Brendan Jesus
Welcome back, fellow ranchers! Who would have guessed that it took someone forever to upload the latest episode to YouTube? With how far behind I am, and a new episode of Blind Frog on the horizon, we’re going to get right into this week’s episode. Plus, I have no good Ufology news. I’m slacking! Anyways, it’s time to join our favorite researchers to see if we get any closer to uncovering The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch.
Low Rider
Mesa Drill Site. 9:32 AM.
Thomas Winterton is with the team of Mark Construction as the drilling of Borehole 2 continues. They’re about 340 feet into the hole, and roughly halfway through. Archaeologist Chris Roberts is doing his usual job at the spoils pit when he notices something. A very low-flying plane makes its way directly over the ranch. Chris radios everyone to inform them.
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Kaleb Bench, Jim Royston, and Sam Deriso are hanging around the spectrum analyzers near the Mesa Drill Site. They watch as the plane flies overhead. Travis says it’s a single-engine civilian airplane, and Erik notices the plane isn’t on his ADS-B. This means the plane has turned off its flight communication…that’s illegal. They discuss how something similar happened previously on the ranch, but we’ll get to that when it’s more important later on.
When this plane was flying overhead, part of me wondered if it was just Chad Ollinger!
Thomas radios everyone to inform them that the drill head is grinding up against something incredibly hard. Interestingly, after the plane flew overhead, the drill bit’s beacon went completely haywire. Mark Construction can no longer accurately track the beacon. They’re drilling blind.
Hack Attack
Dr. Travis Taylor’s Trailer. 8:17 PM.
Travis calls Erik and Jim to his trailer. No, no, get your heads out of the gutter! There are cameras in and around Travis’s trailer, and there’s an emergency. Once they’re sat down, Travis tells them that his cameras became temporarily disabled and the video captured moments before had been sent somewhere.
If the cameras were connected via WiFi, that could be explained. But Travis’s cameras are offline and hardwired into his surveillance system. This means the cameras can only be accessed physically…that means inside his trailer! We see the data log, which shows the cameras were marked as “user logged out”. When the cameras became logged out, Travis showed that the data was sent elsewhere.
Jim says this all seems very methodical and could have been caused by a LoRaWAN. Previously on… A few years ago, a plane flew at a similar low altitude over the ranch. At the time, Travis mentioned that it could have possibly dropped LoRaWANs on the ranch. LoRaWANs are low-power wide-area networks. Essentially, it would enable remote access to hardwired devices. (At least, that’s how they explain it.)
Travis says that one of two things is happening:
1) Someone is spying on them, so why are they doing it, and how?
2) Something is spying on them.
Bits And Ben
The Next Day. Mesa Drill Site. 11:10 AM.
Alex Swanson radios Thomas to give some potentially bad news. They’ve hit multiple hard spots and need to pull the drill out. They’re now 470 feet into Borehole 2. It’s taken two and a half hours for them to move 67 inches. Now, they’re not moving at all.
The team heads over to the spoils pit to look at the drill head. When looking at the drill head, they realize something is off. Based on what Alex said, the entire drill head should be bald. Instead, only one drill tooth is worn down.
Later that day, Ben Woodruff makes his way to the ranch. Ben meets with Travis, Erik, Thomas, Kaleb, Jim, and Sam at the Command Center. He has reviewed the trail cam footage from the cameras he placed on the ranch a few weeks ago. Ben notes that this area is in a drought, and there should be little wildlife around. We see some animals throughout his videos, but it’s when we see an Elk that things get strange.
The Elk we see have these odd, white, boil-like spots on the faces of the Elk. Ben says he did some research on diseases and couldn’t find any that would cause this to happen to an Elk’s face. Travis wonders if it could be radiation-based. Ben decides to take some soil samples from the area of the Elk.
Erik, Kaleb, and Jim take Ben over to the spot where the Elk were. Once at the spot, they notice how strange it looks. There’s a 30 to 40-foot-wide spot of perfect grass that stretches a few hundred feet long. They grab tons of samples and call it a day.
Radiated Ceramic
Ben videos into the Skinwalker Ranch Command Center, where Travis, Erik, Thomas, Kaleb, Jim, and Sam are waiting. Ben says that he’s using the Golden Aster plant as a control. On the north and south sides of the odd patch of grass, the Golden Aster plants are completely fine. But inside the odd patch of grass shows signs of heavy radiation. This means the radiation is transient AND above ground. Also, this radiation spot is perfectly parallel to the Mesa Drill Site.
Later that night, we join everyone at the Mesa Drill Site. Due to the issues earlier, Mark Construction stayed late to get a bit deeper into the Mesa. But it’s already off to a bad start. Travis sees the dreaded 1.6 GHz signal as well as modulating data for the drilling beacons. They’re basically still drilling blind.
Thomas comes over to the tent where the spectrum analyzer is. He tells the team that every two to three inches is an incredibly hard layer of something, and it’s causing heavy delays with the drilling. Erik wonders if they’re interacting with a structure. That’s when Chris radios over and tells everyone to come to the spoils pit.
Chris has pulled out multiple ceramic shards from the spoils. Everyone examines the shards and notices that there are two distinct colors to them. One side of the ceramic is glazed, and the other has a crosshatch pattern. This means one thing…it was manufactured. Chris is very certain that this ceramic doesn’t come from a plate, cup, or vase. Rather, this comes from a tile-shaped object.
Travis says it could possibly be like the tiles on space shuttles. Kaleb asks out loud, what would these metals and ceramics be used in conjunction for? Travis simply says spaceships. Erik decides to test the gamma radiation of the pieces. He brings his gamma reader to the shards…and the radiation is off the charts.
Final Thoughts
I was so naive. “They’ll never do another season that’s basically just drilling!” I said with a glimmer in my eye. Well, just a few episodes left, and it’s been drill-o-palooza. Yes, this ceramic finding could potentially be something big, but I still don’t think it justifies full season coverage. Whatever happened to researching things over at Homestead 2? Or animal mutilations? WHAT ABOUT THE COW THAT LITERALLY WENT BLIND BECAUSE OF RADIATION?!
My biggest gripe with this show is how it focuses on all of the wrong things. There’s a lack of cohesion and little to no stakes. Remember the first time we saw drilling on the ranch and Thomas had to be rushed to the ER? This show has gone from weird, anomalous goings on to drilling and rockets. I’m still fully invested, but I can understand that regular viewers are getting tired of whatever this show is now. They’ve fully Oak Island-ed. Oh well. Maybe someday we’ll get to the bottom of The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch.
