Somewhere in the Skies - I Was There: Area 51 and Skinwalker Ranch with Chris Bartel

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

We’re joined by U.S. Air Force veteran Christopher Bartel, a former employee of both Area 51 and Skinwalker Ranch, for a candid look behind the curtain of two of the world's most enigmatic locations. After eight years with Robert Bigelow's BAASS, including six stationed at Skinwalker Ranch, Bartel recounts the extraordinary events he witnessed, the Native American history he documented through his acclaimed Skinwalker Ranch Series photographs, and his unfiltered assessment of the investigations conducted there. He also confronts one of the ranch's most controversial claims: were he and his colleagues unknowingly used as human test subjects to measure the ranch's physical effects? It's a revealing conversation with someone who lived the mystery from the inside. Join us at ANOMACON on September 12th: http://www.anomacon.com Send us a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/SomewhereSkiesPod Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ Substack: https://ryansprague.substack.com/ All socials and books: https://linktr.ee/somewhereskiespod Email: [e-mail] Opening theme song by Septembryo Closing song by Per Kiilstofte Livestream music by Punch Deck: https://www.youtube.com/@PunchDeck Copyright © 2026 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. #Area51 #SkinwalkerRanch #Skinwalker #UFO #UFOs #UAP #Utah #SomewhereintheSkies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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For if we consider that astro-scientists agree on one point that the possibility of life elsewhere is not only quite probable, some feel is there without a doubt. Let us suppose them that these objects are real space vehicles, extraterrestrial origin, and not an illusion of the mind. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Chris, welcome for the very first time to Somewhere in the Skies. I appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. Now, you know, a lot of us have been keeping up with everything going on at Skinwalker Ranch as of late. You know, we've got the television show. The new owner has come out in the past few years to tell us about what's been going on. And we even learned that a government program funded the ranch for an amount of time, which I know you're going to have some stuff to say about as we get into it. But let's tell our viewers and listeners, if you don't mind, maybe a little about who you are and your connection to both Skinwalker Ranch and also the Nevada testing site and area 51. This is crazy when I heard that not only had you worked out at Groom Lake, but you also worked at this mysterious ranch in Utah.

You're like a UFO podcast dream guest. Yeah, man. Give us the origin story, if you don't mind. I guess right place, right time, I guess. But no, I was born and raised in small town in Kansas. And basically, when I got out of high school in 97, I joined the United States Air Force to be a security force's police officer. and that led me down to being stationed at Nellus Air Force Base in Las Vegas in 1998 as a main base police officer there. And I worked there from 1998 to 2006 active duty.

And during that time, I was also a cadre instructor for GCTS ground combat training squadron up in Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. And then in 2006 to 2009, I went to the IMA reserves for the Air Force. and then in 2006 is when I actually got hired with Department of Energy from the Nevada test site. And that kind of led me on the path. My reputation in the Air Force, it's, you know, Nellas Air Force base is a very unique base because obviously Nevada's got a lot of black world projects and stuff going on. So if you're working security or law enforcement out there, you kind of just kind of fall in line. There's other options, you know, you can work Metro, Las Vegas, or Northtown.

PD or you know, there's tons of different jobs. But I went down the DOE site because I had a lot of friends there. And that's who kind of got you in the doors. You kind of get vouched in. Like the friends like, hey, you should apply. And then so I started working there with the Nevada test site for several years. And then my wife, who I met in the Air Force, she was also a police officer at Nellis. And she got orders to Malstrom Air Force Base.

And so this is back in 2009, late 2009. So we go to Malmstrom Air Force Base because she's from Montana originally. So we thought this was a good move. And then we get to Malmstrom Air Force Base. And I don't know if you've been out there in Great Falls, Montana. But it's almost as flat as Kansas. Yeah. Pretty bad.

Yeah. Still some good folks out there. And we enjoyed our time out there. But she got pregnant with our first son. And the Air Force was kind of downsizing at that time. So they gave her the option to get out. And she was like, hey, I don't want to be a military mom always deployed. and never see my kid.

And I'm like, hey, I get that. Because there's a cop in the Air Force. You're gone all the time. So I'm like, well, that means I could better roll the dice back to Vegas because that's where all my connections are at. You know, I had a job lined up with the federal airmark or for the federal marshal service in Montana. But this is in 2009, 2010.

There was a federal hiring freeze. So then I started making phone calls back to Las Vegas. And the first person I called was my old Air Force supervisor. And I said, do you have any leads? You know, naturally, I was trying to go back

to the Nevada test site and he was like, well, no, everything was on hiring freeze, but he said, you might want to call this other guy who was another ex-Air Force supervisor

who worked for CSC, which had a contract for Air 51. So I call him up, and as I'm driving to Vegas, I get hired pretty much in route to Las Vegas with CSC for part-time work until a full-time job opened up

because I still had an active Q clearance, so that was a big positive. So when I got to Las Vegas, I end up making some more phone calls and then I reached another old Air Force buddy of mine who had this gig in Utah or for Bass and I applied and I

got the job to the interview and I was working both places at the same time I was working for 51 part time and then full time for Bass I needed a full-time job because I had a kid on the way so that's kind of a long roundabout way and then

a full-time gig open with CSC for the Janet detail and I worked out for a while and actually quit Bass. I quit Bass, went to CSC full-time to work the Janet detail, and then some pay issues came up, and I was forced to kind of go back to my previous job at Bass, that big oil space, and that's where I ended up, and I stayed there until I left in 2018.

And then I came here to Kansas, and I'm still currently a federal police officer out here. So that's kind of long, long, long, drawn-out question, but that's my career in an NFL. Well, it shows a dedication to something you're clearly very good at to be hired by places like this. Two questions to kind of piggyback off of that if you don't mind. Now, for any of our listeners, myself included, who aren't familiar with what acute clearance is. Now, we know there are different levels of classification.

What exactly is acute clearance? What can you tell us, I guess, of what acute clearance is? And what was like a day-to-day working security out in Area 51 with Janet and everything? Well, the Q, first, your first question, the Q clearance is kind of like just a DOE's version of a top secret clearance. It's got a little more weight to a normal T.S clearance, I guess, because you go through a very, very extensive background check. And you go through a very extensive academy to be a police officer out there, security police officer out there. So the washout rate's pretty high. So when you get a Q, it's like a golden ticket.

you can pretty much go anywhere. And a lot of people wants to get their queue, they go right to the Pentagon. It's a pretty easy transition because it's a very, it's like $20,000 to get a queue clearance. So if you have one,

it's beneficial, higher people who already have a clearance or can get one. So it's, so Q is just the version of the DOE's top secret, basically. The Jenna detail was basically,

you report down to the McCarran Airport and you work the, the site there with some other guys and do it normally what you do at a security airport like TSA and that's kind of what I can really say about that but yeah so the Nevada test site is

the sister site to 51 they're right next to each other they're like right next to each other so 51's in a very strategic location because you have Nevada test site and then you have Creature Air Force Base Toton Paw Test Range, Nellis Air Force Base you know the natural surrounding

mountains it's a perfect location to have a facility like that, you know. And it's all overlapping layers of security for basically one site. And the Nevada test site itself is the size of Rhode Island. That's how much area of responsibility you have out there. It's huge. A lot of, a lot of stuff out there. So with the test site, the Nevada test site,

you sign lots of NDAs going in and leaving that job. So there's not much really I can say about working for the Department of Energy and working out there at NTS. But I really enjoyed my time out there. I have a lot of friends out there and had a lot of great experiences and was a part of a lot of special access programs out there

and a lot of projects and it was a really eye-opener experience, you know, and you know, you think you do a lot of stuff for the DOD for the military and then you go into other organizations like DOE and it's like a whole different ballgame basically.

Right, yeah. I mean, the DOE is kind of that that carrot that's always dangling in front of the UFO people because we're like, they're the only ones that don't answer, you know, for like what they're doing. And it's understood to an extent. We understand. But, yeah, yeah, please.

Oh, I think what, Pete, and I get a little flag for this, but this is the reality of this situation here. It's like, you know, we want disclosure. And I'm for disclosure as well. But when you have a certain faction of people asking, like, for the government to release all the data or maybe maybe exposed technology that we have, and maybe it is alien. I don't know. I can't confirm that. But what you're really doing is you're jeopardizing national security to a point

because the overall objective for the United States Air Force and for the military industrial complex is air power global dominance. That's the overall objective. And that's how the United States keeps control and keeps ahead of our enemies because it boils down to war. You know, this stuff boils down to war. and with that loss of lives and everything else

that comes with war, all the ugly stuff. So the United States wants to be on the top edge of the war fighting platform, basically. And so some of these locations like 51 or a test site,

you know, obviously this technology, new technology is tested there so we can keep that edge. So I'm all about having disclosure, but also I think it's funny that people are still waiting for the government

to give disclosure when it's the government that's been hiding disclosure for the last 70 years. So who do we trust here? This hand or this hand? It's just like, if you're waiting for the government to release stuff, good luck. And then if they do release it, is it going to be true data?

Or is there going to be just a whitewash narrative to drown out the truth? So if you're like, you know, somewhere in the skies, the name, if you want to look for truth, just go aside and observe the skies yourself and collect your own data. You know, yeah, collect your own data. it and then don't wait for the government to tell you something. I mean, yeah, I get to a point where people are like, you know, I pay taxpayer money and I

want to learn about this and I totally understand that. But there's a different game being played here that people don't really fully understand. You need to take a step back and be like, okay, who are the people that are talking most about UAPs being threats and stuff? Have any of them served?

Have any of them hold the top secret clearance or work for a three-letter agency? I don't really see many of them that do. So it's kind of like, at the end of the day, where do you want to get your information from? It's better to go online and start making connections like with people like view and other investigators

and putting the pieces together independently versus waiting for the government to hand out a silver platter. I'm not holding my breath. I really am really am not. I'm kind of jaded a little bit because of where I used to work at. So when it comes to the whole UAPC. topic, I'm a little bit jaded and it's just how it is. I can't control what's up in the skies as an investigator, but I can't control what's on my, on the feet, on the ground. And that's what I

focused on at Skinwalker Ranch when I got out there was the focus on what I can, what do I have direct access and control of? I can't control what's in the skies. I can observe it, but do I really know what's out there? Do I have the proper equipment or backing or experts around to say yes or no? It's just you have to really control what you can get your hands on. Yeah, right. And you're definitely transitioning into what I think the bulk of this conversation is going to be. And that is Skin Walker Ranch. I know a lot of our viewers and listeners are really excited to hear you talk about your experiences there,

which we'll get to. We'll get there, guys. But before we move on from that, Chris, I love, you know, with that, I guess, non-transparency or classic. in national security that comes with things like Nevada Tessing site and Area 51. When there's no transparency, that's when people start making things up. That's when people start creating rumors. And a mythology is born out of these places that you've worked at. So, I mean, what did you know about Area 51 when you finally made it over there?

Did you know about all this stuff Bob Lazar was talking about? and the UFOs? Yeah, what can you tell us? That is hilarious that you bring it up because I was going through my stuff today. I'm trying to set my office up here in my new office where I can display my photography. And I was going through some old books.

And I actually found this book that I bought back in 97, which was the Air 51 book. This was before I joined the Air Force. I read this book. And I was like, wow, that's pretty cool. And then I joined the Air Force. And then I ended up working at the Air Force. at these locations

and I was like, wow. Talk about like projecting your future. It was very strange. Now, I'm honestly curious. You know, I love the UFO stuff. I like the paranormal research. I like all that stuff.

I've always been into it. So this is something I never shared before. When I first got to know as Air Force Base, my first supervisor actually worked at 51. And this is back in 98. Now I'll never forget, he had a Nokia cell phone on the old school flip phones one.

And I'd be on patrol with him and he would get a call on that cell phone and he would be gone for weeks. And then he would call me up and say, hey, pick me up at McCarran Airport. I'd go pick him up. And I would say, hey, you know, what happened?

What were he at? He wouldn't say nothing. So I won't say his name. but long story short he got orders to Korea Air Force Base and this is back in 98-99 so we had this big going away party forum at the Deuce 5 which is across

from Ellis Air Force Base like a local military hangout and we get him pretty liquored up or whatever and there's a bunch of us young airmen that are around him you know and we all kind of knew he worked at 51 and finally I asked him I said you know can you tell us anything about your time out there.

And he paused for a second and he said the things I've seen out there we won't lose an air-to-air war in a thousand years. And that's all he said. And I was just like, what? And then that was it. And I was just like, wow.

But he was like dead set when he said that. And this is in 98, remind you. He was dead serious when he said that. So it makes you wonder, kind of like, okay, if there's technology that's out there, let's say the TITAC is some of that technology or whatever,

you're looking at a situation where we might have technology that could replace the entire military fleet of aircraft. We're talking trillions of dollars of money that would be just gone. Like, it'd be outdated aircraft replaced by some type of superior technology, you know. Not saying a TITAC is that, but it just makes me wonder, like what if what if that is our technology you know but i also like to play on the fact that with the oceans you know what what do we know about our own oceans here you know what if this technology comes

deep from a different species within our earth's crust or whatever and it's evolved into this hybrid uh human oil where it has to come surface to refuel i don't know but it makes me wonder our own oceans would be a good starting point to look at as well you know i don't know i've always kind of been curious myself about what's really down in those ocean in the deep ocean you know what's what's what's all the earth the secrets of our own earth you know yep yeah i i tend to always uh keep that in mind that you know we're so trained on the skies and it could be out in the outer reaches of space when when we know so little about our very own planet and i think you're right there has to be some sort of um reason um logistically and mathematically statistically i guess that so many uf

Focytes occur over bodies of water or are at least reported that way, even in the military. And then you have places like I remember researching a place called Atec, like this underground, or excuse me, underwater military installation that have like a restricted airspace that reach like the outer atmosphere, which is crazy to think. Like what could they be doing from underwater to the outer reaches of space? What's being tested there flown there? It blows my mind, man. It really does. I knew a little bit about Bob Lazard. Obviously, I saw when I was working at Nellis,

listen to the normal news. I would see George Naps broadcast sometimes when he'd recap Bob Lazzar story. I was very intrigued. This is all before working at these locations, you know. My kind of plan when I was in the Air Force was to either stay in for 20 or get out and move back to Kansas or something.

But I ended up staying in Las Vegas for 20 years and working some of these sites that led me down this rabbit hole basically and, but yeah, I was intrigued by his story as well and it made me, and actually working there some things that Bob says makes total sense. I don't deny one bit that he's probably worth there, you know, but what projects and where only he would know that.

That's how that area works. It's overlapping layers of secrecy where me and you can work in the same location for 20 years, but none of us would know, what we're working on. It's just, that's how it's set up to keep the secrecy, you know. So, yeah, there's definitely some truth to his stories. I would definitely believe, you know. I guess when it boils down, because I always get people online that ask me questions, you know, what do you think of this person? What do you think of that person? And unless I meet them in person,

I really don't know what to say, because it's like, if you want to judge somebody's credibility, judge the person's character. If their character is flawed and you're working in these type of proof these areas, there might be some questions that would arise. Like, are they being truthful? You know, what's the real objective here? What's the narrative they're trying to push?

I mean, Bob's story has been pretty much the same the whole time. So, I would like to do a face-to-face with them maybe one day and just talk and... That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, I'd be kind of cool, you know, but I mean, I don't know.

Definitely has... We'll tell. Yeah. Well, I mean, kind of, I guess, playing off of that, you know, people, people, a lot of questions online when people saw that you were coming on the show, they wanted to know what you thought about Boblazar. They wanted to know what you think of Robert Bigelow and this, that, this, that. And we're slowly inching towards Skinwalker Ranch, guys, I promise, we're getting there, we're getting there. So, I guess something you told me offline, which I found really interesting is you actually learned about, Skinwalker, the phenomenon and possibly the ranch, correct me if I'm wrong, while you were still employed at Area 51 before you even got over there. Is that true that you learned about it there? Can you tell us a little about that story?

I never knew what Skinwalker ranch was at all, but I learned about skinwalkers at the Nevada test site. That's where I learned about skin walkers. Kind of like when you go through the academy there and you start working in these areas, you have some downtime so you start asking some of the older guard you know stories hey have you seen things out here in the sky have you have you seen this have you seen

that for the most part people are pretty quiet about it you know but there was a couple guys who are like no we have seen some pretty stuff and we have documented it I'm like what and one of the guys said that they documented like a deer standing up on two legs and walking around

and the term that he said it was oh yeah I was a skinwalker I'm like what And so that kind of led me down. Why would there be skin walkers out here? And then he was like, well, it's because there's a lot of native history out here. I'm like, where? And so sure enough, he showed me on a Sunday, we drove out there, there's an area with petroglyphs that go back 10,000 years ago.

Oh, wow. And so it kind of puts you back, like, puts you back. Like, what was going on out here 10,000 years ago? I know in the 1800s, the Pai and the Western Shoshone were documented. and the Nevada test site before it was taken over. But 10,000-year-old petroglyphs out there. So it makes you wonder, you know, what was going on out there? So obviously something because they had some weird things happening.

So I find it interesting that a lot of these places like Skinwalker test site, a lot of other places have a lot of Native American history aligned with it. Right. And that's a big part of what I want to ask you about your time at the ranch. when we get there. So let's set it up. You know, like you said, you kind of flip, flop back and forth from Skinwalker, back to Nellis, that Skinwalker.

How did you find out about the job with Bigelow? Did he reach out to you? Did you reach out to him? How did that all go down? And what did you think when you first learned about what you'd be doing there? Well, it was, I just called the old buddy of mine who I knew in the Air Force, and I said, hey, I heard you got some project going. on for an aerospace company.

And he said, well, yeah, kind of. And then we started talking. And then we met face to face. We met face to face, actually, where he broke ground at the new VA medical center in Las Vegas. We met an old parking lot out there on the dirt. It was like, I have a movie or whatever, like, you know, and we're talking about this. And it kind of gave me the skinny of what the job entailed, but he didn't go too much in depth because I still had to do an interview with column and other people.

And so that's, I applied, and he kind of vouched for me, and then I had a meeting with column, and column asked me, you know, typical security questions. And then he asked me if I was open to the paranormal. And at first, I was like, what do I say? Because tell me, I want to answer truthfully, because I'm into the paranormal. Right. And I think he asked me, you know, have I had any experiences? And I said, yeah, actually, I've had.

And coming from the Nevada test site, we have acute clearance. You don't talk about seeing UFOs or ghosts or anything like that because they can pull your clearance. Because you're dealing with nuclear security. So they take that very seriously. You have to walk a line there. I can't, I don't even want to, I can't even explain it to you, but it's very stressful. But so I say, you know, I'm going to ask honestly. And I said, yeah, I'm very open to that.

And I shared with him some of my experiences in Kansas. and even a couple of my experiences at Nellis Air Force Base, there was a hangar called 858 Propulsion Building, and it had some ghost paranormal stuff happening there. And sure enough, we went there with some other airmen. This was back in 2004, 5 maybe. Anyways, and we had the experience there, and it was like 10 witnesses that all saw it.

It was crazy. So I was very open to the interview, and I told him, yeah, I'm open, and he kind of nodded his head. And I left and my buddy came out and says, hey, you got the job. And I'm like, okay, cool, when do I start? And that was it. So I started at first, you know, in Vegas.

And then back at the ranch, it was two people out there at the time. So you'd have two officers out there. So one guy would drive up to relieve the other guy, another guy would go back. So every week, it was somebody different, basically. Okay. So in October of 2010 was when I first drove up there from Vegas. to the ranch and was boots on the ground. And the buddy who hired me was kind of the guy who kind of trained me up a little bit.

And we didn't really have an SOP or standard operating procedure of what to do. It was kind of like, okay, our job is to protect the property. I get that. Secure the site. I get it. I've also collect data, report anything unusual. I'm like, okay, what do you mean? Unusual, you know?

And this is back in 2010. I didn't read the hunt for the sky. Skinwalker book until a couple months after I've been working there because I didn't want to have any pre-notion in my mind of something that I could possibly experience. Smart, yeah. So I remember when I applied for the job and I found out that I was going to this ranch in Utah, I tried to look online for something. I couldn't find anything really about Skinwalker Ranch because back in 2010,

there was only, there was like one website and like one or two, maybe YouTube videos. That was it. Yeah. And so I'm like, what the hell? I'll never forget this. My dad, who's kind of he followed my whole career in the Air Force and the test site

and then 51 and then finally at Skinwalker. I sent him a copy of the hunt for the Skinwalker book. And I remember him calling me up one day and he goes and this is the only time I hear it concerned in his voice. He goes, son, what the hell did you get yourself into? And I was like, well, dad, I don't know.

I just want to go down the rabbit hole and see how far it goes down. And he was like, just be careful and I just remember the sound in his voice he seemed like he was nervous. I'm like, I've deported recines, you know, and this is the time he sounds nervous, you know. Right. For everything you've gone through, then that's when he's nervous, yeah. Yeah, so then that's what kind of was started my time at Skinwalker was in October of 2010. And yeah, that's where it all started.

Okay. So, well, let's talk about that time at the ranch then. Are there, what were some of the, the most compelling things you came across there? Obviously, people want to hear the stories of what occurs on this ranch. What is someone like you who spent weeks on end there? I'm sure there's days where absolutely nothing happens. You're bored out of your mind doing your rounds and everything. But I know you've had some pretty crazy stuff happen there too.

So yeah, anything you want to share with us, Chris? Sure. you know, I've been kind of hesitant about some of my experiences because I don't like to say things unless I can back them up with either a second witness or photographic evidence or some type of physical evidence. So I would say personally the experience that stands up the most is the large wolf or canine experience I had in October.

It was actually my second week in October out there on the property where myself and another officer we had this routine down where one guy would go out for a morning run around the property and kind of get the eyes on of the environment and kind of get a judge of how the day is going to go where we're going to go check out and the other guy would do the report from the night before

and get that sent up and then around 11 noon we'd pack up our gear and hike out and go explore and look for stuff and do EVP sessions at some of the homesteads and take pictures and that's what kind of got my photography going was at the time there were some questionable pictures being taken at Homestead

too that for me was back, it's called backscatter, which is flat photography and a dust environment. And I was like, that's not orbs, those are dust particles. And I kind of just, I kind of debunked with my own camera because at the time I had a more more high-depth camera.

And then I kind of carried my camera, my own personal camera is a secondary ways to document the phenomena as best I could. And anyways, So back to the wolf story on this particular day, the other officer came back from the run. And he was like, hey, I found some weird prints, some large canine prints on top of the mesa. And I'm like, okay, let's go check it out. And I'm from Kansas and grew up on a farm where we had horses and all, you know, all kinds of animals you can think of.

We live down in nowhere. And so we go out there and we see these large, it looks like, it looks like a wolf print, big, big size wolf print. But what made it weird is there was like a section where it looked like this animal was walking on two feet. They had like this three-foot stride and it would go to four feet, two feet. It was weird. It didn't make any sense. And at the time we had two black labs and a border collie dog. We have three dogs with us.

And the labs prints, and these are full-grown labs, the labs prints in some of the pictures I posted before, these wolf prints dwarfed the lab prints and you can see the the three foot strike I threw a ruler down to kind of measure it so we kind of call our

supervisor call him and say hey we got a possible weird animal out here or something and his advice is you know be careful but document best you can I'm like okay

Roger that so me and my colleague we're like we know we have this stupid mindset like we're going to go capture this animal not knowing what we're really dealing with. This is in 2010.

So that night we'd go out. I think it was the next night. We'd go out and we have all of our gear with us, you know, and we're out until like 3 o'clock in the morning. We're sitting up little makeshift campfires everywhere trying to draw this animal in. And we felt like the whole night something was watching us and the dogs were acting very suspicious.

They were like cleaning to us. And normally the dogs are out running around trying to catch rabbits and stuff. but this night they were very on edge, so we knew something was up. So anyways, it starts raining a little bit, and we start, we're like, oh, we've been out all night,

let's call it a night. It's like 3.30, 3 o'clock in the morning, maybe. I can't remember exactly, but I remember it was a full moon night, and we start walking back to Homestead 1, but we start backtracking our original tracks for that night to see if we missed anything. And we find behind our prints,

Wolf Prince, this thing had been following us the whole night and the dogs never picked up on it and we never saw it. So it was just far enough away to keep a visual on us but not close enough for us to see it. So now we're like, holy shit,

we need to get back to the homestead because this thing's tracking us now. So we're walking on the main dirt road that you see on the TV show and we're going around the curve. Actually, this all happened at the triangle area. So we're going around the triangle area of

the ranch, and I'm about 50, 60 feet ahead of my partner, and I'll never forget this because this replays in my brain every single night. The moon is full and there's clouds, and my partner says, stop, I hear something, and his, he's like,

his back is facing the ditch there, and I'm ahead of them. And I turn around to say what? And as I'm turning around, it feels is like time is compressing, like everything slows down. And the clouds go over the moon and everything got really dark. And I felt like the whole frequency and vibration of the environment just dropped. Like you're walking in water.

And out of the ditch, we both hear this guttural growl come out of the ditch. And something large is like a size of a donkey or a deer, black wolf, jumps out, lands on the dirt road. takes off west, the dogs go after the animal. We go after the dogs, because we're worried about the dogs fighting this big animal, and we're right behind the animal, and it's like, we blink and it's gone, and like disappeared in the darkness. And we're like, what the hell was that? And the dogs stopped dead in the tracks and looked at us, like, what the hell was that?

And so we took some pictures, and then we got the hell out of there and got back to Homestead 1 and did the report. And I think an initial report, I probably I didn't even see the animal because I was so freaked out about losing my clearance, my cue clearance. And the initial report, I said I didn't see it because I was, I had planned to go back to Nevada test out eventually. It's because all my friends were there and I paid better and there was better benefits and stuff.

But I was like, I'm not going to say, put this on the report because my brain cannot process what I had just experienced. Oh, man. It really took me back. But here's a crazy part. Not that that wasn't crazy enough. But fast forward in 2015, I'm out there by myself now. Because in 2011, we went to one person on the property.

Can you imagine securing a ranch? And at the time, we had almost a thousand acres. Yeah, because we leased the land around us. We leased the land on top of the maces. So we had more acres to cover. But imagine you're supposed to secure the property by yourself at night. It's a total no-go. You don't do that.

But we did. But in 2015, I'm sitting in a lawn chair at the Eastgate with the dogs. At the time, we have three labs now because Bella had passed away. And it was a nice, quiet night. I think it was in the fall again. And I was kind of on my phone a little bit looking at the road, not paying attention. Because by 2015, the ranch was like a second home to me. I felt normal out there.

Everything was just, you know, I knew where stuff happened. But you kind of, I kind of compare it to being to. deployed overseas for the first time in a combat zone like you know you're on edge your everything's a big experience everything's like tunnel vision by year by you know month nine month 10 year one you're ready to get the hell out of there and go home by year five you're just like whatever it's the ranch i don't care it's just whatever so you're kind of getting numb to the environment and sometimes that's good sometimes that's bad you get kind of complacent which is not good but also you're you're I feel like your vibration uh kind of tunes in with the environment

if that makes sense anyway so I'm sitting on this lawn chair and my back's turned against the it's called the eastern valley and out of the out of this bushes of sage I hear that same how growl that I heard in 2010 or yeah 2010 I come off the chair gun out spinning because I thought this thing was going to attack and I can see the shrubs move and the dogs go after it and almost come right back like confused so I go out with you know flashlight I don't see anything but something was there like letting me know hey I'm still here and I was like oh great now I got to walk back to the trailer which is like a quarter mile away and on this dirt road there's tons of blind spots on this dirt road I'm going to get flanked by something and and I'm not making it back so the whole

I remember walking back that night, like, just gun out like, oh, this is it. I'm going to die. I'm going to die today. I'm going to die on Skinwalker Ranch. Yeah. And I was just like, give me a break, you know. So, and then other things that's happened out there, you know, UFO related, not too much stuff that I would say I can consider UAP or UFO. And, but again, remind you, I didn't spend that much time staring, like, looking for that.

I focus more on the ground because I treat the ranch like a giant crime scene. I wanted to collect real hard data evidence that I can link with the phenomenon maybe. But anyway, I had a spot out there on the ranch I called Meditation Rock. And I would go out there with the dogs at night sometimes, especially the last couple of years I lived out there. I would go out on the rock and sleep on the rocks at night with the dogs and watch the stars. Because I really felt like the more time I physically invested in the property, the more things would open up. I feel that that is key to understanding the ranch. You have to really put your sweat equity and get your boots dirty,

and you have to really invest your energy into that environment to understand that property. And when you do that, I think things opened up, at least it did for me. And I would go out and this rock and watch the stars and with the dogs. It was a great time because, you know, looking back now, you know, there's TV shows, documentaries, everything's Skinwalker, like a naked. It's on Netflix now. Back then, the ranch was, in my brain, was never going to be a mainstream topic. It was just the place that I worked at, like another site that I secured before, you know, the DOE and the test site and my time and another job assignment.

But it was a place I actually fell in love with. You know, I love being out there. I hated being away from my family, but I really enjoyed my time out there. And I made my time useful. So I would do my photography to help pass the time and explore. and look for things. And I kind of felt pretty connected to the place. That's great, man.

And I love this idea of, you know, investing in the environment, and the environment will invest into you. Like, it is such a give and take. And a big part of your time there was documenting certain things. A lot of the Native American history, which gets overlooked a lot when it comes to Skidwarker Ranch. Let's be honest. It's kind of based around this Native American,

curse or folklore of the area and that's all we really hear about it and then we now move on to the UFO aspect or the you know the portals and the wolves and this and that which is like of course

amazing and literally phenomenal we don't know what it is but there's this whole other aspect to all of this that gets overlooked and I think people like you like James Keenan like Carl as as well, Carl Vibe.

You guys are documenting very important things that are getting overlooked by the mainstream when it comes to all this. So I love to ask you, what did someone like Bigelow think about your kind of approach to the ranch? I mean, he's hiring people there to investigate and try to figure out what's going on

with all the paranormal stuff. But then you've got this ancient history there as well. Did that ever come into it when you, when you were hired or with Colm? And what did they think of your whole approach to, to investigating the ranch? Hello, this is Ryan Sprague, the host of Summer in the Skies. If you're enjoying our podcast, our live streams, and our videos, and you'd like to support the show, there are several ways to help while unlocking exclusive perks. Join our Patreon community for early access to priorities, priority guest questions, exclusive articles, bonus content, and access to a growing community of fellow UFO enthusiasts.

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Visit scotia bank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. It's kind of interesting because there was a serious like of communication during my time out there on the property. So I'm not sure what Bigelow really thought. I know that I know one of the reasons why I quit the first time was because I was documenting

Native American artifacts around the whole entire property and it was being overlooked and I actually received an email from somebody wasn't calling there was somebody underneath them who said stop reporting artifacts is not important and I was like it's 100% important because it's history and for the first time ever it's physical evidence

and through this evidence we can find what was going on because in all Native American, not all, but in the majority of the tribes, especially in Utah, talk about the star people in their culture. So we're not going to explore this aspect of what tribes were out here. It wasn't just the Utes. It goes back to the Fremont and then even beyond that. Because let me show you how important this is.

In one area, like on the TV show, the finale where it shows the pillars and the picture of the time that they captured in the last episode. that area, the Eastern Valley is where I spent 90% of my time because I felt naturally drawn there, but there was also an abundance of artifacts out there in history. And I document it. So my thought process was this. I had a topographical map of the property.

And every time I'd find an artifact, I would take a picture and GPS it. And then some artifacts I'd bring back to Homestead 1 to do further analysis and online research as best I could. Some of the artifacts I actually took down to Vernal, Utah, and had professionals look at it. at to get dates. And I would document all this stuff because I felt like if I could connect people's experiences to maybe an abundance of artifacts, there was a solid connection there for the first time ever. It wasn't just like, oh, it's this or it's that.

You know, there was no direction when I first got hired to what to look for. There really wasn't. It was like anything out of the ordinary report it. I'm like, okay, be more specific. There was no like, hey, focus on this or focus on that. So when I got told to stop reporting it, I was like, what's the deal here? So that kind of upset me a lot because I invested so much of my time doing that. And I thought that was extremely important.

And I still do to this day, so much so that I've gone back to the basin on my own and documented other locations around the entire basin that have the same type of connective phenomenon, which is reporting skinwalkers and UFOs, but there's also a native American Native American base there, you know. But in the area in the Eastern Valley, the artifacts are this important. In one location, I found artifacts that go back 1500 years ago, the arcade period.

In the same location, I found paleo artifacts that go back 10,000 years ago. So you have overlapping layers of history in one location. You know, what was going on out there during that time, much like the Nevada test site where they saw Skinwalkers and there's petroglyphs that go back 10,000 years ago. And Skamwalker Ranch, same thing. McConkey Ranch, same thing. Blindfrog Ranch has stuff out there.

McKee Springs, at 9 Mile Canyon. And it's undeniable. You cannot ignore that anymore. There's history there, and it's worth exploring it. And I'm not the only guy doing it. There's been people before me who brought up the same type of stuff that I'm talking about now. I just so happened to photograph and document it. And, you know, I've leaked up with James Keenan,

and Carl Vibe, and they've helped me as well, you know, James Keenan's got an insane amount of knowledge about this stuff, especially about Petroclips. And Carl's got a great eye, and he's also very into it. He's very knowledgeable about this stuff. So, you know, linking up with the right guys,

you know, the term iron sharpens iron, you want to surround yourself with some of the best guys. I'm surrounded with some of the best guys, I believe, that are not just looking for a payout, they're looking for truth. And that's important when it comes down to it, because I think there's something worth exploring more and that's what I'm continuing to do

on my own. I love that. But yeah. I know column was more open to it. I think we had a conversation where he was like, just keep doing it, but don't do it on the daily journal. So that's when I took it upon myself to keep my own personal journal

and documenting everything myself and that's what I did for five, six, the whole time I was out there. I have my own personal journal of documentation of stuff or not just artifacts but also areas of interest that are highly important into understanding what's

going on out there. And when like the whole UAP stuff that's out now, it seems like that's such a mainstream topic. It almost seems like that's the new narrative now that has to be crowned on everybody's throat. Everything's UAP. Everything's UAP.

UFOs are threats. UAPs are threats. I just, I don't buy it. I don't buy it, man. I don't buy it because where I used to work at, but also I'm having open a mind here. If we're talking about real aliens, is that what we're talking about? Okay, so we're talking about a culture of beings that are so

advanced, they're going to come here and do, what, wipe us out? Or we're going to be able to stop that? I don't think so. I don't think that we're going to be able. But why would you wipe us out? They're probably coming here using us as a resource, much like we use cattle's resource. So they probably view us, there's nothing

but cattle. And they use this as a resource. So then they're not going to hurt their resource. They may stop us from hurting ourselves because I've said before, the only threat to humanity is humanity itself. We are such a destructive species. We're bound for extinction. And we don't care. We're just like, whatever. It doesn't matter because we have so many distractions now. And that's why the Native American stuff is so important. These people didn't have distractions. So if they're taking the time to make petroclips about portals or whatever, giants or whatever else in their area, they're doing that for a reason. They're not just,

bored, okay? We're talking 8,000, 10,000 years ago. People are forging and hunting every day to live. They're not going to get bored and say, I'm going to go scribble on these rocks because I'm bored. No, they're trying to relay information. And so it's just ignored

because we're taught in our culture, in American culture, to like not focus on that. When in reality, full circle, we need to be focusing back in the native tribes and their cultures and their teachings because they have it right. You know, we want all these scientific explanations and data and evidence.

And I get that. I'm totally for that. But maybe it's more important if we just sit back on a mesa or on a rock or by a river and just absorb the moment and learn. That's the key. It's absorbing the time. And who cares about documenting the evidence? I get to a point, but it's more important to focus on the moment. Because I've said before, the ranch is bigger than a TV show.

It's bigger than my photography. It's bigger than a contract with the government. it is real Native American Indigenous culture history and it needs to be respected and learn and the only way to learn is just sitting there and absorbing it. You have to be there

to absorb it. You have to go out to these places, these petroglyphs and see them for yourself and think to yourself what was going on out here? Because in today's society we're so distracted with iPads and TV shows. They didn't have anything like that. The stars were their iPad.

The Earth was their Netflix. And that's what they watched. And they learn from that. I mean, let's be real here. It feels like I've been taking crazy pills since 2011. Because in 2011 is when I found my first artifact in the Eastern Valley. And that flipped my whole perception of everything. I was like, whoa, there's something else going on out here.

And then I felt like this may sound crazy, but it's the honest-to-god truth. The whole time I was out there, I felt like I was being guided by something bigger. Something was guiding me to find this stuff because it wasn't just one artifact. No, it was other areas of interest. Some of those areas which I showed on a TV show, a cave that was on the show. That's one of many areas I know out there personally that are very important to the overall aspect and view of the ranch. And I think it's great that Utah is getting that attention because it's drawing more people out to the basin so they can experience themselves and make their own assumptions. because it's very easy for us to be very judgmental at home and,

and, you know, armchair quarterback stuff and you never go out there and experience it. And you don't have to even go to Utah. There's places probably in your local areas with native history that you can go out and just learn about it. You might learn something. And really, for me, the ranch was about spiritual evolution.

That's how it boiled down to me. It was just about evolving as a human being. And that's what I kind of did with my, And I kind of showed that through my photography, like the ranch, its view is a real scary, like you always hear the spookiest place in the world, the most paranormal hotspot, and it is. The ranch can be as dark as you want or as light as you want. It's based on the individual what you're going to focus your attention on. And I focused on the dark a little bit, and then I focused on the light.

But my primary focus was the light. And the capturing the beauty of the ranch of the property, that was my focus. And I kind of felt like that helped. that opened up the ranch more because I was so focused on subject matters of like artifacts rock formations the vegetation animals and so it kind of

helped me understand the ranch more I used to do this thing to put my mind in the kind of in the focus like laser focus I would I would imagine that I had just landed on a different planet and I was an alien or an alien explorer and it was my job to find

proof of life. So I would land in Utah and it was my job to go out and find artifacts to find evidence to later go back to report. That kind of helped me focus on the minor details of being out there. And I still kind of use that technique today. I go out and I say, okay, I'm mailing. I just

landed. And it's my job to find proof of life. It sounds crazy, but it's just I don't know, maybe I was at the ranch for too long. Had too much time on my hands, but no. Exactly, man. And that's what he wants. we want you to be real with us because, you know, we get this kind of filtered perception of the ranch through the books, through the TV shows. And, you know, I respect the work being done there. There's no denying, like, I think people like Branded Fugel and even Bigelow to an extent, like they wanted answers. They have a burning curiosity. They've had experiences. They want to know. And they have the resources to do that. That's amazing.

Absolutely. But I, I, I think, yeah, please. The people that are asking those questions, like Bigelow, Few of not so much. People goes out there, but people that ask those questions, they need to go physically to those locations and put that time in. They can't just do a third party and expect to get the truth. Because one of those people who are giving you that information are not honorable people. They're just honest and they're feeding you a bunch of crap. You have to be, I know if I'm passionate about something,

I'm going to go directly to the source and figure it out. Or try to figure it out. And that's what kind of Carl did recently. you know, Carl had this whole magic Mesa thing and he could have doubled down and said it's all paranormal or UFOs, but he didn't. He went out there and debunked his own thing and that's saying something.

And I think when it comes to some of these locations, there's been people who have lied. I know there has been personally. Who lied to impress people or to get the favors of somebody or whatever the reason wise. And it's not uncommon to think that it happens every single day in society where employees do their best to, you know, impress their boss.

It happens everywhere and every single job in America and across the world. So how is it going to be indifferent at these locations? You want to impress your boss. You want to produce. But what are you going to produce? Bullshit or truth? I focused on the truth, man. That's it.

I love it. Well, okay, truth is the perfect way to kind of tackle. What I think is going to be the most controversial part of this conversation, Chris. And I have to ask because I know a lot of people, they're frustrated with the lack of transparency that came from the Bigelow era of the ranch. A lot of people, they're not excuse, their explanation for why they're frustrated

is because taxpayer money did end up going to studying Skinwalker Ranch through a Pentagon funded program. So I have to ask you, as someone who worked on the ranch, were you ever aware that the U.S. government actually was funding some of the research going on at the ranch. And what do you make of the whole government ties to Skinwalker Ranch? That's a good question because I didn't really, I knew I've, like, nobody sat me down and said, okay, here's the game plan, here's what's going on.

And that's like a communication. And that's why those programs fail, lack of communication. And there are some people that say Allsap was a success. and in some areas it was a success, but also it was a complete failure because from the start, there was a lack of communication. There was no set objective at all during my time.

So it really kind of boils down to the start. If you're going to talk about ASAP, and this all started from Jane Lakowski, who was a DIA agent, who reached out to Robert Bigelow back in 2007, right, and says, hey, I want to come check out your ranch, and Bigelow is like, okay, So right there, that's kind of a, to me it seems like a red flag because anytime the government gets involved with the private sector, who's that really the benefit?

The private sector or the government? So anyway, so LaCowski goes down the property and then less than two hours has an experience, you know, so incredible that he goes back to the Pentagon and gets funding for OSAP with zero evidence. That's another red flag. What? How are you going to get money with zero evidence just based on somebody's experience? nobody's questioning that are you serious it's like and then so that's not the part that that strikes me as odd because i never knew about the casket at all the whole time i worked there but if you have a guy who had an experience and he's just sitting in washington not out there on the ranch and he obviously had he's tapped on the universe's door where he was able to get funding for this experiment but he's not out there boots on the ground with me and other guys out there what's the point It's set up for failure from the start because your your most important asset resource who had the connection is gone. There's nowhere to be found.

So now it's left to a bunch of prime military veterans to go out there and do what, figure what out. It seems like the whole program was a fail to the beginning because of the lack of communication. We still were able to collect data and have some experiences. But it makes you wonder, you know, what else was going on out there that we didn't know about? It seems like certain people during my timeline avoided the ranch like the plague. And it's just like, what do you want us to do out here? There's limited direction. So that's like the military mindset is like work more with less.

And so that's what we do. You work more with less. You still have a job to do. But to me, you know, after learning about offset, because I didn't know about OSAP until 2019, but I learned about Lakatski and stuff, I didn't know that he even came out there and had experience. And wasn't until later with a new book and stuff that I found out. But I thought to myself, what a waste of opportunity because it had been great for him to

come out there because he's had, he hasn't a connection out there. And that's how the ranch works. I felt the ranch has a connected, connectedness to people or whatever. So why wouldn't you want to come back out? It doesn't make any sense to me, you know? It feels like a missed opportunity, you know? And I don't know. If the reason why he didn't come out was because he had a bad experience,

and I guess according to the book, there was five other guys who came out there, and they all had horrible experiences, and their families were affected. So if that new book that came out was created to set the record straight, and everything in that book is factual or real, and you're saying that these people had all these horrible experiences, is why the hell are we out there on the ranch by ourselves and definitely running and gunning, that's okay, that's not okay.

You can't put people out there and not tell them what's going on. I mean, am I wrong here? It seems like, imagine putting yourself on my situation. Put yourself on my situation for a second. And your job is to secure the property, collect data, and you're doing it as best as you can. And you do it for years and years and years.

and then to come to find out there was another program going on also and there was people that had horrible experiences that affected their families and I had things happen to my family horrible things that directly from the ranch and I knew other colleagues of mine had bad things so my family's expendable

my health is expendable it's unacceptable and it's unacceptable and it's a point that everybody just kind of glazes over and it's a point that needs to be at some point there needs to be some accountability, or at least somebody needs to call me up and have a conversation, because that's the right thing to do.

Because I feel like we're just abandoned out there with no real direction. I'm so happy you brought this up, because one of the most, I would say, touchy subjects when it comes to all of this is this idea. I'm just going to come out and say it. Some people think that people like you, or even the current people on the ranch are being,

I hate using this word, but we're being used as like guinea pigs is the term people have said. You have people like Travis Taylor who got radiation poisoning. You had members of, you know, during your time, other people who had ailments

or brought home these hitchhiker effects as they've sort of coined it. But, you know, that's the paranormal side. Then we have the actual, clinical physiological ailments that have occurred on this ranch. So I guess I'll just flat out asking, what are your opinions on those who do claim

that you guys were being used as some sort of experiment? Yeah, it's, man, I'll tell you, it puts me in a dark place. It really does. Because I don't want to think that, but it's hard not to think that. when you look back at the timeline and there was like a communication, like I said, you know, lack of equipment, that's no problem.

You know, this is how it was. Not having one working camera out there. That's suspect. Your job for security is supposed to have some type of thing. But there's all these questions me and my guys who worked out there. We all kind of joked around about that. We're just lab rats out here. We joked around about that, but we never thought it was real.

but I will say in 2019 I met a scientist in the Uynta Basin and the first three things he said to me and this is in early 2019 he said to me we had a private conversation actually it wasn't private there was other witnesses there but the first thing he said to me was

did I know about radiation out here on the property in Utah in the basin and I'm like what no And then he said, does you know about $22 million? And I was like, no. And then the last thing he said to me, and when he said this,

my heart sunk into my stomach. He said, you know, how does it feel to know you're possibly a guinea pig and all this? And I remember saying, if that's true,

I don't feel very good about it. And at that time, my whole mind flipped upside down. I'm like, what the, then like all these memories started coming back and I don't know.

I'm still left. You know, I'll be honest with you, Ryan, this whole thing about me even coming out publicly in 2019 was probably never supposed to happen.

But I have questions that need answering and I feel like every single time I open up a door or every time I close a door, two more open up. And it just blows my mind. It really does

because I've served honorably for this country. I've done, I've sacrificed everything and especially for the ranch I sacrificed but my family has sacrificed and I will tell you if that's true

I don't know what to say really I don't have a lot of words to say about it I'm still trying to figure it out you know as best I can and I don't know you know meeting people like James Keenan and Carl and some of the people in the

community online have really helped me out a lot. And if it wasn't for them, I'd probably be in a pretty dark place. And then I met Terras Matla, obviously with the University of Maryland. And that was a huge bonus because I was able to document or I was able to donate my entire Skinwalker archive to the University of Maryland. And for me, that was a big closure moment for me because I was able to kind of lock away those memories and some of that stuff and in a place that. that will always be there forever.

And my kids can go back and view that, the photography. And it's just awesome. You know, Theross Matler at the University of Maryland. Um, he really helped me out. And it's because, it's because to Ross saw something online.

He saw I had an artistic eye. And he also was like, whoa, this is a Skinwalker Ranch. Nobody has ever posted pictures like this before on Skin Walker Ranch. And I did it. I post those pictures online because I want to show people that it wasn't all scary. It was all beautiful.

There was some dark times out there, but it's also, some gorgeous times out there. But for me, when I look back at my photography, I look back on my photography now, and it puts me in that mind frame of being alone out there and using my photography to kind of get through the weeks and get through some of the sketchy time.

Because I'll tell you, walking from Homestead 1 all the way down to the Westgate at night at 2 o'clock in the morning, and you're by yourself and you got a couple of dogs with you. There's some nights where you get to Homestead 2 and you feel like, you know what? Something's telling me not to keep going forward. I need to go, and I would.

I would listen to my gut extent all the time, because I felt like he was being washed out there. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, I don't have any ill feelings to my previous employer. That shocks a lot of people. People think that, oh, my God, you should definitely have ill. Why?

How's that going to help? Because if you really talk about disclosure and discovering the truth, I hate to say it, but it comes with sacrifices. It does. So in this situation, I played my position of, what I was supposed to do. Other people played their position. And that's how these special access programs work.

However, in most special access programs, there's a constant open form of communication where everybody is on the same playing field and there's information spreading very openly. Because in this situation with Skinwalker, because there was a lack of communication, most of the guys, including myself, didn't report half the stuff that we experienced

because it seemed like nobody cared. That's the truth. It seemed like nobody cared. because we would, why am I spinning? There was a time where I would be inside Homestead 2, sitting in a lawn chair at 2 o'clock in the morning by myself, trying to make contact with whatever out there. And I remember one night thinking to myself, what the hell am I doing? I'm outgunned out here.

And I'm like, you know, all these things are playing the back of your mind. Like, what if a trespasser gets on the property and I'm not at the East Gate to stop them? and they get on here and they vandalize or they steal something at the time we had the ranch managers on there. What if somebody gets hurt? And then here's the best part. So I'm in the homesteads and this is all playing the back in my mind.

I'm constantly operating in the red zone. And then it's not like I clock out and I go home or I go down to a hotel to go to sleep. No. I go to sleep at Homestead 1 at Skinwalker Ranch and I remember every night, close my eyes thinking to myself, I hope

nobody gets on the property and puts a bullet on head. Because during my time, during my time, we had legitimate threats from locals that wanted to shoot one of us to prove that we were, that we were either cursed or a hybrid. So all this is going to the back of your mind. So psychologically, you're just pegged out, man. You're just like operating, you know, and then all this stuff comes out, all this stuff comes out, TV shows come out, documentaries come out, and I'm just sitting there like, are you kidding me? Are you seriously kidding me? And I'll tell you what, man, there's been about 15 times where I've just, almost just packed everything up, delete them all my accounts, and just let the narrative play out

and say, I guess there'll be like another MK Ultra deal. Like when I'm 70 years old, I'll find out what was going on at Skin Walker Ranch, you know? I don't know. I have a lot of unanswered questions. And I'm pat, my patience is gone now. It really is. and I'm just trying to close the door for my kids. That's it. I have three young men I'm trying to raise. And to know that my time on Skin Walker Ranch may have affected my health negative, where time is not taken away from me because of my long-term exposure out there,

I will tell you that does not sit very well with me. I don't think it would for any father. No, absolutely. Everything you have said, I'm sure, is resonating with a hell of a lot of, first of all, veterans out there. And second of all, just human beings is what you've done in sacrifice for your country for, for the scientific community, supposedly. That's what they wanted were scientific answers and beyond. So, you know, before I move on here, thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for what you did on the ranch. Thank you for opening yourself up to that and making those

sacrifices because I think we are getting closer to answers and I'm happy you didn't pack up in just sleep because I do honestly feel that your contribution to this Skinwalker mystery is essential showing the light I think again all we get is the spooky shit and the you know the really um sensational stuff and then you have like you said with the uh the photo exhibition at the university uh that shows how unbelievably beautiful this ranch and this basin and this state are. So yeah. First of all,

thank you for all of that. I appreciate that. I'm not saying that my, you know, my layer of Skinwalker Ranch is the right answer with the Native American stuff. I'm just saying to me personally, it's probably the most important layer

because I feel like it's overlooked. But all the stuff that the new team's doing with all the scientific stuff that these collected and it's unbelievable I mean I've been on there I've been back on Skin Walker Ranch now several times with or without the film crew I've gone out there on my own and met with the

team and helped them with other investigations and they've shown me data and it blows me away the stuff that you've collected you know you got Eric Bard out there with Brandon Fugel's team that guy gets it and he's invested his energy out there and he's out there and he's not messing around

he doesn't care about no TV shot I'll tell you that right now he doesn't care one single damn a TV show. He's out there really trying to figure out on a scientific level what's going on out there. And I think that's extremely important. And then you have Thomas Winterton and Caleb bench out there that are locals and they're out there all the time too. Those guys, they truly get it, you know, and they put in that equity to understand. And they, you know, there's so many overlapping layers with Skinwalker Ranch. It's just, if there's magnetic anomalies around there and maybe that's what draw, maybe that's what drew the natives out there to begin

with was those anomalies, you know, maybe that's what drew them out there to begin with. And there's all kinds of stuff. I mean, I'm just one piece of the puzzle. I'm not saying I'm the Skinwalker expert by any means, but I just feel like I have some very important data and I like to, I appreciate your time for me to allow me to share some of that data with other people that might have these questions as well. Well, Chris, I've got some listener questions for you, man, if you're willing to stick around. Some people really wanted to ask you some burning questions here. that cool? Absolutely. Awesome. I'm going to start with Melanie. Melanie is one of our Patreon subscribers and our patron members actually get priority to ask our guest's questions. So she's got

a really good one here. She says, the burning question for me is, what does Chris think is really happening at the ranch? Current research being done seems to lean towards portals. What does he think about that? Yeah, this whole portal aspect, you know, not only are we hearing that like maybe this is where the UAP are coming in and out of, but also that the tribes have used these portals as well. They're part of the petroglyphs. So what do you make of that whole aspect of this,

the portals? Right. I think that the portals is a good possibility because not only did the current team out there now has documented some pretty rare anomalies in the skies and stuff, but also NIDS said he saw portal

stuff activity out there as well. and being out there myself, I never saw anything like that, but going back to some of my old pictures, you know, I've got like 3,000 images of the ranch during that time. I've tried to kind of go back and see if I missed something. That was one of the reasons why I donated those pictures of the archive to the University of Maryland. Some more eyes can see those pictures.

But I think everything is Native American-based, in my personal opinion. The evidence is, you know, follow the data. Well, the data's all around the whole unit the basin. It's not just Skinwalker Ranch, it's the whole Uint of basin. And there's petroglyphs in McKee Springs that show portal activity or portals and things coming out of portals.

So when you see that, you wonder, you know, what the hell is going on? Skinwalker ranch, it might be another location where people were drawn to to see these things or have experiences. They know the Fremont Indians that were there, they were there for a thousand years and, like, fell off the map. But people,

locals say that the Fremonts almost appeared out of nowhere. And also giants. There was talk about giants coming through portals and stuff. That's more James Keenan's expertise. I would highly recommend you have him on the show. He knows a lot more about that stuff.

My primary focus is obviously the Native American artifacts and the history and photography and that type of stuff. What were some of those artifacts that you came across? Would you mind sharing maybe a couple of those with us? Yeah, I found

The first artifact that I found Was in the Eastern Valley It was actually a knife blade And how I found it was bizarre I had this routine That I would go with the dogs And we'd walk around the whole entire property And we'd end up and have lunch

In the Eastern Valley on this rock table out there And I'd feed the dogs Food and water And I would kind of sit there and just absorb the area And I laid my backpack down And I went to pick up backpack and I must have missed it but laying next to my backpack was a silver um granite arrowhead I'm like what the hell and I picked it up and I'm like whoa and my whole

mind kind of shifted and I kind of do a grid pattern around the property I'd find you know axe heads grindstones um you agate is very important to the to the locals that are out there and the indigenous tribes before that because you agate is what was used to make tools and weapons and stuff like that So when you find U-Agg-It deposits, you're going to find flaking and stuff like that. And bottle hollow has a lot of U-A-G-It around it as well. And so I found another area is actually a hollow rock, and I found a bunch of sweatstones around this rock. So that area was used for ceremonial purposes.

And that's pretty significant because the area kind of showed signs of maybe one or two people living there, like it was nomadic. So maybe a skinwalker. know. And then I found stuff in Blind Frog Ranch. I found stuff pretty much anywhere. I mean, he went to basin. If I truck out, my eyes are always on the ground looking because my grandfather back here in Kansas when I was a kid, when I was a young kid, he would take me out to these local fields and rivers and streams. And he would get permission from all the landowners because he used to work for the rock quarry. So he knew all the local farmers. And so he would get permission to go

look for rocks on their property and I would go out with them every Sunday and he would show me what to look for and the do's and don't and the do's and don'ts you know if there's a barrel site you don't mess with it and other things what to look for areas of interest and my grandfather really is one who trained me to look for that stuff I didn't really put it together until I got to the ranch and yeah that's all kinds of stuff it all happened for a reason I love that um Amy Amy on Patreon also asks uh you know a lot of the experiments this this season on the show. We had evidence of possible, like, cloaking almost, like invisibility.

You know, in one of the last episodes of the TV show, you know, they set these rockets up to try to gather data. And it's almost as if, like, these rockets bounced off and went in another direction in the triangle, this area that you're very familiar with. And I guess Amy wants to know, any evidence when you were there or anything you heard about with like cloaking technology or possible invisibility stuff whether in the sky or on the ground no no no but i mean you always get that sensation like you're being watched you know right it always felt like you're being watched and sometimes it wasn't just while you're out walking around there was a lot of times i'd be at home i'd be at homestead one skyping with my wife and um i would feel

like somebody was watching me inside the homestead and it used to freak me out but then i'd be at after a while you get kind of used to it. There was one time, I'll never forget this. I've never mentioned this before, but there was one time, it was in daytime, and I was walking from Homestead 2 down to Homestead 3, and right in between there, I felt like something was in the southern tree line,

like staring at me, stalking at me, to the point where I actually turned around and faced it, and was like, something's in that tree line. and I sat there for like five, ten minutes with like this hamletes maybe it was my imagination or something I don't know but it was weird but I felt like something was always there

I know some of my previous colleagues who worked there none of them ever reported that stuff either so but then again we didn't have cameras and stuff out there it was just us so it's hard to document stuff I know that baffles my mind

man that oh god don't get me started and the fact that like you had a better camera personally then we won't go there. That's another conversation. Moving back to, I guess, Area 51 for a moment. I don't ideology on Twitter asks, Chris, did you ever come into contact with or become aware of anything

that is definitely man-made, but would be perceived by general populace as extraterrestrial? Anything you could share, I understand if not, but yeah. Yeah, anything like that man, where it's like, dude definitely ours but you yeah yeah because we always hear that idea of like anything going on out there with black projects is like 40 we hear about it the public hears about it's 30 40 years later yeah yeah look at the f17 project you know the f17 project it was years later than the public knew about it so it makes you wonder you know what do we have in our inventory you know yeah um yeah

can i confirm or deny I mean, honestly, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. I've seen some pretty interesting stuff, and I guess I can just leave at that. I'm just glad we live in the United States, and we have technology that will keep us safe, hopefully. So it's about all I can say.

Hey, that gives me a little comfort knowing that. EMP RECR on Twitter asks, was there ever any experiment that went wrong at SkinW? Walker Ranch where like, you know, it was like, okay, we got to, we got to not mess with this or like abort mission on this. Anything like that? Besides myself being the experiment, kidding, joking. No. Semmy joking. Yeah.

Yeah, right. Now, we had, we did a remote viewing experiment once and I knew it kind of got some negative feedback from another officer. I never knew the in result from that experiment. I wish I did. Other experiments, I guess if you'd call them an experiment, we're sitting inside Homestead too,

trying to make contact with the paranormal or whatever. That was pretty dicey. I know one guy literally drove himself insane doing that. So that was a big red flag. That's about all I can remember. Okay. You know. Okay.

But it wasn't, I mean, we did experiments, but it wasn't that many. You know, I came in in 2010, kind of the very end of the project. You know, there was only a small handful of us out there operating. So I know maybe guys before me, maybe did more stuff. I don't know. I know I've reached out to some of the guys who were out there before me. And it was pretty much kind of the same thing. So I don't know.

Okay. Yeah, that's totally fair. Robert on Facebook asks, are you familiar with any teleportation technology such as jump rooms, portals, stargates? We kind of touched on that with the portal thing. But yeah, in your, you know,

your experience working at these top secret locations and stuff, was that ever conversation? Or are we still nowhere near that sort of technology? I have, I honestly don't know. I mean, I have no idea. there's some very smart people that work at the test site in 51 that are very, very smart, very intelligent. So who knows?

I don't know. I can't confirm because I'm only like to say stuff that I can prove, you know, or second witness or something. But I never see anything in person like that. No. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's totally fair. The one revolution on Twitter asks, does S4 exist?

this supposed location in a hangar out there at Groom Lake that Bob Lazar has talked about. And I guess it kind of play off of that. This whole idea of, you know, Area 51 in general, it's such a part of mythology now. You can go to the gates, get a selfie. You had this Storm Area 51 thing. So to me, that just screams. Anything really sensitive that was going on there was probably moved. somewhere else. I could be completely off on that. But yeah, what do you make of the claims of this

S4 location? Does that resonate at all with you? And also, underground facilities. I mean, I'm sure we have tons of those in the United States. What is your best guess of what area 52 might be, I guess? So yeah, two-prong question there, I guess. Yeah, I've never seen personally at S-4. That wouldn't surprise me if it exists. that would not surprise me one bit because the site is so big there's so much areas to cover and there's some areas

believe or not we're not even allowed to access even for work security and police out there. There's some areas that are so so secret that you can't even go on yourself with acute clearance. So yeah, I mean there's I mean there's so much stuff online

you can look at for the Nevada test site there's the UNA hanger that's you know a thousand feet underground laboratory there's all kinds of stuff you know actually I have a whole bunch of working there I took a bunch of pam there free pamphlets

about the history of the Nevada test site really cool stuff I mean I think you can go online and find a lot of stuff and it probably surprised a lot of people some of the stuff that's available online about Nevada test site and Air 51 too but it probably does exist as far I'm assuming it probably does

there's a lot of a lot of weird stuff out there so who knows. But I've never personally been there myself. But the next Area 52, hmm, Wyoming. I'll say Wyoming. Okay.

Just leave it at that or you? Look at that. Okay. There you go, guys. Everyone start going to Wyoming and start from there. That's just my guess. I mean, there's other places too. I mean, I don't know.

I mean. Yeah, of course. Who knows? That's totally there. Awesome, man. Well, hey, I want to give you these final moments here to one of the best quotes that I pulled from something you said on the Skinwalker Ranch television show. And Brandon Fugel even tweeted this out a quote from you because it was it encompasses everything. And you mentioned it earlier in this conversation of this is bigger than a scientific experiment, bigger than a government contract.

It's bigger than all of us. So I'd love to know what does that truly mean to you? And what are some of the final words you want to leave our audience with, with all of this? Whether it's the UFO topic, Skinwalker Ranch. Yeah, what do you want to lead people with before we wrap things up here? Yeah. Yeah, I do believe the ranch, the whole Uywinza Basin is bigger than what people realize. You know, there's real history out there.

You know, we call it the paranormal, the phenomenon. when in reality it's considered culture and indigenous tribes it's part of the culture like I said we're behind we're behind the curve here of understanding

all that stuff so I really believe the Native American history is the most important aspect in my opinion and that's just because how much I've invested looking for that type of stuff

and I think that's what I mean when I say it's bigger than all of us because there is stuff that's out there that's just really blows your mind like what is going on well what happened out here there's so many overlapping layers of not not just the native american aspect but there's like the meteorite strikes the gilsonite the magnetic anomalies uh it seems like that whole section in utahs just like a kind of a hot spot of all kinds of stuff but a lot of it all relates back to native american and there's been people who said well how come other uh indian reservations aren't haunted or

report this stuff and the truth is they do. Yeah. There's several, there's several reservations that report this stuff. I mean, my mom was born and raised on, or she was raised. My mom was actually born in Roswell Air Force Base. My grandfather was working at Roswell Air Force Base back in the day. But my mom actually grew up. Yeah.

I was thinking about that today. My grandfather worked at Roswell. He was in the Air Force and my mom was born on Roswell Air Force Base. but my mom was also raised around a lot of reservations because my great-grandfather used to be the subcontractor for building schools and churches and stuff. So she was raised in the four corners. And all those tribes talk about UFOs, star people,

skinwalkers, werewolves, whatever you want to call it. And I don't know why that's just ignored, you know, it seems like, I don't know. It's not, it's just the more pieces of the puzzle, I guess, you know, but for me, that's what I think is the most important, you know. Yeah. One of the most important aspects. I hope people take more time and they're like really diving back into those cultures and understanding the people who are here before us, you know, and I think that's important. Absolutely. I love that. And you've highlighted that so well with the photography project that you did. So in the final moment, here, Chris. Can you tell us where we can find your portfolio of all the incredible photos you have? Because I'm going to share some of those in the post edit here with the audience, if that's okay with you.

And tell us a little about, I know you have a film project that might be coming up. If there's anything you can share, I'd love to give you that opportunity. Yeah, let us know where we can find all your work, if you don't mind. Yeah, Taras, Mattelah, he's the director for the University of Maryland. He reached out to me a couple years ago. We had a start a conversation. And he had a, you know, at first he asked, you know, to buy some prints. And I said, no, I'll just donate all of them to the university because I wanted to get more eyes on to the situation, you know, with my photography.

But that archive is online at Skinwalker Ranch portfolio.org is where you can find that. And it was going to be a mini documentary attached to that. short one and it's going to have my own story in it basically and highlighting some of my most favorite pictures in it and some of the flip photography that I do as well where I take images and I flip them and

create like UFOs out of Mesa Rocks and stuff like that and so yeah and I have a website to Chris Bartel.com I don't update as much as I used to but I probably should do a new re-haul and put some more pictures on there and stuff but you can find some of my other projects I've worked on

and some of my old Las Vegas portfolio because I have a huge Las Vegas portfolio of like 20,000 images. I mean, I have, you know, 20 plus years in Las Vegas. I kind of treated, like Ansel Adams is my, one of my favorite photographers. So I wanted to create this approach to Las Vegas. Like, if Ansel Adams came to Las Vegas,

how would he photograph Las Vegas? So a lot of my, a lot of my Las Vegas pictures are on black and white, which are kind of cool or have that, you know, feel to them. And so, yeah, some of my Vegas pictures are on there as well. And I'm still going out to this day and going out and photographing, you know, places in Utah. I'm going back to Las Vegas here pretty soon. So it's been a couple of years since I've been out there.

So Las Vegas is one of those unique cities that every week the whole landscape changes. So, you know, the downtown, the canvas is always changing. So I'm always going down there finding new things to photograph and stuff. I have a whole graffiti art gallery of Las Vegas spent in 15, 20 years. I used to go to some of the worst parts of Las Vegas and photograph some amazing graffiti pieces down there. And I should probably share more of that stuff online too. I think people might like to see that. That's really cool, man.

I love that imagery of the canvas is always changing. That's the perfect way to look at all of this, I think. is we're all growing, we're all learning, we're all, um, we're all part of some grand, uh, performance piece or art exhibition that's yet to be fully, uh, realized. But I think we're, we're getting there, man. And I'm so happy you did come forward. Um, this, I, I'm going to say this on the record. This has been one of my favorite conversations on someone in the sky since the very beginning. So, um, I got to thank you, man. Like, you, I share, a lot with us tonight that she didn't have to so i truly appreciate that yeah you know i think i feel

like i'm like i said i'm just trying to really close a chapter and um and doing some of these shows helps me talk and vent a little bit and i don't mean to come across like uh arrogant or mr no at all i'm just i'm trying to be genuine in my approach and uh that's that's kind of really it for me you know I at some point I want to just kind of close this chapter all together and focus on my new stuff that I got going on. Like, I'm still going out to the basin and I'm still continuing my own data research on my own with other guys too. And we're finding some really cool stuff. And so, and I'm still going back to Skin Walker Ranch occasionally and showing them stuff and they're showing me stuff. And yeah, so it's been a real pleasure being able to share time with you.

And I really enjoy my time here. So thank you for giving me the platform and opportunity to talk a little bit about my past and what I've done. My absolute pleasure. And thank you for your service, Chris. Thank you. Appreciate it. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair.

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