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

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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