Brendan Jesus
I had plans to start off the coverage of Season 5 Episode 9 “Spinning Out” by discussing an issue regarding Erik Bard’s use of the Kraken and how it has been posited it’s being used incorrectly. But this episode was off the walls crazy and I just need to get into it and discuss. So next week I plan on going into the Kraken a little bit more, and we’re going to get right into this episode.
(Also, happy engagement to Dragon and his fiance!)
That’s Just Plane Odd
11:38 AM. We open on the Mesa. The shadow of an airplane crosses the top of the Mesa. Then, a plane. A United States Air Force plane flies over the ranch at 300 feet. Multiple times! 300 feet is not that high, it’s roughly the height at which their drones are flown. Erik Bard, Dragon, Kaleb Bench, and Thomas Winterton all notice this from different points on the ranch. Each person is just as confused and caught off guard as the last.
While Dr. Travis Taylor reminds us that military planes and helicopters have flown over the ranch before, they have never had an airplane fly this low to the ground. Now I’m no high falutin lawyer, but it seems like this airplane is flying at an illegally low altitude. Dragon questions if this may even be a warning from the government. (We’ll get to this question a little later on.) What’s even more interesting is when Travis makes the observation that there are no military bases near the ranch. He also brings up the Bigelow era, NIDS, and the government’s previous involvement in researching Skinwalker Ranch.
This Is Not A Drill Pt. 4 (Pt. 1)
We join Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Thomas Winterton, and Kaleb Bench, as well as Jim Royston and Sam Deriso of OmniTeq, at the Mesa drill site. There is this questionable moment where Travis either misspeaks or tries to retcon the size of the dome-shaped object inside the Mesa when he describes it as a 400-foot-long object. To this point, it has only ever been described as 300 feet long. Alex Swanson, Jared Lednisky, and the rest of the team from Mark Construciton Inc. arrive at the drill site.
Alex informs us that to this point they’ve made it, roughly, 120 feet into the Mesa. As the drilling is getting ready to start back up for the day, Erik says the Kraken is up and running, as well as the usual set of instruments. Mark Construction Inc. is also using a beacon receiver that tracks and tells them where the drill head is at all times.
I’m A Four Star Ranch!
(Warning, potential graphic description of animal mutilation ahead.)
Ranch Manager Jim Morse and Ranch Caretakers Kandus Linde and Tom Lewis head 20 miles southeast of Skinwalker Ranch to 4 Star Ranch in Randlett, Utah. Here they are meeting with ranch owner David Yeaman. David recently had an incident with Colt mutilation and wanted to share his story with Jim.
Recently, David had an incident where a one-week-old Colt was found mutilated in the field. It was fine one day, the next it was ripped apart. David shares the photo with us and it’s disturbing. The Colt is spread out on the ground, tongue out. Its right hind leg is ripped to shreds, with sinewy skin ripped off and hanging by threads. The upper right arm of the Colt is filleted. David says there’s no evidence this incident was caused by a coyote or a mountain lion, and there are also no signs of an animal attack. What’s even more interesting, David reveals, is how the Colt’s mother wanted nothing to do with the baby after the death occurred, which he assures us isn’t normal.
Another disgusting photo is shown of a deceased cow. The cow’s stomach is bloated, distended, and…turned inside out. On top of that, there’s ANOTHER cow that has a strange hole in its knee. David confirms it’s not a bullet hole as there is no exit hole, and also no blood. Tom says this hole is very similar to the hole seen that was potentially caused by a Dire Wolf. If you remember, in Season 5 Episode 3 “Dead in the Water” Ben Woodruff, of the Hutchings Museum, stated the hole in the cow rib found on Skinwalker Ranch matches up incredibly well with the tooth of a Dire Wolf, an animal that has been extinct for thousands of years.
This Is Not A Drill Pt. 4 (Pt. 2)
(Warning, some more potentially graphic animal accidents are described.)
1:34 PM. We rejoin both the investigation team and the drill crew over at the Mesa drill site. Mark Construction Inc. is making decent progress with the drilling, even if they are still working on their first hole. Suddenly, the drill head hits something hard and is getting pushed down. The drill is going at one foot a minute at 12,000 pounds. As the drill head hits this obstacle, the 1.6 GHz signal pops up.
Erik checks the Kraken and finds out the signal is coming from Homestead 2. So, Travis and Kaleb grab a spectrum analyzer and a portable antenna and race over there. As they arrive at Homestead 2, they make a crazy discovery. The signal is coming from directly above them. This is also the exact location where they found the 1.6 GHz signal in 2021. Kaleb radios over to Dragon and tells him to bring rockets over as quickly as possible.
Dragon races over with the rockets and they get it set up fairly quickly. The first rocket is fired and shoots straight up, something that’s rare for a rocket on the ranch. Then, the signal disappears. Well, since they have multiple rockets, they might as well fire off a second one! So they shoot off a second rocket and the signal comes back. But out of nowhere…the rocket stops falling. The chute on the rocket had opened up, but the rocket just stopped in midair. There is no exaggeration here, the rocket just stopped falling for a good 10 seconds at around 200 feet in the sky. It’s truly baffling.
Back at the Mesa drill site, the drilling team is still hitting an obstacle. It’s decided that the drillers will pull out the drill and replace the drill head with a bigger bit. Both teams make it very clear that this drilling issue is an anomaly. There is no reason this drill head could not be making it through clay or sandstone. They even mention that this drill should be able to make it through reinforced concrete with little issue. (We’ll also be touching back on this again shortly.) While Mark Construction Inc. gets their ducks in a row to replace the drill head, Thomas decides they should look through the spoils pit.
We get a talking head of Erik Bard where we see him breaking his character momentarily. Erik is passionate about his work on the ranch, as are the rest of them. But this seems like it’s Erik’s baby. It’s pretty clear that ranch owner Brandon Fugal has taken the reigns off of Erik and has let him run the data collection in the best way he sees fit. This talking head shows Erik getting frustrated. It seems like whenever one door opens, two doors close. He does end this talking head with a hint of optimism when he says while this may be frustrating, it gives them the opportunity for even more data collection.
Thomas runs a magnet over the spoils pit. There’s a big lot of nothing in the pit…except for a singular metal flake that’s magnetic. I’m no geologist so I don’t know if any rocks are magnetic. But finding metal flakes within the Mesa is very exciting to me. Mark Construction Inc. says they will replace the drill head with an eight-inch drill head and go back in.
Now there’s a time jump here, but there is no ‘Next Day’ lower third even though when Travis comes back on he refers to the following as the “next day.” Nevertheless, it’s now 3:36 PM, the eight-inch drill head has been installed, and the drilling has commenced. Suddenly, all of the signal receivers show a signal of 919 MHz. This is a signal we have never seen before on the ranch. Everyone, rightfully, freaks out.
Bear with me here, this is where things are gonna get a bit tinfoil hat (on my end) and I want to go back and look at some of the things posed in this episode. SO. Travis says 919 MHz is the approximate frequency of a LoRaWAN surveillance device. LoRaWAN stands for Long Range Wide Area Network. These are tiny devices used by the military/government for conducting surveillance. Travis wonders if the military/government has been dropping LoRaWAN devices around the ranch. Remember how the episode started out with that low-flying United States Air Force plane?
If you remember in my coverage of Season 5 Episode 5 “The Flash” I had a conversation with Jeremy McGowan. McGowan’s falling out with ranch owner Brandon Fugal was partly due to a video made by McGowan that theorized a possible idea of what could be buried within the Mesa. Basically, this theory posits the idea that back when the supercontinent Pangea existed, intelligent beings of some sort dropped a surveillance pod in a spot that would eventually turn into where the 300-foot dome-shaped object exists today. At the time of Pangea, this pod would have had a vast ocean to the west and a gigantic swath of land to the east. It’s the perfect location for data collection.
When Robert Bigelow owned the ranch he created NIDS (National Institute for Discovery). NIDS worked in tandem with the US government to investigate the phenomena going on around the ranch. If you look at the Mesa now, it almost looks as if the face of the Mesa has been blown up from the inside. The rocks have fallen in such a way that makes it look like a manmade landslide. Robert Bigelow, nor the government, has ever disclosed his findings from the ranch. Could they have found something deep within the Mesa and then created a purposeful cave-in? Could they have created an impenetrable prison for the object within the Mesa?
This strange 919 MHz signal could very well mean the government has been dropping surveillance devices around the ranch. It’s clear that they’re making progress of some sort with the drilling and is some government spook getting scared? Think about it. Mark Construction Inc. is having trouble drilling into the Mesa, even though the drill heads should be like, “Cutting through butter with a hot knife,”? I don’t know. Something doesn’t sit right with me here.
Anyways. As this signal appears, the cows in the field behind them start acting strange. One of the cows starts moving in a tight circle for multiple minutes. Thomas makes his way over toward the cow and he notices its eyes are milky white. Travis tells us that’s what happens to something when it’s exposed to high amounts of microwave radiation. He also pulls out his compass, which shows true north 20 degrees east of where it should be. THEN Jared radios over and says weird things are happening with the drill. The drill head has lost connection with the beacon receiver and they cannot locate the drill head’s location.
Later that day, Glendon Lamb, owner of the cows from Moon Shadow Ranch, shows up to help corral the injured cow. Also, Dr. Haleigh Lundgreen, veterinarian, and Kate Thornton, vet tech, show up to check out the cow. Dr. Lundgreen says the cow’s eyes have completely hemorrhaged. They’ve ruptured from the inside, rendering the cow blind. Its eyes look truly awful and I feel bad for that poor cow. On top of that, the constant circling could be evidence of an extreme neurological issue.
Final Thoughts
WOW, what an episode. Except for the retconning of the dome-shaped object’s size, this episode was truly captivating. I really thought there was no way they could top the floating rocket. But being able to see the cows freak out, something we’ve only seen once before in an earlier season, was truly something. Catching evidence like that on video does so much more for me than strange 1.6 GHz signals.
The big question is, what is inside the Mesa? Am I off base with accepting the theory posed by Jeremy McGowan? Since I heard that theory, so much of the evidence seen in this show makes a little bit more sense. Why would Robert Bigelow refuse to disclose their findings? Possibly because he’s a grifter, possibly because he was silenced. Who knows. All I hope is that someday we will find…The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.
