All language subtitles for The.Secret.of.Skinwalker.Ranch.S05E00.Behind.the.Gates.Mesa.Mesa

Hey, we got something
on the FLIR.

We got something on the FLIR.

ERIK: I could be convinced
that we're looking

-at something formation flying.
-Really?

Our team keeps witnessing

shocking phenomena in the skies
above Skinwalker Ranch.

Yeah, that don't look
like an airplane.

What the hell is up there?

TRAVIS:
But as our investigation

of this 512-acre property
continues...

That thing is moving fast!

...we've encountered something
buried in solid rock...

-THOMAS: Look at that.
-BRYANT: This thing

-is just straight-up metal.
-Oh, yeah.

TRAVIS:
...that just may be the key

to solving
a centuries-old mystery.

It looks a lot like you would
think a debris field would be.

So, tonight,
we're taking a good, hard look

at some of the most compelling
discoveries we've made so far...

What the hell is that?

ERIK:
What do you got, Bryant?

I don't know
what the hell that is.

TRAVIS:
...deep inside the mesa.

BRANDON: 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.

TRAVIS:
In 2019, I accepted
Brandon Fugal's offer

to join his team's investigation
of Skinwalker Ranch

because I was intrigued
by all the eyewitness reports

of UAPs that had been made

in recent decades
on the 512-acre property.

After all, the federal
government partially funded

a previous investigation
that was led

by billionaire
aerospace mogul Robert Bigelow

from the late 1990s
to the early 2000s.

One of the first things
that we captured--

a 500-foot section

of the mesa became
totally illuminated.

That's-that's wild.

But I was equally stunned

by the surveillance images
they captured

of a large section of the mesa

appearing to glow
in the middle of the night.

BRANDON:
We have also

seen several instances

of compact light pillars.

TRAVIS: That's interesting.

ERIK: The results of
Robert Bigelow's investigation

have never been fully released.

There are rumors

about some kind of base

or perhaps an alien artifact
beneath the property.

TRAVIS:
We searched, but couldn't find
any large openings

or underground entrances
leading into the mesa

to help us investigate
that incredible legend.

CHRIS: So, it's gonna be

in this little area right here

where I was walking down
from the top of the mesa,

and I found a cave.

Then I suggest maybe
we just all climb up there

-and see if we can find it.
-Yeah.

TRAVIS:
But then, in 2021,

retired Air Force veteran
and former Bigelow team

security officer Chris Bartel
came to the ranch and showed us

where he claimed to have
actually found a cave entrance.

CHRIS:
Oh, yeah.

I'm pretty sure this is it.

THOMAS:
You can tell that at one time,

it was a lot larger, and it's
collapsed down in on itself.

You can tell
that this whole area

looks like a sunken-in area.

-Like it was all caved in. Yeah.
-CHRIS: Yeah.

Yup. This is the area
we're looking at.

THOMAS: After our meeting
with Chris Bartel,

we brought Jake Huffman out

who has spent his career
building oil well sites,

and as part of that, uh,
has used a lot of explosives

and done a lot of blasting.

We wanted to get his eyes
on the mesa

and see if he could tell

if this was a natural cave-in
or a purposeful one.

Looking at it,

do you see anything
that would indicate to you that

this was collapsed on purpose?

JAKE:
Actually, yeah.

-Hmm.
-Usually, if you have a slough,

then you're gonna have material
that's built up somewhere,

you know,
and I'm not seeing anywhere

where softer material

-or mud or anything...
-That was pushed out?

...pushed out
from underneath it.

THOMAS:
That's a good point.

JAKE:
I believe, at some point,

there was blasting done, and

-perhaps that was done
to hide something.
-Hmm.

TRAVIS:
We don't know what or who
might have purposely covered

that reported cave entrance,

but after Jake Huffman's
stunning assessment...

You're all good to go, huh?

Okay.

TRAVIS:
...Thomas arranged
for Aaron Blunt

and his team from Straight Shot
Drilling help us investigate

if something important

that's related
to all the ranch phenomena

might be buried inside there.

-What's going on?
-Aaron: Well, it looks like

we're in a ledge that's
holding us from coming up.

And I'm just hitting it
and riding it.

TRAVIS:
After drilling with ease

for nearly 300 feet
inside the mesa,

the drill bit hit an
impenetrable object of some kind

and was just scraping
along its surface.

THOMAS:
Okay.

TRAVIS:
So, we decided

to search
through the drilling spoils

for any clues
that might help us figure out

what the obstruction could be.

What is that?

Oh, my.

THOMAS:
I wondered if it was, like,
metal flakes or something.

TRAVIS:
We had no idea where
metal flakes would come from

nearly 300 feet inside the mesa.

We just knew for sure
it wasn't anything natural.

-(high-pitched whirring)
-BRYANT: Boy, that thing sounds

like it's hitting
something hard.

ERIK:
What the heck is...?

TRAVIS:
So, in order to find out,

Aaron kept drilling
to see if he could penetrate

the obstruction.

Uh, I'm up against
something pretty hard right now.

So, we're coming up
about 11 inches every ten feet.

It was directing you downward,
and now,

you're still on it, but
it's allowing you to go upwards?

Right.

So, we've got kind of a V

that your bit is sitting there
bumping up against,

trying to find a place
to start drilling up.

-Is that right?
-Yeah. May not even be a V.

It could even be...
maybe a dome.

TRAVIS:
A massive, possibly
dome-shaped, metal object?

Given the legends we'd heard

about what might be hidden
below the ranch,

we didn't know what to think.

I know it sounds crazy.

But that was just the beginning
of strange things to come

But that was just the beginning
of strange things to come

as our investigation
of the mesa continued.

THOMAS: So, are we ready

-to drill again?
-Yeah.

TRAVIS:
In 2022, we conducted

ground-penetrating radar scans

that confirmed a large, possibly

metallic, dome-shaped object

was buried in the mesa
on Skinwalker Ranch.

Would this drill--
would it drill

through
steel-reinforced concrete?

-Yes.
-It would?

Yeah, we do it
quite a few times.

TRAVIS:
So, we had Aaron Blunt
and his team

from Straight Shot Drilling

return
with an even more powerful rig

to see if they could penetrate
the top of the object

and figure out
just what it could be.

Did you get that one working?

Yeah, I got 'em all working now.

And as the drilling operation
progressed,

Erik and I were using
our spectrum analyzer

to monitor
the 33-megahertz signal

coming from the drilling beacon.

That's a device inside
the drill head that communicates

with a receiver on the surface
that enables the drillers

to track its location
underground.

When we try
to approach that point,

our bit is getting pushed down
or it's getting pushed up.

ERIK:
So, he's hitting resistance
right now.

THOMAS:
You can hear that.

-Drill's hitting something hard.
-Oh, yeah.

What's going on, Thomas?

After drilling more
than 270 or 280 feet

of going through sandstone
like butter,

the drill has encountered
a hard object

-that it cannot penetrate.
-Wow.

Once, again,
the drill bit couldn't penetrate

the dome-shaped object,

and was just spinning
on its surface,

several hundred feet
inside the mesa.

I'm looking
for the beacon signal

at 33 megahertz right now.

Whoa. What is that?

Something's going nuts there.

And then our spectrum analyzer

showed that every time
the bit made contact

with the dome-shaped object,

something was amplifying
the drill beacon's signal

and rebroadcasting it
back at us.

There's a phenomenon
occurring right now

that we don't understand.

ERIK:
What could cause

the RF spectrum
to suddenly change

as the drill bit encounters

this apparently
impenetrable object?

Is this an attempt
to communicate?

It is certainly very suggestive

that we're dealing
with something

that isn't native to that mesa.

AARON:
See, and we're at 8,000 pounds
of push.

-(high-pitched whirring)
-Hardly any rotation off of it.

So, either my bit's broke off,

or it's just spinning
on something smooth.

TRAVIS:
We retracted the drill bit

so that we could find out
how damaged it was

from grinding on the surface
of the dome-shaped object.

THOMAS:
Getting this cleaned off,

these teeth
are all perfectly intact.

-It's not missing
a single tooth.
-Yeah.

It looks like
it's in perfect condition.

TRAVIS:
You'd think if you were
grinding that against something

for a half hour that
it would dull it, at least.

It should have heated up
and at least wore it down, flat.

-TRAVIS: That's crazy.
-AARON: Yeah, that is.

TRAVIS:
It was as if
the drill bit had been spinning

on a protective force field,

like something
out of science fiction.

Erik and I were
in total disbelief.

Ultimately, even with
this more powerful drilling rig,

we weren't able
to uncover any more answers

as to what we were dealing with
inside the mesa.

KALEB: All right, so, Jan,

I'm assuming we would just
want you to go back and forth

-JAN: Yeah.
-as much as we can,

and really see how far back

and how deep
this anomaly is, by chance.

-Let's give it a go, for sure.
-Yeah.

TRAVIS:
To help us change our luck,
in 2023,

ground-penetrating radar expert
Jan Franke

brought out a specialized device

to scan back and forth
across the mesa.

That day, he and Kaleb
gathered the best data yet

related
to the dome-shaped object.

JAN:
So, we did a total

of 12 total passes.

I got 12 hits
for this same anomaly

as I went further
and further back.

What this all adds up to
is probably a metallic object

that could be buried
inside there,

measuring, well,
at least 300 feet long,

and it might be even larger.

-Yes.
-So, it is repeatable.

Whoa.

So, let me show you what

that looks like in 3D.

This is our target
in the same space.

So we can really see
how that lines up.

-Really?
-There is

an absolutely obvious target

that extends
across this entire area.

I still don't know
how far back it goes.

THOMAS:
Can you tell us
what the distance was

between that first line

and the last line that you did?

We're looking at...

at least 100 meters.

300 feet?

-Yeah.
-Wow.

TRAVIS:
It looks a lot

like you would think
a debris field would be.

ERIK:
Just think about
what circumstances

would produce a debris field

inside of a mesa.

TRAVIS:
Jan not only confirmed

the approximate size of
the massive dome-shaped object,

but he also detected
a number of smaller,

possibly metallic anomalies
all around it.

Could it be something...

man-made? Perhaps.

But why,
in the middle of nowhere?

I can't see

a natural phenomenon
that we could

explain easily causing

this sort of anomaly.

TRAVIS:
Okay, now we had evidence

of a huge debris field
in the mesa.

We recovered metallic fragments

that possibly came
from the dome-shaped object,

which may be related
to spacecraft.

And we might have even detected
a communication signal

coming from inside the mesa.

Could the legend
about what might be buried

under Skinwalker Ranch be true?

What we soon discovered

made it an even more compelling
possibility.

ERIK: So, guys,

sounds like you're bringing
some capabilities

that we've never had out here

in terms
of the horizontal drilling.

Yeah, so we'll-we'll have
the capabilities

to about 60,000 pounds

-of force.
-60,000 pounds?
-TRAVIS: Wow.

After we obtained
ground-penetrating radar data

that showed the dome-shaped
object buried in the mesa

on Skinwalker Ranch
might be surrounded

by several smaller anomalies,

we met a drilling team
from Mark Construction

to devise an ambitious
new investigation.

ERIK: We expect to be able
to punch through

right up beside. We don't want
to go into this thing.

-TRAVIS: What if it's
something important?
-MIKE: Yeah.

ERIK: We've decided rather than
to drill into the structure,

we should create boreholes
on both sides of the anomaly

that will provide
instrumentation access

inside the mesa,

very near to but not penetrating
into the anomaly itself.

I have in mind to insert
active and passive instruments--

some of which simply measure,

others of which
may even broadcast signals

into the anomaly
in order to study its response.

This will give us an opportunity

to better understand
whether it is of natural

or possible
technological origins.

TRAVIS:
As the new drilling operation
got underway,

we were all hopeful to finally
get some definitive answers.

BRYANT:
They've got

the bit to the right level,

and they're gonna-- about
to punch into the main wall

to go up into the mesa.

TRAVIS:
But very quickly,

things got strange

and only got stranger
from there.

-(static)
-Look over here.

Holy crap. Look at this.

First, we detected a mysterious
signal at 31 megahertz

that was coming from
inside the mesa

and possibly from
the dome-shaped object.

I don't know what that is.

'Cause I've never seen
a signal like that before.

ERIK:
I don't see any movement here.

ALEX:
Uh, it's not moving
in the pit here, so it's broke.

TRAVIS:
Then, nearly 130 feet in,

the drill bit hit something
it couldn't penetrate,

causing the drill pipe
to break into pieces.

Boy, you can hear that
below us, can't you?

Yeah.

TRAVIS:
A couple weeks later,

after fixing that problem,

the team was able to drill
nearly 180 feet into the mesa...

Jared, are you going through
something real hard right now

or what?

...when they suddenly hit

another
impenetrable obstruction.

TRAVIS:
Big signal, right here.

-ERIK: What are you tuning
into there, Travis?
-There's a signal

at 1.6-ish.

And just a couple seconds later,
we detected

a radio frequency signal
at 1.6 gigahertz

coming from somewhere
directly above Homestead Two,

which is
several hundred yards away.

I'm going.

Now, since we had detected

that kind of signal many times
during our experiments,

I rushed over there
with Kaleb and Dragon.

KALEB:
Rocket is hot,

and we're gonna be launching
in five,

four, three,

two, one.

TRAVIS:
We launched two rockets,
hoping to either hit

whatever was broadcasting
that signal

or stimulate it to appear.
But then

something we never
would have expected happened.

KALEB:
Almost looked like it stopped
right there for a second.

TRAVIS:
As it was descending,

our rocket
literally froze in midair

for several seconds,

like something invisible
was holding on to it.

Was there a connection
between that

and whatever the drillers hit
inside the mesa?

The timing
was beyond intriguing.

Just like what would happen
the following day.

(mooing)

KALEB:
Hey, guys.

You see that?

TRAVIS:
Look at this cow, guys!

Hey, guys!

Look at this cow!

ERIK:
What's going on?

BRYANT:
It's spinning in circles.

What the hell is wrong
with that cow?

TRAVIS:
As the drilling operation
proceeded

with a larger and stronger bit,

suddenly, a calf in the nearby
field became seriously ill...

THOMAS: Its eyes are pure white.

...and even showed signs
of exposure

to a high dose
of microwave radiation.

What's going on?

JARED:
So, we keep losing communication

with our transmitter.

TRAVIS:
Wow.

The drilling beacon mysteriously

stopped communicating
with its receiver.

But when we pulled it out
and inspected it,

it was working perfectly.

So, was the dome-shaped object
and the smaller anomalies

somehow connected to all
of these bizarre events?

And if so,
what the hell are they?

The next discovery
we'd make in the mesa

offered a crazy possible answer.

♪ ♪

ALEX (over walkie):
Okay, Jared.

Go in with this next rod.

Still got him, so...

that's a good sign.

A week after all that craziness
happened

with the rocket and the calf,

the drillers fixed their beacon

and were close to getting
beyond 180 feet inside the mesa.

That gave us a lot of hope
that, soon,

we'd get at least one
of our boreholes completed.

-Listen to that.
He's struggling.
-KALEB: Yeah.

He's trying to push
that thing in right now.

(loud rattling)

TRAVIS:
What the hell is in that mesa?

But then the drill
slowed way down again...

We have no idea where this, uh,

drill head is up in this mesa.

...and the beacon failed,

meaning we had no way of knowing

if they were drilling upwards
like we needed to

for our plan to work.

So, at that point,
they shut the drill down

and we decided
to check the spoils again

for any clues
as to what they hit this time.

We weren't prepared
for what we found.

What the hell is that?

Hey! Erik!

ERIK:
What do you got, Bryant?

BRYANT:
Uh...

-it's gelatin.
-What?

BRYANT:
It looks like what Kris Porritt
was alluding to.

TRAVIS:
Are you kidding me?

It's green jelly.

Finding
that green jelly substance

in the mesa spoils
was unbelievable.

KRIS:
There was part of a wreckage.

Yeah.

Uh, some-some type of,

uh, aircraft or some-some kind
of flying saucer

or alien craft.

TRAVIS:
Because, before that, retired
Sheriff Kris Porritt told us

that he saw wreckage
from an alien spacecraft

near the south field
on Skinwalker Ranch

back in the 1980s.

Well, I'll tell you,

he found a liquid substance.

But it wasn't liquid.

It was more
of a gelatin-type stuff.

Jelly.

And it was green.

It was pretty much scattered
all over in here.

TRAVIS:
He described seeing a substance

very much like
what we had just found.

And, uh, the jelly sample,
uh, is kind of interesting.

Doesn't really match
with what I see

in terms of the-the geological
history of the area.

TRAVIS: So we had botany expert
Dr. Mitchell Power

analyze the jelly

to see if it might be
something natural

or something else.

TRAVIS:
You mean like something
caused a fire

deep inside the mesa?

Absolutely. Yeah.

TRAVIS:
Wow.

We found more evidence

of a massive fire or explosion
deep inside the mesa,

right where we've identified
a massive dome-shaped object

that may be covered with
spacecraft-related materials.

It's still too soon
to know for sure what it is,

but I can guarantee we're
not gonna stop investigating

until we uncover it.

ERIK:
We're seeing things

that are very hard
for us to explain

inside the mesa.

This part of the ranch
continues to defy our efforts

to characterize it.

At least it's gonna make us work
for the answers we get.

BRANDON:
The mesa continues to be
one of the most challenging

areas of the ranch to explore.

My hope is to find answers,

gain new insights,

be able to understand
the nature of what

we are dealing with
at the ranch.

The deeper down the rabbit hole
that we travel,

the more complex
that it appears.

There are no easy answers
at Skinwalker Ranch.

♪ ♪

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