I wasn't expecting this.
Previously on "Blind Frog Ranch"...
- Good to see you, Charlie boy. - Good to see you.
Charlie is back on the ranch.
There's a lot of things going on in this ranch
that people don't understand.
Hey, you guys hear that?
What was that?
Could it be something deep in the earth that actually
is spiraling?
Could there be a vortex under the ground?
All right.
And following clues from an old Mormon journal...
If we're in the right spot.
where in the hell do we go from here?
...the team has discovered an impassable doorway
to the underground.
I think this rock was put here on purpose.
But how in the hell do we get in here?
But their efforts to locate the fabled Golden Staircase...
Look for the truck.
You'll need to run a straight line.
...are nearing catastrophic failure.
Here they come.
Chili! Are you guys all right?
No, we're not.
We're having a bunch of trouble.
Legends of ancient treasures...
It could go thousands of years back.
...and unexplained phenomena...
Oh, [bleep] this. I'm not messing with that.
...meet at a 160-acre property in northeast Utah known as
Blind Frog Ranch.
For decades, teams have searched the land for long lost
Aztec gold. But the closer they get...
Look at that! It's gold!
...the harder the land fights back.
Whoa! What the hell's going on?
Now, a prolific miner...
We're standing on a pile of gold.
...and a legendary treasure hunter...
There must be another tunnel entrance, something.
...armed with new evidence...
- Look at this. - What the hell is that?
...and a fabled artifact...
There's a date on that, 1912.
...will take on a 500-year-old curse...
Fire in the hole!
...and a land littered with traps.
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
To find a $3 billion treasure...
Whoa!
...they won't stop until they uncovered the mystery of
what lurks below...
- Guys, it's caving! - Oh, [bleep], run!
...at Blind Frog Ranch.
Copy that.
On the northern edge of the ranch, Josh and Chili are
searching for the Golden Staircase.
And after discovering an impassable stone door...
What if there is a cave underneath here
or some sort of a mine?
They're conducting an aerial SAR scan to look for an entry
point to a potential cavern system.
We need a fourth pass
exactly the same, so we can hit 200.
In order for the waves emitted by the SAR device to penetrate
deep into the earth and reveal the full extent of any caverns
below, the plane must make four flybys, with each pass executed
at a lower altitude than the last.
[bleep]!
But as Chili and the pilot make their descent to
their fourth and final pass, the plane's instruments
begin to malfunction.
Chili, come in. Are you guys all right?
a certain spot over there.
What the hell is that?
Chili, I'm not reading you well.
Over the years, strange electronic anomalies
have been a common problem on the ranch.
From equipment failures...
The computer went out!
...to radio interference...
I can't hear ya. My radio's not working.
...and unexplained energy readings.
I've never seen data that looks like that before.
These events have occurred all across the property,
but never with the stakes so high.
You have no way to tell bearing or altitude?
Without a functioning altimeter,
Chili and the pilot can't get an accurate reading of altitude
or atmospheric pressure, making it almost impossible for
them to fly the precise path the SAR scan requires
and greatly increasing their chances of
a catastrophic crash.
- We're blind. - Oh, boy.
We're totally blind.
And without the final pass, the team will be left
with an incomprehensible and misleading map of
the caverns below.
- Hey, buddy. - Hey, Charlie.
You already at work?
Yes, sir.
How you been?
Yeah, we're recovering pretty good.
After learning from Jim Segala that a dark energy lies under
the Bead Site...
We saw this undulating large energy mass that was flowing
around the ground.
And the biggest spike was at the Bead Site.
...Charlie believes that their work at the sacred
location may be what caused him and Duane to fall ill.
So he's called in local spiritual leader Mark Julian to
assess what the forces may be at work.
When Duane goes down and I go down,
there's something going on.
I'm looking for some help and some answers on this thing.
You know, this is ancient land.
As far as you can see, it's all sacred to all
the Native people.
The spiritual side,
you can't mess with that, you know.
I would stay completely away from this stuff.
Anything you do, ask permission first, give an offering,
just show all the respect you can.
And we've tried to show, you know, respect to the land
and not disturb things when we found them,
covered them back up.
But, you know, I think we've hit a nerve,
when we found that altar.
This looks like a structure or something.
It looks like some type of crematorium.
Things really, I'm going to say curse-wise,
kind of picked up for us.
And, you know, Duane was the first one that went down,
couldn't move his arms.
And then I got sick for seven months.
That is not good, especially with it being
an ancient burial site.
This is, especially this area right here, this is not where
you want to mess around here.
Before all of this started, I told Duane, this is not
going to be good for you. And here we are.
Here's the consequences of all of this.
Mark believes that by disturbing the altar,
Charlie and the team may have unknowingly provoked whatever
spirits are tied to the land, potentially unleashing a curse
that could explain the mysterious illness now
gripping both Charlie and Duane.
The Bead Site is a sacred area
for reasons still really unknown.
Were we affected by the curse?
We don't know for certain, but I'll be working on that
from here on out.
I've never believed in curses before, but I have no idea.
We're looking for answers.
We're looking at how can we fix this where we can operate
up here without people getting hurt.
This place is cursed.
You know, this may be beyond me, and we probably need to get
somebody local in and help you a little bit more.
If we need all the help we can get.
- Yeah. - Who do you have in mind?
Don Mitchell.
He's local, so I think that's a good thing.
Let's get Don on the phone and see if we can get him
out here. - Yeah.
Maybe that'll help you out, brother.
I hope so.
Across the ranch, to complete their SAR scan, Josh and Chili
must execute a fourth and final pass of their target area,
this time at the lowest possible altitude.
But with an interference affecting their instruments
and radio communication with Josh, Chili and the pilot must
fly without knowing their exact altitude.
- Get on it. - One more pass.
Yeah, that's good. That's good right there.
If he cuts back over here to the truck...
OK, come a little bit more to your right.
There you go.
A little more to your right.
Push north. Push just a little bit north.
Keep it steady.
Copy that.
Not even close.
And it's got to be perfect.
We're going to have to go and try it again.
[bleep].
OK, we didn't get a good reading on that.
Let's do that one again.
Get a little lower.
The lower, the more we can see.
The lower, the better. We'll get a better reading.
What we're doing is really dangerous.
I do want this deeper scan, and they're saying they're
going to do it, but I'm nervous about it.
Let's grab these cones.
We've got to set these cones out in this direction here.
I mean, there's no room for error.
They're going to be very, very low.
And once they get about 200 yards out from us,
we start to lose comms.
So I have to try and get them on that very precise
path before then.
Go, Chili.
Look for the cones and my truck.
You'll need to run a straight line right across those cones.
But if there's any trouble with that plane, they can wreck.
We're going to have to be careful.
We're ready.
All right, here he comes.
He's looking good.
He's staying straight.
Try to get as low as we can.
Keep that altitude.
Here.
Beautiful. That was the one.
Chili, that was beautiful.
That was a good pass.
We got what we need.
With the full SAR scan complete, the team should now
have a comprehensive view of what caverns may exist within
their target area,
where they suspect a path may exist to the Golden Staircase.
Maybe what Golden Staircase, whatever it is, holds
this treasure.
And a potential trove of treasure worth billions.
Land that sucker. We're done.
2
OK, guys, so we got
the results of the SAR survey back.
After discovering a stone doorway they believe is
blocking the path to the Golden Staircase,
the team performed an SAR scan of the area 300 yards beyond
the door, searching for an alternate way
into the underground.
Chili, that was beautiful.
We got what we need.
The scan should show them an image of the underground
terrain up to 200 feet deep, depicting any voids
and formation changes.
I think we got some good data out of it.
I mean, it's nothing like when we saw under the pyramids in
Egypt, nothing that high tech, but I think it's gonna work
for us. - We got good imagery back?
We did. I can show it to you here.
So that's into the hillside.
So we're looking down.
This is a plan view, basically.
That's going down vertically into the soil.
This is the area where the stone door is.
This is the creek.
We have definite indications of a void here and a void there.
- That's a void. - Yeah.
Could be the very top of that cavern system.
So could this void continue like a passageway, or is there
just a hole right there?
Yes, this void, it does continue, and that's part of
the cave system.
What do you reckon that this is as far as rock?
That would be sandstone at the surface.
We may have some fracturing going on there.
We may have a really hard cemented formation.
We've seen that in other areas of the ranch.
As we go down further, you can see a different shade.
Is this indicating different rock?
That's a different formation.
That formation we have drilled before.
It's easier to drill through, but we hit a coal seam
and some methane there. - OK.
And so it's a little bit sketchy.
The results of this SAR survey are really exciting.
I mean, we're seeing
the very top of an opening,
but if we go any further beyond that
to the south,
I just do not want to drill.
It's in an area where we've encountered
volatile conditions.
Hey, fire, fire, fire!
You guys got a fire going.
[bleep]!
Shut it down.
So I want to avoid that area.
That's like half of the image, is that bad area.
Yeah.
What's going to get us in there the fastest?
I mean, this is my first target right here.
This is the ideal spot right here.
Yeah, exactly, so that's where we're going to go.
That's the biggest opening.
How deep do you think we're going to have to drill down?
I believe we're looking at about 60 feet, maybe 60,
maybe 80 feet to the top of that void.
Can we tell from this scan if it's shown any water down in
that void? - Not really.
The SAR survey is not going to tell us that.
However...
there is a possibility that is filled with water.
And we're also getting into the rainy season where storms
are coming through.
For years...
Wait, can you hear that?
...underground water has been an impassable obstacle in
the team's hunt for Aztec treasure.
What the hell's going on?
But the abnormally dry season opened a narrow window to
access and excavate the Keyhole Chamber.
Look up above you.
Water's gotten at least that high recently.
Last year, the year before this thing was probably totally
filled with water.
There's a possibility that it's filled with water.
But it's a risk I think we could take.
Utah's been pretty dry this season, right?
Yes.
So we probably ain't gonna be messing with
a whole lot of groundwater. - Exactly.
This is the driest summer I think it's been in years.
This has to get done this season, and it has to get done
before the rainy season hits us.
Yes.
You've just got to get in there and go for it.
Yep.
Right now, that's the bottom line.
- Yeah. - That's our best option right there.
It has been years of fighting flooded tunnels up here
on this ranch.
This year is the only year they've had this dry up here.
This is our window to get into the underground.
This is our chance.
This is our best option.
We get a drill rig in here, and we drill right at
that spot. - OK.
Agreed.
As night fell before drill day,
the Uintas were hit with an unusual storm
before the rainy season.
In just eight hours, the creek doubled in depth
and the typically arid terrain has been soaked with rainwater.
With this weather, that creek's going to come up real fast.
I know it is.
It's going to turn really bad this afternoon, and so a lot of
rain, and you can feel it getting colder, too,
so you never know up here.
All right, let's get wet.
Go for it, man. Punch it, pork chop.
- Ha-ha! - Stay on it.
All right, Josh.
- Ah, [bleep]. - What is it?
The driller says they can't get across the creek
because of this rain.
I think that's where we need to drill.
Well, if there's no way we can get them across that creek,
what the hell are we going to do?
This is our only shot right now, this season.
I know, I know.
We got to get it done.
Take it one step at a time here.
All right, here they are.
- Morning. - Jared.
- How you doing? - Jared.
How you doing? Chili.
So what's the deal here?
So looking down at the hill and the slope and the angle,
this weighs almost 100,000 pounds.
- OK. - When I start going down
with the rain coming down, I'll just slip
and the rig will be stuck down there.
So I don't think it was going to work.
And then we can't get none of the tools there.
- It isn't gonna make it. - Could you drag,
drag stuff across or...?
It's going to be too much.
- You're saying it's-- - It's not going to happen.
OK.
I would not send it down there.
We'll have a rig stuck down there.
Based on the SAR results, Eric planned to drill at a spot
across the creek, but the slippery conditions
left by the overnight storm have made getting the drill
there impossible.
Without access to the site, the team will lose their last
chance at getting into the Golden Staircase before
the treasure hunting season ends.
Yeah, we got to do something. I mean, you're here.
Like I said, you've got all the equipment here anyways.
Well, we had those other voids.
Aren't those on this side of the creek instead of the other
side of the creek? - Let me see what I got here.
Yes.
They present a very, very dangerous situation.
So there are actually two spots that I think we can drill
and get down into that cavern.
One of those spots I just don't want to drill.
That area tends to be a little bit more volatile.
We've drilled it on that trend before, and we've hit some
methane gas, hydrogen sulfide, poison gas there.
It's not an ideal location.
We've got more overburden over there, though, than we did.
There's a ton more overburden.
We're down in this colluvial basin in here, so we may have
to drill, you know, I mean, 20, 40, deeper
than we expected.
It's not my first option, I would recommend, but we gotta
get into this thing.
There's one spot
that we can do it, which is right about here.
But that's the only other spot that should put it
right over here.
We need to be really, really super careful.
That's the deal with drilling, and you know this,
you never know what you're gonna encounter
when you're drilling.
You put me on another hole, I'll get you to the depth.
OK.
So we're going to have to drill this alternate location.
We have no other choice.
We're nearing the end of the season.
I mean, we have storms rolling in.
You get to a certain point, you have to shut things down.
It's going to be a risk, but I think that gives us
our best chance to get into that cavern system.
- Let's get some drilling done. - Let's get on it.
2 Drill is here. Let's have him place it.
The team is attempting to access the Golden Staircase.
And after the storm has stopped the drill from reaching
the team's intended drill site, Eric has selected a new but far
more dangerous location.
Last year, we encountered volatile
conditions when we hit coal seams, which are explosive.
Hey, fire, fire, fire, fire!
You guys got a fire going.
And it completely shut us down.
So we need to be really, really super careful.
What we expect to see here in the subsurface is
the sandstone, which could be moderately cemented.
But we also have the risk of a coal seam, so we'll need to
drill it super slowly.
So I'm going to want to take samples every four feet.
- So every auger? - Yeah, that's fine.
OK.
So every bit he pulls up, you want to sample?
- Yes. - All right.
Let's do it.
Go ahead and spin it!
So I need to be really, really super careful when we're
doing this drilling.
And I have them slow down the rotation, the RPMs.
But in doing so, too, it causes us more time to drill.
Hey, John, you want to get me a sample just from the outside
of that, just a little bit? - Yeah.
Right there, yeah.
- Perfect, thank you. - Good?
I'll be taking samples,
looking for things like coal
or anything volatile. If we hit that, that's it.
We're going to have to shut it down.
So what I do, basically, I look at what type of rock we're
going through. What's the grain size?
How hard is it?
I'll be looking for evidence of coal seams or petroleum.
And so in that way, I create an underground map
of where we're drilling.
Oh, yeah?
Great!
It's gonna take a while to punch through that.
What's a while? We don't have a while.
A few hours.
We wouldn't have this problem
if we could've drilled that other site.
- No. - We were right at the bedrock
The drill move and the risk of coal
have slowed us down tremendously.
And now it looks like there's a lot of fractured rock down
there, and so the drillers are having a really tough time
getting through it.
I'm hoping when we come back tomorrow,
we'll start making some actual progress,
or else all we'll have to show for this season is a 10-foot
hole in the ground.
- It's not great. - No, it's not good at all.
This is the area that we did some work in here.
And then over there is the altar site,
is over that area.
Charlie has returned to the Bead Site,
where he believes a strange energy is the source of health
issues for him and Duane.
And today, he and Mark have brought in local Shoshone tribe
member Don Mitchell to help cleanse Charlie and the site.
This is...
I can't even
start to explain how this is making me feel.
I went into this thinking this is something we should
think of scientifically. But now, I don't know.
I have physically felt the presence of
the dark and the light.
I'm starting to think there's an ongoing battle here,
and there has to be a mediator in there somewhere,
between those two factions.
And maybe that person is Don.
Yeah, this is, uh...
Strange.
Definitely has a different, ominous--
not only the look, but the...
the feel.
Do you feel that?
Do you feel like we're being watched?
Yes.
There's something about this area right in here
that's not right.
It's not right at all.
Before I go any further, Charlie, let's put an offering
down of some tobacco right now.
For many indigenous communities, tobacco is
considered a sacred medicine, a way for people to connect
with the land, with others, and with the spiritual world.
Before Don enters the Bead Site,
he will make an offering
to indicate his peaceful intentions to the spirits that
may occupy the location.
We come in a good way.
We mean no disrespect.
We're just here to maybe get some answers
from the old ones,
even in this light wind.
The energy here
is strong,
and...
the feeling is,
um, undisturbed.
And what's strange is...
You have this
kind of heaviness. It should be lighter here.
Some things
took place here that's a little beyond us.
- Are you OK to go for a little walk? - Yes.
- Mark? - Yes.
OK, Charlie, we're going to face the spirits.
We're going to need some beads.
2 After a slow start the previous day...
I'm going to go take a look at this.
...the team has made progress at their drill site,
digging 20 feet into the ground.
- That looks good. - Beautiful.
Yes!
It's a new day. I'm feeling excited.
I want to get down into this chamber.
And we're making steady progress.
Our goal today is to stay on track and keep going down.
He's starting to gain some under here.
We're gaining a few inches every pass, so that's good.
That's good.
And a mile away,
Charlie is investigating the Bead Site.
OK, Charlie, take off your gloves.
He's joined by Mark Julian
and Shoshone medicine man Don Mitchell.
Bless yourself with your right hand.
Just wave that smoke on you.
As they approach the potentially cursed
location, Don has prepared a series of rites and rituals
to clear the strange energy from the land and Charlie.
Father, bring Charlie before you.
I ask that you put blessings upon him.
We ask that you watch over Charlie.
Watch over his family.
He has been respectful.
And he has been sorrowful.
And been afflicted with this, been afflicted with that.
We ask that you take that away.
But mainly for the others that are here.
That are watching.
Those that might have been angered.
We want to continue to be in harmony with all things
and all beings.
We come to you for forgiveness in those transgressions.
Please be with us and watch over us as only you can.
We thank you again, Appe,
for everything that you've done in this way.
So that the not-so-good things don't follow you home.
We're going to need some beads.
There.
And I have some spring water in my truck.
Every time I come up here, the wind picks up.
We need to bless right there
where you guys tore that all up.
Yeah.
And we bless it with water, because water is life.
Right.
And that way we're appeasing the ones that,
and so to speak, you guys pissed off.
You know, we have to be vigilant and not try to disturb
the land at a point where we piss it off.
When you piss it off, then,
then things are gonna happen.
Pour this in a circle.
OK.
Right there where it's the lowest.
- Charlie. - Yes.
- You gotta do this on your own. - OK.
We have a responsibility to guard this ranch,
and that's one of the things I do, and, you know, we've been
told numerous times about the curse.
My role is to protect what's here.
But how can I protect the ranch
from something that is not wanting to be seen?
It's not a simple job.
It's an ongoing fight.
And it's what I'm hoping Don can help us with.
Charlie,
come here.
Ask forgiveness.
OK, for the rest of the part of this, you're going to have
to turn off the cameras.
You'll have to shut your cameras down, please.
OK.
Cut, everybody.
2 Mark, you might have to come and help me
hold on to him when he...
Now, you're gonna start to feel a little funny,
but hold your own.
At the Bead Site,
local Shoshone tribe member Don Mitchell
prepares his final ritual to attempt to rid Charlie
of a curse they believe originated
during their altar excavations.
OK, for the rest of the part of this, you're gonna have
to turn off the cameras.
You'll have to shut your cameras down, please.
Cut, everybody.
OK, Charlie.
Are you doing OK, my friend?
Yeah, I'm pretty weak around this.
This is the way of being blessed,
prayed for, and treated.
You will be sleeping better. You'll be feeling better.
But right now, I know that a lot of your energy has been
drained from being in here.
- Thank you. - You're welcome.
Let's go before it gets dark.
Don't be out here at dark times, Charlie.
Be very cautious when working and wandering around,
especially by yourself in this area here.
What you're treading on, a lot through here,
is burial ground.
These are things not to be played with.
The Bead Site is a sacred area.
Civilizations that are thousands of years old
have been here. And what was it used for?
Why is all this stuff out here?
Why do you keep finding weird stuff happening constantly?
Hey, look at this!
Of course I have those questions, and I want answers.
But I really do feel like we disturb some kind
of a balance.
Thankfully, at Don's ceremonies, I really do
feel a difference.
Some parting gifts.
It's a reminder that the land still controls everything,
and that we are just here
to maintain the integrity of this property.
And this is actually a talking stick.
And that's so the spirits will see it.
OK.
We're caretakers of the land here.
As long as I'm able to function, we're not giving up.
We're here till we can't do it anymore.
Charlie, get in. Get warmed up.
Come on, Charlie. Let's get you warm.
- Getting down, Eric. - Yeah, we are.
Back at the drill site, the team has been cutting into
the earth towards the underground cavern
they believe leads to the Golden Staircase.
But with the risk of hitting volatile earth and causing
an explosion, the drillers are progressing slowly
and with caution.
All right, he's still going down.
We're making some headway.
- As long as it keeps going down. - Keep going.
That's it.
We couldn't make a lot of progress yesterday drilling.
It was a lot of work.
It was slow going, but we're making headway.
So today, we're really looking forward to getting deeper
and hopefully letting this thing open up on us.
Let's get a sample.
Let's get a little bit here.
Good.
[bleep] Jared!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Jared!
- Stop! - Oh, [bleep].
We need to stop.