Original subtitles

[narrator reading]

Here he comes.

[narrator] On their quest to dig into the keyhole chamber

below the bead site...

This could be a game-changer, Charlie boy.

It looks like some type of crematorium.

[narrator] ...the team uncovered what appears to be an ancient altar.

-Is that more bone? -Yeah.

Now you're talking.

[narrator] While Chad and Eric trek to north,

following the fault line from the South Cave...

That's what we're looking for, brother.

[narrator] ...they unearth an abandoned mine,

which might be connected to the cavern system...

[Eric] This is what we've been looking for.

[narrator] ...and uncover a vein of gold ore...

-[both laughing] -That's it.

[narrator] ...which puts the team closer than ever to the Aztec treasure.

We got gold, boys. [laughs]

Whoo! [laughing]

[narrator] Legends of ancient treasures...

This has to be hundreds of years back.

[narrator] ...and unexplained phenomena...

-What the hell is that? -[narrator] ...meet at a 160-acre property

in northeast Utah,

known as Blind Frog Ranch,

where Duane Olinger and his team are digging

in search of long-lost Aztec gold.

[man] Did the Aztecs have discovered this?

[narrator] But the closer they get...

I finally get to hold [bleep] gold my hand.

[narrator] ...the more the land fights back.

-I'm gonna ask-- -Oh, my [bleep] God!

Now Duane will move heaven...

There you go.

-[narrator] ...and earth... -Final.

[narrator] ...until he gets to the bottom of this mystery...

We've started this whole deal and we're sure as hell gonna face it.

[narrator] ...and solves what's lurking below.

Holy [bleep]! There's something in there! [bleep]

God!

[narrator] ...at Blind Frog Ranch.

[Duane] Drill, drill.

[narrator] In an attempt to find an open entrance into the keyhole chamber,

Duane and the team are excavating at the base of the bead site.

[Charlie] Hey, Duane,

we've got a void here.

Let's chase this and see where it goes.

Copy that. That's what we're looking for.

[Charlie] If it's part of the chimney system,

it's gotta be going in the cavern then.

-That could be an entrance in. -Yeah.

Yeah, he's gotta dig us down.

[narrator] Prior to digging at this rock face,

Duane and his team attempted to excavate

at a different vent hole beneath the bead site

and made a shocking discovery.

This is some type of sacrificial altar.

There's this skull right there.

[narrator] So the team shifted their excavation 20 feet

to the east of the altar.

And have been digging at the base of a different chimney vent.

[Josh] There he goes! There he goes!

Let's open this baby up!

[Josh] Charlie saw that there was a void there, right in the hard rock.

It doesn't make a lot of sense and God only knows what it could be.

Let the dust clear.

I mean, that could be the key to get us in.

[Charlie] Hey, Josh.

Come over here and look at this.

What do you got?

Yeah, let's see.

Man, I've got this void here.

I can't tell if it's a man-made chimney,

or just a gap here in the rock.

I'd like to get James up here and let him look at this.

James!

[James] What's going on?

[Josh] We need you up here, buddy.

[James] You know, that doesn't look like it goes anywhere, does it?

[Charlie] I agree with James. This isn't a chimney.

Yeah, this is kind of maybe not what we thought it was.

You know, we tried to drill down below the second chimney vent,

but it just dead ends into this small hollow.

Let's get Duane's opinion and see where he wants to go from here.

[James] Yeah, absolutely.

[Josh] Hey, Duane.

What do you think?

Well, that void's there, but it doesn't look like

it's an entrance into the larger cave system below.

Yeah, you can tell that rock wall keeps going straight down.

Ah, we don't really know where to go from here.

You know, guys, we could--

We could go in the side of this still

until the cows come home and we won't find nothing.

We could be a foot away from them.

But we know from the smoke pit that there's a chimney.

That runs right up to the top of the bead site.

I think what we need to do is go up top and start drilling

and see if we don't drop into a void.

[narrator] For the past week,

Duane was focused on excavating

under the bead site to try and reach the keyhole chamber.

So far, he and his team have uncovered what they believe

is an altar and a small void beneath it, but nothing else.

Now, Duane wants to try a radically different approach

and try drilling into the bead site from above,

following the path of the highest vent shaft.

[Josh] I like it.

You think we can get a drill rig up there?

Oh, hell yeah.

All right. We'll tack it from another angle.

-Literally. -Let's do it.

-I like it. -Yeah. Let's drill.

[Duane] What do we got goin' on, fellas?

Well, we went up to that anomaly

that I noticed on the LiDAR scan.

-[Josh] Really? -Yep.

Well, where's that at?

[Eric] Just a little northwest of here.

[James] It's on that same fault line where that South Cave is.

Yep. What we found seems to be an abandoned mine.

[narrator] After the collapse of the South Cave,

Eric used the LiDAR scan to identify a fault line

that passes through the South Cave

and continues eight miles north,

where he discovered an abandoned pit mine.

This could mean the cavern system under Blind Frog Ranch

extends all the way up to the pit mine.

We separated out about three or four samples.

I brought the samples back, processed them, and we found this.

-There it is. -[laughs]

Look at that.

[Charlie] Oh, my.

We got gold.

Really?

[Josh] Yeah, that is gold.

[Eric] So gold mineralization in this type of geology

indicates that there could be caverns and tunnels beneath this site.

And we found tunnels.

So if they're all on the same fault line,

is that the cave system that we're looking for here under this ranch?

Very possible. The world's largest caves do follow fault lines.

Because it's a weakness in the earth.

That's wild.

This is what I would call a small open pit mine.

It's a series of small pits.

And we didn't see any indication of a void going down into the earth.

Not now. There could have been in the past.

And they could have purposefully filled it in.

Oh, you can see it ends right there.

-[Josh] Does it end right there? -Yeah.

[Josh] Interesting.

[Eric] While these tunnels are dead ends,

they're validating our theory.

There could be caves like these anywhere along the fault line.

I think we may be better off following that fault line.

Just trying to find a new entrance.

[Duane] What are you thinking?

[Eric] So the other end of the fault line

actually runs right across the meteorite impact site.

[narrator] Last year...

They just hit something hard, hard.

Because it's really slow, he said, the drill.

[narrator] ...while attempting to drill into the keyhole chamber

in an area known as the Energy Zone,

the team learned there was an impenetrable meteorite 110 feet below ground.

[man] We found iridium.

Well, iridium means off earth, right?

It's not natural to this planet.

[narrator] But Eric discovered that the fault line

that runs from the South Cave to the open pit mine

crosses directly through that meteor site.

Yeah, we literally couldn't drill anymore.

It just kept on bouncing off that hard layer and couldn't get through it.

It was just eating up the drill bits.

[Eric] Actually, I've got an idea

on how we can further explore that meteor impact site.

I happen to know a place in southern Ohio,

and I know a colleague of mine who is an expert in meteor impact sites.

And so this site is called the Serpent Mound Disturbance.

And it's a verified meteor impact site.

It's huge.

At the Serpent Mound Disturbance, we also have a cultural site.

It's a burial mound in the form of a serpent.

What I'd like to do,

with your blessing of course,

is go there, get some baseline measurements,

and compare them with our meteorite here.

So if we can determine the size and the angle of impact,

we can make a plan to get past it

into the keyhole chamber below.

I think that's a good idea, Eric. Let's do that.

I like it.

[Chad] I gotta admit, Eric is onto something.

But the meteor isn't the only site that sits on this fault line.

When I came back from the open pit mine,

I was looking at the map and I realized

that the collapsed mine was also on the same fault line.

[narrator] Last year,

Chad and James discovered a collapsed pit mine...

[Chad] This is definitely a mine shaft of some kind, 100%.

[narrator] ...that sits on the same fault line

as the meteor impact that is at the Energy Zone,

the South Cave and the open pit mine.

[Chad] I'd like to go up there and check that out.

How far up is this collapsed mine?

[Chad] It's a good half-day's hike.

The way to get there, we just take game trails the whole way.

It's too narrow for us side-by-side to go through there.

Well, we need to take equipment up there,

uh, to really do a good assessment.

-Can horses get through there? -Yeah, good idea.

I like it. Let's do it.

Josh, before you leave,

I'd like you to give me a hand at the beachside.

And, Eric, go find out about that deal and take first class.

But if you don't find nothing, take a bus back.

All right, we got a plan, fellas.

Let's move forward.

-Let's do it. -[Josh] Yeah, good luck, Eric.

[Eric] I'll let you all know what I find.

[Charlie] This way, Duane.

Here he comes.

[narrator] In order to bring a drill to the top of the bead site,

fifty feet in elevation,

Duane will need to clear a mile-long path with the excavator.

-You in? -I'm in.

Here we go.

[narrator] Josh and Charlie will help guide the rig

through the rough, uneven terrain.

[Duane] Y'all go first and give me the one that's fast.

[Josh] Okay.

[Charlie] Uh, Duane, you got a tree ahead.

[Duane] Copy that.

Yeah, just head for that tree with the U in it.

[Duane] All right, got it.

There's an operator who knows what he's doing.

[Charlie] Here we go.

Uh, I would say here's the fence.

-[Josh] Oh, yeah, right here? -Yeah.

This is what I got to take out right here.

Radio Duane. Let him know.

We got to cut this fence and get it back out of the way.

[Charlie] All right, Duane.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[Josh] You just don't want barbed wire spinning around tracks.

It could really hurt somebody bad.

Certainly don't want that.

-You got your cutters, too? -[Charlie] Yeah.

[Josh] Radio Duane.

[Josh] Hole 'em right there.

Duane, right here, Duane.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. [bleep] Whoa.

[Josh] Radio Duane.

We gotta cut this fence and get it back out of the way.

[narrator] Duane is clearing a path

to the top of the bead site for the vertical drill rig.

But a comms malfunction has the team on a collision course.

-[Josh] Hold him! -[Charlie] All right, Duane.

[Josh] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

We got wire right here, Duane!

[bleep] right in front of you.

-You got your radio on, right? -Yeah.

I couldn't hear nothing.

[Charlie] You know, things have always gone haywire here.

Equipment quitting, everything.

We'll just chalk it up as Blind Frog Ranch.

I think we're clear.

We're clear, Duane, go for it!

Copy that.

[Josh] We have to get into this cave system underneath here,

and we think that this is a location that that can be done.

So we're gonna bring in a drill rig,

and we're gonna drill vertical.

And I think we're gonna get there quicker and find more answers.

We're currently looking around, Charlie.

[Josh] I'm gonna get out in front of him, Charlie.

All I can say is this place is...

It's a place that I just don't have a lot of answers for.

I don't know.

[Charlie] We're close to a landing down here.

[Josh] But what I do know is that this spot up here

is gonna be our best bet to access the cave system beneath us.

And some new tech might be the thing that finally gets us there.

[Charlie] I think we're clear.

I think we can get that drill rig in here. It ain't gonna be bad.

[Charlie] Yeah, good job. Good work.

-[Chad] Got it all packed up, Josh? -[Josh] Almost. Yeah.

This is the last strap, and we're good to go.

[narrator] With the bead side excavation on hold until the drill arrives,

Chad and Josh are traveling north to the end of the fault line,

where last year they found a collapsed mine.

[Chad] We're going horseback because it is rough terrain.

And we have a lot of tools that we're bringing, too.

We're bringing metal detectors.

Besides, it's fun to ride horses, too.

[Josh] Boy, what a beautiful canyon!

[Chad] Isn't it great, man?

[Josh] It's just fantastic.

I want to show you what we think is some kind of entrance,

but we don't know exactly what it is.

[Chad] Well, if it's a mine, I'll be able to tell you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Come on! Yeah, boy. Yeah.

[grunting]

I think this is a good place to stop.

It gets a little too rugged for the horses past here.

Last year, we came up along this creek.

There's a little game trail we can follow.

-All right. I think I'm following you, then. -Yeah.

We'll cross the creek here, and it's about another mile hike.

Chad, I'm starting to second-guess that idea you leaving the horses behind.

It would have been rough going for the horses, though, huh? What do you think?

-It would have been a rough go for us. -Yeah, it's true.

It's just right around this bend, I believe.

Josh, it's right here, man.

[Josh] Coming.

Here we go. Here's the mine. [laughs]

Awesome.

Finally here, brother.

[Chad] What is going on with this place?

[Josh] Man, this ranch is full of surprises.

Chad is showing me this giant collapsed cavern in the middle of nowhere.

There's no roads here. There's no trails.

I mean, if you didn't know to look for this place,

you wouldn't find it in a million years.

What do you think?

There's something going on here,

because all of this was dug out below.

This is not natural.

Somebody has been in here messing around,

but I don't know if it was originally a cave

-and then somebody came in here and did more work... -Right.

...or if it's actually a mineral deposit

that somebody was working as a mine.

[Chad] So you do think that this is a cave, though, right?

[Chad] Absolutely. There's no question.

That's why I'm so excited about this find you have here, Chad.

[Chad] Hell yeah.

[Josh] We got more exploration to do.

We need to look in every nook and cranny.

[Chad] Yep.

[narrator] Over 1,500 miles away in southern Ohio,

Eric has arrived at the Serpent Mound Disturbance,

a nine-mile-wide meteor crater formed over 250 million years ago.

It is one of only 28 known impact craters in the U.S.

-[Eric] Mark Baranoski. -[Mark] Eric.

I could tell it was a geologist

'cause you have all your rocks out here.

I had to bring a couple samples for you to see.

Nice. Thank you for coming out and talking with us here.

-It's all about education for me. -Yeah.

I'm really excited to meet with Mark.

He was one of the original scientists

who figured out that this was a meteor impact site.

I asked him to show me the evidence that they used

to assess the meteor impact here in Ohio

so I can use the same techniques

at our meteor site back at Blind Frog Ranch.

All that will allow us to drill around the meteorite

and get us down into the keyhole chamber.

What have we got here?

[Mark] Well, this one is kind of a rare shatter cone,

-but if you look-- -I can see it.

Can you see the edges there?

This is the first time I've ever seen,

actually seen a shatter cone in real life.

[narrator] A shatter cone is a rare geological feature

with a ripple pattern

formed by intense pressure

and heat strong enough to instantly liquefy rocks.

Only two forces are known to create them,

an underground nuclear detonation or a meteor attack.

It was the presence of shatter cones

that convinced scientists it was a meteor

that caused the Serpent Mound Disturbance.

Think about this. It's on the edge of the crater.

The energy came in from the middle

and then shot out horizontally by the time I got here.

[Eric] This one, you can really see it,

the cone, like, sort of radiating out from the middle there.

Shatter cones are one of the check boxes

that we use to determine if it's an impact or not.

These shatter cones are literally pointers

pointing back to the very center

of where this meteorite crashed.

We can infer from the surrounding strata,

number one, the angle it came in,

and number two, where exactly it hit.

What's another check box that we can look at?

It's actually just up the ridge. Lemme show you.

-Let's go. -All right.

[Eric] All right.

We're right in the crater zone there, right?

[Mark] Yes. Here we are.

[Eric] Nice.

[Mark] When that meteorite came in to hit this part of the world,

it just busted everything up tremendously.

There was fracturing, shatter cones.

The geomagnetic survey indicated that it was altered most likely by the impact.

So what you're telling me is that this impact was so powerful

that it actually changed the magnetism,

changed the polarity of the rocks beneath the impact.

-Is that correct? -That's correct.

Wow.

[narrator] All rocks have a magnetic polarity

running north and south, much like a magnet.

This polarity stays the same unless the rock encounters

extremely high heat or a violent impact.

In that case, a polarity change can occur

and can even affect instruments.

[Charlie] That's west, but my compass is telling me that's north.

[narrator] At Blind Frog Ranch, this type of interference

is often encountered at the Energy Zone.

[Eric] Wow.

When I get back, I'd like to check

for the magnetic polarity at Blind Frog Ranch.

But I also wanna check for shatter cones.

That way, we can see exactly where it landed and how big it is.

[Eric] And how big it is.

Where do we go next?

[Mark] Well, let's head up to the northeast side of the crater.

Hopefully, we'll get a better view as to what's in that crater.

[Eric] Okay.

[Chad] Put your hand in there.

[Josh] Oh, yeah.

[Chad] When we were in here last year, we moved some rocks around

and there was, like, cool air pushing in and out.

That's amazing. That's a lotta airflow coming out of there.

This thing's breathing.

I want to run the metal detector around this hole

and see if I can find any clues on how to get in here.

[Chad] All right.

[Josh] See, if we can find some objects,

steel objects that people were actually in here working--

-Oh, like, mining equipment kind of thing, or-- -Yeah, exactly.

There we go.

-[metal detector beeps] -[Josh] Here we go.

[metal detector beeping]

[Josh] So, I don't know what that is.

[Chad] What the hell is that?

[Josh] I don't know.

[Chad] No, I don't either.

-[Josh] I sure as hell want to find it. -[metal detector beeping]

[Chad] What is that?

-[metal detector beeping] -[Josh] I don't know what that is.

[narrator] After following the fault line north, Chad and Josh

have begun investigating a possible entrance to the collapsed mine.

[metal detector beeping]

[narrator] And something below the opening has set off Josh's metal detector.

[Chad] What is that?

-[Josh] I'm definitely picking up on something. -[metal detector beeping]

[Chad] Let me see if I can get a camera down in there.

[grunts]

Oh, it's just so [bleep] tight.

[Josh] How far can you get in there?

[Chad] Uh, that's about it. Well, I can go a little more.

Uh, I mean, it looks like it could go way down here.

[grunts] I can't get it in there any further.

I don't know if we're gonna be able to

get to what your metal detector was picking up in there.

[Josh] Let's start taking some samples.

-Check this out, Chad. -[Chad] What's that?

[Josh] This one right here. Look at this.

[Chad] What is it?

[Josh] This is limestone.

That's exactly what I needed to see.

That's a brachiopod.

So it's a fossilized clamshell.

-That is not found in sandstone. -Ah.

This is limestone. And it is so important that you have it here.

Because limestone equals caves.

Nice. Good find, man.

When in caves, this is what you want to find, right here.

[narrator] Limestone caves are formed over the course

of millions of years

when acidic rainwater dissolves

the calcium carbonate that makes up limestone.

Over time, small cracks become massive fissures,

which can become mile-long cave systems.

[Josh] Now I know we can possibly get underground.

-[Chad] Yeah. -I wasn't sure until this moment.

-[Chad] Hell, yeah. -[Josh] I'm just freaking excited

that you have limestone,

which means that you could have a huge complex

of a cave system underneath your property.

I'm glad you got to see this,

to make sure we're [bleep] telling you some truth here,

that you can see what we're talking about.

I see what you're talking about, but I'm gonna tell you,

riding up here today,

-I didn't expect to find limestone. -Right.

Not at all. And we get here, sure enough, here's this

[bleep] limestone hidden underneath the sandstone.

This site checks a lot of boxes.

We've got limestone, we've got airflow.

And just like the open pit mine south of here,

it sits right on the fault line.

Obviously, we're standing at the entrance of the cave.

A natural-forming cave.

Definitely. A natural cave that somebody was working on,

-maybe to mine, maybe to hide something. -[Chad] Yeah.

[Josh exhales]

We've gotta find a way in.

The only problem is, we've got to move

all these big boulders out of the way.

All this stuff up here. That's just held up by imagination.

[Chad] Yeah.

[Josh] This is way too dangerous of a site.

We'd have to shore all this up before we even start working here.

And we haven't even started digging yet.

[Chad] Yeah, that's true.

-We're talking a big process. -A big process.

This is... Right now, this is a dangerous site that can't be worked.

-Yeah. -I mean, we're literally

at the bottom of a rock fall.

[Chad] This cave here is too dangerous to excavate.

But the pattern that we're seeing here is a huge discovery.

We've now found two sets of limestone tunnels along this fault line.

Here, and at the open pit mine.

And both of them have signs of mineral deposits.

And that could mean that these limestone tunnels

could lead all the way back down to the South Cave.

And the way in could be anywhere in between.

All right, let's head out.

-You think you can carry me out of here, Chad? -[chuckles]

[Josh] I think you could, honestly.

-[Chad] We're just halfway home. -[chuckles]

We're following Mark here to the, uh, cemetery,

and the reason we're going to a cemetery

is because it's an elevated spot so we can get a good view

of the entirety of the disturbance.

[narrator] Eric is in Southern Ohio,

where he is examining a location

called the Serpent Mound disturbance,

a massive meteor impact zone.

So, Mark, what I'm gonna do

-is I'm gonna go from the east edge of the crater... -Okay.

...to the west. We're gonna take a bunch of just still shots.

-Okay. -We're gonna take it up a little bit higher.

[Mark] Get that bird's-eye view of the crater.

-[Eric] Here we go. -[Mark] Awesome.

-Up, up and away. -[Eric] Here.

Climb?

[narrator] Eric is using a drone to map the impact zone.

He can then use the topographical data

as a reference when examining

the meteor impact at Blind Frog.

This will allow the team to determine exactly where

the impenetrable meteor ends

and where they can begin digging.

[Eric] I'd like to try to scan the entire crater, if possible.

So let's start with the northern edge.

Nice.

The north side shows nicely from up here.

[Mark] Yeah, it's a great view.

[Eric] Okay, let's shift west.

The western part of the rim should be right about there.

So we're going to keep turning south.

[Mark] Right in here.

[Eric] Last but not least, the eastern rim.

Done.

[Mark] Good deal.

So honestly, there aren't a whole lot

of documented meteor impact sites in the United States,

especially that are this well researched.

So, I'm really excited that I was able

to get this topographical data today.

I'm really excited to show this to Duane and the guys.

[man] Here it comes.

[narrator] A new day at the ranch

comes with some new equipment.

[Josh] Chad and I got a big win in finding that limestone

up at the collapsed mine.

It's proof this cavern system

stretches for miles, even beyond Blind Frog.

And today, with this new rig, we might be able to drill

into the heart of that system at the Bead Site.

That's a good-looking rig.

Duane Ollinger.

-[Denzel] Nice to meet you. -I'm Josh.

-Denzel. Nice to meet you. -Pleasure.

Our pleasure. Pleasure.

-Denzel or Denzelle? -Denzel.

-Denzel. -Yeah.

I picked up on it. It sounded different, so I wasn't--

-Yeah. -Yeah.

He got all the money, looks, the fortune and fame.

And I come from the foothills of the Appalachians.

-Hell, yeah. -Yeah.

It looks like one hell of a good rig.

Yeah, I've never been around one like this.

[Josh] This year, Duane's up in the game.

He's bringing in his sonic drill,

and that thing is gonna drill faster and deeper

than he ever has before.

[narrator] Unlike traditional drills

that use pressure to crush and grind

through rock, sonic drills use high-frequency vibrations,

and can reach depths of over 600 feet.

This make it up the road okay so far?

-Yeah, yeah. -[Josh] Yeah.

The road gets a little primitive from here,

and so we'll just take the lead, and just follow us in.

-All right. -[Duane] You ready?

-Come on. -Yeah.

-[Josh] All right. -All right.

-[Josh] Here we go. -[Duane] Hell, yeah.

-All right. -[Josh] It's gonna get dangerous as [bleep].

-[Duane] Oh, yeah. -[Josh laughs]

[man 1] This is a rough ride.

[narrator] At the northern edge of Blind Frog Ranch...

[man 2] Yeehaw!

[narrator] ...the team's new sonic drill rig

has begun its trek to the Bead Site.

Once there, the team will attempt

to drill down into a vent hole

and reach the keyhole chamber below.

[Josh] Look at that.

All right, here he comes.

Just before we get to the pad, it gets a little steep there.

[Josh] Not a bit.

Denzel knows what he's doing.

[man 3] It's coming all right.

[man 4] Charlie, we're coming in.

[Charlie] Yee-haw!

It's here!

Well, let's get to it.

[machine whirring]

Look at this.

[narrator] As the sonic drill bit descends,

it will collect long cylinders of material called cores.

Each core will provide samples of the Earth

from deep beneath the site.

If any material associated with caves

appears, like dolomite

or limestone, the drill could be entering a cave.

[Josh] I'm hoping to see limestone.

That's what I want to see, because this cave is underneath us,

and it's got to be in the limestone,

and we're standing on top of sandstone.

So if we get limestone, then I'm gonna be ecstatic.

Drill, boy!

So I'm on my way to meet the local expert

to learn more about the cultural aspect

of the Serpent Mound effigy.

[narrator] The Serpent Mound effigy

is a 1,300-foot-long earthwork sculpture

built thousands of years ago on top

of the meteorite impact zone by the Adena.

The Adena were a Native American culture

famed for constructing massive ceremonial

and burial mounds throughout the Midwest.

By the time the first Europeans

began investigating the Serpent Mound,

the Adena had been gone for centuries,

and they left behind no records on why

they chose the interior of a meteorite crater

as the location for their mysterious

Serpent Mound effigy.

Eric is meeting with Tom Johnson,

a local expert.

He has a lot of knowledge on the indigenous people

and what different cultures occupied the site.

It's a very, very old site.

And we'll see what Tom

has to say.

I'm really excited to see if there's any similarities

to our cultural site at Blind Frog Ranch.

Hey, Tom.

-Hey, Eric. -How you doing?

-Glad you made it. -Yeah, good to be here.

Look at this.

It's amazing how intricate it is.

It's a burial mound. Is that correct?

[Thomas] Yes.

The rear of the head

-on the right-hand side, that had three bodies in it. -[Eric] Okay.

-But they didn't discover that until a few years ago. -Okay.

Did it serve any other purpose?

They kept it as a calendar, and there was actually

an alignment on the winter solstice sunrise.

Wow.

[narrator] According to Tom, each bend in the body

of the snake lines up with the sun

during important astronomical events,

such as solstices and equinoxes.

The most important alignment

is summer solstice, sunrise or sunset.

This is the sunset alignment.

-The line going through like this? -Right.

-[Eric] Okay -[Thomas] Yep.

-We're standing on a path across the way. -[Eric] Okay.

-[Thomas] On the other side... -[Eric] Okay.

...you would be observing the summer solstice sunrise.

[Eric] Okay.

So, I mean, this is fascinating.

According to Tom, if you stand in this one spot,

look at this bend in the snake,

it'll line up exactly with the summer solstice sunset.

This is ancient astronomy.

-Wow. -It's some sort of a sun calendar.

[Eric] Yeah.

So obviously, they're sun worshippers,

-because you can rely on the sun to grow your crops. -Right.

Once you have agriculture and you have things like art,

-and you have a sophisticated culture. -[Thomas] Mmm-hmm.

So it has a lot of energy.

-[Eric] Okay. -And I think a lot

of the Native Americans,

-they had to tap into that, they had to. - [Eric] Yeah.

So there's more going on here than just an archeological site.

[Thomas] Absolutely.

[Thomas] Let's go to the underwater serpent.

[narrator] While visiting the Serpent Mound effigy,

Tom offers to show Eric another site nearby.

It's a naturally occurring stone formation

he believes was sacred to local Native Americans.

[Thomas] Here she is.

They call this the grotto.

-[Eric] Okay. -[Thomas] It looks like the head of a serpent.

You could, if you wanted to, you could climb up there.

[Eric] Yeah. How did you find this place?

[Thomas] I have a blueprint from 1939

from the University of Cincinnati

that shows this very rock.

It actually shows it? Wow. It's a carbonate.

And it seems similar to limestone, a little bit different,

but, um, it's also the type of rock

-you find in the big cave systems then, too. -Mmm-hmm.

-[Eric] I might try to get up on top. -[Thomas] Yeah.

[Eric] This is a cool spot.

I've had a lot of tribal members stand down here,

and they're filled with emotion.

-Yeah. -Because they see the spirits in the canoes.

[Eric] Yeah. It gives you that feeling.

Now how the hell am I gonna get down here?

[Thomas] Jump in the river.

[Eric] This is crazy.

[narrator] In Southern Ohio, Eric is exploring

the mysterious Serpent Mound effigy,

an earthen snake sculpture

built inside a massive meteor crater,

hoping it can provide insights into the impact site

at Blind Frog Ranch.

When you talk about energy,

are there any, like, unexplained-type things

-that happen out here... -A lot.

...or in the crater?

Yes. It serves a certain amount of protection...

[thunder rumbling]

...from storms, 'cause I've been here 25 years,

and I've observed many storms

being deflected from the crater.

[Eric] Wow. Yeah.

You've got to wonder what's going on with that. I mean--

I think it's just the magnetic anomalies...

-[Eric] The anomalies. Yeah. -...of the crater.

Yeah.

It's so interesting, 'cause we're seeing

the same type of phenomenon out at the ranch.

We also have an archeological site there.

They also had an impact site there.

And you said there's a specific area that the energy is most--

There is. It's up here by the head of the serpent,

and that's where a fault comes across it.

[Eric] You've got faults, too?

[Thomas] We have two faults here.

This is really crazy.

There's a lot of parallels to what we're seeing in Utah.

Talking to Tom,

we really have something very similar

that's going on at Blind Frog Ranch to what they have here.

We have ancient peoples building structures

atop a meteor impact site,

and these are sites that also exist

right on the fault line.

But the strangest thing is the energy that Tom talked about.

I mean, we witnessed the same thing at the ranch.

I've never seen my compass act like this.

Is it related to the meteor impact site?

Is it the reason people build

sacred sites at both locations?

All I know is whatever's happening here,

it could be happening at Blind Frog, too.

Yeah, it's a really special site, I'll tell you that.

-It really is. -I'm glad they preserved it.

-Yeah. I-- -I really am.

[narrator] At the top of the Bead Site,

Duane and the sonic drill crew

have bored ten feet below the surface...

[man 1] This is our first core right here!

[narrator] ...as they drill down towards the cavern

beneath the Bead Site.

[man 2] See what it looks like at depth.

We got trace manganese, iron, fine green sandstone.

-No sign of limestone. -All right.

I'm keeping a log as we go down,

looking for any change in the soil. Change is what we're after.

[machine whirring]

We just hit 50 foot, and that puts us

right at the Bead Site below.

So we're on top of this rock.

So now we're at the level of the Bead Site.

The next 50 feet to 100 feet, that's gonna be exciting.

[machine whirring]

[Josh] This is 65 feet right here in the core.

-So we're way into the Bead Site right now. -All right.

And look how gray it's getting, It's getting dark.

-It's not brown. -Exactly.

[Josh] I'm definitely seeing some change in the cores.

They're getting darker and grayer, and that's limestone.

And limestone is what you need for cave systems.

We'll know more in a second, right after this next sample.

All right, here it comes.

[imperceptible]

[Duane] Hell, yeah.

So we're about at 80 foot right now,

and hopefully, we'll drop into that underground cavern soon.

-Yeah. We got it, Charlie. -Yeah.

Wait, can you hear that?

-[man] Whoa. -Everything good?

No, it's stopped.

Whoa!

[bleep]

What the hell is going on?