Original subtitles

Drill boy!

[narrator] Previously, on Blind Frog Ranch

Duane's quest to access the keyhole chamber at the Bead Site

-turned explosive. -[man] Watch out!

Whoa!

[narrator] When his drill head unleashed a torrent of mysterious underground water.

I mean, it's just strange that we have that much flow.

[narrator] Believing that the water might be an aqueduct

deep below the ranch.

Water down the line.

[narrator] Duane and James travel to Mexico City.

The ancient Aztecs, they were masters of managing water.

[narrator] Where their tour of ancient ruins revealed clues

into how the Aztecs constructed their underground water systems.

And surprising connections to the ranch.

The concrete that they were using kind of reminds you of somewhere, huh.

Uh, almost like concrete.

Concrete?

[Duane] Damn, that's a long way down. How deep?

-Twenty-three meters. -[Duane] As deep as the energy zone, really.

There is a void right here.

Look at that [bleep].

There has been a hole there before.

-Right here. -Huh.

[narrator] Back in Utah,

Duane's plan to trace the path of the water

and possibly lead them to a new entrance into the underground cavern system

yielded shocking results.

It looks like it's still moving.

[narrator] As their acoustic homing beacon

quickly swept under and away from the ranch.

I got it. It's moving that direction.

[narrator] After Josh and Ryan tracked its signal to a nearby lake.

We dunk the ROV in, see if we can see something?

Here we go.

[narrator] They discovered an underwater opening.

Right there. Right there. Look at that. Look at this.

Like, no [bleep], that's it.

[narrator] That could lead the team straight into the Aztec keyhole chamber.

Legends of ancient treasures.

This has to be hundreds of years back.

-[narrator] And unexplained phenomenon. -What the hell is that?

[narrator] Meet at a 160-acre property in northeast Utah,

known as Blind Frog Ranch,

Where Duane Ollinger and his team

are digging in search of long-lost Aztec gold.

The Aztecs have discovered this.

[narrator] But the closer they get...

Finally get to hold [bleep] gold in my hand.

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

-Poison gas. -No! [bleep]

-[narrator] Now, Duane will move heaven and earth... -There he goes.

Fire in the hole.

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

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

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

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

-[bleep] -Josh.

[narrator] At Blind Frog Ranch.

-[Ryan] What kind of clarity you got? -The visibility is not good.

[Ryan] Let's just try to scan the shoreline.

[Josh] There we go. There comes some rock right now.

There's a lot of rubble right over here.

-[Ryan] Oh, yeah. -And you'd expect to find that if there was, like, a cave in.

So let's keep moving up this direction.

[narrator] After learning that an Aztec aqueduct might run beneath the ranch,

the team dropped a beacon into the waterway

-hoping it would lead them to a new entrance... -[beacon beeping]

...into the underground cavern system.

Josh and Ryan tracked the Beacon signal to Calamity Lake,

three miles west of the ranch,

where they believe it's come to rest.

So now, they are scanning the shoreline for a passageway.

[Ryan] Yeah, it's 1000 feet from us.

Some run at the far shoreline.

[narrator] Josh and Ryan will use an underwater drone

to search for a cave entrance that connects the lake to the tunnel.

Look at this. Can you see that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it almost looks like a collapsed wall of stone.

I'm not seeing any openings.

Let's keep heading this direction. See what we can get.

Oh, look there. Does that not look like an entrance to you?

Like, no [bleep]. That's it.

Well, there's only one way to find out.

We're gonna have to get Chad man out here.

He's gonna have to put on his frog suit

and put his own eyes on it and see it for sure.

[Duane] So what did you find, fellas?

Duane, we were following that beacon right off the ranch for miles.

Damn.

[Ryan] Eventually, we chased it up over this ridge.

And we're on this ridgeline. We come down and then boom.

There's an open body of water right there in front of us.

That beacon led us to this body of water.

We were getting a really consistent signal.

I think that means that that body water

is connected to the pond right here on Blind Frog Ranch.

Wow.

[narrator] Based on the signal from the hydrophone,

it appears that the beacon is located 1000 feet to the east of the lake.

Possibly trapped in an opening some 35 feet below the water.

[Josh] The beacon doesn't look like it's going any further.

It just stopped.

It's stationary right here.

So we think that beacon is in an opening to the cave system

under that body of water.

And that signal was so strong.

And I'm thinking, "God, maybe there's an entrance right there."

[narrator] If the opening Josh and Ryan discovered beneath the lake

is a cave entrance leading to the beacon,

that means that the team might be able to follow the underground cavern

all the way back to the keyhole chamber.

[Josh] This is what Skinner and I found right here, guys.

-Holy [bleep], man. -Oh, my God.

Damn boys. It took a while to get here.

But by God, that could be one of the Chicomoztoc caves.

I don't feel a lot of expression, but by God, I'm happy.

[laughs]

Maybe we can swim all the way back up to that keel cavern.

It's just whether we can get in there

or not is really what it boils down to.

Chadro, that sounds right up your alley.

-Yeah. I think we could do it. -Yeah.

We could definitely do it. We'll dive it and we'll see where it leads.

-It sounds like a plan. -Hell, yeah.

This lake is miles from the ranch.

So that means the underground cavern system

is potentially a lot bigger than we ever imagined.

The ROV Is showing us a little like gaps and spaces in there

that they think could be a possible cave.

We're thinking it's right there, right, Skinner?

Along the shoreline.

-Perfect. -That's our guess.

This could be one of the entrances to Chicomoztoc.

So I'm gonna go in and check it out.

Are you ready?

-So right here. All along this wall... -Yeah.

...there's rubble and voids all through there.

-That's the area we've got to check. -All right.

-See, look at this. -Wow!

Right through there.

Yeah, yeah. I see it.

-It's like, it kinda comes out and then it drops. -Right.

And then you get up underneath that. It's... it's black.

You can't see past there.

And I would think if there's an entrance into a cave,

it's somewhere underneath all that rubble.

Let me get your light ready for you.

I mean, that current, as big as this thing should be,

-you should feel a rush coming out of that void. -Exactly.

-You'll feel it. -You'll know right away.

-I'm gonna go down and see what I can find. -All right.

Good luck, Chad.

-You think you can chase him with ROV. -I'm gonna try to, yeah.

He's almost in that bigger void that we saw.

-Right now. -He's right in the area.

-[Josh] Yeah. -[Ryan] I wanna see him come up with the beacon.

-Oh, that would be nice. -I know, right.

Oh, he's way down there.

[bleep]

-Hey. -What do you got?

-I'm seeing all those rocks you're seeing. -Yeah.

[Chad] There's no opening at all.

-No entrance. -[Chad] No.

-There's no way we can get in there. -[bleep]

When you're diving, you have limited air and limited time under water.

And in the time I had down there,

all I saw was some cracks here and there and some big boulders

that might have been blocking whatever entrance was there at one time.

It almost looks like it's collapsed in certain areas,

but I can't tell if someone purposely did it or what.

Okay. You're feeling a current coming out?

No, I didn't feel any current.

[Ryan] Damn it. How is that possible?

Maybe there's another opening here. I don't know.

-I think I just need to keep searching the bank. -Okay.

We struck out with that first opening.

[bleep]

It is way too tight for Chad to even consider to dive into.

So he's going to take another look further up the shoreline.

Dive down a bit deeper and try to find a wider opening.

What do you see?

It looks like he's clearing out debris.

-What do you see? -I see a bunch of dirt kicked up.

-But I can't see him. -[bleep]

[narrator] After following the beacon signal

from the beach side to Calamity Lake three miles west of the ranch,

Josh and Ryan believe they found

where the beacon has stopped moving,

one thousand feet east of the lake.

Chad is searching a series of collapsed rocks along the shoreline.

Looking for a connecting tunnel to the beacon.

-Hey, I found the [bleep] cave. -You got it.

That cave is right underneath us.

-Whoo! -Right here.

-[laughs] -[bleep]. No way.

That was awesome, man.

-Freaking awesome. -Whoo.

Chad surfaces and he just goes, "I got a cave."

And I'm like, 'You've got to be freaking kidding me."

You're on the trail of the treasure,

and when you hear stuff like that,

it just makes everything, all of the work and all the pain worth it.

You can get into it, like, swim into it.

Yeah. It's blocked up with some, like some, uh, trees and stuff like that.

But the mouth of the cave is like big, and then it gets tighter.

And it looks like you can go a long ways in there.

-No [bleep]. -But it's so dark out there.

-This is legit cave diving then. -This is legit cave diving.

I mean, we're possibly looking into one of three entrances to chicomoztoc.

This is blowing my mind. But it's super dangerous.

So there's a current pushing me out.

Cold water coming out, like definitely temperature change.

-No way. -[Chad] There's a couple of different directions

you can go, so I didn't wanna get lost and [bleep].

But I think we need to use our heads on it

like we need to be tethered off.

We need lights. We need to have some master divers with us.

And, uh, we need to map this whole thing out and do it slow.

So I think if we get that, we can find the beacon

and find where the beacon went and follow it all the way back.

I mean, there's a good chance.

Whoo!

[Duane] Chadro, how did your dive go?

Where we thought the cave entrance was,

that opening didn't lead anywhere.

-Really? -[Chad] It was completely blocked off.

But I went back down there to take another look.

And started scanning that whole area.

We can finally find this big opening

[Duane] Now that's exciting.

There's cooler water coming out of there like the cave system here.

-So you can feel the flow. -[Chad] Yeah.

I really think this could be like an entrance

to the underground cavern system.

This is potentially the cave system that we've been looking for

and talking about, something that's an origin site for indigenous people

that were underground.

It sounds like you guys may have found a spot where we can get in.

[Duane] Getting that kind of information is a game changer

for this whole operation.

After ten years of hard work, we're getting close, but not close enough.

This cave might be our back door to the gold.

Chad's done one hell of a good job.

You know, very proud of that kid.

I mean, hell, don't tell him, or he'll get the big head.

I didn't go too far into the cave

'cause, I mean, it's nothing like the pond here.

It's hairy. It's narrow.

So I think we need to go back with some master divers.

We're gonna have to have a mapping system.

I need extra oxygen. I mean, the whole deal.

You know, this underwater cave diving it's some serious business.

It's dangerous as hell.

But I do trust Chad on what he'll come back with.

Right now, I'm loading up all my dive gear

because I'm heading to Florida to train for a few days

with some of the best cave divers in the world.

The underwater cave is a lot more intense.

I mean, it looks super sketchy,

and I'm just a regular scuba diver.

So I called this guy, Wendell. Nope.

He's going with me to Florida.

Wendell works with the Utah State Police dive team.

He's one of the best cave drivers around here.

[narrator] Formerly part of the Utah Department of Public Safety's dive team

for almost 20 years,

Wendell Nope, has conducted hundreds of search and rescue missions.

He'll act as Chad's safety diver,

a role that requires precise coordination and practice.

Me and Wendell can get a feel for how to swim together,

how to be a better team in case [bleep] does go wrong.

I mean, it was risky when I dove in the pond cavern before.

But this cave entrance is half the width of the pond tunnel.

It's totally unexplored.

So we've got to take this very seriously.

We can't afford to get anyone hurt here.

And I'm excited. So Florida, here we go.

-Chris. [laughs] -Chad.

Nice to finally meet you. Yes, sir. You too, man.

-How you doing? -Yeah, good.

-Wendell. -Nice to meet you.

The knowledge I do have of cave diving is just me going out there

and not really doing it professionally.

You know, it's more like kind of redneck cave diving.

It's not smart and no one should do that ever.

We thought it'd be best to go to Cave Diving Central.

So, uh, I came down to Florida to meet Chris Brock.

[narrator] Chris Brock is a master cave diver,

having explored dozens of dangerous underwater caves across the United States

and around the world.

At his dive school, Chris has taught several hundred students

what it takes to stay alive

while navigating impossibly tight tunnels in almost total darkness.

So tell me about the cave you found.

So basically, we think that this cave could lead towards

-this Aztec treasure we're trying to find. -[Chris] Oh, wow.

And it's, uh, super tight.

There's a lot of flow, not the best visibility.

So I definitely want to make sure that we do this right.

And, uh, just to make sure that everyone's safe.

-I mean, me, plus the crew, plus everyone. -[Chris] Right.

-You say it's a tight entrance. -[Chad] Yeah.

-We call that a restricted entrance. -Okay.

And side mount is the tool you would want to use to do that,

because it gives you complete separation of both cylinders.

So if you were to have a failure on one,

you have another cylinder to get out.

Gotcha.

[narrator] Side mount diving is a system designed by cave explorers

that uses smaller tanks attached to the hips with a belt.

Unlike traditional back mounted tanks,

this allows divers to swim through tight passageways

with less risk of damaging their equipment on the rocks around them.

All of our procedures that I'm going to teach you

are based on what fatalities have occurred.

And then procedures have been made that we use in training

to prevent those sorts of things from going on.

-There have been hundreds of people die in caves. -Right.

-They die because they get hopelessly lost... -Right.

...and after they get lost, they run out of gas.

Run out of air and drown.

And I just want you to understand that it's not easy.

If you don't do it the way I want you to do it, you're gonna die.

What Chad is trying to do is probably at the highest level

of danger, there could be for a cave diver.

Cannot do this without proper training.

Too many people have died because of that.

I'm not the easiest instructor.

-You're gonna have to work hard for me. -Okay.

I think you can do this.

But ultimately, you passing or failing cave training, Chad,

is up to one person, and that's Chad.

[narrator] In preparation for their dive of the virgin cave

discovered at Blind Frog Ranch,

Chad and Wendell must train for every eventuality.

-You ready? -I'm ready.

[narrator] Instructor Chris Brock will put them through

a grueling seven-day crash course

in a series of submerged caves.

Piece of cake. You got this. Nice and slow. Nice and steady,

-Yeah. -No worries. You'll be just fine.

All right, let's drop down where it's clear.

[narrator] Unlike scuba diving, cave diving happens in tight,

dimly led, silt-filled spaces where it is easy to get disoriented.

To prevent this from happening,

cave divers run what is known as a guideline.

They secure it to the floor as they descend deeper into the cave.

The thin line of nylon is often their only chance

of finding their way back to the surface.

Chris starts Chad in large, unobstructed lagoons

until he is ready for his first real test beneath the rocks.

Chad successfully secures his guideline

and begins marking his path.

Now it's on to a tight passageway filled with jagged rock edges.

This is a training dive, but the danger is very real from here.

If he were to sever an air hose,

an emergency return to the surface

would take nearly 30 minutes and could be fatal.

Chad makes it through the low clearance void,

but soon realizes he's lost the line.

Requiring Chris to come guide him to safety.

And a long swim back to the surface.

-Welcome back. -Holy [bleep]!

-Y'all crazy? [bleep] -[laughs]

-Oh, my God. -[laughing]

Oh, my God. Are you [bleep] kidding me?

I definitely had ideas of what I thought it would be like.

But this is way more intense than I ever imagined.

This is [bleep] serious.

You remember when we went around that corner?

-Our line was over here. -Uh-huh.

-And you went around the corner over here. -Right. Right.

-[Chris] Did you lose the line right then? -[Chad] Yeah.

Okay, so always the biggest key thing in cave diving,

know where that line is at.

Focus on that line.

If you lose that line, how long do you have to look for that line?

-I don't know. Oh. -The rest of your life.

-The rest of your life. -All right, gotcha.

[Chris] All right, so let's don't lose that line.

It's not easy because a lot of the caves that you may dive in

have flow water moving out.

I wanted you to feel that flow

because that's going to be probably reminiscent

of the flow that you have in Utah.

We're about halfway done and the intensity is high man.

Chris pushes me and pushes me and pushes me

and it's making me a better swimmer.

But that just adds anxiety to this whole [bleep] thing.

Jesus Christ.

Slow down. Slow is smooth.

Smooth is fast.

Wrap it, wrap it, wrap it, wrap it.

You want that thing on. If it comes off, you're dead. It's over.

The margin of error in a cave is really zero.

You cannot do this without proper training.

-Congratulations. Good job, buddy. -[laughs]

You did a cave dive.

From where you started to where you are now

you're a completely different diver.

From this point forward, you, my friend, are a cave diver.

-Congratulations, buddy. I'm proud of you. -[laughs]

-Thank you, man. Appreciate it. -Good job.

Where he started from to where he's at now,

no one in my career I've seen that's made that much progress over that amount of time.

As an instructor, I know he knows what to do now,

so I have to turn him loose and let him go.

Thank you. It was a long haul, man.

I'm excited right now.

But this cave, it's still got me a little nervous

because we have no idea what it's like.

We know it is going to be dark, likely, silty, a lot of flow.

But this could be where the Aztec treasure is. So we gotta try it.

-Hell, yeah. All right. -Let's go find us some Aztec gold.

Chadro, what do you think about the cave deal?

-I'm ready to dive in. -I like it.

[Chad] But we just have to be super cautious.

The cave is super tight, and it looks like it's pretty silted out, so...

I just want to be pretty safe about it.

We don't even know how far we can get back in there. Nothing.

That redneck [bleep] going in there with a hose

-ain't gonna work. -Yeah.

We can't hillbilly it no more.

-No shortcuts. -Yeah.

People get killed in there if somebody panics.

True.

I think we can get into this cave safely and get out.

But my dad doesn't want to take this lightly

because there are deaths in caves.

You know, that's all real [bleep].

If we can avoid that and do it as safe as possible,

I think it'd be worth it.

You know, we've come a long way,

but we've got a long ways to go,

and we can't make no mistakes here.

You know, it looks like he's got a plan and he found the right people.

If something goes wrong, he'll take charge.

He gonna get some air.

-I got this. -Good enough.

-Good luck. -Thank you.

This is the place I was talking about.

If you go below that rock, there's like an entrance.

[narrator] Chad has brought Wendell to the entrance of the underwater cave

that could be connected to the ranch.

I really think that this could lead all the way back to the ranch or it has to.

It's connected, I know.

[narrator] While they attempt to dive the unexplored tunnel system,

Josh and Ryan will act as safety spotters from the boat above.

But their ability to help will be limited.

Once Chad and Wendell enter the cave system,

they will be entirely on their own.

Okay, just a couple of things real quick

-before we get in the water. -[Chad] Yeah.

This is a virgin cave.

No one's ever explored it.

Now, in virgin caves, there's ancient silt.

The silt has just gotten on the wall,

-kind of like dust. -Right.

When we go in, some of that dust is going to fall.

It's going to look a little foggy.

But as long as we can see in front of us,

-we're okay because we're setting a line. -Right.

If something happens, we can find our way out.

As a public safety diver,

I've seen some scary stuff and some very tragic situations.

On a dive like this, we can only rely on ourselves.

We've got two tanks each.

And if something happens to one of these tanks,

we've got to go to the servers immediately.

This is serious business.

Hey, guys, how are things looking?

-[beacon beeping] -Yeah, I'm still picking up that beacon.

And the signal is coming from under the shoreline.

So that beacon is underground inside that cave.

[Chad] Josh, the plan is, see how far we get.

See if we can find that beacon and see if we find the tunnel

that leads them back to the ranch.

-You know what you're doing, but be safe. -[Chad] Right. Right.

If you don't surface, there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

Okay. Let's just go.

Here they go.

Careful, men.

[narrator] As they enter the cave,

their fins stir up the loose silt,

reducing visibility to almost zero.

They set a guideline so they can find their way back to the mouth of the cave.

But navigating the path forward won't be so simple.

In these murky conditions,

the only way to know if they are headed the right way

is to feel the flow of the water and then swim against it.

As they get deeper into the cave, the silt starts to settle.

Following the current upstream has led them to a near dead end.

With passages no more than a few inches wide.

[narrator] Exploring underwater caves

is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world.

Despite the small number of active cave divers,

as many as 20 people die a year while cave diving.

To minimize risks, cave divers employ redundant equipment,

including a secondary air tank.

Because kicked-up silt can blind divers,

they use frog kicks and modified flutter kicks

designed to minimize the creation of vortices

that can disturb the silt above and below them.

A special back kick technique is taught to allow divers

to back out of narrow passages without having to turn their bodies around.

Cave divers plan to use no more than a third of one air tank

to enter into a cave system.

Reserving another third for their return journey.

And the last third for their safety diver

in the event that the safety diver's tanks are damaged.

They've been down there a while.

They have been down there a while.

Have you got enough air?

I hope so.

This is taking way too long.

Something's wrong.

[narrator] Two hundred feet into the cave,

Chad's hand light has failed.

And his oxygen tanks are leaking.

An impact with the cave wall caused Chad's pressure gauge to come loose.

To fix it, he must switch regulators to the reserve tank.

And use a wrench to tighten the lead.

Oh, my God.

[bleep]

Are you okay?

How does it feel to be somewhere where no one's ever been before?

[bleep] yeah.

[laughing]

Holy [bleep]! This is the cave.

Jesus Christ.

[laughing]

Holy [bleep]!

This isn't just like a series of tunnels.

These are caves that people could have lived in.

I mean, we found a deer skull down there,

and it didn't just float in there.

I mean, likely someone killed and ate that deer down there.

The Chicomoztoc legend was talking about exactly this.

These hidden chambers that could house whole civilizations.

This has to lead back to the ranch.

And that's what we're in right now.

Oh, my God.

[bleep] wild.

[narrator] Next time on Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch.

You think he's dangerous?

We've had some wild [bleep] happen here.

-Is this not a bear guarding the cave? -Look at that.

[narrator] New discoveries...

These look like ingots that we found last year.

[narrator] ...bring them closer to the vast fortune.

There's something of value here. Some were dying over.

[bleep]

[narrator] Dark secrets from the ancient past...

That cave, people were in there.

This is definitely death.

[narrator] ...threaten the future of Blind Frog Ranch,

There's some very weird stuff going on in this ranch.

Let's just pull a 4-foot cylinder out of the ground.

That's pretty great.

The DNA that was there is unknown.

-What? -It's highly radioactive.

Shut down that ranch.

There was something above it that perturbed the magnetic field.

Maybe like a UOP.

Their monitoring something.

If I was going to bury treasure, this would be it.

There's someone in here.

[siren blaring]