Original subtitles

We have a spiral right here

that's been put into this ground.

That spiral is indicative of...

A portal, a dimensional rift, uh, an opening.

TRAVIS: Our team has heard Native American testimony

that interdimensional portals exist here on Skinwalker Ranch.

Travis, you-you got to see this.

TRAVIS: And then, we've witnessed UAPs...

Look right here.

...literally vanish into thin air.

Oh, my gosh. It disappeared.

TRAVIS: What did it disappear into?

We've been told stories

about buried extraterrestrial bases and craft.

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

THOMAS: Look how big that chunk is.

BRYANT: Are we chipping away at something

much larger under the mesa?

TRAVIS: And then, we found evidence

of a huge metal object deep inside the mesa.

ROLAND: I followed the tracks and then, all of a sudden it turned

from human footprints to like a wolf.

TRAVIS: And tonight, we're clawing our way

into another incredible legend about Skinwalker Ranch

that, believe it or not, may also be true.

What is that?

We're about to find out what it is.

Look at those fangs.

♪ ♪

-Hi, Travis. -Hey, Brandon. How you doing?

-Brandon Fugal. Nice to meet you. -Yeah. How you doing?

The new owner of Skinwalker Ranch.

I see you've been able to get acquainted with our team.

-Yeah. -When Brandon Fugal,

the owner of Skinwalker Ranch,

asked me to join his team in 2019

and help investigate

the 512-acre property in Northern Utah,

I was a skeptic about all the legends related to UFOs

and portals and other crazy phenomena

that had been reported out there for centuries.

But since our own government had partially funded

a prior investigation of the ranch

that was led by billionaire aerospace developer

Robert Bigelow from the late 1990s to the early 2000s,

well, as a former scientist of the Department of Defense,

I was intrigued enough to give it a shot.

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.

Goes back hundreds of years.

Native Americans talk of shape-shifting

demonic entities called skinwalkers

that take on the form of a large werewolf-like creature

and also a number of other shapes.

Wow.

Werewolf-like shape-shifters

on an old cattle ranch?

Just the idea was hard to even imagine as having

any basis in reality.

So, this used to be a very operational ranch,

where they had the cattle they would process right here.

TRAVIS: But then I heard a very specific story

that had been reported by the Sherman family,

who owned the ranch back in the 1990s.

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 get 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.

TRAVIS: Another story of an encounter

with a mysterious creature came to us in 2020.

So, how does it feel right now to be back here?

It's a little... I'm a little nervous.

-Not-not, you know, to be honest. -JIM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: when a local member of the Ute Nation

named Roland McCook

shared an experience he had

while hunting on Skinwalker Ranch

more than three decades ago.

How did it start? Tell us, walk us through this little bit.

Well, when we was up there, the weather was moving in,

and we was looking for a place of shelter,

to get out of the weather.

And when we got in there,

while we was waiting,

I was looking out the door, and I heard,

uh, like, scurrying.

(imitates scurrying)

Something moving, and I turn,

and then farther in that back corner,

some stuff fell over,

just got knocked over.

I told him that sounds bigger than a raccoon.

I took off, grabbed my gun,

and out the door I went after it.

-Wow. -We were looking for tracks.

We noticed there were human footprints.

-No shoes on. -Wow.

-JIM: In the snow? -In the snow, yeah.

And I followed the tracks, and then, all of a sudden,

it turned from human footprints to a big dog tracks.

Like a wolf.

And it came out, red eyes, probably, like, eight feet tall,

and then it just, it pointed at me.

Whatever it is, it doesn't belong here.

We shot, we started shooting.

He had a semi-auto, and pop, pop, pop, pop.

And all you hear is the biggest roar,

just... (imitates roar)

Loudest roar I ever heard.

And after that, it just,

it was gone. We took off.

TRAVIS: Like many others,

Roland's story was hard to fathom.

But not long after that,

we would find something ourselves

here on Skinwalker Ranch

that suggested these kinds of stories

really could be true.

THOMAS: I want to hear everything that happened.

-CHRIS: Yeah, right here. -I have photos of those if you'd like to see them.

-Yeah, I'd love to see those. -Sure. Look at those,

-how deep those go down. -Look at that. Oh, my gosh.

What the heck? Holy crap, that just happened.

What's it like coming back?

It's pretty surreal actually, you know.

It's kind of like being back home a little bit.

You know, I lived and breathed this property for six years.

After the incredible stories we heard about

the Sherman family and Roland McCook

encountering huge wolf-like creatures on Skinwalker Ranch,

in 2021, we invited Chris Bartel to come out

and share some of his firsthand experiences.

I would love to show you guys some of the things

that I went through

and important aspects of the property.

TRAVIS: Chris was a policeman with the U.S. Air Force

and also worked on the security detail

of Robert Bigelow's investigative team

on Skinwalker Ranch back in the early 2000s.

CHRIS: Yeah, right here.

-This is the spot. -Let's park here then.

We have this 20-year gap where

Mr. Bigelow owned the ranch for which we know very little.

I think somebody that spent six years here

is critical and could be, uh, crucial

to helping us solve some of the mysteries

that are here on the ranch.

I find it interesting that you, uh, stop us here.

This is by a place we call the triangle.

Been a place we've done a lot of experiments

and research and had a lot of interesting data.

So, I'm curious, tell me about what you experienced here.

So, October of 2010,

we had a pretty good routine

where one guy would do a normal run

through the property to get kind of eyes on what's going on.

That day, the other officer came back,

and he was like, "Hey, I-I found some-some big prints

on top of the mesa."

And I'm like, "Okay, let's go take a look at them."

We get to the top of here, and we find these giant,

these pretty good-sized canine prints.

I have photos of those if you'd like to see them.

-Yeah, I'd love to see those. -CHRIS: Sure.

Here, take a look at this. You can see here.

Look at those, look how deep those go down.

-KALEB: Look at that. -THOMAS: Oh, my gosh.

So, that's about three feet between step?

CHRIS: Mm-hmm.

And then, we had a couple labs with us.

You can see here in the top corner, the labs' prints.

KALEB: That thing's, like, four times the size of those.

That's a very big canine.

I was here,

the other officer was right there,

and the dogs were kind of in between us.

And the other officer says, "Chris, stop. I hear something."

Out of that ditch,

I hear a God-awful guttural howl growl.

And I was, like, frozen for a second,

so was the other officer, and the dogs were all alerting.

The animal jumps out of the ravine,

over the berm, and travels west.

This thing was probably the size of a donkey, black.

Instinctively, the dogs chase after it.

I run after the dogs.

We get around that corner there, it's-it's gone.

-Wow. -TRAVIS: Having a military veteran like Chris

give such an incredible

first-person testimony to the team,

in addition to the picture he shared

of a huge animal track, was absolutely stunning.

But then, the following year,

Dragon and Kaleb Bench made a discovery in the south field...

-BRYANT: Hey, Kaleb. -TRAVIS: ...that revealed

even more compelling evidence

that mysterious predators might be on the ranch.

BRYANT: What the heck?

KALEB: It looks fresh to me.

Holy crap, that just happened.

TRAVIS: Something had just killed a deer

and left its carcass scattered across the area.

BRYANT: I'll be curious to hear

what the vet thinks of it all.

-Should we head back? -Yeah, okay.

TRAVIS: After taking some photos...

-BRYANT: Hi, Haleigh. -How are you?

BRYANT: Good.

TRAVIS: ...Dragon and Kaleb

sent them to veterinarian

Haleigh Lundgreen,

so she could examine them

and hopefully determine what may have killed the deer.

She had examined another dead deer earlier

in the year, which she thought had definitely

died under strange circumstances.

But this time, she had a much more chilling report.

So, what do you think of the latest pictures we sent you?

I think the scapula's really interesting.

So, the scapula is the shoulder blade.

There are two large holes towards the top of that scapula.

And so are those canine holes or teeth holes?

You know, that would be a very strong animal

if that were the case.

Are coyotes-- Do they get big enough

where they could possibly do this or are we talking

about something bigger than that?

I would suspect that it would be something bigger than that.

Wow.

We definitely have also heard stories

of big wolves and things of that nature.

You know, if you're talking about that type of an animal,

that opens up a whole different type of discussion.

-Yeah. -HALEIGH: The other issue is,

if these are bigger predators-- cats, wolves, or otherwise--

then they're not afraid to go after humans, as well.

So you definitely have to make sure

you guys are safe.

TRAVIS: We protect ourselves and are very careful

on the ranch because you definitely would expect

to see dangerous wild animals like mountain lions out here.

But the following year,

we would make another discovery in the south field

that really made us take Dr. Lundgreen's warning

very seriously.

What are you seeing?

Look at these tooth marks.

-Yeah. -That is a tooth that bit all the way through.

Look on the other side here.

-See how that other side is shattered out? -Oh, wow!

-Yeah. -That's a lot of force.

It would have to be larger than a wolf.

that went down last October. ERIw

-Hmm. -Uh, really kind of mysterious.

-And it just went down? Mm. -And it just went down, yeah.

We'll get a chance for you to really get your eyes on it,

put your mind on it and see what sort

of insights you can share with us.

Sounds good, yeah, let's go take a look at it.

TRAVIS: As our investigation continued

on Skinwalker Ranch

in 2023, we invited biologist Ben Woodruff

from the Hutchings Museum Institute in Lehi, Utah,

to examine the carcass of a dead cow...

-Let's head on over. -...that had died

several months earlier in the south field.

-Well, there's not much left, is there? -Mm-mm.

Huh.

You know, I was expecting to see only dry bone

but I guess there's a little bit of that soft tissue left there.

When was it that this cow died again?

ERIK: You know, it's been about six months ago.

Okay.

But you don't know why it died?

ERIK: No.

So you've had that amount of time of solar radiation

hitting what's left here, but you still have wet tissue.

I was not expecting this at all.

Usually when an animal dies,

there's stages of decomposition that should happen,

and they don't happen here.

TRAVIS: It was already weird that Ben thought

the cow was decaying at an unnatural rate.

But given all the lore about strange creatures

that supposedly stalk the ranch?

What he noticed next really stunned the team.

Look at these tooth marks on these ribs

and on that scapula.

I mean, these all show the teeth marks and this...

Look at this one, though.

What are you seeing?

That is a tooth that bit all the way through.

-Look on the other side here. -That's...

It's shattered out of the other side.

See how that other side is shattered out?

-ERIK: Oh wow, yeah. -KANDUS: Mm-hmm.

BEN: That's a lot of force.

KANDUS: That's a big canine.

I'm just going to take it off.

If you look at how thick this rib is,

the force that it takes to go through that...

I mean, that would break my teeth,

if I was trying to do that.

All these other bites that you see,

these I can see scavengers doing.

But this, the force that it takes to go through that...

Well, that is a big, powerful canine that's very pointy.

-TOM: So what kind of animal is that? -I don't know.

This is not a species that I have ever seen in Utah.

TRAVIS: It was amazing.

Ben thought that whatever killed this cow

was potentially an unknown species for the area.

BEN: I want to show you some amazing things,

kind of give you the results of, uh, of what we went over.

-Okay. -TRAVIS: But when Erik Bard

and other members of the team got Ben's follow-up report

at the Hutchings Museum Institute,

it suggested that this predator might not be from this era.

-Okay. -So I wondered, "How did it die?"

We don't know, but the really strange thing was the rib.

On this rib, there was this hole.

So you see this right here?

That was a tooth mark.

-Mm-hmm. -And on this side

over here is where you see where it shattered outward.

-ERIK: Yes. -So there's only a few animals

that would fit.

So I took some teeth

from coyotes and from a black bear

and I rigged them up in a drill press.

I didn't turn the drill press on,

I just anchored them in and then pushed it down

into this rib. So...

I want to show you what happened.

These are the results.

So these are all coyote teeth.

And the big one is a black bear tooth.

ERIK: So these look shattered.

They completely shattered when I pushed down.

And I wasn't, like, going hard.

So, whatever went through this

was able to do it without shattering.

So your options are...

And we talked about it before.

These shouldn't fit the bill, but these are perfect.

This is a dire wolf, which is an extinct species.

ERIK: I was not expecting to hear these words

come out of Ben's mouth, but what he told us

is the best match, structurally,

to what we've brought to his laboratory

is in fact a dire wolf.

I have absolutely no framework in which

to accommodate the presence of an extinct species

on Skinwalker Ranch.

How is this even possible?

BEN: Now, I'm not saying that you have

dire wolves running around your ranch.

But I'm just saying, biologically speaking,

that's what fits the bill.

TRAVIS: Ben's analysis was wild, because a dire wolf

is the exact kind of animal that the Shermans

claimed to have attacked their cattle back in the 1990s.

But as objective as Ben's analysis of the dead cow was,

it couldn't prepare us for what we discovered

when we went back to investigate the south field.

Erik, this is Thomas, you got a copy?

Yeah, go ahead, Thomas.

Got all the equipment strapped down

and ready to go and we're entering the river now.

Yep, here we go.

TRAVIS: After biologist Ben Woodruff gave his analysis

that a dire wolf,

which is thought to have gone extinct 10,000 years ago,

may have been responsible for the dead cow we found...

Man, this is not easy walking.

...we decided to look for clues in Dry Gulch Creek,

which runs through the south field of Skinwalker Ranch.

Hey, Dragon, if you can, c-cut us off a sample of that.

-Okay. -TRAVIS: We took some samples

of a tree that had strange burn marks,

but as we continued further down the creek,

we made one of the strangest discoveries

of our entire investigation.

-Whoa! What is that? -What is that?

Right there.

THOMAS: What is that?

KALEB: Hard to tell.

TRAVIS: We're about to find out what it is.

THOMAS: Look at those fangs.

BRYANT: Ew! God!

TRAVIS: We've got a dead animal right here.

BRYANT: I wonder what that is.

Just a few hundred feet down the river

from where I found this burnt tree,

we came across some sort of animal here

in late stages of decay.

As soon as we lifted its head out of the water,

we saw massive canine teeth.

So we knew it was a canine of some type,

but these teeth are pretty big.

It doesn't look like a coyote or a dog to me.

So what is dead here in the water?

TRAVIS: One week later, Ben Woodruff gave us

his absolutely stunning report

based on the jawbone of the animal

we found in Dry Gulch Creek.

BEN: I want to give you a couple of examples here,

some comparative anatomy.

So this is a side view

of a typical coyote skull,

And I want you to focus down here, at the bottom.

You can see this bulge is not very big.

This is the part of the jaw

that undergoes the most stress

when these teeth here are crunching down.

So keep that in mind, keep the shape in mind.

This is a regular modern-day grey wolf.

And they're tackling larger prey up to the size

of moose or even a buffalo.

And you can see how much larger that is.

And this is a dire wolf.

If you can see down below here,

how much larger that bulge is.

-TRAVIS: It's huge. -THOMAS: Yeah.

BEN: Here is the dentition on your jaw.

It has the much thicker, larger bulge like a dire wolf.

TRAVIS: Look at that.

What?

Are you kidding me?

KALEB: No way!

BEN: I don't want to put out a hypothesis,

but if you handed me this and said, "Hey, what is this?"

Everything I'm measuring, everything I'm looking at says

it looks like it has dire wolf in it

or is a young dire wolf.

-ERIK Wow. -TRAVIS: A dire wolf.

THOMAS: If we can prove this is a legit dire wolf,

that would be the first physical evidence

that we have been given from anybody that suggests

that the Shermans actually saw a dire wolf

trying to pull their cows through the fence.

BRANDON: We are on the verge of getting the very answers

that we've been seeking for years.

We've made incredible progress in documenting

the reality of the phenomenon.

We are just getting started

in scratching the surface of what we are really dealing with

here at Skinwalker Ranch.

TRAVIS: Is the legend of the skinwalker really true?

If you asked me that before I joined this team,

I'd have probably laughed.

But as I sit here today,

all I can say is that I'm both excited

and a little bit anxious

for what we might discover out here next.

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