MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE Baffles UFO Experts | The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch (Season 3)

[music playing]

• How’s it going, Chris?
• Hey, Kaleb. How’s it going?

KALEB BENCH: Good.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: To help us with our ongoing investigation of Skinwalker Ranch, we’ve been trying to engage as many people as possible who took part in the previous operations over the last two decades.
Chris Bartell is a former military officer who was contracted by Robert Bigelow and the Defense Intelligence Agency when they were investigating Skinwalker Ranch several years ago.
We used to have trouble getting guys like him to share anything about what they’ve seen out here.

CHRIS BARTELL: I was a BAASS security investigator for Bigelow Aerospace for Skinwalker Ranch from the years 2010 to 2016. I was one of the lead members out here. I spent lots of time exploring, documenting data, and also safekeeping and protecting the property. I have a lot of experiences out here. You know, I lived and breathed this property for six years. I would love to show you guys some of the things that I went through and the important aspects of the property.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Well, I’m eager to do that. I think we throw you in the UTV right here and let’s start across because I want to hear everything that happened.
CHRIS BARTELL: That sounds good. I appreciate it.

THOMAS WINTERTON: We have this 20-year gap where Mr. Bigelow owned the ranch for which we know very little.

CHRIS BARTELL: Yeah. Right here. We’ll just park here then.
I find it interesting that you stop us here. This is by a place we call The Triangle. Been a place we’ve done a lot of experiments and research and had a lot of interesting data. So I’m curious. Tell me about what you experienced here.

CHRIS BARTELL: There was an area I found on this mesa slope, and it led to this open cavity that looked like a cave. So I jumped down into it. I look around, and it’s a decent-sized open cavity. But inside the cavern, I pulled out two old canine traps.

THOMAS WINTERTON: So any time somebody says the word cave or cavern here, it catches our attention. Right. You think it’s still there?

CHRIS BARTELL: Yeah. Do you mind taking us there to it?

THOMAS WINTERTON: Absolutely. Let’s go.

CHRIS BARTELL: So it’s going to be in this little area right here where I was walking down from the top of the mesa and I found the cave.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Over the years that I have been here on the ranch, there’s been rampant rumors about underground bases of tunnels, all kinds of underground things here at the ranch. If there are some, we definitely want to find them.

CHRIS BARTELL: I just happened to notice it from on top. Then, I suggest maybe we just all climb up there and see if we can find it.

CHRIS BARTELL: Yeah.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Hey, I found what looks like to be a cavern.

CHRIS BARTELL: Let me take a look.
Oh, yeah. I’m pretty sure this is it. It looks like it.

THOMAS WINTERTON: You can tell that at one time, it was a lot larger and it’s collapsed down in on itself.

CHRIS BARTELL: You can tell that this whole area looks like a sunken in an area.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Like it was caved in?

CHRIS BARTELL: Yeah.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Yeah. So strange.

THOMAS WINTERTON: If this is the opening to that cave that Chris found, did it collapse? Is it still there? Does it continue back and it’s just covered by rocks? Definitely a lot of unanswered questions.

CHRIS BARTELL: I’m ready to head down if you guys are.
I appreciate you showing us, Chris.

CHRIS BARTELL: Yeah. No problem, man.
There’s multiple layers to this property. I think what’s going on here is bigger than any of us here. It’s bigger than a science experiment. It’s bigger than a government contract. It’s bigger than all of us.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: Right in here somewhere?

THOMAS WINTERTON: Right up on the edge up there.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: To help us figure out if this really is a covered entrance to something in the mesa, technologist Pete Kelsey has brought out a drone with a thermal imaging camera that will be able to identify any signs of voids or caverns below the rubble.

PETE KELSEY: This looks great. Thank you, sir.
The guys have asked me to look for caves here on the property. The thermal camera could be a really good fit there because typically, caves, tunnels, the air inside is much cooler than the air outside. If it shows cold air, that could mean that there’s a network.

PETE KELSEY: All right. I got all green lights here. Ready when you are.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Where’s the hole, Thomas?

THOMAS WINTERTON: It’s basically right up there. You can only see it from the top down. You can’t see it looking up, so I’m going to just go up there so that you have an easy point of reference as you’re trying to locate where this opening is at. I think it will be a lot easier if I’m up there standing close to it.

PETE KELSEY: OK.

THOMAS WINTERTON: So OK. I’m going to get started.

PETE KELSEY: Be careful.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Yep.

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TRAVIS TAYLOR: So you’re flying a thermal camera first?

PETE KELSEY: Yeah. So the fancy term is this is a radiometric thermal camera, which means it will give me the temperature, but it also can do just video.

ERIK BARD: Very cool.
Heading for Thomas.

ERIK BARD: There he is.

PETE KELSEY: I will zoom in on him a bit. So the hole must be that thing right in front of him.

ERIK BARD: Is that hole really the coldest thing within the field of view?

PETE KELSEY: Yes. It’s black.

ERIK BARD: Whereas on the rock surfaces, you are–

PETE KELSEY: Yeah. Out in the sun, just went to 102. A 40 degree difference.

PETE KELSEY: I’m going to go ahead and take one of those smoke bombs up there. So you guys keep an eye out down here and see if you see smoke coming out.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: That is a great idea.

BRYANT ARNOLD: Hey, Travis, we’re ready for you to pop that smoke bomb.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: All right. We’re going pop the smoke.
3, 2, 1.
Popping smoke.

PETE KELSEY: Popping smoke.

ERIK BARD: You see any effect?

PETE KELSEY: No.

ERIK BARD: There it’s starting to come out.

PETE KELSEY: Look at that! Blue smoke.

ERIK BARD: Yeah.

PETE KELSEY: So I’m getting no love on the thermal, so I’ll switch to RGB.

ERIK BARD: Oh, it’s coming out down here!

PETE KELSEY: Oh, look! Look behind you. It’s coming out everywhere.

ERIK BARD: Oh, well, that makes my day.

PETE KELSEY: Wow, look at that. Little wasps of it down here.

ERIK BARD: There’s a connection between these larger openings. Perhaps that cave we’re talking about.

PETE KELSEY: Yeah.

PETE KELSEY: There was a cave at one time. Thomas and I found a couple of holes up here. I think we’re going to throw our smoke grenades in there, so keep an eye out. See if you see it coming out anywhere on the mesa.

BRYANT ARNOLD: Copy that. Thanks.

PETE KELSEY: Right here. Let it get smoking good.

BRYANT ARNOLD: Oh, that’s good.
Orange smoke!

PETE KELSEY: Orange smoke!

ERIK BARD: I’m gonna step back.

PETE KELSEY: Yeah, definitely we got smoked.

ERIK BARD: A little bit.

PETE KELSEY: Yeah. There should be a lot more smoke coming out.

ERIK BARD: Actually, look. Look, it’s getting sucked in.

PETE KELSEY: Yeah, the smoke’s going down!

THOMAS WINTERTON: Well, look, it’s completely gone. We should be seeing smoke everywhere. There is no smoke. There’s nothing here.

BRYANT ARNOLD: Where’d the smoke go?

THOMAS WINTERTON: Actually, look. Look, it’s getting sucked in.

THOMAS WINTERTON: When we dropped smoke bombs down this opening, the smoke started to come out. And then, it was as if somebody turned on a vacuum and the smoke just disappeared and sucked down in the hole.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: Nothing. There’s no smoke at all! That is really strange.

PETE KELSEY: Yeah, it’s inhaling.

ERIK BARD: Yeah, it’s inhaling all right.

TRAVIS TAYLOR (ON RADIO): Hey, Erik, you copy?

ERIK BARD: Yeah.

TRAVIS TAYLOR (ON RADIO): You guys don’t see any smoke down there?

ERIK BARD: Travis, I could only see the smoke at the beginning. It disappeared just like you reported. No trace. I don’t see it coming out anywhere.

TRAVIS TAYLOR (ON RADIO): – You going up top?

• Yeah.

TRAVIS TAYLOR (ON RADIO): Thomas is going up top. Look up there to see if you see any smoke with the drone.

ERIK BARD: – Yeah.

• All right.

ERIK BARD: Panning up. You see any effect?

TRAVIS TAYLOR: Anything, Thomas?

THOMAS WINTERTON: No.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: For the smoke to be getting pulled down into the mesa, that means that there’s some kind of cavern or void sucking the smoke back underground like a vacuum. Is it something natural, or could there be some artificial object or device causing that?

ERIK BARD: Well, it means there’s got to be some sort of an opening if it’s pulling that much smoke and none of it’s leaking out.

THOMAS WINTERTON: We’re out of smoke bombs. I guess just head down.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: All right.

ERIK BARD: As I like to say, we are led by the data. And all of the data are pointing to the existence of a large void somewhere inside of the face of this mesa. I would love to get eyes on what’s in there.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: – Welcome back to Earth.

• Yeah.

[laughter]

THOMAS WINTERTON: So you did find something?

TRAVIS TAYLOR: We did find something. Sure weird from what I saw from the air. It was like the mesa just took a deep breath.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Yeah. You could literally see it being sucked down through the hole.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: And the hole, it seemed like it just went forever.

THOMAS WINTERTON: It was just like a vacuum cleaner turned on and it sucked all that smoke down. And then, it was gone.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: – Yeah.

• It was gone.

THOMAS WINTERTON: So it went somewhere.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: That hole goes deeper than we think.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Well, I think we got to figure some things out before we do the next thing. We really want to do this right.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: The experiment definitely confirmed that there is something that we need to explore deep inside the mesa. But we’re going to have to move some earth, and that means digging or drilling to find out what it is. So we need to have a serious meeting with Brandon and get his blessing. As we’ve seen in the past, it’s always risky to dig on Skinwalker Ranch. But I don’t see another choice.

THOMAS WINTERTON: Great work as always, Pete.
Thank you very much.

PETE KELSEY: My pleasure.

THOMAS WINTERTON: All right. We’ll load up and head it back.