Brendan Jesus
I’m writing this shortly after completing the coverage of Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch Season 5 Episode 3, “Spies in the Sky.” As stated in that coverage, I don’t have anything interesting to report on from the world of Ufology. Well, I do. But I’m not allowed to say what, just yet. It’s time to head 20 miles south from one ranch to another to see if we can get any closer to finding The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch in this week’s episode, “Pushing Boundaries.”
Go Fly A Kite
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center. 10:26 AM.
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Kaleb Bench, Jim Royston, and Sam Deriso are standing outside the Skinwalker Ranch Command Center. They’re joined by Dominique Passigila and Dylan Rysback of US Kites. Travis is looking for a new and inventive way to measure how the Bubble reacts to different experiments. Erik reminds everyone of the various tools they’ve used to measure different aspects of the ranch, but they’ve never used Helikite platforms.
Dylan tells us the object is a mixture of a helium balloon and a kite. Dominique says it’s a piece of military equipment. In reality, it appears to be a giant helium balloon with a plywood base attached to the bottom. That doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that they plan to attach multiple instruments to it to measure different data points.
They will be doing this experiment at the East Field. Travis wonders what will happen when the Helikite penetrates the boundary of the Bubble.
Here’s how the experiment will go. Thomas Winterton will tow the Helikite from the East Field, with a UTV, through the barrier of the Bubble. The Helikite will be floating at a few hundred feet in the air. Once the Helikite makes its way through the Bubble, Jim Royston will fly his LIDAR drone through the Bubble barrier. Meanwhile, Travis will be in the East Field. Travis plans to fire rockets at a lower angle, hoping to fly a rocket through the barrier.
Once at the East Field, a high-speed camera and signal generator are affixed to the Helikite. The signal generator will be emitting a 1.2 GHz signal. Travis says it’s the only thing on the ranch that will be broadcasting a signal at that frequency. Erik Bard will be monitoring the signal with his Kraken system.
The experiment is about to begin when Erik suddenly notices the GPS from the Helikite has gone deep underground.
This is something that’s been on my mind for most of the season. In Season 6 Episode 2 “The Drone Zone”, we see Alex Swanson take a signal beacon a few feet outside of the Bubble, and it starts to work properly. NOW, we have something that’s at least 50 feet away from the boundary of the Bubble, and they’re correlating the GPS data corruption to the Bubble. Something similar happens later on in this episode, where the anomalous data appears at least 30 feet outside of the Bubble. I know this show takes liberties sometimes, but either you CAN use equipment outside the boundary of the Bubble, OR the Bubble affects anything that is about to push through its boundary. Pick one!
The Helikite is ready to go, and Thomas starts to drive. Jim Royston launches his drone, but it refuses to move. After a quick reset, Jim is still unable to move the drone. Simultaneously, Travis gets a second 1.2 GHz signal. Both of this happens as soon as the Helikite passes through the Bubble’s boundary.
Travis sets up his rocket. It launches without issue. Or does it?
The rocket veers north off course. It’s almost as if something changed its path mid-flight. Thomas says the rocket didn’t even make it inside the Bubble. Travis decides a second rocket launch at a new angle will be their best bet. He fires off the second rocket. This one veers south off course.
Data Dump Pt I
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center. 10:43 AM. Next Day.
Everyone gathers around the table inside the Skinwalker Ranch Command Center. Erik pulls up an image of Jim’s drone display malfunction. The error says it had a weak signal as the Helikite passed through the barrier. But that should be impossible, as Jim says the drone connects to 21 different satellites. Travis says the Bubble must be blocking signals.
Erik also shows the GPS data malfunction where the data goes underground. (This is from the GPS attached to the Helikite.) There was also that high-speed camera on the Helikite that shoots in 120 FPS. Erik reveals a UAP that zips past the Helikite. This UAP looks very similar to the Buga Sphere!
Scat Attack!
The Corral. 3:03 PM.
Ben Woodruff joins Travis, Erik, Thomas, Kaleb, Jim, and Sam at the Corral. They’re going to test the Bubble’s barrier from the direction of Dry Gulch Creek (where the Dire Wolf carcass was found).
They arrive at the creek and start unloading their kayaks. The objective here is to load the kayaks with SONAR, a Trifield meter, and a GPS tracker. Once loaded, they will walk the kayaks through the creek and cross the Bubble’s barrier. The data will be monitored both inside and outside the Bubble and will be compared. Jim will also try to fly his LIDAR drone through the barrier on this side.
The kayaks are loaded up and placed in the water. Immediately, the Trifield meter reads 0.0 (radiation). This is quickly commented on as there’s always a base level of radiation in the air, so there’s no reason the Trifield meter reads absolute zero. Erik is monitoring the kayak GPS data from the Command Center and sees that the GPS data is already corrupted; it’s underground.
Travis notes that the SONAR lost connection.
The kayaks are preparing to cross into the Bubble, so Jim readies his drone. The LIDAR drone starts its flight with no issues and is then immediately paused. Jim’s drone controller is telling him there’s an aircraft above. A quick look up into the sky reveals no aircraft whatsoever.
Jim overrides the alert and starts his pushbroom pattern. Erik examines the GPS data from Jim’s drone and notices consistently corrupted data every time the drone enters and exits the Bubble. At the furthest point of its pushbroom pattern, Jim’s drone receives a fatal error, and it auto-aborts itself.
Back on the river, Travis, Kaleb, and Thomas notice two piles of scat. They radio Ben, who tells them to take a sample if they can. Thomas grabs the scat with his bare hands… I’m kidding! They bag up the sample and call it a day.
Data Dump Pt II
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center. 10:29 AM. Two days later.
Ben Woodruff joins Travis, Erik, Thomas, Kaleb, Sam, and Jim via video call. (I just realized there’s no Pete Kelsey in this episode.) Travis starts the data discussion by noting how it’s weird that four different pieces of technology were interfered with at once. And that’s a sentiment I share. It’s clear that, for example, Sky Elements is a company with a great reputation. Their drones failing is truly anomalous. Jim Royston DEFINITELY has incredible and expensive equipment, but it constantly fails… that’s weird!
Erik pulls up the corrupted data from Jim’s LIDAR drone (but we’ve seen this already!). Then, Erik shows everyone the GPS data from the kayak. Not only does the data go deep underground, but it also goes high in the air! It’s almost as if the Bubble deflects the data in multiple directions.
Jim has one image that he was able to get from completing most of his pushbroom pattern. There’s this huge missing swath of data near the southern boundary of the Bubble. It appears to resemble a void of sorts. This is the same spot that Thomas saw a purple light in 2022, and the entire team saw a silver orb.
It’s Ben’s turn now, and this scat talk is going to ramp things up a notch.
Ben says that whatever animal made this scat, it shows evidence of a digested coyote. What’s important to note here is that nothing in Utah eats coyotes. The partially digested coyote bone is something beyond what Ben has seen before. A cougar would kill a coyote but not eat it, and a mountain lion’s stomach is not strong enough to digest a coyote’s bone.
Erik asks if a Dire Wolf would consume a coyote. Ben replies, “Yes.”
Final Thoughts
While I find it fascinating that tons of expensive equipment keep malfunctioning at the behest of an invisible Bubble, I’m beyond bored with this Bubble stuff. Their intense focus on the Bubble is taking away from the more interesting aspects of what resides in the Mesa and what could potentially be underground. The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch has become beyond formulaic. Show 10 minutes of experiments, then do 10 minutes of reviewing data we’ve already seen. Then another 10 minutes of experiments followed by 10 more minutes of data review.
This show needs to get back to its roots. More exploration. More true science. More community involvement. Where is Jim Morse? Where is the rest of the Skinwalker Ranch crew? This has become the Travis and Erik show. Don’t get me wrong, I love Travis and Erik! But I would like to see more fragmented storytelling and better cliffhangers.
Anyways, setup setup setup…something something…The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch.
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You can watch The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch: Pushing Boundaries (S6E5) and previous episodes on The History Channel.
