-TRAVIS: Whoa, what is that? -BRYANT: Whoa.
THOMAS: Whoa! It's raining drones over here!
We just had catastrophic failure.
That's got to be the FPV right there.
-TRAVIS: Yeah, that's got to be. -ERIK: Gone.
-TRAVIS: It vanished behind something. -ERIK: Yeah.
There's something there.
We broke... somewhere.
We got to figure out where we broke now.
-We broke another rod? -We broke a rod, yeah.
TRAVIS: There's something blocking us in the mesa.
NARRATOR: 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.
-Did you get your fishing tool? -Got it.
-Good deal. -Got to put it on and everything.
THOMAS: So, this little tool right here
is what you're hoping
to grab onto that pipe and pull it back?
Yeah, yeah, it's got a cone shape
on the inside with threads.
So, if we can hit the end of that pipe and thread onto it,
we'll be able to pull it out enough
to where we can get everything apart
and get the rods put back together.
Okay.
TRAVIS: For more than two months now, we've been
struggling with an operation on Skinwalker Ranch
that should have been pretty easy to complete.
The goal is to drill two boreholes
up through the sandstone mesa
where ground-penetrating radar has detected a huge
dome-shaped object that is surrounded
by several smaller anomalies.
We need these boreholes
so that we can insert different scanning devices in them
to study, and hopefully identify,
what these strange anomalies could actually be.
But during this operation, our team
from Mark Construction Drilling has experienced crazy setbacks
just trying to get the first hole drilled.
It's not moving very well.
TRAVIS: Their equipment has repeatedly failed
after making possible contact with the anomalies.
And just last week,
after finally reaching more than 400 feet in...
We broke... somewhere.
TRAVIS: ...their drill rods mysteriously came apart,
and one of them broke.
It's like whatever is in there
is trying to stop us from getting this done.
So, today, Alex Swanson and his team are using a fishing tool
to extract the drilling rods from inside the mesa.
Hopefully, we can get at least one of these holes drilled
before the weather gets too harsh
and forces us to postpone our investigation until next summer.
Hold that right there, Jared.
Okay, Jared, push into it.
We're almost at the rod.
THOMAS: If this doesn't work,
I don't know how we're going to be able get up in there.
I really can't get up in there with the excavator without
risking a rockslide coming down on top of me.
So, this is a really tense moment for me.
Hold that.
I think we're onto it, bud.
Okay, try and pull back.
Keep going, keep pulling.
-We got her. -THOMAS: You got her?
We got her.
-Wow. -ALEX: We got it!
THOMAS: Heck yeah!
We catch our first big break of this entire job.
Although we've encountered a lot of setbacks and obstacles,
it looks like everything's coming together.
I actually believe now we're going to be able
to actually break through the top of this mesa.
Fingers crossed, this is the last time
-that we have a problem. -Yeah.
We certainly don't want to stop again. That's for sure.
THOMAS: What do you got
-before you break through? -ALEX: We're thinking probably--
-About five rods. -Five rods, we should be out.
Okay. So another 75 feet, and we should be out the top.
-Yup. -THOMAS: Cool.
So, how long you thinking it's gonna take you
to push through that last 75 feet then?
JARED: Probably, say, at least five hours.
give or take, if not a little longer.
Well, I guess we'll get to it, huh?
-Yup. -Okay.
It's been quite the journey.
TRAVIS: While the drilling operation continued
at the mesa...
...later that afternoon...
-Hey, Cam. -Hey.
TRAVIS: ...Cameron Fugal arrived to help us conduct our last,
and most ambitious, experiment of the year.
Well, the lidar trucks are coming down the road.
And we also welcomed a whole team of lidar experts,
including Pete Kelsey,
John Brown, Jim Royston and Sam Deriso.
ERIK: Well, before we jump in to what we're planning on doing,
this looks like some serious tech.
JOHN: It's pretty serious technology
when it comes to lidar.
This one is specifically used
for long-distance collection.
ERIK: Okay.
And it's incredibly accurate.
PETE: I hear you have something
creative in mind for it.
We've got a few creative somethings in mind.
TRAVIS: Several weeks ago,
using a terrestrial laser scanner,
Pete Kelsey detected a massive cone-shaped anomaly.
It stretched more than a half a mile from Homestead Two
over to the east field canyon
and had a 2,000-foot-high apex directly above the triangle.
Other than the mesa,
these are the three main hot spots
where we've experienced the most phenomena
on Skinwalker Ranch...
We have several objects moving in unison.
TRAVIS: ...including UAPs...
What is that signal?
...energy spikes
and even possible evidence
of something that resembles a traversable wormhole.
So, our hope is that tonight's experiment will reveal more data
on all the anomalies we've seen in these different locations.
Maybe it will help us determine how they might all be connected.
Once the sun goes down, we'll start the experiment
by launching a rocket in the east field
to see if we can stimulate phenomena.
From there,
imaging expert John Brown will drive his mobile lidar vehicle,
while Cameron Fugal shadows him in the helicopter.
They'll move past the east field, the triangle,
the mesa drill site and over to Homestead Two.
John will be scanning the entire area
between the ground and the helicopter
for signs of the cone or any other strange things.
ERIK: We're going to have that lidar truck platform
running right under the helicopter.
Cameron, you're going to be following along.
That's going to give a target, basically.
TRAVIS: That's right.
Sam, you'll be in the lidar truck
with one of the multi-sensor boxes
-that is data logging. -Okay. Mm-hmm.
And Erik, were you going to put a GPS tracker with him?
-Yes, I am. -TRAVIS: Okay.
TRAVIS: Cameron will be wearing night vision goggles,
which may also enable him to see aerial phenomena
that's invisible to the naked eye.
Once they reach Homestead Two,
Thomas Winterton will launch another rocket
from the mesa drill site,
and then, they'll repeat the scanning process
back toward the east field.
Jim, I want you flying
the lidar path with your drone,
-and fly the in-and-out path. -Okay.
TRAVIS: To help us gather even more aerial data,
Jim Royston will fly his drone-based lidar device
between the triangle and the east field.
This is where we've detected mysterious voids in GPS data
throughout the year.
And it's also
where we captured video back in 2022
of a UAP entering, then exiting the mesa
before flying right toward the triangle.
Kaleb, uh, you'll be down
at the east canyon area with Dragon.
Use the handheld lidar scanner, and I want you
to paint that whole area, right?
KALEB: Yeah, I'm going to be everywhere with that.
Thomas, if anything happens with the drill,
then I'm not that far away, either. You can give me a call,
and I'll come running.
Because we're still trying
to break through the top of the mesa
to complete our first borehole,
the drillers are going to keep on drilling tonight.
Maybe it'll cause something strange to happen
that we'll be able to detect, and hopefully, identify.
Then, after that experiment is done, we're going
to do an experiment at the triangle.
Yeah, let... let me describe that.
We're going to have the burner from a hot-air balloon
heating up that space
where we have detected something at an altitude of about 30 feet.
And we'll be doing some thermal and lidar imaging on that.
It's a pretty interesting area
in terms of what we've seen to date.
TRAVIS: One of the craziest things
that we've ever encountered on the ranch
was a blob-like anomaly
that may have actually destroyed a rocket
31 feet high above the triangle in 2022.
And since then, Erik has determined
that he captured video of it from a second camera,
confirming that it was a real phenomenon
and not some kind of camera artifact.
So, we'll be using a hot-air balloon burner
to blast flames into that 31-foot region
while we scan it with lidar devices
and record it with high-speed,
night vision, thermal and infrared cameras.
And all during the experiment,
we'll be monitoring numerous spectrum analyzers,
radiation detectors and GPS devices
to collect more data than we ever have before.
This place has been hiding its secrets from us
for more than five years now.
But tonight, we intend
to finally reveal just what they truly are.
CAMERON: So, as serious
as this is, this is exciting, too.
-Oh, it's very exciting. -Oh, yeah, very.
And we have a lot of work to do.
CAMERON: It's a super science project tonight.
We have a lot to do.
Well, guys, I can see
our shadows are getting awfully long.
I think it's time to get out there,
get set up and get ready to go.
Yup. Let's get to work.
-We got to go. -ERIK: Okay.
CAMERON: Okay, we're going to get airborne.
TRAVIS: All right, looks like Cameron's up.
Sam, do you copy?
SAM: Yes, so we have just
entered the gate. We are ready.
TRAVIS: Just after nightfall,
Cameron Fugal lifted off in the helicopter
to get positioned 1,000 feet
above John Brown's mobile lidar truck at the eastern gate.
It was time to start our ranch-wide experiment.
THOMAS: Guys, be advised,
we're over here at the drill site.
The rig is running, and we're monitoring the drilling.
TRAVIS: Copy that, Thomas.
Erik, do you copy?
ERIK: Yeah, Travis. Go ahead.
TRAVIS: Yeah, I say this is about our one-minute warning.
We're going to launch a rocket.
Be prepared to look in that direction.
Copy you. Thanks for the heads-up, Travis.
TRAVIS: All right, Dragon.
Good to go whenever, as long as Kaleb's scanning.
We got our scans going here.
Copy that. We are scanning.
The rocket is hot.
TRAVIS: As the drilling operation continued
and our other team members prepared to run handheld
and drone-based lidar scans
in the east field and the triangle areas,
Dragon was ready to launch a rocket from the east field
so we could start our first mobile lidar run
from the eastern end of the ranch
all the way over to Homestead Two.
Cameron, are you in place?
We're going to go
in five, four--
-BRYANT: Three, two. -Three, two.
One.
There it goes. Rocket's up.
BRYANT: We had a good launch,
good chute, and you can send them on their way.
Tell him let's go, we're good.
TRAVIS: All right, here they come.
Right after Dragon launched his rocket,
John Brown began driving his lidar truck
from east to west across the ranch
while Cameron was positioned right above him,
flying at an altitude of 1,000 feet.
Keep the lidar going and go all the way down,
uh, to past the drill rig,
uh, past Homestead Two and turn around in that field.
Hey, Erik, do you copy?
Are you watching the lidar truck?
ERIK: Copy you, I've got eyes on that.
This is a very ambitious
and complicated operation that we are conducting, so
we don't know exactly what to expect,
but we are very interested in what we might see.
TRAVIS: That's the lidar truck right there.
They're about to come around the corner up here.
ERIK: And I am both excited
and perhaps a little apprehensive
about how the experiment will play out.
But I'm confident that there will be
meaningful scientific deliverables.
Well, that lidar truck's at the triangle.
TRAVIS: All right, Jim!
Drone going up, Pete.
TRAVIS: After the chopper and lidar truck
passed the triangle, which was the halfway point in their run,
I had Jim Royston begin flying his lidar drone
from the triangle toward the east field.
ROYSTON: I'm going northeast.
TRAVIS: That's where he previously experienced
mysterious voids in his GPS data,
as though his drone momentarily disappeared.
And of course, it's also the path
where a UAP passed through the mesa
and flew directly toward the triangle back in 2022.
SAM: Tom, this is Sam, confirm we are clear
to pass by the drill?
THOMAS: The road is clear,
you are good to go by the drill site, over.
SAM: 10-4. Thank you.
THOMAS: This is Thomas. The lidar truck just passed the drill site.
We're prepping the rocket,
it'll be ready to go here in a minute.
TRAVIS: After about 15 minutes,
John and Cameron passed the mesa drill site
and arrived at Homestead Two to complete their first run.
We didn't see or detect anything unusual in the moment
during that first scan.
SAM: This is Homestead Two on your left,
the carriage house on your right.
Be advised, the lidar truck has passed Homestead Two.
We are turning around.
TRAVIS: So, as the chopper and lidar truck prepared
to leave Homestead Two and head back
to conduct another scan heading toward the east field,
Thomas Winterton got ready to launch a rocket
from the mesa drill site
to see if that would change anything during that return run.
-(alarm sounding) -The rocket's ready,
lights on, sirens going.
TRAVIS (over radio): All right, Thomas,
Cameron is clear,
you are good to launch the rocket whenever.
THOMAS: Five, four,
three, two, one.
TRAVIS: Oh, yeah!
TRAVIS (over radio): Copy that, Sam, go all the way to the gate
and turn back around.
THOMAS: Lidar truck just passed the drill site,
proceeding to the triangle, over.
TRAVIS: Copy that, Thomas.
TRAVIS: Everybody, be advised
that, uh, the lidar truck
is passing through the triangle right now.
THOMAS: Just curious, is the helicopter, uh,
does he think he's directly over the lidar truck?
'Cause he's directly over the drill site right now.
TRAVIS: Yeah, that's a good question, Thomas.
He's way behind the lidar truck.
I don't know-- something's going on.
Yeah, I can confirm, that's exactly what I saw here.
Behind them?
(chuckles): There's no way.
Okay, now this was really odd.
Cameron said, according to what he was seeing,
he was tracking directly above the lidar truck
as they headed back east past the triangle.
But we could all see the helicopter positioned
way behind the truck
and much closer to the mesa drill site.
So, were our eyes being deceived or his?
It made no sense.
ERIK: Yeah, hey, just for what it's worth,
I have been tracking you and the lidar truck,
and there has been a significant discrepancy
between your reported positions.
TRAVIS: Yeah, Cameron, when the lidar truck came through
the triangle, you were still at the drill site.
ERIK: I've been tracking you and the lidar truck.
There has been a significant discrepancy
between your reported positions.
CAMERON (over radio): Oh, my goodness.
TRAVIS: What we were all seeing with our eyeballs on the ground
was that Cameron's helicopter
was nowhere near the lidar truck,
even though he was reporting
that the truck was directly beneath him.
So, something was clearly causing an optical illusion
for either Cameron, us or everyone.
THOMAS (over radio): Yeah, negative, the truck is still to the east of you.
Uh, you're not over it.
There's no way.
Wow, Cameron, we can tell you for a fact
that you're really not.
You need to head about 50 yards directly to the east.
Copy that. Yep, that's very interesting.
TRAVIS (over radio): There you go. That's it.
Now you're right over the truck.
It looked like, for a-a good while there,
that you were way behind the lidar truck.
If you thought you were over him,
then there's some kind of an optical distortion
that's, uh, happening here.
It took about a minute for Cameron to get reoriented
and back in the correct position above the truck
as it headed east of the triangle.
The question was whether or not the massive cone-shaped anomaly
that we previously detected was what caused him to think
he was over the truck the entire time.
Once we could process our data, we hoped to find out for sure.
But in the meantime, we were all on edge
wondering what else might happen in the moment.
SAM (over radio): Travis, this is the lidar truck,
we have reached the gate.
Cameron, we've reached the gate. We're holding.
Yes, copy that, over.
Once they reached the end of their second run,
the lidar truck and chopper
got back into their starting position
to make another scan on the east-to-west route.
And this time, we had Cameron go up
to an altitude of 2,000 feet
to give the lidar truck a much higher target to track
and, ultimately, scan a much larger area.
Especially since the first time we detected
the cone-shaped anomaly,
it was 2,000 feet high at its apex
right above the triangle.
You ready, Cameron?
Rocket's gonna be launching here in a few seconds.
All right, Dragon, launch the rocket.
BRYANT (over radio): Copy that.
Five, four,
three, two, one.
Y-You should have been able to see that, Cameron.
TRAVIS: Yeah.
TRAVIS: I don't either, that's weird.
Is it possible that something
was blocking Cameron's view of the rocket?
Just last week, during a crazy drone swarm experiment
that we conducted between the triangle and the east field,
our surveillance cameras imaged a rocket as it ascended,
but incredibly, the rocket vanished for a moment
about 100 feet in the air,
and then, suddenly, it reappeared.
We have no idea what caused that to happen,
but could it be the same anomaly
that just obstructed Cameron's view?
If so, as the lidar truck and helicopter
made their next scan across the ranch,
we hope to find out.
We've got something here on Jim's lidar.
What? W-What have we got?
Oh, you do, in the air?
ROYSTON: That's down at the east, right over the spire.
TRAVIS: Holy crap, what is that?
PETE: I'm going to check the terrestrial laser scanner.
TRAVIS: Hey, Dragon, be advised that on the lidar from Jim's drone,
they did pick up something in the air over the spire.
BRYANT: That's good to know.
TRAVIS: In 2021, Pete Kelsey ran a photogrammetry scan
in the east field and detected
a 300-foot-high, column-shaped spire,
which is also the area where Erik has detected
GPS voids in Jim Royston's drone scans.
It made me wonder not only if Jim Royston's lidar
had detected the spire anomaly again,
but also if that was what had obstructed
Cameron's view of the rocket from the helicopter.
We've documented countless phenomena all over the ranch.
But when we start seeing repeated patterns in the data,
it means we might be getting closer to figuring out
just what might be causing them.
PETE: Uh... (chuckles)
Hey, Travis, have a look at this.
Now, granted, this is just preview...
-Right. Oh! -...but once again...
Another vertical feature.
TRAVIS: I see it.
PETE: That suggests we've got another cone.
TRAVIS: Uh-huh.
It will be interesting when we post process.
Can't wait to see that post processed.
I was stunned when Pete showed me the data
on his terrestrial lidar scanner of what appeared to be
that 2,000-foot-tall, cone-shaped anomaly again.
Steve, we're going to start the burner experiment.
Okay.
TRAVIS: So I immediately asked
hot air balloon pilot Steve Jones
to get ready to shoot flames straight up at the triangle
with his propane burner.
All right, so, uh, we'll run this,
we'll run the thermal.
And, uh, we'll start doing the fire experiment.
If the cone, which also covered the triangle,
was showing up again,
I wanted to see if evidence of the blob
would also appear at 31 feet in the air.
TRAVIS (over radio): Hey, Erik, uh, be advised that we are going to start
the balloon burner experiment.
ERIK: Copy that, thank you.
I've got assets trained on the triangle.
TRAVIS: Hey, Dragon, do you copy?
Yeah, Travis, go ahead.
We're done with the, uh, rocket launches,
and so if you guys want to come down here to the triangle
and watch the burner experiments with us.
Copy that, Travis.
We'll head back that way
and observe the other experiment.
Copy that. We'll see you in a bit.
Cameron, on the next run,
uh, you need to go up to 5,000 feet.
TRAVIS: Since Cameron's view may have been obstructed
by something in the air at 2,000 feet,
I wanted him to climb up to 5,000 feet,
which should have been out of the range
of the cone-shaped anomaly.
I really wanted to test
if he would still have strange optical distortions
at a higher altitude.
-Kaleb, how you doing, man? -Good.
So, get that SLAM scanner ready to go
'cause we're gonna start firing this burner.
Why don't you go ahead and get in place, Steve?
Taking off.
TRAVIS: As Steve Jones prepared to start shooting flames
up above the triangle...
We're running, lidar's running.
...we activated our stationary and handheld lidar devices.
-I'm live. -Oh, you're up.
Then, Pete Kelsey got his thermal camera drone in the air,
and we also started recording
with a FLIR thermal camera on the ground.
TRAVIS (over radio): Go ahead and do a run, Sam.
10-4, we're a-going.
TRAVIS: Steve, you copy?
Copy.
TRAVIS: Are you ready to go?
STEVE (over radio): Yes, sir.
All right, we're gonna go in five,
four, three, two, one...
Whoa!
TRAVIS: Three, two, one, stop.
KALEB: That's awesome.
Yeah, make it as hot as you can make it.
Okay.
TRAVIS: After seeing new lidar data
of what could be the massive, cone-shaped anomaly
that was centered nearly 2,000 feet high at the triangle,
we wanted Steve Jones to blast as much flame as possible
up to the 31-foot mark
to see if we could also get the blob to reappear.
So, as Steve prepped an even bigger blast
from the propane burner,
we were scanning with our lidar devices.
We also were watching our aerial and ground-based thermal
and night vision cameras for anything strange
that might be invisible to the naked eye.
CAMERON (over radio): So, now, we're going to climb
up to 5,000 feet above the triangle.
DON (over radio): 10-4, Cameron.
TRAVIS: And from the helicopter, nearly a mile high,
Cameron was looking out for phenomena in the air
with his night vision goggles.
All right, we're gonna go in five,
four, three,
two, one, go.
(static hissing)
Three, two, one, zero, stop.
That's a good copy, yeah.
I like you just following it, Dragon.
BRYANT: Okay. I can do that.
Five, four, three,
two, one, go.
(static hissing)
TRAVIS: Three, two, one, stop.
How can fire cause static on the radio? That's crazy.
There was nothing in the mechanics
of the balloon thruster
that could have caused Cameron's communications system
to suddenly experience a bunch of static.
But in recent years,
we've detected strange energy spikes
right around 5,000 feet directly above the triangle.
And we've also seen a number of different anomalies there
between that altitude and the ground.
Go.
It made me wonder if the flames that were directly hitting
the 31-foot blob zone at the triangle
were somehow triggering more phenomena
that was affecting the helicopter.
So, we needed Steve Jones to shoot more flames
to see if it would keep happening
or possibly stimulate something even stranger.
Stop.
-KALEB: Whoa, what was that? -BOBBY: I don't know,
something just went right across the mesa like that.
-Yeah. -It looked like it was right in front of the...
-Like a band just went across. -Yeah.
KALEB: I'm looking at this monitor and I see
almost like a-a fog
or a field of some kind moving across the mesa
and we don't know what it is.
Hopefully, Erik caught some more video footage of it
in his cameras
and we can figure out exactly what that is.
TRAVIS (over radio): Hey, Steve, we're gonna do one more burn.
STEVE: Copy that.
Three, two, one, go.
KALEB: Right there, it just did it again.
ROYSTON: I saw it again.
(burner whooshing)
TRAVIS: Two, one, stop.
Looks like a smoke ring, like a donut.
It looked like it was going along the side of something.
Yeah, there was that little section right there on the edge.
And it looked like it hit something and, like...
-BOBBY: And it went around it. -KALEB: Yeah.
Kaleb, did you say you saw something in the scanner?
Well, so, a couple things.
When, uh, Steve was making the flare go...
-Mm-hmm. -...it looked like there was,
like, a circle that kind of went around.
And it almost like it followed the edge of a bowl.
Oh, wow.
And Pete had the drone come back out
and we saw two different things
look like they went across the screen.
But they, almost like they were distorted.
-All right. -So...
We'll absolutely look at that. That's awesome.
It was odd that the flames
might've possibly affected
Cameron's comms system in the helicopter
nearly 5,000 feet above the triangle.
But when the guys saw a distorted shadow
move across the face of the mesa on Pete's thermal camera screen,
and then the flames appeared to wrap around
an invisible object right at the 31-foot blob level,
it seemed like we were definitely getting responses
from something on the ranch.
The question was, just what could it be?
We reset everything on the SLAM scanner
and so the next experiment, we'll... I'll try and scan again
and I'm gonna try and do that same pattern
-around the triangle, so... -Okay.
-Isn't that bizarre? -Yeah.
CAMERON: We had a couple of small objects fly by.
But we are at about 10,000 feet above sea level.
Okay, just confirming, you did see two smaller orbs.
Yes!
All right.
-That's awesome. -Okay, Travis says it's awesome.
And I bet you Erik will be looking forward
to seeing that data, Cameron.
TRAVIS: None of us could see any signs of the UAPs
that Cameron-- who was wearing night vision goggles--
was reporting flying all around
the helicopter nearly 5,000 feet
directly above the triangle.
But from the tone in his voice,
we could all tell he was
definitely seeing something
that had no conventional explanation.
So three different anomalies
that, uh, Cameron caught at that...
-elevation. -Well, he was directly overhead over the triangle
when-when I heard him call you.
So that's-that's where it was.
-That's great. -And we got
that whole array of cameras on the bottom
of the helicopter now, so who knows what he couldn't see
-that we might have captured on those cameras. -That's right.
Maybe it's just like before when he said
-he saw all those orbs up there. -DON: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Back in 2022...
...as Cameron was conducting an aerial experiment with Erik,
Brandon and Kaleb,
he also reported seeing, in the night vision goggles,
a bunch of UAPs zipping by the helicopter.
TRAVIS: And that was the same exact night that one
of the specialty cameras mounted on the chopper
caught a UAP flying through the mesa,
and then heading straight toward the triangle.
Kaleb, do you think that was happening
at the same time when Cameron seen
those, uh, smaller orbs,
or that, uh, strobe of light?
Yeah, they were definitely within the same window
of time for sure. Yeah.
Hmm.
TRAVIS: It's hard to know if those UAPs were related
to the static Cameron had on his comms
or the shadow that moved across the mesa
and the possible blob activity
that were both captured by our lidar devices.
But Don was right.
These events all happened at roughly the same time
when we were shooting the flames up at the triangle.
So who knows what we'll see once we review
the video from our specialty cameras
and crunch all the data that we've collected tonight.
I mean, he was directly overhead.
-And very, very high. -Yeah.
At 5,000 feet above where we're standing now.
Yeah, absolutely.
THOMAS: Hey, guys, you guys got a copy?
TRAVIS: Yeah, go ahead, Thomas.
The ground's moving.
We are minutes
from breaking through the surface.
Do you guys want to head over this way
and watch the drill bit break through?
TRAVIS: Copy that.
Dragon, Don and me are gonna
stay down here and keep an eye on all the equipment.
But Kaleb's gonna head back to the helipad
so Cameron can give him and Erik a lift.
They'll be there in a minute.
Uh, we'll wait for you.
And, uh...
should be any minute.
ERIK: Cameron is coming to transport Kaleb and myself
to the top of the mesa so that we can witness and measure
what happens when that drill head erupts
from the top of the mesa.
It's a very important moment
in our investigation this summer.
I know that everyone is anxious to get news of that success.
Okay.
Yeah, he's airborne.
I can hear it.
THOMAS: I'm really excited
because we've been trying to find out
what's in this mesa
now for several years.
And right now we're literally
sitting inches away from
what could be some of the biggest answers
that we've ever gotten here on Skinwalker Ranch.
THOMAS: It's gonna pop up over the mesa.
We've been out here drilling for the longest time.
We've faced tons of obstacles
and tons of delays.
So it's fitting
that we're gonna finally
punch through the top of the mesa the same time
that we're doing our final experiment.
-Hey, guys. -Hey there.
Exciting day.
Looks like we're gonna get through.
Yeah.
So, Alex, you want to show them
right where you think it's gonna come out?
Yeah. I mean, we saw these cracks starting
to happen, and the ground was starting to heave
right here, so I'm guessing somewhere in this area
-right here. -Oh, wow.
THOMAS: Oh, there's water.
Well, go ahead and keep drilling her, bud.
Oh, check that out.
ALEX (over radio): She's coming out right now.
You can go ahead and just push it.
Oh, check that out.
ERIK: Travis?
Be advised,
we have broken through.
(whoops)
All right, how about that?
Hey! Finally.
Hey, congratulations!
Sounds like Travis is a little bit excited.
So, uh, Travis, there's a lot
of work ahead of us once we reem this thing out.
Looks like we have got a perfect asset
for studying what's going on inside of this mesa.
TRAVIS: You know, you're absolutely right.
After all the insane setbacks that this operation encountered
over the past several months,
I could hardly believe it when the guys radioed
to me that we finally got one of our boreholes
completed up through the mesa.
And for it to happen in the midst of everything else
that went down tonight was like icing on the cake.
I'd say this was one of the best experiments we've ever had
during our investigation here on Skinwalker Ranch.
I think it's a, a victory right there.
We've been trying to get through that mesa for months.
Uh, I think it's pretty exciting.
ERIK: Hell yeah.
TRAVIS: Now we can actually do, uh,
a GPR through that, uh, casing and
do, uh, basically, RF tomography
of whatever the anomaly inside there is.
-That's the name of the game. -Yeah.
THOMAS: Well, I think we've done everything we can do tonight.
I think we head down, meet up with the guys down
at the triangle and, uh...
-get off the hill. -Yeah.
All right, let's get out of here.
THOMAS: Seeing that six-inch
bit pop through the top
just felt like such a victory.
And, uh, we're gonna take that victory lap.
We're gonna enjoy it.
And we're gonna come back next year.
We will get our 18-inch hole
from top to bottom, because we're not gonna stop
until we figure out what's inside this mesa.
Well, uh, I guess first of all, tell us about
the drill getting through the mesa.
We were almost exactly on our target,
-we were just a bit to the west... -THOMAS: Yeah.
...of the spot we were shooting for.
But, as far as north to south,
we are almost spot-on.
Yeah. So that, you know, so that still keeps us clear
of the anomaly, according to Jan's data.
TRAVIS: So, once they reem it, then we should be able
to get his ground-penetrating radar through there, right?
-ERIK: Oh, I think so. -Yeah.
ERIK: I think we've accomplished
just about every single one of our objectives tonight.
-Correct. -TRAVIS: We did get a lot of data.
In fact, what we've done tonight has
probably generated more data than any other data collection
exercise that we've done in a single evening.
Dude, you're right.
We've got more data points to go through right now
than we've had probably in the entire summation
of the five years that I've been here.
That's daunting to even think about.
That's an insurmountable task, but hey, look, you know,
it's late, we still got to break down and put stuff up.
So I say we divide and conquer and let's get out of here.
-Feels like it's almost time to get up. -Yeah, it is.
TRAVIS: We've run experiments before
where it seemed like nothing strange happened
until we reviewed the data.
Well, tonight, we all witnessed
different things with each step of our ranch-wide experiment
that were completely unbelievable.
So I can't wait to go through everything
that we captured on all of our devices and cameras.
Who knows?
The answer to what is truly behind
all this crazy phenomena here on Skinwalker Ranch
just might be revealed in tonight's data.
ERIK: We often say that we're lead by the data.
But what are we to do when the data lead
in so many different directions?
We find ourselves refining not just what we know,
but how we think about the things that we're seeing.
I didn't come here only to revel in the mysteries
and to marvel at how strange things
can sometimes be out here.
I came for answers.
So our search for a unifying explanation
will continue.
BRANDON: The mesa has been holding mysteries
for thousands of years.
We can only guess what will be uncovered,
as we now have access
for the first time to deploy technology,
sensors, and personnel
in service to exploring...
...really what lies beneath.