
or in the bowl like that.
We'll come across times where
we'll be carrying that equipment
and all of a sudden it'll
peg out for no reason.
Yup.
That's why we need to be
measuring this stuff
over a long period of time.
‐Right.
Exactly.
‐Right.
‐Exactly.
So I'd like to get about 50
of those TriField meters
and put them in known locations
around the ranch,
like, up on the hill where we
just measured the crazy stuff,
whatever that was,
and‐and have it real‐time,
right there, being recorded.
‐Yeah. Oh, yeah.
‐Right?
'Cause if something like that
is happening like we just saw,
I want us to capture
date and time
'cause that way we might‐‐
can figure out
where it's coming from,
what it's doing,
‐and what's happening to it.
‐Yeah.
Beyond that,
I would like to have
a complete sweep
of the radiation spectrum
over the entire ranch.
And that reminds me,
when they were doing
the nuclear tests
down in Nevada
‐Are you talking about
the atomic bomb testing?
‐Yes.
When they were doing that
down in Nevada,
uh, the Uinta basin was actually
‐a hot spot for the downwind.
‐Oh, really?
Some of the highest
concentrations measured,
if I understand right, were just
30 miles north of here.
Well, we should look
into that as well.
We‐we know what
the decay products are
from those particular tests
and that's all documented
really well. We should
look in to see how that
may have affected the ranch.
‐Right?
‐That's a great idea.
‐Yup.
Back during
the Manhattan Project,
as, uh, long ago as 1945
and on through the early '50s,
a few hundred miles away,
at the Nevada Test Site,
there were aboveground
nuclear tests,
meaning atomic bombs
were set off.
Nuclear fallout was thrown up
into the sky,
this is radioactive dirt,
dust particles, that then fly
around with the air currents,
and a lot of those winds
brought this radiation
over the Uinta Basin
where Skinwalker Ranch is.
So back in the '50s,
it's highly likely
that radioactive fallout
fell on this ranch,
and some of it
should still be there today.
It's possible that exposure
to radioactive fallout
could cause people
to have strange symptoms,
maybe even hallucinations,
and see things, hear things,
and maybe even do things
that would seem abnormal.
There might be uranium
or something
‐in the dirt here.
‐Right.
So we need to have
a complete radiation sweep,
‐so we'd have a map.
‐Sure.
‐That's right.
We need to look
for radon gas
'cause that's a by‐product
of uranium decay.
We should look for, uh,
gammas and betas and alpha
‐particles even.
‐Mm‐hmm.
We need to look
for radioactive trace
or something in the ground,
so we should see
what happens when we do
something like digging a hole.
And we create
a precisely controlled
experiment where
we're digging to this depth,
and to this size,
and this volume.
And every five feet,
you do a gamma test.
Right.
We can be looking at
the electromagnetic spectrum
while we're doing it in case
there is some kind of strange
microwave phenomena
that's occurring.
Look,
scientists by nature
want to explain everything.
‐Well
‐See, here's‐‐ The problem is,
those of us that don't think in
a scientific mind all the time,
talk about a feeling
or, you know,
something‐‐ the heebie‐jeebies,
whatever you want to call it
‐Right.
‐in us laypeople terms.
I mean, I'm not a scientist, but
I've spent a ton of time here,
I know for a fact,
crap goes down when people
start disturbing the earth.
If we start digging,
that's the trigger.
You know, if you're
gonna be a part of this,
I have to unequivocably say
"No digging."
When you guys talk about every
W time somebody digs out here
on the ranch
without asking about
where to and where not to dig,
it seems to me
like that's‐that's
a big blinking sign saying
"if you want to create the
phenomena to manifest itself,
‐you go and dig somewhere."
I'm not
the type that wants
to go looking for trouble.
There's enough going on
around this place
where I‐I'm not looking
to stir up trouble.
‐Yeah, I mean, I‐I hear you
‐Great.
The history of the place
has said that when you dig,
bad stuff happens.
I heard about not digging
as soon as I came
onto the property.
It goes back to previous owners
of the property.
They said that when you dig
or disturb the earth,
that is what seemed to trigger
whatever phenomenon is here
and caused harm, and that's not
what I'm looking to do here.
Well, how about you, Erik?
Well, do you want to go out
and start digging holes?
You're the eyes and ears
of the place.
I'm doing my very best
not to be superstitious
about this.
I am intensely curious
about what might be below
this‐this ranch.
But I do not consider
my own curiosity
an entitlement to knowledge.
There are some contexts in which
perhaps even I shouldn't know
about what's going on
on the ranch.
But until I'm advised
to that end,
I'm proceeding as if this
is an observational,
‐experimental undertaking.
Well,
I think that's
what it has to be.
My grandmother used
to always say,
"A hornet's nest
isn't interesting
until you poke it with a stick."
‐Right? And
Okay, well,
what kind of hornets
were you dealing with?
Well, hornets that sting,
so you use a really long stick
‐and then you drop the stick
and run really fast.
‐Okay, so
who's gonna do
the digging, then?
Well, that's a good question.
I don't know the answer to that.
Maybe we get volunteers
that don't mind the risk?
It's impossible
to explain the risk.
There's one person
that knows the risk,
and he's sitting
right there. Right?
Having been a person that's done
a lot of digging on this ranch,
the more serious
of digging I do,
the more serious of consequences
that follow.
I didn't believe
in the paranormal
when I came out on this ranch.
And I paid
a pretty hefty price.
When they told me not to dig, I
just thought it was ridiculou.
And so, one day,
I decided to do some digging.
And then, three days after,
I noticed that I had
a goose egg
on the back of my head.
By the time I let my wife
finally take me
to the emergency room,
the goose egg had actually
spread through my entire head.
My scalp separated
from my skull.
The pain is so excruciating,
I've never felt anything
like it before in my life.
The doctors had no idea
what caused it.
They didn't know how to fix i.
Basically they're telling me
what happened to me
was medically impossible, and
it caused me a severe injury
that to this day I'm still
having some repercussions with.
I know that I was warned,
"Hey, don't do digging."
I didn't have this preconceived
idea in my mind that if I dug,
something bad was gonna happen,
because I‐I didn't believe it.
Enough things have happened
to myself, to the equipment,
it is a possibility
that they are correlated.
This is real stuff.
This is nothing
to take for granted.
You're talking about
health and wellbeing.
T‐This is no nonsense.
I get it.
These guys are nervous.
When they've dug,
they've seen things happen.
Tom's injury was real serious.
It scares them a little bit
and they want to be careful.
And I get that.
I don't want anybody
to get hurt.
But I'm not sure
what caused the injury.
And I think we're only
gonna find that out
by doing a lot more
experimentation.
We are interacting with this
somehow or other,
and so we need to calibrate what
we're doing to the experiment.
Look, if we're gonna dig,
if we're gonna test this,
let's just do it in a way
that we're keeping
the possibility
that it may be dangerous and
let's put some safety nets up,
just in case.
Jim, what do, what do you
think about it?
I think we should dig
because I want to learn more
about what it means to dig.
I don't see an anomaly happening
as a warning,
I see it as an invitation.
Look,
it's not my piece of property.
You've been brought here
obviously for a purpose.
If the owner of the property
says, "I want this to happen,"
then I'm on board.
We ought to see if we can
get Brandon on the line
and talk to him
about some of the stuff
that we've talked about.
Erik, do you think
we can get him on video chat
‐or something like that, see if
we can give him an update?
‐Sure.
‐Sure, I'll bring him up now.
‐All right.
Hey, Brandon.
‐Greetings, team. How are you?
‐Doing well.
‐Doing great, how are you?
I am glad
that you patched me in
and I'm wondering how the
investigation is progressing.
Well, it's been an eventful day.
As the ranch usually does
when we bring new people on,
it seems to, uh,
liven up a little bit.
And we, uh, caught some
pretty interesting things today.
Yeah, Brandon, when we were up
on the mesa, the TriField meters
were measuring really strong
transient microwave fields
and‐and the power that,
uh, we were picking up
was on the verge
of being dangerous levels.
So, I'd like to get some
more precise measurements made.
Yeah, that's‐that's disturbing,
and that is also consistent
with what we've experienced
in the past.
What are the priority items
going forward
as we launch into this phase
of the investigation?
So, one of the first
things the guys want to do
is get some surveys
and some testing done.
They want to do some RF testing.
They want to do
radiological testing,
some thermography and
they want to dig.
Hmm.
You know, I
I'm not sure
I'm comfortable with that.
Uh, w‐which part are you not
comfortable with, uh, Brandon?
The digging. I think that
once we commence digging,
it opens up
a whole Pandora's box,
and there are certain risks
that I think
you just aren't privy to
and haven't been
properly briefed on.
When Brandon said
there was no digging
on the ranch, I was stunned.
How are we gonna get
to the bottom of things
happening on this place,
if we can't investigate
in every way we can?
Well, we need
to be briefed
on that data, then,
so we can understand
the phenomena
that we're being exposed to
or trying to uncover.
I understand. Erik,
do you happen to have
the, uh, the case?
I do. I've been saving it
until the right point in
the discussion to bring it up.
My first reaction
when Brandon tells me
that they haven't
showed us everything,
that we haven't seen
all the information they have
Well, how can I help them
if they don't give me
all the information?
And I was a little bit
concerned about that.
This is not
to be taken lightly,
and that's why we've kept
the material
under lock and key.
I think you'll understand
soon why.
This is a matter of, really,
the highest level
of seriousness and sensitivity.
‐Hmm.
These are hornets
that you've never
had to deal with before.
Hornets. All right.
Well, I want to see them.
Erik, with that,
proceed to show them
what is in the case.
Regrettably,
I have to go to a meeting,
so I'll look
for your update later.
‐Thanks, gentlemen.
Thanks, Brandon.
I came into this saying,
look, guys,
we're gonna follow
the scientific method.
You can't keep data
away from the experiment and
not show the rest of the team,
in order for it
to be a good experiment.
I've got a U. S.
government clearance,
and I don't see
why Brandon and the team
feel like they have
to keep anything from me.
Now, I'm beginning
to wonder what the heck
they've got in store for me.
So what I am going to show you
may offer an explanation
for some
of what we've been
seeing on the property.
You'll understand
as soon as I open this up.
Wow.
The legend is that things
happen on this ranch.
Okay, that's spiking.
‐That could be dangerous.
‐It's coming from up there.
The signal was coming
from the sky.
‐What is that?
Do you guys see that?
It flew from behind
the mesa. Foom.
‐There it is.
‐There it is again.
Whoa. That's a definite beam.
The moment that object appeared,
the cow reacted.
We are dealing
with some kind of intelligence
that has the ability
to paralyze.
It felt like someone was
knocking from under the floor.
‐What is that?
Is that
a fragmented bone?
It could be human remains.
We have something active
beneath this property.
It stinks in here.
I don't want to stay
in here very long.
We were just exposed
to ionizing radiation.
‐My head is killing me.
This is serious.
I think it's time
to go to the hospital.
I wanted to get out here
as soon as I could.
Who or what
could we be dealing with?
There is something of
significant size down there.
Is it saucer‐shaped?
‐Yes.
Let's dig it up.
Look at that.
What is that?
Why is that rocking like that?
Oh!
What we saw tonight was real.