00x04 - Behind the Gates: Simply the Beast

[bunniefuu]

We have a spiral right here

that's been put
into this ground.

That spiral is indicative of...

A portal, a dimensional rift,
uh, an opening.

TRAVIS: Our team has heard
Native American testimony

that interdimensional portals
exist here on Skinwalker Ranch.

Travis, you-you got to see this.

TRAVIS: And then,
we've witnessed UAPs...

Look right here.

Literally vanish into thin air.

Oh, my gosh. It disappeared.

TRAVIS:
What did it disappear into?

We've been told stories

about buried extraterrestrial
bases and craft.

Now, I'm up against
something pretty hard right now.

THOMAS: Look
how big that chunk is.

BRYANT: Are we
chipping away at something

much larger under the mesa?

TRAVIS: And then,
we found evidence

of a huge metal object
deep inside the mesa.

ROLAND: I followed the tracks
and then, all of a sudden it turned

from human
footprints to like a wolf.

TRAVIS: And tonight,
we're clawing our way

into another incredible
legend about Skinwalker Ranch

that, believe it or
not, may also be true.

What is that?

We're about to
find out what it is.

Look at those fangs.

♪

- Hi, Travis.
- Hey, Brandon. How you doing?

- Brandon Fugal. Nice to meet you.
- Yeah. How you doing?

The new owner of
Skinwalker Ranch.

I see you've been able to
get acquainted with our team.

- Yeah.
- When Brandon Fugal,

the owner of Skinwalker Ranch,

asked me to join
his team in 2019

and help investigate

the 512-acre property
in Northern Utah,

I was a skeptic about all
the legends related to UFOs

and portals and other
crazy phenomena

that had been reported
out there for centuries.

But since our own
government had partially funded

a prior investigation
of the ranch

that was led by billionaire
aerospace developer

Robert Bigelow from the
late 1990s to the early 2000s,

well, as a former scientist of
the Department of Defense,

I was intrigued
enough to give it a shot.

Well, so, one question
I have is why is it called

Skinwalker Ranch? What
is the-the lore of it, right?

Well, it's a
phenomenon, is what it is.

Goes back hundreds of years.

Native Americans
talk of shape-shifting

demonic entities
called skinwalkers

that take on the form of a
large werewolf-like creature

and also a number
of other shapes.

Wow.

Werewolf-like shape-shifters

on an old cattle ranch?

Just the idea was hard
to even imagine as having

any basis in reality.

So, this used to be a
very operational ranch,

where they had the cattle
they would process right here.

TRAVIS: But then I
heard a very specific story

that had been reported
by the Sherman family,

who owned the ranch
back in the 1990s.

There's a story
where a very large wolf

came in off the plains.

And a group of calves

were in this pen right here.

The wolf put his head through

and started pulling one of
the calves out of the fence.

The Shermans, seeing that,
the father then went inside,

got a weapon, and came
out and started sh**ting at it.

Point blank, you
know, right here.

sh**ting at the wolf.

Right, like a .357 and
then that didn't do anything,

so apparently it let them go
back in and get a bigger g*n,

and I guess that's
what it took to let it,

to make it drop the calf.

And the story goes
that this animal

was strong enough to withstand,

allegedly, six shots from a .357

and a couple shots
from a .30-06 r*fle.

So, they pursued after it,

and as they got to
the part of the ranch

where the river
bisects the property,

they could see tracks
going down the mud

and starting up the side of
the bank on the other side

and then disappearing
into nothing,

as if the thing
had just vaporized.

And so, there are rumors

and stories that have come out

about all sorts of really
fantastic happenings here.

TRAVIS: Another
story of an encounter

with a mysterious
creature came to us in 2020.

So, how does it feel
right now to be back here?

It's a little... I'm
a little nervous.

- Not-not, you know, to be honest.
- JIM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: when a local
member of the Ute Nation

named Roland McCook

shared an experience he had

while hunting on
Skinwalker Ranch

more than three decades ago.

How did it start? Tell us,
walk us through this little bit.

Well, when we was up there,
the weather was moving in,

and we was looking
for a place of shelter,

to get out of the weather.

And when we got in there,

while we was waiting,

I was looking out
the door, and I heard,

uh, like, scurrying.

[imitates scurrying]

Something moving, and I turn,

and then farther
in that back corner,

some stuff fell over,

just got knocked over.

I told him that sounds
bigger than a raccoon.

I took off, grabbed my g*n,

and out the door
I went after it.

- Wow.
- We were looking for tracks.

We noticed there
were human footprints.

- No shoes on.
- Wow.

- JIM: In the snow?
- In the snow, yeah.

And I followed the tracks,
and then, all of a sudden,

it turned from human
footprints to a big dog tracks.

Like a wolf.

And it came out, red eyes,
probably, like, eight feet tall,

and then it just,
it pointed at me.

Whatever it is, it
doesn't belong here.

We shot, we started sh**ting.

He had a semi-auto,
and pop, pop, pop, pop.

And all you hear
is the biggest roar,

just... [imitates roar]

Loudest roar I ever heard.

And after that, it just,

it was gone. We took off.

TRAVIS: Like many others,

Roland's story
was hard to fathom.

But not long after that,

we would find
something ourselves

here on Skinwalker Ranch

that suggested
these kinds of stories

really could be true.

THOMAS: I want to hear
everything that happened.

- CHRIS: Yeah, right here.
- I have photos of those if you'd like to see them.

- Yeah, I'd love to see those.
- Sure. Look at those,

- how deep those go down.
- Look at that. Oh, my gosh.

What the heck? Holy
crap, that just happened.

What's it like coming back?

It's pretty surreal
actually, you know.

It's kind of like being
back home a little bit.

You know, I lived and breathed
this property for six years.

After the incredible
stories we heard about

the Sherman family
and Roland McCook

encountering huge wolf-like
creatures on Skinwalker Ranch,

in 2021, we invited
Chris Bartel to come out

and share some of his
firsthand experiences.

I would love to show you
guys some of the things

that I went through

and important
aspects of the property.

TRAVIS: Chris was a
policeman with the U.S. Air Force

and also worked
on the security detail

of Robert Bigelow's
investigative team

on Skinwalker Ranch
back in the early 2000s.

CHRIS: Yeah, right here.

- This is the spot.
- Let's park here then.

We have this 20-year gap where

Mr. Bigelow owned the ranch
for which we know very little.

I think somebody that
spent six years here

is critical and
could be, uh, crucial

to helping us solve
some of the mysteries

that are here on the ranch.

I find it interesting that
you, uh, stop us here.

This is by a place
we call the triangle.

Been a place we've
done a lot of experiments

and research and had
a lot of interesting data.

So, I'm curious, tell me about
what you experienced here.

So, October of 2010,

we had a pretty good routine

where one guy
would do a normal run

through the property to get
kind of eyes on what's going on.

That day, the other
officer came back,

and he was like, "Hey, I-I
found some-some big prints

on top of the mesa."

And I'm like, "Okay, let's
go take a look at them."

We get to the top of here,
and we find these giant,

these pretty
good-sized canine prints.

I have photos of those
if you'd like to see them.

- Yeah, I'd love to see those.
- CHRIS: Sure.

Here, take a look at
this. You can see here.

Look at those, look
how deep those go down.

- KALEB: Look at that.
- THOMAS: Oh, my gosh.

So, that's about three
feet between step?

CHRIS: Mm-hmm.

And then, we had a
couple labs with us.

You can see here in the
top corner, the labs' prints.

KALEB: That thing's, like,
four times the size of those.

That's a very big canine.

I was here,

the other officer
was right there,

and the dogs were
kind of in between us.

And the other officer says,
"Chris, stop. I hear something."

Out of that ditch,

I hear a God-awful
guttural howl growl.

And I was, like,
frozen for a second,

so was the other officer,
and the dogs were all alerting.

The animal jumps
out of the ravine,

over the berm, and travels west.

This thing was probably
the size of a donkey, black.

Instinctively, the
dogs chase after it.

I run after the dogs.

We get around that
corner there, it's-it's gone.

- Wow.
- TRAVIS: Having a military veteran like Chris

give such an incredible

first-person
testimony to the team,

in addition to the
picture he shared

of a huge animal track,
was absolutely stunning.

But then, the following year,

Dragon and Kaleb Bench made
a discovery in the south field...

- BRYANT: Hey, Kaleb.
- TRAVIS: that revealed

even more compelling evidence

that mysterious predators
might be on the ranch.

BRYANT: What the heck?

KALEB: It looks fresh to me.

Holy crap, that just happened.

TRAVIS: Something
had just k*lled a deer

and left its carcass
scattered across the area.

BRYANT: I'll be curious to hear

what the vet thinks of it all.

- Should we head back?
- Yeah, okay.

TRAVIS: After
taking some photos...

- BRYANT: Hi, Haleigh.
- How are you?

BRYANT: Good.

TRAVIS: Dragon and Kaleb

sent them to veterinarian

Haleigh Lundgreen,

so she could examine them

and hopefully determine
what may have k*lled the deer.

She had examined
another dead deer earlier

in the year, which she
thought had definitely

died under strange
circumstances.

But this time, she had a
much more chilling report.

So, what do you think of the
latest pictures we sent you?

I think the scapula's
really interesting.

So, the scapula is
the shoulder blade.

There are two large holes
towards the top of that scapula.

And so are those canine
holes or teeth holes?

You know, that would
be a very strong animal

if that were the case.

Are coyotes... Do
they get big enough

where they could possibly
do this or are we talking

about something
bigger than that?

I would suspect that it would
be something bigger than that.

Wow.

We definitely have
also heard stories

of big wolves and
things of that nature.

You know, if you're talking
about that type of an animal,

that opens up a whole
different type of discussion.

- Yeah.
- HALEIGH: The other issue is,

if these are bigger predators...
cats, wolves, or otherwise...

then they're not afraid to
go after humans, as well.

So you definitely
have to make sure

you guys are safe.

TRAVIS: We protect
ourselves and are very careful

on the ranch because
you definitely would expect

to see dangerous wild animals
like mountain lions out here.

But the following year,

we would make another
discovery in the south field

that really made us take
Dr. Lundgreen's warning

very seriously.

What are you seeing?

Look at these tooth marks.

- Yeah.
- That is a tooth that bit all the way through.

Look on the other side here.

- See how that other side is shattered out?
- Oh, wow!

- Yeah.
- That's a lot of force.

It would have to be
larger than a wolf.

ERIK: We had a cow that
went down last October.

- Hmm.
- Uh, really kind of mysterious.

- And it just went down? Mm.
- And it just went down, yeah.

We'll get a chance for you
to really get your eyes on it,

put your mind on
it and see what sort

of insights you
can share with us.

Sounds good, yeah,
let's go take a look at it.

TRAVIS: As our
investigation continued

on Skinwalker Ranch

in 2023, we invited
biologist Ben Woodruff

from the Hutchings Museum
Institute in Lehi, Utah,

to examine the
carcass of a dead cow...

- Let's head on over.
- That had died

several months
earlier in the south field.

- Well, there's not much left, is there?
- Mm-mm.

Huh.

You know, I was expecting
to see only dry bone

but I guess there's a little
bit of that soft tissue left there.

When was it that
this cow died again?

ERIK: You know, it's
been about six months ago.

Okay.

But you don't know why it died?

ERIK: No.

So you've had that amount
of time of solar radiation

hitting what's left here,
but you still have wet tissue.

I was not expecting this at all.

Usually when an animal dies,

there's stages of decomposition
that should happen,

and they don't happen here.

TRAVIS: It was already
weird that Ben thought

the cow was decaying
at an unnatural rate.

But given all the lore
about strange creatures

that supposedly stalk the ranch?

What he noticed next
really stunned the team.

Look at these tooth
marks on these ribs

and on that scapula.

I mean, these all show
the teeth marks and this...

Look at this one, though.

What are you seeing?

That is a tooth that
bit all the way through.

- Look on the other side here.
- That's...

It's shattered out
of the other side.

See how that other
side is shattered out?

- ERIK: Oh wow, yeah.
- KANDUS: Mm-hmm.

BEN: That's a lot of force.

KANDUS: That's a big canine.

I'm just going to take it off.

If you look at how
thick this rib is,

the force that it takes
to go through that...

I mean, that would
break my teeth,

if I was trying to do that.

All these other
bites that you see,

these I can see
scavengers doing.

But this, the force that it
takes to go through that...

Well, that is a big, powerful
canine that's very pointy.

- TOM: So what kind of animal is that?
- I don't know.

This is not a species that
I have ever seen in Utah.

TRAVIS: It was amazing.

Ben thought that
whatever k*lled this cow

was potentially an unknown
species for the area.

BEN: I want to show
you some amazing things,

kind of give you the results
of, uh, of what we went over.

- Okay.
- TRAVIS: But when Erik Bard

and other members of the
team got Ben's follow-up report

at the Hutchings
Museum Institute,

it suggested that this predator
might not be from this era.

- Okay.
- So I wondered, "How did it die?"

We don't know, but the
really strange thing was the rib.

On this rib, there
was this hole.

So you see this right here?

That was a tooth mark.

- Mm-hmm.
- And on this side

over here is where you see
where it shattered outward.

- ERIK: Yes.
- So there's only a few animals

that would fit.

So I took some teeth

from coyotes and
from a black bear

and I rigged them
up in a drill press.

I didn't turn the
drill press on,

I just anchored them in
and then pushed it down

into this rib. So...

I want to show
you what happened.

These are the results.

So these are all coyote teeth.

And the big one is
a black bear tooth.

ERIK: So these look shattered.

They completely shattered
when I pushed down.

And I wasn't, like, going hard.

So, whatever went through this

was able to do it
without shattering.

So your options are...

And we talked about it before.

These shouldn't fit the
bill, but these are perfect.

This is a dire wolf, which
is an extinct species.

ERIK: I was not expecting
to hear these words

come out of Ben's
mouth, but what he told us

is the best match, structurally,

to what we've brought
to his laboratory

is in fact a dire wolf.

I have absolutely no
framework in which

to accommodate the
presence of an extinct species

on Skinwalker Ranch.

How is this even possible?

BEN: Now, I'm not
saying that you have

dire wolves running
around your ranch.

But I'm just saying,
biologically speaking,

that's what fits the bill.

TRAVIS: Ben's analysis
was wild, because a dire wolf

is the exact kind of
animal that the Shermans

claimed to have attacked
their cattle back in the 1990s.

But as objective as Ben's
analysis of the dead cow was,

it couldn't prepare us
for what we discovered

when we went back to
investigate the south field.

Erik, this is Thomas,
you got a copy?

Yeah, go ahead, Thomas.

Got all the equipment
strapped down

and ready to go and
we're entering the river now.

Yep, here we go.

TRAVIS: After biologist Ben
Woodruff gave his analysis

that a dire wolf,

which is thought to have
gone extinct 10,000 years ago,

may have been responsible
for the dead cow we found...

Man, this is not easy walking.

We decided to look for
clues in Dry Gulch Creek,

which runs through the south
field of Skinwalker Ranch.

Hey, Dragon, if you can,
c-cut us off a sample of that.

- Okay.
- TRAVIS: We took some samples

of a tree that had
strange burn marks,

but as we continued
further down the creek,

we made one of the
strangest discoveries

of our entire investigation.

- Whoa! What is that?
- What is that?

Right there.

THOMAS: What is that?

KALEB: Hard to tell.

TRAVIS: We're about
to find out what it is.

THOMAS: Look at those fangs.

BRYANT: Ew! God!

TRAVIS: We've got a
dead animal right here.

BRYANT: I wonder what that is.

Just a few hundred
feet down the river

from where I found
this burnt tree,

we came across some
sort of animal here

in late stages of decay.

As soon as we lifted
its head out of the water,

we saw massive canine teeth.

So we knew it was a
canine of some type,

but these teeth are pretty big.

It doesn't look like a
coyote or a dog to me.

So what is dead
here in the water?

TRAVIS: One week later,
Ben Woodruff gave us

his absolutely stunning report

based on the
jawbone of the animal

we found in Dry Gulch Creek.

BEN: I want to give you a
couple of examples here,

some comparative anatomy.

So this is a side view

of a typical coyote skull,

And I want you to focus
down here, at the bottom.

You can see this
bulge is not very big.

This is the part of the jaw

that undergoes the most stress

when these teeth here
are crunching down.

So keep that in mind,
keep the shape in mind.

This is a regular
modern-day grey wolf.

And they're tackling
larger prey up to the size

of moose or even a buffalo.

And you can see how
much larger that is.

And this is a dire wolf.

If you can see down below here,

how much larger that bulge is.

- TRAVIS: It's huge.
- THOMAS: Yeah.

BEN: Here is the
dentition on your jaw.

It has the much thicker,
larger bulge like a dire wolf.

TRAVIS: Look at that.

What?

Are you kidding me?

KALEB: No way!

BEN: I don't want to
put out a hypothesis,

but if you handed me this
and said, "Hey, what is this?"

Everything I'm measuring,
everything I'm looking at says

it looks like it
has dire wolf in it

or is a young dire wolf.

- ERIK Wow.
- TRAVIS: A dire wolf.

THOMAS: If we can
prove this is a legit dire wolf,

that would be the
first physical evidence

that we have been given
from anybody that suggests

that the Shermans
actually saw a dire wolf

trying to pull their
cows through the fence.

BRANDON: We are on the
verge of getting the very answers

that we've been
seeking for years.

We've made incredible
progress in documenting

the reality of the phenomenon.

We are just getting started

in scratching the surface of
what we are really dealing with

here at Skinwalker Ranch.

TRAVIS: Is the legend of
the skinwalker really true?

If you asked me that
before I joined this team,

I'd have probably laughed.

But as I sit here today,

all I can say is
that I'm both excited

and a little bit anxious

for what we might discover
out here next.