Most Shocking Mysteries of 2025 (Pt. 1) | The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch
Most Shocking Mysteries of 2025 (Pt. 1) | The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch
Revisit the most-viewed moments from The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch this year. These standout investigations, shocking encounters, and unexplained anomalies captured viewers’ attention more than any others. Chapters:
TRAVIS: What’s going on?
ERIK: Well, you know, I’ve looked at the ceramics from the mesa under the microscope.
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Super exciting.
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ERIK: Yeah.
TRAVIS: For over three years now, we’ve been drilling in the mesa on Skinwalker Ranch, in an effort to identify a massive object and several smaller anomalies that we believe are buried inside there.
And last night, after the drill may have hit one of these objects about 470 feet in our borehole, we made an incredible discovery in the drilling spoils.
Pieces of ceramics that appeared to be highly engineered.
Let me repeat that—pieces of ceramics that appeared to be highly engineered.
ERIK: Let me show you the chemical analysis of this sample that we were just looking at.
This is from the handheld XRF system.
TRAVIS: Erik’s XRF, or X-ray fluorescence machine, uses X-rays to determine the elements in an object.
That might help us figure out what these ceramics could actually be used for.
So, look at what we’re seeing here.
There’s the nickel, and there is the iron.
TRAVIS: Well, and the cobalt and strontium and thorium and all that is very interesting, too.
Everyday common ceramics wouldn’t be made of these kinds of elements.
ERIK: No.
The fact that we see cobalt and nickel in this does hint of magnetic properties.
I have some small magnets, some rare earth magnets, that we can use to take a look at these parts and see if they respond in any way.
TRAVIS: Normal ceramics are usually made of clay, not metallic elements.
So, if this stuff is magnetic, it’s another clue of something that was engineered for a specific purpose.
ERIK: Moment of truth.
SAM: Oh, boy.
TRAVIS: What?
ROYSTON: Whoa. Whoa, whoa. Whoa.
TRAVIS: What?
ROYSTON: Can you believe that?
They’re even magnetic.
Like, I’m still trying to wrap my head—
TRAVIS: Ceramics aren’t magnetic.
ERIK: I got to see this again.
ROBERTS: Do the other pieces do it?
ROYSTON: Whoa.
That’s no small effect.
Wait a second.
TRAVIS: What’s going on?
ERIK: Now, it feels like the magnet is repelling the ceramic.
There’s more going on here.
Yeah, I want you to feel this.
Watch.
TRAVIS: Well, it’s pushing against it right now.
You’re right, Erik.
The ceramic has changed to having a repulsive magnetic field.
How does that happen?
There are no naturally-occurring magnetic materials that can both attract and repel magnets.
The fact that this ceramic is doing both is crazy, and I’m not sure what to make of it… other than it was engineered for some purpose.
This actually has very similar elemental makeup that you might see from superconductors.
A superconductor is a revolutionary material that scientists are still researching and developing today.
It can transfer massive amounts of energy with no resistance or energy loss.
This is really complicated science.
The superconductors interact with magnets in strange ways, just like we’re seeing with this ceramic.
What’s amazing about superconductors is that because they can repel normal magnetic fields, they’re used today for propulsion in high-tech vehicles like magnetic levitation trains.
But some scientists have suggested that superconductors could one day be used in the construction of things like spacecraft.
So, if this ceramic is a superconductor, what the hell is inside the mesa?
BRIAN: Hey, guys.
ERIK: Dr. Patchett.
BRIAN: Good to see you.
ERIK: Good to see you.
TRAVIS: Doctor.
BRIAN: Hey.
TRAVIS: The next day, ranch owner Brandon Fugal arranged for us to meet with physicist Dr. Brian Patchett at Utah Valley University to examine samples of the strange ceramic material that we found in the mesa.
TRAVIS: We couldn’t wait to see the surface of this material in much more detail than our microscope on the ranch could give us.
ERIK: So, I’ve got several samples mounted.
BRIAN: Sure.
ERIK: So I’m going to bring these over.
BRIAN: Okay.
ERIK: They go inside the instrument.
All right, I’ll close this up.
ERIK: I am so anxious to see—
ERIK: And now we will vacuum this down.
There we go.
I’m gonna reposition this a little.
Zoom in a little bit.
ERIK: I can see some clearly-defined, like, holes right now.
TRAVIS: Oh, yeah.
Are those holes getting bigger?
ERIK: Yes. I think so.
BRIAN: Yeah, yeah.
What?
TRAVIS: It is.
It’s opening up!
BRIAN: Yeah.
ERIK: What in the world is going on?
TRAVIS: Holy crap.
Look at that!
TRAVIS: What if it’s the electron beam from the microscope that’s causing this?
Let’s turn it off to see if it goes back to normal.
BRIAN: Yeah.
We can do that.
TRAVIS: We were stunned to see the surface of a solid, ceramic material suddenly become porous with big holes.
All I could think was that maybe the electron beam from the SEM was damaging it.
BRIAN: Let’s see what happens.
BRIAN: Okay.
TRAVIS: All right, here we go.
ERIK: So, that does not look as porous—
TRAVIS: No.
ERIK: —as it was.
BRIAN: Not nearly.
I have the old screen grab.
BRANDON: Look at that.
BRIAN: This is healing.
I’ve never seen anything that is capable of doing this.
This stuff is fixing itself.
Yes.
It’s healing.
That’s exactly right!
Unbelievable.
Like I said before, I’ve worked a lot with highly-engineered ceramic materials for the space industry because of their heat-absorbing and energy-conducting properties.
But neither I nor the other two scientists in the lab have ever seen a ceramic do this kind of stuff.
TRAVIS: Well, can we do an elemental analysis of it?
BRIAN: Sure.
Well, right now, what is happening is we’re bombarding the surface with X-rays and determining the energy levels of the electrons in the material itself to help define what elements are present.
TRAVIS: Okay.
When we did our own similar scans back at the ranch, we were surprised to see elements like nickel, cobalt and thorium, which you don’t usually see in ceramics.
So, we wanted to confirm the content with this lab’s much more sophisticated equipment.
This is the analysis of the exterior of the sample.
ERIK: So, this is just the elemental makeup of this sample on the surface versus the interior?
BRIAN: Yeah.
TRAVIS: So this shows some more elements than what we saw on the ranch.
We got, uh—carbon, oxygen—are the two most prevalent.
BRIAN: Mm-hmm.
And then you’ve got the next most prevalent, silicon, and then the next one is magnesium or aluminum.
They’re real close to each other.
And then calcium and then iron.
The amount of carbon is really interesting.
I was not expecting that.
TRAVIS: I wasn’t, either.
BRIAN: Quite a bit.
TRAVIS: And you know that’s one of main ingredients of stealth material.
I’ve actually made it before.
I covered a pickup truck with it once and made it invisible to police radar.
We used charcoal, which is your carbon, an aluminum binding agent, and, basically, spray glue.
And so, that’s one of the main ingredients used for radar cloaking technology by the military.
Since World War II, our military has been developing stealth material to make our fighter jets and other craft invisible to radar detection—and even to the naked eye, in some cases.
Could this be same type of material?
And could that be what this material was used for?
BRANDON: So, what does that mean as far as what is in the mesa?
Uh… I don’t know.
You know, originally, the intent—and I think it made a lot of sense—was to drill, essentially, at all costs, so that we could study whatever that anomaly is.
Now we’ve encountered this.
I think we have to respond to the data, change our approach, possibly to an archaeological fashion.
TRAVIS: Right?
BRANDON: Yeah.
I want to pull the plug immediately on any further drilling activity.
TRAVIS: Yes.
BRANDON: Because we may damage the very thing that we are trying to study.
And I think we’re going to have to take a much more disciplined, careful approach, because what we have extracted is—
TRAVIS: It’s unbelievable.
BRANDON: Yeah.
We need to find the safest way to get it out of there.
I think we need time to carefully plot our next steps to preserve and properly study the nature of what is in the mesa.
TRAVIS: Yeah, 100% agree with that.
This is definitely something incredibly interesting, something I definitely didn’t expect.
So, if we find more of it, is it all right if we bring it back here for analysis?
BRIAN: Please do.
TRAVIS: All right.
BRANDON: Well, after eight years of scientific investigation at Skinwalker Ranch under our stewardship, I think today marks a significant turning point that is going to take us in a whole new direction.
TRAVIS: Yes.
BRANDON: Well, thank you for the time.
TRAVIS: Thank you.
BRANDON: Of course.
BRANDON: And I think it is time for us to gather up and move on.
TRAVIS: Yeah.
Let’s go.
Hey, Pete.
PETE: Hey.
TRAVIS: Yeah, it’s good to have you back.
Can’t wait to see what you’re packing this time.
[laughter]
PETE: I brought some goodies.
TRAVIS: You do photogrammetry.
ERIK BARD: Now, that’s good.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: So we invited technologist Pete Kelsey back to perform a final high-tech 3D photogrammetry drone scan of the entire ranch.
Well, I’m excited to have you out here.
It’d be great to take you back to the mesa.
Let’s go.
All right, let’s do it.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: Photogrammetry is a process where thousands of high-definition photographs are taken of an area of interest and combined to create a detailed three-dimensional map, potentially revealing features that aren’t visible to the naked eye.
We want to get a 3D model of every part of the ranch to see if any anomalies appear.
If something shows up, maybe it will help us determine what is behind all the UAPs and the other phenomena that we’ve documented here.
This looks great.
So once all the data I have collected is post-processed in a nice, neat package, I hand that to Erik, and he does the heavy lifting.
And that is spending hours and hours going through this data, because it’s all visual.
All right, I got all green lights here.
Spinning up.
Literally, it comes down to putting eyes on the model and looking for anything interesting.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: The day after Pete Kelsey conducted his photogrammetry scan of the ranch, he sent Erik all of his compiled data files for us to review.
ERIK BARD: Well, I’ve got only about a billion data points.
Of course, this comes out of Pete Kelsey’s recent survey work.
This is a three-dimensional model.
It’s point cloud data.
What it is, is individual points that have been located through a complex algorithm coming out of all these thousands of pictures that he’s taken.
So you take all those images, you stitch them together, and you get a three-dimensional model.
MAN: That’s incredible.
ERIK BARD: Oh, yeah.
Yeah, so I’ve been diving into this, and it turns out there are some very interesting artifacts showing up.
Whoa.
You might—
I just saw one.
MAN: Did you see it?
ERIK BARD: Yeah, in the sky.
MAN: Oh, weird.
ERIK BARD: Yes.
MAN: That looks like that’s a whole bunch of points right there.
ERIK BARD: Oh, it is.
Well, what would cause it to do that if that’s up in the air?
That’s the question.
Look at this structure.
This phantom structure that’s sticking up in the sky.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: This is odd.
I got to tell you, wow, that thing is really prominent from here.
It’s like it’s some sort of big feature.
ERIK BARD: It looks more than 100 feet in the air.
That’s nuts.
I’ve connected with Pete, and I’ve also spoken with the vendor of this software asking, is this common?
And the answer that I’ve gotten is no.
TRAVIS: Really?
ERIK BARD: This is not a common thing in terrestrial surveys like this.
Are there any other areas in his survey that had this sort of artifact to them?
Yes.
I want to show you something at another location that we’ve visited that is part of this survey.
TRAVIS: OK.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: Oh, there you go.
ERIK BARD: So let me spin us around.
I noticed a couple of things here.
Now, look at this.
And you may observe the same thing.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: So line those two up, and where are they pointing?
ERIK BARD: This feature, this artifact, the largest stone that was part of the stone circle, and that prominent thing that’s jutting up further to the south.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: They have three points in a line.
Wow.
Interestingly and somewhat mysteriously, the anomalies to the south and to the north of the stone circle align perfectly with that large center stone in the stone circle itself.
Could be a coincidence, but it sure is suggestive.
What are the odds of that?
ERIK BARD: Right.
We’ve learned not to ignore any anomalous features in our data, even if we have no idea what to make of them.
So that, to me, seems like you’ve almost drawn a ray from the other anomaly through this stone to this anomaly.
We’ve got a line being drawn here.
Then what is that line pointing to?
What is the line there for?
We need to mark these spots, because what if this is somehow mapping an anomaly that we need to investigate?
Could Pete Kelsey have actually captured visual evidence that there really are portals on Skinwalker Ranch?
And could it help explain why we see UAPs appear and then suddenly disappear?
Well, we owe it to ourselves to follow up on every data anomaly that we come across, particularly when they’re as prominent as the ones we’re looking at.
Erik, the data is absolutely fascinating.
We need to meet with Brandon and review this and everything else we’ve learned this year.
ERIK BARD: Yeah, let’s do it.
