Somewhere in the Skies - I Worked at Area 51 and Skinwalker Ranch | Featuring Christopher Bartel

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

On episode 274 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we are joined by United States Air Force veteran, and former employee of both Area 51 and Skinwalker Ranch, Christopher Bartel. Bartel runs us through his time at both of these highly mysterious locations and the things he witnessed and experienced while working there. Having worked for Robert Bigelow's BAASS for eight years, six of which were spent stationed at Skinwalker Ranch, Bartel created The Skinwalker Ranch Series, a series of landscape photographs taken from 2010 to 2016 that depict the ranch in its raw state, and also function as a visual memoir of the time he spent there. Bartel shares his documentation of the Native American connections to the ranch, and gives his honest thoughts on how the investigations were conducted. He also discusses the highly controversial question of whether it not he and others were used as "guinea pigs" to see how the ranch were affect them physically. It's a wide-ranging discussion with brutal honesty from someone who was there to try to uncover the secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Find all of Chris Bartel's work at: https://www.chrisbartel.com/ View the entire Skinwalker Ranch portfolio at: https://www.skinwalkerranchportfolio.org/ Ryan is now on Cameo! Book your video today at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan’s book in paperback, ebook, or audiobook: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at: https://bit.ly/3rJpbd7 Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2022 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. fXQWAvuy5Ac0653LyTxi Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the crispy chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal.

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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's 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 forces 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 door is you kind of get vouched in. Like the friends like, hey, you should apply.

And 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 a 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 en 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 ended 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, did 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 opened with CSC, for the Janet detail and I worked out for a while and I 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 event. 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 a cue 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 at Area 51 with Janet and everything? Well, the Q, 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 TS 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 the clearance or can get one. 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're worth the

the site there with some other guys and do 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 a 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 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 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 put 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 classification 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. 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 could 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 these locations and I was like, wow. Talk about like projecting, you know, 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 this 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

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 McCarron Airport and I'd go pick him up and I would say hey you know

what happened what were you at and 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 Five, which is across from Ellis Air Force Base.

It's 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. It'd be outdated aircraft replaced by some type of superior technology, you know. Not saying a TITAC is that, but it's just, it makes me. 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 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 our own earth, the secrets of our own earth, you know? Yep, yeah, I tend to always 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 we know so little about our very own planet. And I think you're right. There has to be some sort of reason logistically and mathematically, statistically, I guess, so many UFO sightings 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 had like a restricted airspace

that reached 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 Lazar. Obviously, I saw all the when I was working at Nellis, listening to the

normal news. I would see George Naps broadcast sometimes when he'd recap Bob Lizar 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. But yeah, I was intrigued by his story as well, and it made me, and actually working there are 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 the, that's kind of how that area works. It's overlapping layers of secrecy where me and you can work in the same location for 20 years, but we would need it. None of us would know what we're working

on. It's just, it's how, that'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 to 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 career, these areas, there might be some questions that would arise. Like, are they being truthful? You know, what's,

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, yeah. I would like to do a face-to-face with them

maybe one day and just talk. That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm cool, you know, but, I mean, I don't know. Definitely has, 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 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 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, what was going on out here 10,000 years ago? I know in the 1800s, the Paiute 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. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app.

Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. 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 an 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 I applied, and he kind of vouched for me, and then I had a meeting with Colm, 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.

I shared through some of my experiences in Kansas And even a couple of my experiences In Nellis Air Force Base There's a hangar called 858 Propulsion Building And it had some gross paranormal stuff happening there And sure enough, there was some other airmen This is back in 2004 or five maybe Anyways, and we had an experience there

And it was like 10 witnesses that all saw it It was crazy But so I was very open to the interview And I told him, yeah, I'm open and he kind of nod at his head and I left and my buddy came out and says hey you got the job and I'm like okay cool when I started

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 have two officers out there so one guy would drive up to 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 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 try 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 fall, he followed my whole career in the Air Force and the test site and then 51. And then, you know, 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 a concern 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 of his voice, he seemed like he was nervous. And I'm like, I've deported recines. You know, and this is the time he sounds nervous. Right. For everything you've gone through, then that's when he's nervous.

Yeah. Yeah, so then that's what kind of when 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. 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, 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, you know, 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 2 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 way 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 the middle 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 3.33 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 prints 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 it was just far enough away to keep a visual on us but not not close enough for us to see it so now we're like holy shit we need to get back to the homestead um 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 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 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 a report and I think an initial report I probably even see the animal because I was so freaked out about losing my clearance, my cue clearance, that an initial report, I said I didn't see it.

Because I had planned to go back to Nevada test out eventually. It's because all my friends were there and 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 yeah we leased the land around us we leased the land on top of the maces so we had more acreage 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 just like whatever it's the ranch i don't care it's it's 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 this bushes of sage, I hear that same howl 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.

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 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. You're going to die on Skinwalker range. Yeah. And I was just like, give me a break, you know. 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 focused 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 phenomenal. 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 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 was 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. It's on Netflix now. Back then, 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 connecting 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 Skinwalker 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, 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 comb and um what did they think of your whole approach to to investigating the ranch it's 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 um 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 actually received an email from somebody, it 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 youth.

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 actually took down to rural Utah and had professionals look 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 phenomena, which is reporting skinwalkers and UFOs, but there's also a 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 15 hundred 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 Skinwalker Ranch, same thing. McConkey Ranch, same thing. Blind Frog 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 happen 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. Is 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 had 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 that's the new narrative now that has to be crammed on everybody's throat is everything's UAP everything's UAP UFO 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 of where I used to work out but also I'm having an open of 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 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. If it 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? You know? 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 I their Netflix and that's what they watched and they learned 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 that's 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, 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 mine. I kind of showed that through my photography. Like the ranch, it's viewed as 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 capture and the beauty of the ranch of the property, that was my focus. And I kind of felt like that opened up the ranch more because I was so focused on subject matters of like artifacts, rock formations, the vegetation, animals.

And so I kind of, that 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, see. 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 Brandon 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. The people that are asking, yeah, please. The people that are asking those questions like Bigelow, 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 at first i didn't think it was real i woke up to this blinding light and i was transported

it to another place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is our city. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause

excitement, loss of sleep, and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. 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

AASAP 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 AASAP,

and this all started from Jane Lackowski, 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 strikes me as odd, because I never knew about the cask 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 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 prior military veterans to go out there and do what, figure what out. It seems like the whole program was a fail in the beginning because of the lack of communication. We still were able to collect data and have some experiences. but it makes you wonder

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 OSAP, because I didn't know about OSAP until 2019,

but I've learned about Lecatsky and stuff. I didn't know that he even came out there and had experience. And wasn't until later with the new book and stuff that I found out. But I thought to myself, what a wasted opportunity because it had been great for him to come out there because he's had, he has a connection out there. And that's how the ranch works. I felt the ranch has a connected, connectivity 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, 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 is expendable. My health is expendable. 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 were 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 um 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 ask you, 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, it's hard not to think that. When you're look back at the timeline and there was lack of communication, like I said, you know, lack of equipment. That's, 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 Uylanta 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, did 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 start. 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.

It really, I don't have a lot of words to say about it. I'm still trying to, I'm just 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 will always be there forever. And my kids can go back and view that, the photography. And it's just awesome. You know, Theross Matlow 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 Skin Walker 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 stain 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 play 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 Eastgate 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 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 one at skinwalker ranch and i remember every night closing my eyes thinking myself i hope nobody gets on the property and puts a 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 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 and sacrifice for your country for um for the scientific community supposedly that's what they wanted were scientific answers and beyond so um you know before i move on here uh thank you thank you for your service thank you for

what you did on the ranch thank you for um 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 really sensational stuff. And then you have, like you said, with the photo exhibition at the university, 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 to do. And 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 we've collected and it's unbelievable. I mean,

I've been back on Skim 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've got Eric Bard out there with Brandon Fugel's team. That guy gets it and he's invested his energy out there. He's out there and he's not messing around. He doesn't care about no TV show. I'll tell you that right now. He doesn't care one single damn

about a TV show. 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 there's so many overlapping layers with Skinwalker Ranch. It's just, if there's magnetic anomalies around there and maybe that's what drew, maybe that's what drew the natives out there to begin with, was those anomalies, you know.

maybe that's what drew him 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, and 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. Do you like stories of the strange, the weird, and the unexplained, then we want you to check out Jim Harold's Campfire. The concept is pretty simple. Jim talks to regular people about strange stuff that happens to them. And yes, that includes UFOs, along with cryptids, ghosts, and head scratchers. He doesn't exaggerate or play a lot of spooky music, kind of like I'm doing right now. The stories speak for themselves.

Ones like a ghost story involving serial killer Ted Bundy, or the young man who encountered an eight-legged demon. Then there's the story of an alien abduction by what could be considered a reptilian. Now, not all the stories are horrifying. Some are actually pretty heartwarming, like a visit from a past loved one, or a peaceful near-death experience. Regardless, these are true and fascinating stories told by ordinary people who've had extraordinary experiences. Tune in to Jim Harold's Campfire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to Somewhere in the Skies. And remember, stay spooky.

Hey guys, Ryan here. The Somewhere in the Skies podcast is a labor of love every week. And with that comes many different costs to keep the show running. That's where our Patreon campaign comes in. You give what you think the show is worth. There's different rewards available all the time, including shoutouts on the show, early editions of main episodes, bonus episodes and content, and very soon, monthly patron hangouts, where we sit back and chat all

things UFOs. So I hope you'll consider becoming a Patreon subscriber today. To learn more and to join, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Thank you for your support and keep looking up. 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. Is 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. 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 to 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 weird 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 to 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 of the base. And it's not just Skinwalker Ranch, it's the whole. you went to 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 what the hell is going on. Skinwalk or 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 Fremont almost appeared out of nowhere. And also Giants. There was talk about giants coming through portals and stuff. That's more James King'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 the 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 end up and have lunch in the Eastern Valley on this rock table out there. And I would 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 my

backpack and I must have missed it, but laying next to my backpack was a silver 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. U. Agit is very important to the locals that were out there and the indigenous tribes before that because U. Agate is what was used to make tools and weapons and stuff like that. So when you find U-Aggot 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 hollowed 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, I don't know. And then I found stuff in Blind Frog Ranch. I found stuff pretty much anywhere. I mean, he went to basin.

If I trucked 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 his 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 in the do's and don't, and the do's and don't.

You know, if there was a burial 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, I thought all kinds of stuff. It all happened for a reason. I love that. Amy, Amy on Patreon also asks, you know, a lot of the experiments 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. Right. 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, 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 once, Skyping with my wife. And I would feel like somebody was watching me inside the Homestead. They used to freak me out, but then 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 I was in the 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 10 minutes with like this ham like this 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 were 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 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 F117 project. You know, the F117 project 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. Can I confirm or deny? Okay. 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 that 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 what 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 Skinwalker 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. Somebody 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 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 experience working at these top secret locations and stuff, was that ever conversation? Or are we still nowhere near that sort of technology? 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, I wrote a little song to remind you, choice hotels, get you more of the experiences you value. The can be a hotel's got it all.

A rooftop ball, have a ball. Bring a date, your squad, or even your mom. Book direct at choiceotails.com. 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

S-4. That wouldn't surprise me if it exists. It would not have surprised 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 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. Wow. So, yeah, 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 their free pamphlets about the history of the Nevada test site.

Really cool stuff. I mean, I think you can go online and find out of that. 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 Area 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 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 good. 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, Skin Walker Ranch. Yeah, what do you want to leave people with before we wrap things up here? Yeah. I do believe the ranch, the whole Uyntza 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 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 in 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? What happened out here? There's so many overlapping

layers of not just the Native American aspirates, but there's like the meteorite strikes, the Gilsenite, the magnetic anomalies. It seems like that whole section of Utah just like a kind of a normal 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 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, 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 moments 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 Matala, he's the director for the University of Maryland. He reached out to me a couple years ago. We had a start, we started 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 there's going to be a mini documentary attached to that, a 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, you know, 20 plus years in Las Vegas, I kind of treated, like Ansel Adams is 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 Las Vegas pictures around black and white, which are kind of cool or have that, you know, feel to them. And so, yeah, some of my Vegas pictures around 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 Find a new things to photograph and stuff There is I have a whole Graffiti Art Gallery of Las Vegas Spending 15, 20 years

I used to go to like 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.

We're all growing. We're all learning. We're all part of some grand performance piece or art exhibition that's yet to be fully realized. But I think we're getting there, man. And I'm so happy you did come forward. I'm going to say this on the record. This has been one of my favorite conversations on someone in the skies since the very beginning.

So I got to thank you, man. You shared a lot with us tonight that you didn't have to. So I truly appreciate that. Yeah, you know, I think I feel like I'm just trying to really close a chapter. And doing some of these shows helps me talk and vent a little bit. I don't mean to come across like arrogant. or Mr. No-it-all. I'm just, I'm trying to be genuine in my approach.

And that's kind of really it for me. You know, 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 Skinwalker 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 an 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. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions,

in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network.