Skinwalker secrets, Roswell revelations, and the mysteries that endure | Backscroll

Hello and welcome back to Reality Check. On a day when the UAP caucus in Congress is having a secret meeting in a skiff to hear from the new head of Arrow, Tim Phillips, and also the gentleman who presides over America’s darkest, deepest secrets, the controller of the special access programs. Both these gentlemen are being investigated and questioned by members of the UAP caucus in the House who are asking, I hope, some curly questions about the UAP mystery. This is also a day, by the way, where intriguing documents have been released by the Department of Homeland Security revealing the existence of a proposed secret program called tantalizingly Owner Blue. And it was a program that was intended hoped to be able to investigate a supposed reverse engineering program of alien spacecraft. It didn’t happen. And a lot of people are saying, including Arrow, that nothing came of it. But can we believe them? Believe me, Reality Check will be chasing down that story like a dog on a bone. But first today, let me take you to another intriguing mystery. Just off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, there’s a privatelyowned island that has been the center of mystery and intrigue for hundreds of years. Oak Island was first settled by folk from Massachusetts after the mainland Chester area was settled in about 1761.
In the early days it was known as Smith Island. Later Gloucester Island and then in the late 17th century it was 18th century. My apologies. It was uh Oak Island. Now for reasons that I’m hoping our interviewees today will explain.
Ever since the mid 1800s Oak Island has been the center of feverish speculation about hidden pirate treasure. And it’s all about um a settler called Daniel McGinness who in 1857 wrote a book that told the legend of the treasure of Oak Island for the very first time. And this beautiful piece of island real estate hasn’t been the same since. There’s claims of buried pirate treasure. There’s even been claims that Francis Bacon might have buried some of the beautiful manuscripts of William Shakespeare’s plays on the island.
Heaven only knows why. But more intriguingly than that, if that doesn’t tantalize your curiosity, there’s also claims that the ark of the covenant, no less, may be buried there. Even more thrilling, and this is the part I love, there’s also a curse on the treasure. It reportedly states that seven men will die in the search for the treasure before it is found. So, ever since the 1850s, different treasure hunters have scoured Oak Island hunting for the treasure. The most recent uh owners include a treasure hunter by the name of Dan Blankenship, who partnered with a company called Oak Island Tours, run by David Tobias. That company dissolved and in February 2019 a new partnership was formed with a company called the Michigan Group. This group included brothers Rick and Marty Lagginina. Now Rick and Marty are joining me now. Their History Channel show has followed the story of this now 226year-old mystery. They’ve just wrapped up their incredibly 11th season. Come on, gentlemen. Please tell me that after 11 seasons, The Curse of Oak Island has finally found the treasure. You are the number one nonfiction show on US cable TV. Rick and Marty Lagginina, thank you for joining me. Tell me, why is the show so successful? Marty, I’m going to let you take that. No, I was going to tell you to take that. I’ll have a go at it. Have a go.
Have a go. I think it’s successful because it is genuinely real. Um, you know, my understanding from the cameramen we talked to is a lot of reality TV is only partially real. This thing is 100% real. They approached us. We didn’t even want to be on TV.
Uh, and so what we’re doing I think resonates with people. That would be my answer.
I think the thing, forgive me for interrupting there, but I I think the thing that I started out researching when I looked at this show, you know, you always hear these stories with these reality shows.
There’s there’s even allegations that things sometimes get planted to make the show more interesting. But it really got me. One of the things that really got me was early in the program you found a granite stone 90 ft down what you call the money pit and it was carved with peculiar symbols. There’s a code on the stone but one attempt to translate the stone says quote 40 ft below 2 million are buried. Now, how sure are you, for example, about claims that that stone carries such a code? It it’s a difficult answer because we don’t currently have possession of the stone. It was seen by many people. It ultimately ended up in John Smith’s fireplace, one of the residents of the island. Uh, and then amazingly, it disappeared. And we have copies. um it was written about but even as we speak we don’t know that the uh glyphs on it are accurate um but I truly believe that a stone was found and um that day uh the stone was recovered right around 90 ft and some stories uh suggest higher up but then at that point the money pit shaft flooded and with seawater and Uh the every searcher since then has been stymied. Um was it a joke?
Was it a you know come hither thing? You know keep digging and spring the trap. Yeah I think based based on our 10 years or 11 years out there. I think the most likely thing is that that was a plant in order for people to keep digging in that very location. And it sure worked because shortly after that some sort of flood mechanism was triggered. I mean it worked beautifully. Um and it was tanalyzing enough. So that’s what happened. And that’s part of the complexity of what we’re dealing with. But gentlemen, can you help me here? I always thought pirates just hung around the the Caribbean or the Caribbean as you Americans call them. Um, what’s the story with pirates coming up to as far as Nova Scotia? Why on earth were pirates ever conceivably in that part of the world?
Actually, um, the route past Nova Scotia was following the uh, Gulf Stream back.
So, pirates would have been using it potentially all the time to go back to Europe. But furthermore, part of this mystery is that coconut fiber has been found extensively on this island and seems to have been utilized to help with filtering the water to the trap. Well, coconut fiber does come from the Caribbean. So, there are there are certainly ties, although at this juncture, Rick, we don’t think is pirates. Could No, we think it’s far too complex. the the engineering associated with what we have come to understand and or believe is far too complex. There’s nothing in the world that would suggest u this was a a pirate endeavor. There’s no similar um no similar place where where this type of work was done. Not by pirates.
So, why do we think there’s even a possibility that there is a treasure buried deep underground Oak Island?
I’m going to let my brother Yeah. How long do you have? I mean, I’m I’m happy to hear it. Okay. There are all kinds of people who will tell you their own theories and with reasonable credibility as to why.
But there are two things at this juncture in my mind and I’m sort of the skeptic at this juncture. There are two things that make me think it’s quite possible, probable even. One is the complexity of what we keep uncovering and the artifacts that keep going back farther and farther into history. It’s just something very odd and very difficult to accomplish happened there.
So that would be one. But the bigger one since I think science is very important, we continuously get samples of the water at depth that has um abnormal concentrations of silver, gold, copper, zinc. And the scientists doing the work say it’s coming from some rather large source that we haven’t found yet. So that’s why I think there’s something there. So just explain to our audience who may not be familiar with the show, you’ve referred to something about the complexity of the tunnel system that you think is underneath the Oak Island potentially to conceal the treasure.
What have you found and how does it demonstrate complexity?
Your turn, Rick. Well, you have to believe in the histo somewhat believe in the historical narrative that you know when the um initial companies explored uh they triggered a booby trap system uh triggering the intrusion of seawater into the bottom of the money pit shaft.
And uh once they realized it was salt water, they went down to the shore uh Smith’s Cove and they uncovered uh what they believed to be box drains uh stones, flag stones on end with a cap rock. It it appeared to them that they had some party or parties had removed the entirety of the beach over almost 200 feet and reconstructed the beach to facilitate the uh introduction of seawater at depth at 90 ft in the money pit shaft. That’s quite a feat of engineering. You’re 500 some feet away from Smith’s Cove to the Money Pit. Um and like I said, you have to believe at some level. You have to believe again in the historical narrative. Those initial peoples uh saw what they saw uh recorded it unfortunately not sufficiently well enough uh and and the old adage holes, right? They weren’t looking for uh proof of engineering complexities. They were looking for a treasure. They figured if someone had gone to these great lengths surely something valuable uh perhaps exceedingly valuable is buried at depth. So uh but in terms of our work um you know it’s the the what we’ve uncovered in Smith’s Cove we’re still uh trying to prove um original work but uh again everything that we have seen the carbon dating the application of science um C14 testing dendrochronology all of that points to as Marty said earlier very ly attempt at disguising or protecting something of immense value. Yeah. So, roll me back roll me back to 1857 to the story of this young man Daniel McGinness. What did he find and what prompted the book that he wrote about the legend of supposedly buried treasure? Actually, you need to go back to 1795 with Daniel McInness. Uh he and a and a group of boys went over to that island and found what’s that Rick? Just three three boys. But but they weren’t that’s the story. They weren’t boys. They were young men, right? But the point is this started in 1795 and they came back at the turn of the century and and were convinced that they had uncovered something very substantial and dug and dug as far as they could and then the from there on it gets incredibly complicated. But all kinds of people have followed in their footsteps trying to uncover this. One thing we know for sure is the workings underground at this point are incredibly extensive just from the searchers, which makes our task even harder. But I mean, President Roosevelt was one of the searchers. John Wayne was involved. All kinds of personalities went after this treasure. And even my my old my Aussie forebear Errol Flynn apparently was one of the people that that dug it.
He tried to buy the island. He would there wouldn’t have been enough women on the island for Errol Flynn, I suspect. But the but um the the the thing I I just want to clarify. Did did McGinness and his friends did they actually find the money pit at the time? Did they see the wooden structure as it was even then? Or is it possible that the money pit was built afterwards? No. No, that’s not possible. the uh what they discovered was not cribbed. It was uncribed, but had been they could see pick marks in the clay as they dug down.
They were excavating a former excavation. Um again, Rick is right.
That intrigues me. So, so you’ve got you’ve got the Chester area on the mainland was settled in about 1761, I understand. Is it it’s the suggestion here that as a young boy he’s going there in the 1790s it was already in existence the money pit at that time somebody someone had come there and built these elaborate constructions into the grand on Oak Island even before British settlement on the island probably well before. Mhm.
Wow. Well, who who was it?
Well, if you if you can answer that, we’d like you to come up and help us.
This is where you got me in. I mean, I I was doing my research and reading about Daniel McGuinness, and initially I thought, well, surely these fortifications were constructed years after McInness made the discovery.
The thing that intrigues me is you’ve got a young man and his friends going across to this island in the late, as you say, 1790s. He writes the book in 1857. But whatever these fortifications are, whatever this construction is, it was there before British settlers came across from Massachusetts. That appears to be rigorous.
Yep. Wow. Yes. So, please tell me what are the most intriguing discoveries that you found during your search.
Marty, you you go first. Rick. All right. Well, look, uh, just this year, I believe these episodes have have run, so they get mad at us sometimes for letting the cat out of the bag, but just this year, we found, um, several things that date back to medieval times.
and some things that date back farther than that. Inexplicable things like Roman coins, um, buttons that that our archaeologist tells us were out of fashion by the 1600s. So, something was going on on this island way way back. And that is really the intrigue. Um, we found a a cross, red cross that is medieval apparently, um, and might have been associated with this group called the Knights Templar. Uh, a lot of it just seems unbelievable, but yet here are the artifacts. So, um, we’re trying to pull it all together. I I believe we will. Now, that’s where my BS detectors, I have to admit, went on to high alert because not only is there a claim that Francis Bacon might have buried the manuscripts of Shakespeare there. I want you to explain that one to me. But there’s also this claim that was very recent that that there might in fact be a location here for the Ark of the Covenant, no less. Please explain.
Your turn. Look, at the end of the day, we can’t prove any of that. Okay? Not yet. But uh there have been some very credible research researchers and the research they’ve uncovered that make it very credible. Uh Peramenson for one was one of the first people to come and present the idea of Nolan’s cross representing the cobalistic tree of life. I always believe that Nolan’s cross was important. Um, I think there had to have been a map on top of the ground if people were to come back and retrieve it. There had to be a way to after after an extended period of time, you would have to have some way to locate the the site. And uh I I think uh the one thing that is exceedingly interesting to me is there are still four or five credible theories uh that fit the timeline. They fit the dating of the artifacts. They fit the the the uh the p the personalities of the time. uh there’s always been by by very uh uh amazing people that there was this belief that Bacon actually was Shakespeare or he and and Ben Johnson for instance and and a group of others actually wrote the Shakespeare in folios and that Bacon intended for to create a new Atlantis. Um several of his manuscripts suggest that and uh the man was a genius by all accounts and uh actually wrote a treatise on uh protecting manuscripts with mercury um in in a in a watery environment. Uh so it lines up that that is possible but there’s nothing that we have uncovered to date that prove uh that it’s the Shakespearean folios or that it’s the ark of the covenant but the research continues and I have told Marty and others that I think after 226 years of digging and drilling I think the one sure way to write the final page of that reader digest article is through research and the research is indicating that these four or five theories are and remain credible. That’s part of the story.
Forgive me for interrupting. That’s part of the story. I’m so sorry. You speak first, my friend. No, it’s okay. I I just want this. It’s why we’re different though, Rick and I. He wants to research this and figure it out that way. I want to dig. I want to dig and find it. We have a different philosophy, but go ahead interrupted.
Part of the uh the thing that intrigues me about the whole story, Rick, is as I understand it, when you were a young boy, you read this Reader’s Digest article that you’re referring to, which told the story of Oak Island to you for the first time. I think you were sitting in the dentist or something and that captured your imagination. Is that is that the correct story? It is. uh their January 1965 Reader Digest article. It was a story about Oak Island of 5 and a half pages I believe.
And when I got to the last page, um, I was disappointed because I wanted to know, you know, the answers and, uh, came home and showed it to Marty and, you know, we, he can speak for himself, but I was fascinated, but as I have said many times, it wasn’t like I said, okay, uh, when I get to be older, I’m going to dedicate my life to this pursuit. That’s wasn’t the case. I just wanted to to know. I wanted the answers. Who doesn’t love a good book, but you you don’t quit on the last chapter in a good book. You want to read the the final page. And and that’s what we endeavor to do. Uh write the final page. And uh as Marty said earlier, there’s been some incredibly talented, smart, capable, um almost visionary people associated with this search for 226 years. And like you Ross, they were captivated by that by this story. And uh it’s amazing how it tags into people. And it you asked why the show was successful earlier and I think it’s it’s exactly what Marty said, but it’s there’s one more component to it and that is that it appeals to everyone on a different level. Sure, there’s the treasure component. Then there’s the search for real answers. Then there’s a historical component. Then there’s a science component. There’s a technology component. There’s a personality component because as you said, even Aerrol Flynn was captivated by this place. Um Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, we have a letter when he was on a battleship out in the U out in Mahon Bay. while off of Mahome Bay. Uh when the war started, he intended to come to the island to revisit it uh after he had been on the island as part of the initial one of the initial searches. And uh he writes a letter, which we still have, and he says, “I would love to come back to that romantic spot, but unfortunately, you know, the the the world events have have taken taken me away. kind of busy right now. Yeah. So, it’s it’s it’s it’s stunningly captivating, but it is for different people uh different reasons why. Marty, what I quite like about the relationship between the two of you as brothers is in the show, you’re the kind of nerdy science guy who just when I’m thinking, “Oh, this is just rubbish.” you know, you really are stretching my credibility here. You come in and you say, “Look, we’ve got to talk through the science here, you know, and and it’s something that you constantly come back to, and I admire both of you for the honesty that you show in admitting that that really there isn’t a huge amount of evidence to support a lot of the broader conspiracies and theories that are attached to the Oak Island story, but you still constantly come back to the science, don’t you, Marty? Absolutely. Thank you. I I view that as a compliment. Uh I am somewhat of a skeptic and what I can believe in and what I spent my life believing in is hard science and there has been just enough on island to keep us going. Um if there weren’t I would say to Rick, look, we’re done. I mean, at least I’m done.
But there is plenty and there’s more that has to be figured out. So yes, thank you for that observation. Rick is just as smart smarter probably, but he is much more of a romantic than I am.
And so we I think we make a good team. It’s funny here in what he’s not saying here in Australia. I’m so sorry. I’ll let you talk. I apologize.
Just a quick thing. What he’s not saying though is if you were to plot um using science, if you were to plot Marty’s belief in the Oak Island mystery on a bell-shaped curve, he started on the left side of the bell-shaped curve. He’s no longer there, right, Marty? That’s absolutely true. I’m at least over the top. You know, it’s funny though because I mean I think the thing that I think attracts a lot of people including kids who love the show is your two brothers who had a dream. One of you had a dream after reading the story as a young kid to go out and search for hidden treasure. And it’s funny I I I’ve had a very similar experience myself as a journalist here in Australia. There’s a lot of talk about Portuguese and Spanish sailors and soldiers visiting Australia even before British settlement and the Dutch supposed Dutch discovery of of Australia. And there’s rumors of Spanish treasure hidden in caves all along the Australian coast. And I’ve once spent quite a lot of money of a certain Australian billionaire businessman’s money trying to find this hidden treasure. and these hidden Spanish vessels. But the intriguing thing is just off the coast of Western Australia, there’s there’s a a beautiful gallion called the Golden Dra, the Golden Dragon, which was wrecked off the coast of Western Australia. And and a lot of gold and treasure was indeed found by amateur divers and recovered. So every now and then, I just want to give you guys some hope. Every now and then, these treasure stories do come true. Yes, that thank you for that. Yes. And I think you put your finger on basically something that exists in human nature. Find somebody who doesn’t like a treasure hunt. I don’t think they exist, you know. I mean, it pulled you in obviously and uh it’s got a pretty good hold on us. Is there ever going to come a time though? I mean, what are you doing now?
It’s you’ve just finished the 11th series. There’s speculation there’s going to be a 12th. I mean, some people might suggest you’re flogging a dead horse. You haven’t found the treasure after 11 episodes, 11 series. What are you going to do? When are you going to when are you going to call it a day? Ah, we’ve talked about this.
Yes, we have. Two criteria. Two criteria. When it becomes not fun anymore, we’ve we’ve looked each other in the eye and said, “If this becomes drudgery, not going to do it.” And the other one is when we can’t advance the ball. When we feel like we’ve done what we can and we’re not advancing the ball, then yes, hand it off to somebody else. It isn’t going to go away. Uh there are plenty of people write us all the time and tell us how we’re missing the we’re missing the boat. This is what we should do. So, but there may there may come a time and it may be fairly short if we don’t figure it out where we hand it off. Yes, we have to be foolish. No, I’ve got to ask both of you before we go. Do you think there is a treasure down below in Oak Island?
We ask you both of you. Marty, Marty, you go first or I’ll go first.
Go ahead. The answer to that is define treasure.
um you know do do I believe that here’s what I here’s what I well and truly believe I am not a historian of any record at all however what I do know what reading I have done there is no place in the world where temporal wealth has been if you accept the engineering that we believe was done on the island and I do believe that Um nowhere has that been exhibited in protecting or burying temporal wealth to this extent to this degree. Nowhere. Now they did divert a river to bury a lark’s treasure and then they diverted the river back. That’s the the the story as the story goes. But this is far more complex than that. So I believe that the treasure is less to do with temporal wealth and it has to do with something else. Uh you have to be people ask all the time how could that have been done so long ago and I my response to that is really quite simple. Human beings properly motivated can have and continue to do remarkable things. So answer the why of it. That’s more important to me almost than than finding the treasure. Uh you figure out why and and you have to answer the W’s. Who, what, when, where, why, and how. But human beings properly motivated can do remarkable things. And I think a remarkable thing was done on that island. To what end? I cannot say. Is there something underground on Oak Island that was worth their time, their effort, their energy, their intellect? I believe there was. I believe it’s might still be there. Marty, as I said, I’m a lot more mercenary than him. Look, there’s gold and silver in the water at abnormal uh levels. That’s science. That’s not having to rely on belief or this or that or the other until we find the source of those metals. And my definition of treasure is much more simple than Rick. It it’s conventional, you know. I mean, I just started out looking for gold, silver, jewels, and it’s never gone. It’s deviated a bit, but that’s still what I’m looking for. And I I still think there’s science that supports that. Yes.
I believe there’s something associated with what’s there, but it’s not just it wasn’t done just for that.
Well, I can tell you there are millions of people all over the world who will be holding their breath to see what you’ve found in series 11. And I’m sure many people will be wishing you good wishes to ensure that you’ll hit the mighty dozen. And hopefully at some stage you’ll be telling us you found a treasure chest full of Spanish dloons, gold, and jewels. And I, for one, will be cheering you on. This week we’ve got something very special for you. Brandon Fugle, the owner of the extraordinary Skinw Walker Ranch. And if you don’t know anything about this ranch, 3 hours southeast of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, there’s a 500 acre region of ground which is probably the most scientifically investigated place on Earth. It’s also an alleged paranormal hotspot seen for all manner of weird high strangess paranormal anomalous and UAP UFO activities. Skinwalker Ranch sits in a region known as the Uinta Basin, a territory rich with Native American history and myth.
The Skinwalker Ranch name is derived from a shape-shifting character from Navajo tribal folklore. And among the Navajo, skinw walkers are like werewolves, evil witches that can transform themselves into any shape they like. Now, Skinwalker Ranch is actually 400 miles north, I understand, of the Navajo Nation in the territory of the Ute people. But the paranormal suspicions behind the skinw walker myth are very well respected in that country.
Now my friend George Knapp, journalist from uh Las Vegas, wrote a brilliant book about this mysterious ranch called Hunt for the Skinwalker. And he tells in his book how soon after European settlers arrived, they started seeing mysterious things in the sky. And it’s gone on right through to the present day. There was a family called the Shermans in the early 1990s who reported to local media how they were experiencing all manner of paranormal phenomena, including a ship, some type of craft hovering over their property the size of a football field. They also reported shooting to no effect a gigantic wolf that was three times the size of a normal wolf and it just loped away apparently showing no effect from the shots. There were also distressing cattle mutilations, cows found dead with surgically precise excisions, internal organs removed, but no blood and no sign anywhere of human mischief. In 1997, an aerospace entrepreneur, Robert Bigalow, boarded the ranch, and he resourced a massive scientific investigation through a body he created called the National Institute for Discovery Science. And in around about 2007, this is actually the origin of the investigations by the Pentagon into what became ATIP or ORAP, the uh codenamed programs that were essentially investigating not just the paranormal phenomena at Skinwalker Ranch, but a whole range of paranormal and anomalous phenomena.
And that prompted what became the New York Times story in 2017.
So much of the mystery began at Skin Walker. Now, as it happens, we have Brandon Fugal here today. And not only is he an extraordinarily successful prominent businessman in the Utah region, he’s the chairman of the Collier’s Investment and Real Estate firm, he’s also somebody who’s got an admitted interest in the paranormal, the anomalous, and the weird world of high stranges. Brandon Fugal, welcome to Reality Check. Can you tell me sir what have you aduced in this magnificent TV program which I think is now coming up to its fifth season after five series of skinwalker Ranch. What have you found? I think the uh the show is called the secret of Skinwalker Ranch. What can you tell me about the scientific research that you’ve done at Skinwalker? Are you a believer? Ah, I am not a believer, Ross. I’m an experiencer. I can’t deny I cannot deny that which I have seen with my own eyes, with witnesses at my side, and that which we have hard data evidencing the reality of the phenomena there at Skinwalker Ranch, this this uh most scientifically studied paranormal hotspot on the planet. And it is quite a privilege to be unveiling this coming week on Tuesday on the History Channel, you know, 10 uh 9 central uh the latest series of discoveries, observations, and events that have taken place over the course of this last year that continue to underscore not only the reality of the phenomena and the fact that we are not alone in the universe, but that uh there there are things happening in our airspace uh in our world that defy our current understanding of physics and uh reality itself. So we’re we are tackling topics that I believe have been uh addressed for thousands of years since the beginning of time. People have asked you know where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? you know, are we alone in the universe? Uh, what is the nature of reality? And I believe our scientific investigation at Skinwalker Ranch may may actually hold the answers to some of those time-honored questions that have uh that have been on people’s minds since the beginning. When I was doing my research for this show, I spoke to one of your esteemed colleagues. So, I won’t say who who it was, but he actually said to me when I asked him, “What what should I ask you about?” He said, “Ask Brandon if it’s real. Ask Brandon if it’s real, because all we cop all the time is the accusation that we fake this stuff, that that this is all nonsense, that this is fakery, that we’re planting stuff, that this is all made up. Is it?” Good question. Uh, absolutely. The one of the key uh points of not only consideration but key contractual items I have had in place with the History Channel and A&E network is that nothing can be faked, manipulated or contrived relative to the documentary series uh that is unfolding. Uh we we are a datadriven investigation. Uh my principal investigator and chief scientist Eric Bard often says we are not led by an inherited narrative that we are led by the data and by using the scientific method and a team of multidisciplinary experts and professionals. We are truly documenting the reality of the phenomena in the most dynamic way for the first time and presenting it in a very transparent way to the public. So Brandon, let’s talk about your experience. As you say, you’re not a believer. You’re an experiencer. You’ve seen hard empirical data with your own eyes. What did you see? Absolutely. I I purchased the property from the elusive billionaire, Robert Bigalow of Bigalow Aerospace back in back in April of 2016. And I I purchased the property as an open-minded skeptic, but one who had never seen a UFO, ghost, orb, or anything of the sort. And I truly believed that there was a natural prosaic explanation for what had been reported on this property for decades, if not millennia. The first 6 months of my ownership were marked by really no unusual activity that I could observe. I was flying into my helicopter periodically to be briefed by my team as they were documenting the uh the property and studying the property. And every time that I visited, all that I saw was a very peaceful, strikingly beautiful landscape. You know, you have a a red rock messa plateau that runs the entire expanse of the property with cave systems. You have old pioneer homesteads that are uh a haunting part of the landscape. There you have waterways that snake through the property. It is uh it is a very very interesting backdrop for this investigation. But I I I didn’t see anything or even feel anything even slightly unusual uh or out of the ordinary. Well, that all changed for me on on October 14th, 2016 when I was hosting some dignitaries, visitors who came to the property and everything went crazy. We witnessed everything from rapid battery depletion with our smartphones to electromagnetic anomalies, equipment malfunction, even acute medical episodes. One individual who was attending security, a 6’6 hulk of a man was rendered catatonic in the middle of the visit and uh experienced what can only be described as missing time. But later that afternoon on October 14th, as we were traveling back to the security trailer to to retrieve our phones after having them charged for several hours, an individual in the back seat right behind me in my open air Polaris Ranger UTV that we were that we were driving across the property started yelling to stop the vehicle. Was waving his hands in the air. And as I brought the vehicle to an abrupt stop and looked to where he was pointing, all of us saw above the mesa right in front of us what can only be described as a flying saucer. It was a 40 to 50 foot long silver grayish disc-like object that appeared hovering about 100 ft above the Mesa Plateau, which for generations been has been referred to as Skinwalker Ridge. That’s where the the property derives its name.
This object which was which was uh appearing very solid. It had a kind of a reflective quality off of one side where the sun appeared to be glinting off of it. Uh within seconds changed position in the blink of an eye. Moved 50 ft to the left. Within seconds after that, it dropped to a low hover above the mea and much to our astonishment, seconds later darted to the right and was ultimately gone. Uh, and the whole episode lasted about 20 seconds, but left us not only astonished but changed us. It transformed us from being skeptics to experiencers. And from that moment forward, I devoted the resources, the personnel, and the focus to begin documenting and studying the nature of the phenomena happening at Skinwalker Ranch. Uh I I had no intention of ever revealing my identity as the owner. Even after that event, I didn’t want any of these topics to distract or undermine my professional activities as chairman of uh Utah’s Collier’s International uh operation. We’re the largest commercial real estate firm in the inner mountain west. We represent a lot of uh Fortune 500 companies, significant institutions, and I did not want my career spanning decades to potentially be undermined by the controversial nature of not only this ranch but the subject matter, the topics. But as the years passed and we gathered data uh drawing from dozens of surveillance cameras and scientific instrumentation monitoring the property, the History Channel and A&E network and producers reached out to me and after a year of persistence, I agreed to take a meeting with them. told them that I wasn’t really interested in letting cameras behind the fence, but ultimately was persuaded to allow a first ever documentary series effort to come inside the fence, inside the military graded grade gated fence entrance to study and document for many months of the year, for 3 to four months out of the year, uh the strange activity, the experiments and the research being conducted on really what is the most scientifically studied paranormal hot spot on the planet. Look, I I take my hat off to you to be honest, Brandon, because um I like you started out a very determined skeptic thinking that when I wrote my book, I was going to prove that all of this was bunker. And as I’ve got sucked further and further down the rabbit hole, I’ve been waiting for that moment for whenever and if any of this paranormal UAP phenomena shows itself to me. And frankly, it hasn’t done it yet. And my friends say that it’s doing it to keep me skeptical because it needs me as a journalist to keep on being skeptical. So I’m going to be skeptical for a moment. I’m going to ask you, did you get did you get vision? Did you get imagery of what you saw that day? And if so, why not? Because it it strikes me so much so much about skinwalker. Often you hear these incredible stories.
I think Eric Davis, the physicist who’s a mutual friend of ours, he’s described how he was up one night late at night, 2:30 in the morning, and he described seeing a portal open in the air, and this gigantic creature, a humanoid creature, steps out of this portal and comes out into the ranch and lops off.
It sounds like something out of a horror movie, but this I mean, I respect and admire Dr. Davis, he’s not somebody who makes things up and neither are you. The problem, yeah, I have so much to lose. There is so much liability and even going public with uh with these these topics. And to answer your question, you know, our uh our smartphones were unfortunately drained before, you know, prior to the UFO sighting and we’d put them back at the security trailer to be charged. We were going back to retrieve them when the UFO when the the grayish silverish object appeared above the Mesa Plateau and proceeded to maneuver for a period of about 20 seconds. Uh but I will note that on our on our series we have captured unidentified aerial phenomena and objects of unknown origin on many occasions. In fact, this past year in season 4, we captured what can only be described as a transmedium unidentified aerial object or phenomena that not only dropped down, we captured it descending from the sky via a camera on my helicopter that was conducting an exercise, but it it not only entered the mesa from the top, but it exited right below the helicopter. and uh the the whole sequence of events and the the um spectrum analyzer that was registering strange readings and a host of other things added validity to that event. We’ve also captured on the the surveillance cameras, even the trail cameras that are motion sensor uh activated on the property uh strange objects of unknown origin. Uh you couple with that the fact that acute medical episodes, electromagnetic anomalies, and other equipment malfunctions tend to correlate or accompany these sightings that have been documented. Uh and it it leaves a trail of hard data of data coming from a series Oops. I’m back with you. Sorry about that. Are we back? No, I think I think the electromagnetic an anomalies were having a bit of a joke with us. They they maybe the tricksters followed you all the way back to Salt Lake City, Brandon. Yeah, I apologize. Well, people speak of what we call the hitchhiker effect where strange phenomena seems to not only attend these topics but actually follow people home after they have engaged on the property. And uh and it’s uh it’s real when you have data, when you have countless witnesses, and you have video and other evidence supporting these claims and these observations, it uh it it really does underscore the fact that these topics need to be taken more seriously and the public has a right to know the reality of what is happening not only in our airspace, but in our world and our reality. I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, you and I are on the same track on this. And the thing I find bewildering about the debunkers, the splenitic ranting debunkers who attack you guys, is that as far as I can see, you are doing what they often accuse all of us of not doing, which is gathering empirical data, trying to scientifically assess and measure and analyze and investigate. Does it frustrate you that that you’re not taken seriously? It does. It’s frustrating especially when you take into account that we bring in objective, you know, third-party experts. We bring in at every turn third party subject matter experts, professionals, scientists, engineers that um that participate in the experiments. I mean, we’re talking about the world’s leading experts in everything from ground penetrating radar to um LAR studies to those who are really the most qualified when it comes to testing the environment and and the conditions. We’ve also brought in a number of different scientific platforms. I mean, even the world’s largest drone operator, Sky Elements, and others have come onto the property in service to being part of the experiments and research to help us understand not only what is happening above the property, but potentially below.
Well, that brings me to the next question, which is it’s quite clear Brian, your your colleague and I think your old Mormon friend Brian Arnold, he’s talked about how digging into the property is one of the most dangerous things perceptively that you can do. Uh there was that terrible time when one of your staff suffered a a horrible I think it was Thomas Winterton that your your uh security manager. He suffered a terrible swelling in his head that saw him hospitalized after they began digging into the ground. And I think on another occasion when Travis Taylor was opening a port hole into the ground, something similar happened. He was overcome by some kind of fumes or compounds.
Well, actually he was he ended up sustaining radiation burns. He was suddenly exposed to radiation. Yeah, there was radiation and it ended up going to the hospital. And as you’d mentioned, Thomas Winterton ended up in the hospital for a week with life-threatening illness that remains to this day unexplained. The only explanation that could be provided relative to his injuries that were sustained in connection with his work on the property, uh, you know, some digging activity where he was disturbing the earth is that the back of his skull was irradiated. Um, and we’ve had countless other incidents uh even cardiac uh incidents on the property that have unfortunately correlated or coincided with digging activity or other experimental research activity being conducted. So the ranch is not to be taken lightly. We we counsel all those who come and visit the property in any capacity whether it be the scientists, the engineers, the professionals that are participating that they prepare themselves spiritually. uh regardless of whatever religious tradition or not, we ask them to enter the property with the spirit of reverence and humility. For we are dealing with phenomena that is unexplained that has command over the environment and and obviously based on some of the data and evidence that we have collected it has the ability to to discern your intention or the attitude that one brings. those who bring an adversarial or a negative attitude to the property often are rendered immobilized are the most injured in the course of uh of not only participating on the property but even just entering the property. So, it’s important to note that this is a very sensitive scientific investigation that runs year round 24/7, 365 days a year. But there is also a liability issue here due to the danger uh those who enter enter having to sign liability waiverss and and recognizing that there are certain risks. I will never allow my own children to set foot on this property simply because I know we are dealing with forces some which appear to be malevolent with negative intent that uh that are somehow interacting with our environment and our world. So this is mind-blowing Brendan what you are describing to me is a nonhuman intelligence aren’t you? Well, we don’t know the origin or the agenda associated with the with the activity at Skinwalker Ranch. We believe based on the data that there is a diversity of origins and agendas that there there is most likely not one single point of origin or type of entity or intelligence that we’re interacting with. I mean, people ask me all the time, is it aliens? Is it beings from other worlds? Or is it multi-dimensional or interdimensional phenomena? or is it spiritual? Is it spiritual in na in nature, angels and demons uh of religious and historical tradition? And the best answer I can provide, Ross, is that it is most likely D, all the above. that uh that what we’re seeing is is really a a diversity of agendas and origins that for some reason converge on this property and and have made Skinwalker Ranch a center of gravity for studying the phenomena.
Perhaps there’s a portal, a uh a stargate or a wormhole to other worlds or other uh other dimensions on this property. Based on the data, it appears there’s something definitely in the environment that uh that is beyond description.
Now, before the audience watching this take leave think that we’ve both taken leave of our senses and that we’re been reading far too many good science fiction novels, I I I I want to explain the significance of a defense intelligence agency organization investigation which basically began a very thorough investigation into Skin Walker Ranch and associated paranormal phenomena. I think back in 2007, Senator Harry Reid with the support of a couple of other colleagues in the Senate, he helped secure some funding through um the Defense Intelligence Agency and then through the Pentagon for what became known as I think the OSAP program. The uh Splenetic ranting debunkers tie themselves up in knots trying to prove that this was all nonsense. But the simple fact is there was a defense intelligence agency program funded millions of dollars to investigate this phenomena. And the story I love most of all is James Latsky. Jim Latsky. I think you’ve met him since, but he he was a super sort of senior physicist inside the Department of Defense. He’s brought out to the ranch. And in George Nap’s book, he describes how this skeptic was demonstrated within seconds of his arrival something equivalent to the kind of Tubular Bell’s three-dimensional image that appears on Mike Oldfield’s album, the Tubular Bells album. It it manifested itself in front of him in the security room at Skin Walker. Do you know this story and do you believe it? Yeah, the event actually occurred in the ranch house uh not of the security room.
It was actually in the ranch house or what we call homestead one. I am familiar with the account. In fact, we’ve had others that have observed uh strange phenomena in that same place or region of that uh that old historic structure that is well over a hundred years old on the property. Uh the fact that this property was part of a Pentagon-f funed black budget program with tens of millions of dollars focused on the potential national security implications and the reality of the high frequency of UFO or UAP sightings coupled with bizarre cattle mutilation activity and other high stranges. uh I think really does differentiate not only this effort and this this location from others for whatever reason, but I think it uh it really helps underscore the seriousness and reality of these things. A few weeks ago on reality check, we interviewed um a theologist Paul Thigpen and um the wonderful congressman Tim Burchett. And Tim volunteered to us. We were talking about religion and we were talking about the possibility that what the phenomenon is may in fact be, you know, is it wrong to talk about angels and demons? And I I know you are uh you follow the Latter-day Saint church, the Mormon church. And um I was fascinated. You had me reading Mormon scripture, Brandon. I’ I’ve become a convert. I’ve I’ve started reading Mormon scripture. And in the um Latter-day Saint scripture, the prophet Moses has a vision of the cosmos. And God tells him, quote, “Worlds without number have I created, and I also created them for mine purpose, and by the sun I created them, which is mine only begotten. But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power, and there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man. So, the Mormon religion, the Church of Latter-day Saints, clearly contemplates an acceptance of other non-human intelligences. True. Yeah. Sure. the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, which I uh belong to, and I I had the privilege of serving as a missionary for my faith back uh in 1992 to ’94 between the ages of 19 to 21. Uh is unique in that it it teaches that uh and acknowledges that there are worlds without number, that we are not alone in the universe. And I believe that it also advances that we are part of a divinely constructed intelligently designed reality.
And you know with with Jesus Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ being the the focus and the centerpiece of our faith uh coupled with a a cosmic worldview. I believe that it offers a a clear road map for understanding the the purpose of life and the nature of our existence. You know, people have asked me based on your faith, what is the purpose of life?
Well, in in our scripture, it states, you know, God states, “This is my work and my glory to to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” And what we are seeing here at Skinwalker Ranch also delves into topics involving consciousness, the nature of consciousness and and whether there is something much more complex as far as our existence and uh and and how that may play out in the environment at Skinwalker Ranch. I don’t think it’s any coincidence, is it, that after the National Institute of Discovery Science, Robert Bigalow, the predecessor owner of Skinw Walker Ranch, he’s now funding incredible research into consciousness, isn’t he? Yeah. Millions of dollars. In fact, he has uh established essentially an endowment to uh to award millions of dollars to those who are conducting groundbreaking research into the afterlife and and really into the nature of consciousness itself. Uh that’s probably a key indicator as far as where some of these topics go and trying to to understand our place in the universe and and really this planet. uh the fact that we appear to be monitored by beings by intelligence of unknown origin that has command over space time uh has command over technology and equipment. I mean we’ve seen at Skinwalker Ranch closed very very complex uh scientific devices and computing systems manipulated instantaneously. uh closed systems that uh that have been uh malfunctioning and and also completely uh reprogrammed uh resulting in some very very disturbing uh events on the property and you know everything from astronomers. We had the Salt Lake Astronomical Society professionals out as well as as I mentioned earlier the largest drone operator in the world which is Sky Elements that has deployed more drones instrumented drones in service to understanding what is happening above the property. Uh, and you’re going to see as the season unfolds and we reveal the most recent events at Skinwalker Ranch in season 5 of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch starting this next week. Uh, some of the most uh, I think terrifying incidents that have ever been reported, if not documented, and some new insights and discoveries. Well, can I ask you this then, Brandon?
I’ve spoken to people who’ve worked at the ranch who’ve described how people who’ve been in combat, people who’ve seen death, people who’ve seen the darker side of humanity, they’re often the people that the phenomenon latches on to. You talked about the hitchhiker effect and there’s one guy in particular, I won’t name him to respect his privacy, but he describes how he was followed home by some kind of paranormal hitchhiker. And his wife and family witnessed what could only be described as a a kind of a werewolf creature in the front garden uh looking up at the house.
It does beg the question to me, is this phenomenon something that we should be investigating? I can I can hear in my head religious people, Tim Burchett might be one of them, saying, “These are demons. These are evil.” Has it ever crossed your mind that you might be dealing with something that’s malevolent, evil, that doesn’t want to be investigated?
uh you know assigning intent and sc assigning cause to these events as they unfold uh is is difficult. Um I believe that science will ultimately give us the answers. Using the scientific method and following that method and being led by the data and not just stories or an inherited narrative will be an important part of getting to the truth and really focusing on the truth on on on really gathering the reality uh of you know all of the collective data that has been assembled on this property. I mean, a lot of people who preceded me have uh documented and recorded activity out in the UN basin and even this property. We brought in retired uh law enforcement. You know, the former deputy sheriff who responded to events of bizarre cattle mutilations and even UFO activity on this particular property going back in the 1980s. This is preeding the Shermans who sold it to Robert Bigalow. I mean, this is this is back when this property wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Uh wasn’t the topic of any news story, uh but was experiencing and reporting strange activity that continues to this day. And we consider it a privilege uh to be involved with this. I consider my ownership a stewardship I don’t really look at myself as the owner, but rather the steward of this property. I believe I’ve been given a responsibility to conduct myself and to direct my team to to address these topics uh with with reverence with the right type of professionalism and approach and and I believe that uh that the public has a right to know and that uh we as human beings on this planet are ready to explore the next frontier. And the next frontier I believe is is really identifying and understanding the nature of reality of it itself and whether we truly are alone in the universe. What is our role in the cosmos? Now Brandon, you’re you’re very kind with your time and I’m really keen to keep you on just for a couple more questions if possible. So please tell me if you do have to bolt.
No, but fire away. One thing I’m really interested in drawing you on is eminent domain.
Um, one of the arguments that came up during the debate about the Schumer legislation in Congress last year, one of the reasons why there was opposition to the Schumer legislation that would have allowed for greater protection for people coming forward, whistleblowers coming forward with evidence of an alleged legacy retrieval reverse engineering program. One of the objections that came up was that the legislation imposed imminent domain. And I I know one of your colleagues, Travis Taylor, has been quite outspoken in um expressing his opposition to the eminent domain and he kind of got slept down about it, but the lawyer in me kind of agrees with him. To be perfectly honest, I I found it worrying that the state that the state felt that it had the right to confiscate any technology that might have been recovered. And I I guess this would include skinwalker ranch as well because presumably any evidence. Yeah. Any that that would include any evidence or data. And I don’t think people understand the the consequences of giving that much power and overreach to to government authorities um to just immediately sweep in. Uh I believe that our best our best uh chance of seeing real disclosure and advancement relative to these frontier topics is going to come from the private sector because for decades I mean for likely the last 70 80 years there has been an active disinformation campaign to discredit those who’ve been involved with these topics and I believe that the truth associated with these topics especially or or specifically ically within government channels, within the public sector. I I don’t believe any of that will come forward regardless of congressional hearings, foyer requests, or anything of the sort.
Uh I I believe that the private sector has the best chance of bringing this forward and I’d hate to see some overreaching, overaggressive eminent domain clause that would render a privately funded investigation like mine uh not only completely terminated, but any evidence associated with that investigation to be sequestered off into some program that will never see the light of day. We’ve already we’ve already heard numerous accounts where that has occurred in the past.
Brandon, can I ask you about your opinions of the Arrow historical review report that came down a few weeks ago which essentially debunked all of this basically saying there’s no evidence and it leads the reader to the suggestion that all of the people and we’re talking here about prominent scientists like Dr. Eric Davis, Dr. Travis Taylor, uh, people like Jay Stratton, um, Jim Latsky, all of Hal Putoff, all of the people who at different times have either had dealings with Skinwalker Ranch or taken an interest in the phenomenon associated with it. What do you say to the notion that is being pushed, I think, quite mischievously by the Pentagon, by the ARO office, through the opaces of Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick pushing this line that this is just a whimsy that these are people who should not be taken seriously that they’ve misled letters by the nose into spending millions of dollars of taxpayers money in what is some kind of counterintelligence disinformation operation. Uh it’s nonsense. They they debunked one thing. I mean the report debunked nothing. it it completely avoided and dismissed uh countless events and pieces of evidence that have been amassed over decades. Uh it completely ignores uh using the the scientific method and looking at those events that have occurred repeatedly those reports that have been brought forward. I mean, how how they can uh and any report can can simply dismiss the testimony of decorated fighter pilots, law enforcement, and others. Uh is it’s amusing to me, but it’s no surprise. It shouldn’t come as any surprise. As I was mentioning earlier, if anyone believes that disclosure is going to come through those channels, they are they are ignorant. uh because the military-industrial complex and forces that have been behind suppressing the evidence relative to the reality of the phenomena have been busy at work for a long time and they have everything to lose. There is Ross, there is nothing to be gained by any of those entities uh by having these things disclosed to the general public. I don’t believe that uh uh the secret keepers and those who profit uh from controlling material related to these topics have any motivation whatsoever. And I think that uh uh again the the best the best uh hope is the private sector which is always been the case. I mean it’s not that you see uh most cutting edge innovation or uh or big thinking coming from the government. Uh when did we ever think that uh that our greatest discoveries would come through the federal government or the answers? I think uh even though it plays an important role uh we have to look other places unfortunately.
I know in the in the in the series you sometimes make reference to the idea that you are being observed that it appears that there are sometimes defense military helicopters taking a close interest in the site.
Have you had anyone from government, military, defense aerospace intimidate you, threaten you, try and shut you down? You know, it it isn’t just an idea or speculation. It’s an absolute fact that we’ve we’ve experienced covert military activity in conjunction with our experiments and research over the property. When you have a Blackhawk helicopter, an unmarked Blackhawk helicopter that is not transponding that descends and hovers right over the property at low altitude while we have a a a guidance in effect because of rocketry and other things that we have clearance in the area to to conduct that would that would divert any air air traffic to other to other locations. But we see, you know, we see for, for example, Blackhawk helicopters, uh, army shinook, special ops helicopters, other military aircraft that are monitoring us. I would say that, uh, it it’s confirmation that there’s something going on here that uh, there are many people that are interested and entities that are interested in what is happening at Skinwalker Ranch. uh which which gives us some cause for pause. I mean there are members of my team that uh that are very concerned about the the monitoring activity that we have observed and we have documented. Um but we remain vigilant and we’re not going to be intimidated. We’re certainly not going to stop or or dial down our investigation. We are more dedicated than ever, especially based on the events that have occurred. the last year that we are now going public with for the first time. I think the public is going to be shocked by what we are about to unveil and not only because of the data and the evidence but also some of the events that were truly disturbing that involve danger that uh that uh without giving away anything were uh were quite harrowing. So, I uh I’m very excited to unveil uh transparently what we’ve been documenting, what we’ve been experiencing at Skinwalker Ranch. We explore regions of that property that have never been touched or explored and uh we’ve had some surprising insights as a result. So, we’re looking forward to the days ahead and I uh look forward to a follow-up conversation to answer any questions as these uh these events unfold. Well, I think all of us are cheering you on and hoping that you can provide some really good scientific data that helps prove and validate this phenomenon. The one thing I am skeptical about though, I mean, I agree with you that it has to come from the private sector. I think government is hopeless. I think there’s very little prospect of any positive affirmation from government about what this really is. But you’re quite clear, just before we go, I want to pin you down on one thing.
You’re quite clear that you believe there’s been an ongoing government cover up and disinformation. That’s not some wacky conspiracy theory. You’re seeing it. You’ve experienced it. You think it’s real. Why? Yeah.
Why? Why not? Why Why can’t Joe Biden come out and just say, “Look, ladies and gentlemen, we know what’s happening at Skinwalker Ranch is real. We know there is a non-human intelligence. Why not just come out and admit it?” I I believe that even our own elected officials are are rendered helpless because they don’t have a quote need to know unquote.
Even our presidents uh in this day and age don’t have a need to know and and do not have access to to the material and the data relative to these topics. anyone who does their due diligence and and thoughtfully reviews all of the historical data that has been pulled together. And there are a lot of people, a lot of historians, a lot of researchers that have done the heavy lifting, that have the receipts that uh that have been able to document the reality of of not only government involvement and cover up, but the fact that it continues to this day that there is an active effort to discredit those whether they be, you know, pilots, uh, military personnel, law enforcement.
I mean there there is an active effort to I believe suppress a lot of this um information. I mean I I have I’ve met with countless pilots that have had experiences, firsthand experiences relative to UFO activity in our airspace that are terrified to go public because they don’t want to lose their jobs. They don’t want to come under any scrutiny.
There is such a negative stigma associated with these topics and it’s all been programmed. It’s all part of a very methodical, well-crafted and well-funded disinformation campaign that has involved the media and uh and really even members of the private sector for a very very long time. Well, I for one sir applaud your courage, especially if from your position in business as a prominent businessman with Collier International dealing with corporate clients. Clearly, it’s not damaging your business. In fact, I suspect it’s elevating your profile and hopefully in the long run, it’s going to lead to some kind of vindication. Brandon Fugal, thank you so much for speaking to Reality Check and we’re looking forward to this new series of the show and hoping that we get some fascinating adventures along the way. Look forward to unveiling our discoveries and appreciate your support.
Uh look forward to uh the days ahead. Take care. Good to talk to you, sir. Thank you.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Brendan Fugal as much as I did. It’s intriguing that a businessman like him has with the risks that he’s taking with his reputation is putting his reputation on the line to do what he’s doing, which is after all good datadriven empirical scientific investigation. Good on him for doing it.
I can only applaud. Now, we of course have many many viewer questions and I can never answer all of them, but um there are uh a lot of questions today that I’d like to respond to. Um uh here’s one.
Why the footage is always so short. The man describes the objects hover hovering above the base. This is Jonathan Butner. This is all in reference to Jonathan Butner, the witness we interviewed for Reality Check last week, talking about what he saw all over Langley Air Force Base. Anomalous orb, orange orb objects hovering over one of our most sensitive Air Force bases on the eastern coast of the US. And this gentleman asks why the footage is always so short. The man describes the objects hovering above the base, yet the constantly repeating video is showing the object moving to the left. Dot dot dot. I I get the point of the the viewer. Um the simple fact is as Brandon Fugal has just told us, often in the emotional circumstances of seeing one of these objects, a lot of people I’ve noticed this, a lot of experiences say it takes a while for them to even think about picking up a camera. Now, Jonathan Butner, uh, when he took the images that he did take, he took a lot more than he was giving us, and I’ve I’ve got a large amount of extra vision, and maybe we should have run some of it a bit longer. There was longer vision that was provided to us. The problem is, let’s be honest about it, mobile phone cameras are crap. They’re not very good at recording imagery. So, next time anyone’s looking at Langley Air Force Base, please take a Flur infrared camera. They’re only 150 200 grand and make sure that you get highquality highresolution images for our viewers. I completely agree with you. I’m only being sarcastic. It it’s very very important that we do start trying to monitor these bases in a much more methodical way because since that story aired, I’ve had dozens of emails from people telling me about other Air Force bases, including Nellis Air Force base, another very important US Air Force base, where these exact same objects are being seen by witnesses, and they’re in touch with me at the moment. Uh, next question. Even though this isn’t an admission of a retrieval, reading between the lines, an event must have occurred to justify the work of putting a program together and allocating a budget. And I think that’s in reference to the recent Kona Blue revelations. Uh Kona blue are documents. It’s not a Hyundai in Australia. A Kona is a Hyundai car. So, it’s quite funny when people start talking about Kona Blue, we immediately start thinking about Hyundai. But no, Kona Blue was a top secret code name for a proposed special access program, which was going to be a secret program involved in researching and monitoring anomalous phenomena, including UAPs, UFOs. And look, the simple fact is that this question is suggesting that there is an admission of a retrieval. No, it’s not.
I I think it has to be clearly stated that Kona Blue never happened. It got kaibosed. Somebody, probably the Department of Defense, intervened. The Department of Homeland Security was taking extremely seriously the possibility that that there were anomalous phenomena. They were approached by people. I suspect Jim Latsky from the DIA. I’m not sure for certain, but they were approached by people and and they took it very very seriously. There was a briefing given in a skiff and um frankly they were convinced enough to consider allocating the money. But for some reason, the program got axed. And as Brandon Fugles just told us, we really shouldn’t be holding our breath waiting for government to do much more funding of this kind of research. There are very clever scientists out there and let’s be honest about it. Most of them are in the private sector. That’s where the money is. Let’s use those scientists. Let’s not be shy about it. Ross, what happened with those whistleblowers you personally know and these programs that you talked about 11 months ago, the ones that you’ve said have been hands-on with Alien Crafts. When will you bring one of these people on the show?
Watch this space. I’m afraid guys, you’re just going to have to be patient. As I keep on saying, yes, there are whistleblowers and yes, there are people going through the defense office pre-publication security review process and yes, hopefully at some stage these people will have the courage to feel okay about coming forward. But when you see the disgraceful way that the defense department has tried to shaft any effort to take this seriously, can you blame whistleblowers for being nervous about coming forward? When you see the way that David Grush has been the subject of quite disgraceful attacks on his credibility, on his reputation, on his mental ill mental state, it’s just appalling. I I don’t blame whistleblowers for being scared about coming forward. And in fact, sometimes I’ve actually discouraged people from from doing it because you know they’re going to get shafted. You know that they’re going to lose their job. I’ve encouraged people to speak to Senate investigators, to House investigators to give their evidence in confidence to the Congress. Frankly, that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere at the moment. But what I can tell you without giving away too much is Congress is taking this very seriously, a lot more seriously than is being publicly disclosed. There is a willingness to engage. They want to see the evidence. And if you are a whistleblower, feel free about approaching me. I’m very happy to pass you on to the right people. And hopefully at some stage, just to appease our angry viewer, at some stage hopefully these whistleblowers will feel okay about coming forward. But I do want to caution, this isn’t entertainment.
This isn’t some reality show making up for your entertainment. These are courageous public servants who are making a very hard decision about whether they come forward to reveal a secret about what I believe is the biggest story in human history. And frankly, I don’t give a flying fig if people think it’s all nonsense. If they try and dismiss it and say it’s all BS, go and have a rant about it. Sit in a corner and rant and steam and fume. We’re going to keep on digging and we’re going to get the answers. Thank you so much for joining me again on Reality Check. I hope you enjoyed Brandon Fugal. See you next week.
I really do believe that these aliens can actually live up in the skies and I do believe that they do come down. There has to be something out there other than just us.
It feels like a little bit dumb to be like there’s nothing out there, you know, like there has to be something. We can’t be the only things that exist.
So, welcome back to Reality Check. I’m Ross Kulart. This week, we’re looking at a mystery that everybody in euphology with even a passing interest in the subject knows all about. We all know that 77 years ago, something happened near the town of Roswell, New Mexico. The rumor is it was a spacecraft, an alien spacecraft that landed somewhere in the desert and it was recovered by a local rancher called M. Brazzle and brought in to the local sheriff who at the time was a guy called George Wilcox. Well, 77 years on, the town, the city of Roswell has made a very interesting decision as simply because they’re the town that’s famous for where a spacecraft allegedly crashed in 1947.
And it’s become a town for people who are fascinated by the possibilities that it might be a location for extraterrestrial phenomena. The city’s police force has uniform patches, brand new uniform patches that frankly are out of this world. Unveiled very recently, the new patches reveal the official city logo of a flying saucer with a classic beam radiating down to form the letter R. The words protect and serve those that land here form a circle and are separated by two tiny alien faces with large eyes. Police Chief Lance Baitman joins us now. Good evening, police chief. How are you, sir? I’m good. How are you? Congratulations on what I I suspect is a very adventurous patch. What’s the reason for this decision? Why have you created this new patch?
Well, when I got chief last year um in the 1 of June, some of the questions I had were uh to the officers were what do you want to change with the department? You know, what kind of improvements and such we can make? And some of the people had mentioned they thought it would be good to change the patch. It’d been over 30 years since we had a a patch change. So, I opened it up and uh gave him the opportunity to design one. Uh we had a lot of officers and personnel that put in their designs and the command staff broke it down to four and then we let the officers vote on it and that’s the one that came out. Why aliens? Is it is it a big subject in Roswell even today 77 years on from this mystery incident? Yeah, you know, we we pretty much put it out whatever they wanted to design we’d look at and a lot of them put the alien theme on there. that’s a big part of our our community probably for the last 30 years or so. Um it’s a big tourist uh destination for people that want to come look at the UFOs. So wasn’t so much when I was a kid growing up here, but it’s grown uh a lot in the last 30 30 plus years. I I guess. So what do you know, sir, about the story of what happened 77 years ago that the US Air Force has tied itself up in knots. over the years giving four different explanations, all of which contradict each other, for what they say happened at Roswell in 1947. What What do you know about what allegedly happened there?
That’s pretty much all I know is uh what I’ve seen on TV. Uh people talk around here. Uh, I think a lot of those people back in the day, some retired here in Roswell and I I would hear stories growing up. Um, a lot mostly from the TV shows, but um, you talk to a handful of our residents and they believe in it.
Some don’t. Um, you know, it’s probably a question that may never get answered. I don’t know.
Have you ever had anybody whisper in your ear, sir, that there’s something more to this? I mean, I’ve I know because I know an awful lot of the Roswell researchers who’ve spent a lot of time in the city and the surrounding areas talking to witnesses. There have been over the decades many witnesses who’ve come forward claiming that they were aware that there were alien bodies recovered and alien spacecraft secretly recovered by the US military and taken away and hidden somewhere. What what do you make of those kind of allegations?
You know, I don’t know. Uh like I said, some people believe. I don’t know if I do or not. Uh some I’ll probably never know about. My father actually was stationed at Walker Air Force Base in the 60s. And growing up, you never heard about this until probably the early 90s. I think it was brought back up. So, I didn’t really hear about it as a kid. He never mentioned anything as a kid, you know, being on the Air Force base down here. So, um, it’s popped up in the last 30 years. Some people are steadfast that they believe in it. Uh, and some people, you know, e either way, I think it’s it brings a lot of money into Roswell every year. So, I think they’ll one way or another, they’ll keep it going.
So, you haven’t had the men in black knock on your door and tell you that it’s not very welcome for you to put this on your new patch. Nobody’s trying to stop you from from putting aliens on your new uniform patch.
No, we’ve gotten a little I wouldn’t say push back. Uh some of the retired Rosal Police Department uh you know, people they don’t like the design as much. Some of the community I’ve seen uh posts on social media not liking it, but a majority of the people that have seen it on the uniform. We’ve started transitioning um have given good feedback and we’ve actually received a lot of emails from police officers around the nation wanting to uh get one of our patches. So overall, I think it’s been positive. Well, sir, I can tell you I I think you’re going to have quite a salailable item on your hands. I don’t know if police patches are sellable, but if you were at all interested, I’m sure there’s going to be a long queue of people with an interest in the UFO UAP subject who are going to want a copy of the Roswell City Police patch. Is it going to be up for sale? We’ve actually talked about that. We’re still going to have more discussions, but you know, of course, patches cost money, and it’d be a good way to supplement uh us buying patches for our uniformed people. So, uh patch collecting and law enforcement is a a big thing nationwide, probably worldwide. Uh so, I think it could be, I wouldn’t say profitable, but help us uh pay for our patches and some equipment.
Chief, have you in your time in Roswell ever had cause to wonder if some of the many people that you pick up and arrest for different offenses might just be a slightly different person from a humanoid? You haven’t picked up any aliens in your time.
A lot of the people we run into, uh, we probably question every day, our officers, uh, um, you know, I think it’s every community. I think some of these people um are so far off that they may be from another planet. So, yes, uh our officers run into people every day like that.
Do do you get do you get ever sick of the fact that there’s such a focus on aliens in Roswell? I mean, as I understand it, it’s a beautiful part of New Mexico. Uh it’s fantastic scenery, fantastic local desert. Uh, does it does it annoy you at any stage that the focus in Roswell is so much on this myth that goes back 77 years? No, me personally, not really. Uh, and a lot of the businesses here down in Main Street, you know, they kind of strive off that. So, if it helps them and brings in some money for the community, I’m all good for it. You know, uh, it may get a little annoying when you have a lot of people come for the UFO festival. Um, but you know, it’s good for the town, good for the city. So, um, I don’t think it takes anything away from the community. There’s good people that live here. Uh, our officers, you know, that’s some of the feedback of you’re putting this patch on with alien stuff and it’s taken away from, you know, their reputation and stuff, which I disagree. You know, they were the ones that designed it. They wanted it like that. We got a terrific police force here. uh hardworking, dedicated, and um I don’t think a patch can take away what they do every day. I think the majority of the community sees that and I’m very proud of them and I’m happy, you know, they voted on it and designed it. Um I’m happy they can wear it and we’ll see how long uh one of these years down the line maybe they design another patch. You know, we’ll just have to see.
So, let’s roll back. Let me give you a quick history lesson, sir, and roll back 77 years to late June, early July 1947.
We don’t know the exact date for sure, but we know that sometime in that period, a local rancher, M. Brazzle, found wreckage on his property in Lincoln County, New Mexico, very near Roswell, about 75 miles north. and he claimed that the wreckage was pieces from a lot of what had been speculated in the media at the time were flying sauces that had been seen in the sky and um he brought it in some of the material to Sheriff George Wilcox of Roswell who was the sheriff at the time. Sheriff George Wilcox alerted Colonel William Blanchard, the commanding officer of the Roswell Army airfield and the rest is history, sir. a massive conspiracy began 77 years ago. And as I understand it, you don’t know what George Wilcox said about this whole saga. Is that correct?
I don’t know. Uh, you know, like I said, I’ve seen a couple movies and documentaries on it. Uh, don’t remember the names. I do remember Mac Brazzle’s name uh and some of the Air Force people. So, uh, I don’t remember the sheriff off hand. No worries. Well, I can tell you that what happened was at first instance the Army airfield, the Roswell Army Airfield, which was the predecessor to the US Air Force, they released a statement saying that they had in fact recovered a flying disc and they’d gained the disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Shaes County. That was George Wilcox. And apparently Sheriff Wilcox told his family multiple times that he saw both a spaceship and dead aliens, some dead and some still alive. And he told his family that he was told to remain quiet and that their lives, his and their lives were threatened if they ever spoke about it publicly.
What I’m intrigued about is, and it’s a bit of fun. Please play along in good humor, sir. I I’m not trying to lead you into a dark conspiracy, but if 77 years on a local rancher walked in with wreckage from what he said was a flying disc, would you let the military shut you down, sir?
Uh, probably probably not. It’s a different day and age. Uh, now stuff would get on social media. That rancher would probably have it on social media before they ever reached here. But, um, you know, it’s hard to even want to reach out to the government on stuff nowadays. So, uh, probably, uh, it’d end up on social media before the government ever got contacted. I’ve never met you before, sir, but I have read an awful lot about Sheriff George Wilcox, your predecessor from 1947. And the interesting thing about it is his whole family have spoken publicly about what he revealed to them, of what he saw. His two daughters have given evidence. One of them’s described holding in her hand something called memory metal. And apparently this piece of memory metal when you squeezed it or deformed it, it would return back to the shape that it was originally in. And the funny thing is this piece of metal was apparently bobbing around the headquarters of the sheriff’s office. You haven’t got anything hidden in a cupboard there somewhere, have you, sir? Not here. Uh over at our sheriff’s department, they may have something hidden over there, but who knows with them. So um with us here nothing that I know of at least the fascinating thing is his two daughters gave evidence of how he told his wife in his and she wrote about this later in a book that that there was a cover up. Basically, he was threatened, told to keep quiet and um the mother in uh later on basically told the children and in fact a granddaughter that her her husband George had admitted that there’d been alien bodies recovered. It it scarcely seem seems possible as you say in this day and age that something like that could be covered up. But um I I think as you say, you know, social media these days makes it so possible for things to be broadcast before the narrative can be controlled. Is it possible? I mean, do you think it’s possible for things like that to be covered up in this day and age? I mean, is it even conceivable that something like that could be kept a secret? Do you think? You guys in the police officers are so open and transparent these days with everything that happens under police control. Is it even possible to keep secrets like that?
It probably is possible. You know, nowadays, local state law enforcement, we have to wear body cameras and turn them on a lot of times. Federal government doesn’t. So, um, I could definitely see the federal government, you know, me personally, I believe they probably have covered up some stuff, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they covered that up. So, um, yeah, wouldn’t surprise me if if they could. So 77 years on, sir, a gentleman walks into your office with a piece of flying saucer and says, “Sheriff, have a look at this.” And then the military come in and tell you, “I’m sorry, Sheriff. You’re not allowed to talk about this. It’s for national security. You’ve got to keep quiet about it.” What are you going to do, sir? Uh, you know, it’s tough question right there. Uh, knowing me, what are they going to do to me? uh you know 49 years old I can retire so I’d probably uh have blasted it on social media already um if it was you know from a flying saucer you know if it was something with you know doing with national security maybe I’d keep it quiet the thing I find fascinating about Roswell is it was the Roswell Army Air Force Bomber Wing that were responsible for dropping the bombs on Japan the nuclear weapons on on Japan and for a It was the only part of the United States military that that had nuclear weapons, deployable nuclear weapons from aircraft. Did you know that history at the Roswell Army Airfield?
I knew it a little. It was a B2 bombers or something uh base. Uh I don’t know a lot of history about it. Like I said, my father was stationed there back in the early to mid60s. And um so I’ve heard a little bit about it, but not in big detail. I wouldn’t be doing my job, sir, if I didn’t ask if your father had suspicions himself that that things were being withheld. What What did he say from his time on the Air Force? He never brought anything like that up. Like I said, it wasn’t talked about probably for 30 years or so after. It kind of died off, I think, as far as I know. And then didn’t get brought back up. I think early 90s, maybe. Even growing up, you didn’t hear about the UFO stuff.
So, when will the new uniform patches be formally put onto uniforms? Are they out already? Yeah, they’re starting. We We ordered a small amount just to make sure they looked good on the uniform. Um, we ordered 8,000 more to outfit the rest of the department and all officers will have all their uniforms changed over, I believe, by August 1st. Well, sir, I think a lot of people around the world and around America would like to thank you for showing good humor and um I I think a a good sense of fun in putting this on your new patch. And uh I congratulate you for for for having a sense of humor and for I think also acknowledging what I think is a very important part of Roswell’s town history. No, I appreciate the time and uh you know it’s if you don’t accept it, laugh about it and stuff uh you know it’s just going to probably drive you nuts. So good glad to do it.
So Chief, thank you so much for joining Reality Check. And can I say I think if an alien did turn up in Roswell perhaps again, they’d feel welcome because they’d see that the town of Roswell is an open-minded place. And as you say in the uh brief that you’ve put together, I think there’s a line that you actually have, it says, “Protect and serve those that land here,” which I think is an honorable motto.
No, I appreciate that. you know, that’s what our sergeant that designed it came up with. Some people were, you know, trying to correct our grammar online, but it is what it is. So, that’s on there and that’s what’s going to stay on there. Well, sir, it’s nice to be able to hold you to a promise that if aliens do land in Roswell, you’ll be the chap that puts it out on social media first. So, thank you once again for joining us on Reality Check. Why not? Why not? But no, I appreciate the time. So before we go this week, I’d like to respond to a few of the questions that came in from our viewers in response to our analysis, our investigation of the Malaysian MH370 mystery, the disappearance 10 years ago of a commercial trip 7 passenger jet somewhere either in the South China Sea or if you believe the official version somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. So one of the comments that we got a question was what is the reason why transponders are able to be turned off by pilots. Look transponders are part of the way in which we track aircraft in our skies and they are constantly displaying during flight. They’re switched on by the pilots as part of the automatic checking process. And it’s a good question. Maybe we should have an automatic transponder that can’t be switched off. But um certainly in the MH370 case, the evidence is that something happened to turn off the transponder, which meant that the commercial jet disappeared from the display on the radar screens that were being used by the controller in both Koala Lumpa and Vietnam. And that meant that the track the plane was only being tracked by military radar. And for some reason, somebody was asleep at the wheel at Butterworth, the nearby army base in Malaysia, which should have picked up the aircraft flying overhead at the time. But one of the things that has been discussed and still is being discussed is ways of improving the detection of modern commercial passenger aircraft. Military planes have to be able to turn off their transponders because they obviously want to remain stealthy with a potential foreign adversary. So, let’s move on. How about filing an FOI request with the US government on flight MH370 and seeing how redacted the documents are? I wonder if this has already been done. Look, it’s a nice idea. A lot of people have a lot of faith in freedom of information. I’m a huge FOI skeptic. Frankly, I’ve seen myself both here in Australia, I’ve done FOIs in the US as well and in the UK and Europe. Frankly, if governments don’t want you to get some information, they’re not going to give it to you under FOI just because you ask for it.
And you often have to appeal to keep on pushing to get the release of information that really ought to be released. And it ends up being incredibly costly. So frankly, my personal opinion is that more often than not, FOI is a waste of time and money. Journalistically, it’s no longer the good that it used to be in terms of exacting information. The only way FOI works for me is when somebody on the inside, they don’t want to leak me the document, but they say, “Look, if you ask for this specific bit of paper with this particular title on it, we’ll make sure you get it.” And that’s the way FOI works. It’s kind of an official leak if you like. But frankly, most of the time I think FOI is a complete waste of time. How does it take 3 years to find a single and first piece of debris? That’s a very good question.
It is odd, isn’t it, that the first piece of debris that was found, I think in late 2015, early 2016, was the flapperon on Reunion Island in the middle of the Indian Ocean near Maitius.
And it was a huge lump of debris. It does strain credibility and I agree it’s extraordinary that these large lumps of plane were missed. And look, I’ve got friends who’ve flown on the Royal Australian airflights deep into the Indian Ocean looking for records shortly after the crash. And they tell me that the water there, the ocean was so wild, there were waves leaping 40, 50, 60 ft in the air. The idea that a piece of debris could remain intact in the way that these pieces of debris have remained intact strains credibility with me. And in fact, one of the things I want to mention, I didn’t go into this in the story, is there’s been a very, very interesting analysis of the mollisks done of the shellfish that stuck to the flapperon as it crossed the Indian Ocean. And one thing that’s fascinating, there’s a great article by a friend of mine, Jeff Wise, in New York magazine last month where he looks at research that’s been done by Australian scientists, which analyzes the length of the growth of the mollisks that were found on the flapperon. And the duration of time that the flapperon was in the water is totally inconsistent with the length of the mollisks found on the flapperon that was recovered on Reunion Island. It’s more consistent with warmer water to the north of the Indian Ocean. And that’s a mystery that to this day still hasn’t been resolved. Science is always imperfect. So it may be that there’s a plausible explanation. But I think the shelfish mollisk analysis is one that ought to be taken seriously. There are scientists in Australia who do not think it is credible that the flapperon crashed in what’s called the seventh ark uh just to the west of Perth in the deep southern Indian Ocean and then drifted across to Reunion Island.
The growth of the shellfish on the flapperon is totally inconsistent with that analysis.
Another question is what was the motive? Well, that’s a good question. A very, very good question and it’s one reason why I decided to bring Florence to Shoni, the Leond newspaper correspondent into our analysis. I’ve long been very strongly a proponent of the rogue pilot theory. the idea that someone possibly probably Captain uh Zahari Ahmed Shard, the chief pilot of MH370 on that night, for some perverse reason decided to commit a horrific act of mass murder and suicide and that he controlled landed the plane onto the ocean trying to make it sink uh as intact as possible after a long flight leading to fuel starvation.
The only problem with that theory and Florence Tashi goes into this in great detail in her interview with me and in her excellent book is the family of Captain Zahari Ahmed Sha say there’s absolutely no motive that the claimed political motive that he had a deep resentment against the existing corrupt government of Malaysia and that he wanted democracy brought to Malaysia that’s not consistent at all with his personality. He wasn’t the forceful political activist that some people have painted him as. Yes, the controlled landing theory is probably on the Okam’s razor principle, the simplest explanation principle. It’s probably the most plausible explanation for how the plane disappeared. But I think the motive question is a good one. And I think we have to keep an open mind on the motives behind whoever it was that did land the plane on the water doing what they did. If that’s the explanation, if you believe Florence Deson’s conspiracy theory, Florence believes that there was an elaborate cover up and that in all likelihood the Flapperon and other pieces of wreckage have been planted. I have a saying in my line of work. It’s a slightly more vulgar term in in private company, but publicly we would say always assume a screw-up before a conspiracy. And I do think it’s very hard to to hide a conspiracy. Most secrets have a way of bubbling to the surface. So, I still cling to the idea that the most plausible explanation for what happened to MH370 was that someone went crazy and decided to kill all of the passengers and crew and themselves and do a controlled landing on the water, which explains the damage to the flapperon and other debris. And it also explains why the plane has not been found in any of the areas where it’s been looked for. Perhaps a rogue pilot did a controlled glide well beyond the existing search area and put the plane down on the water in the course of which the right wing broke off and the flapperon was detached and that’s how it ended up in Reunion Island. There’s a hell of a lot of ifs there and I agree completely with the questioner. There’s a very dubious motive. So that’s it for reality check this week. Thank you so much for watching.
I’m really enjoying the audience feedback. It’s fantastic to get your responses. If you’ve got any tips that you’d like us to investigate for Reality Check. It doesn’t have to be about UFOs, UAPs. It can be about any mystery that takes your fancy. Please get in touch and get in touch with us. Let us know what you think. We love to hear from you. Thank you again. Lovely to talk to you.
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