The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch

Oh, wow. - We've been wanting

to fly a pattern of drones over the triangle and the east field.

TRAVIS (over radio): There are several drones

out of line we can see from my perspective.

They're clearly out of place.

Yeah, we've got eyes on that.

I have 80 disconnected.

They're coming home.

Three, two, one!

We got something right there.

There's a thing hovering over the launch site!

So there's a gap in the data from the triangle

at the top of the mesa.

Somehow we've got to get inside the mesa.

There is a ranch in Northern Utah.

It is considered the epicenter

of the strangest and most disturbing phenomena on Earth:

animal mutilations,

bizarre UFO sightings

and unusual energies that have proven harmful to humans.

For 20 years, the federal government

tried to find answers and failed.

Now a new team of dedicated scientists,

researchers and experts has taken over.

They are determined to solve the mystery and reveal...

...The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.

Pete! - Hey, Pete.

I want you to meet some friends of mine.

All right. - (Pete chuckling)

After our experiment at the triangle last week

actually revealed that there might be a connection

to the mesa, we invited Pete Kelsey and his colleague,

ground-penetrating radar expert Jan Francke

to help us with a new investigation of that area.

Well, welcome to the ranch.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

So, uh, Pete tells us that you've

got some interesting technology

that might help us out at the mesa.

Yeah, I make deep ground-penetrating

radar systems and I've got one that I made

for you guys that's a really, really small one.

It can get up over

some of that really rough rocks, rock face

that you wouldn't be able to drag a normal radar on.

And I've got one that's a really deep

penetrating ground-based system

that looks like a snake actually.

We use this for the mining industry. - Okay.

What is it you're actually expecting to see?

What are you looking for here?

We've heard about caves inside of the mesa. - Okay.

We're actually looking for also a-a structure that was

impenetrable to our drilling.

You know, as we went back into that mesa,

we were using a directional drilling technique

that should have been able to turn upward

but could not, we couldn't get through

that layer, so it was a dome shape there.

And of course we'll be especially interested

if we see anything that looks unnatural.

Absolutely. - Beneath that surface.

In our ongoing efforts to find the answers behind

all the strange phenomena that occur on Skinwalker Ranch,

we're now getting focused back on the mesa.

Oh, wow, look at that!

We were all baffled one week ago

when the drone swarm we launched over the triangle

to pinpoint an anomaly

between 300 and 5,000 feet began malfunctioning.

Look at that one! - One's falling, one's falling!

They're running into each other! They're going crazy!

Almost all of them are disconnected right now.

What I'm going to bring up now is the data

from the terrestrial laser scanner.

And then the lidar data that Pete recorded

was missing a big chunk of data

that somehow appeared right over

that same spot where we drilled into the mesa last year,

and discovered a 400-foot-long dome-shaped metal object.

Wow. - A metal object made of

the same kind of material

that NASA uses to protect the outside of space shuttles.

So, now we're hoping that Jan,

who is a world-renowned expert in ground-penetrating radar,

has the technology that can help us figure out

just what's inside the mesa

and how it might be related to the strange things

that keep happening at the triangle.

So, uh, how deep of a-a penetration can you get?

Usually we get down to 200, 300 feet with this,

so it's pretty exciting.

GPR works by sending

radio waves into the ground

that reflect off anomalies like buried objects or voids

to reveal an image of their shape as well as their depth.

If there's a discontinuity or a void,

we definitely should be able to see that.

What about metal? - (chuckles) Well,

yeah, metal's a great target for radar,

so if there's something metal there,

we'd certainly be able to see that as well.

Sounds like we've got a lot to do.

We should probably get to it. - Let's do it.

All right, we'll see you. Y'all just follow us down there. - Okay.

Even before we discovered this mysterious metal object,

there were all kinds of rumors about the mesa going back

to when Robert Bigelow and the federal government

investigated here from the 1990s to the early 2000s.

X marks the spot, Pete. - X marks the spot.

I've heard all kinds of crazy stories about this mesa.

Spacecraft going in it, tunnels,

caverns, underground bases.

What kind of mysteries lie inside?

For decades, there have been reports of underground chambers

or tunnels beneath the mesa.

That may hold the key to understanding

the secrets of Skinwalker Ranch.

The deeper we can see into that pile of rocks,

into that mesa... Sure.

Uh, the more we're gonna understand

what it is we're messing with out here.

Okay. It'll be interesting to see what's underground.

So that's the antenna?

Well, it's the entire radar.

These are the antennas right here,

this is just a separator.

It's all fiberglass, keep it as light as possible.

We can't use carbon fiber

because it's conductive, of course.

Jan has brought two devices

that we'll use to scan the mesa.

One is a unit that Tom Winterton will actually wear

while he hikes over the area where we drilled

against the dome-shaped object last year.

And meanwhile, Jan and Kaleb will run the other device

back and forth on top of the mesa

to see if anything else might be hidden inside there

like we've heard about in the past.

Well, it looks like we're just about set up

so, uh, talk us through what you're going to do.

Okay, there's a couple of GPR systems here.

So, this one here, what's really nice about it,

it's a very long wavelength

which means we're gonna get good penetration.

And because it's handheld, it gives us, uh, the ability

to get into areas that are really difficult terrain. - ERIK: Okay.

So, we're set up over here.

Yep. - ERIK: We're gonna be doing the usual data logging.

We've got the SDR,

we've got the, uh, Geiger counter running.

Okay. - All right, man, well, let-let's get going.

Okay, sounds good.

With all that we have going on

and to the extent possible, I'm keeping a close eye

on the RF spectrum analyzer

to see if any unusual signals show up.

Are you centered on 45?

That would be 44.5 something. - Good enough.

Nearly every time we run experiments on the ranch,

we detect mysterious energy spikes,

especially one measuring 1.6 gigahertz,

which I think could be some kind of communication signal.

Go ahead and turn it on.

I've turned it on.

Okay, I've got the transmitter and receiver

working right now. - Okay.

And it creates its own little website.

It's like a little access point, so... - Okay.

...even though we're not on the Internet here,

I'm gonna talk to it with my phone.

Okay.

And you are good...

...good to go.

Um... Um...

Are you guys transmitting something? No.

No. - Hey, Erik. Travis.

Are you guys transmitting anything? - Are you transmitting something?

No. - ERIK: No. We're not transmitting at all.

What are you seeing? Uh...

Uh, I've never seen this signal before, uh...

What the hell?

This waveform is not supposed to be happening right now.

Where's it coming from?

Yeah, that's a good question. Where's it coming from?

Let's-let's... Way back from the truck here

just to be absolutely certain.

Uh... Okay.

Do you have a cell phone on you or something?

Well, I mean, I got one in my back pocket but I got it on...

Yeah, let's just take that out if you don't mind.

Turn it off. - Here, I'll turn it off.

Yeah. Okay.

That ain't it.

See, so that's a normal wave- form there just for a second.

Right? - Mm-hmm, yeah, I see it, yep.

But it's freaking out.

Jan actually built the systems he brought out here,

he understands them completely.

He is the guy for ground-penetrating radar.