Welcome back, fellow ranchers! Has it been a week already? I’ll be honest with you all, and I know this is straying outside of the realm of most The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch viewers, but I am obsessed with a game. Any free time that would usually go towards looking into fun Ufology news has been spent on Deadly Days: Roadtrip. Now bear with me, because this game is a blast and a half. 

Deadly Days: Roadtrip is an inventory management, Survivors-like zombie game that pits you against an ever-growing hoard of flesh-eating monsters. I typically get into new games for maybe five to 10 hours and then move on. Not this game. Last time I checked my Steam profile, I had 50 hours into this game that I bought not too long ago. It has eaten up nearly every moment of free time. When I’m not playing it, I have YouTube videos of the game playing in the background. If you’re into fun, just-stressful-enough roguelikes, then Deadly Days: Roadtrip is the game for you. 

Okay, let’s get things back on track. And speaking of back on track, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch does what it does best: it brought me back from the brink of walking away. This show definitely has its highs and lows, and sometimes it feels like there are more lows than highs. But then you get episodes like Season 7 Episode 8 “Rocket Man” and I’m brought right back in. So, without further ado, let’s jump back to our second favorite ranch in Utah to see if we’re any closer to uncovering The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch. 

LiDAR Scans Reveal Missing Bubble and Impossible GPS Anomalies at Skinwalker Ranch

Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 9:14 AM

Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Sam Deriso, Kaleb Bench, and Thomas Winterton sit around the Command Center table. Technologist Pete Kelsey joins via video call. (We’ll circle back to this because they have a hilarious edit later on that makes you wonder why Pete was on a video call.) Pete has the LiDAR data from last episode’s scans that Pete and Cameron Fugal collected while Triple A continued drilling a vertical Borehole. 

Pete and Cameron captured LiDAR data from about 200 feet in the air while Kaleb Bench used a stationary LiDAR scanner on the ground at The Triangle. The first piece of data we see is from Kaleb’s ground scans; Pete has overlaid all of the scans on top of each other, and there is one thing missing: The Bubble. And that’s not all. The image is littered with blue icons that show the LiDAR scanner’s position according to internal GPS. The data reveals an 80-foot differential from the first to the last scan. 

“That shouldn’t be possible,” Dr. Travis Taylor says sound biting-ly. 

Then, Pete pulls up his LiDAR data. His GPS data seems normal to start. But just west of the Mesa drill site, we see the GPS jump roughly 50 to 100 feet up. Travis wonders whether, if both LiDAR devices received warped GPS data, that means it was affected by something within The Bubble or by the ongoing drilling? Or…both? 

Drilling at the Mesa Uncovers Mysterious Metal Flakes at Skinwalker Ranch (strongest choice)

Mesa Drill Site – Later That Day – 12:02 PM

Dr. Travis Taylor, Kaleb Bench, Erik Bard, Archaeologist Chris Roberts, Sam Deriso, Thomas Winterton, and (checks notes) Pete Kelsey join the Triple A team at the top of the Mesa. So you’re telling me that Pete Kelsey video-called in and then just a handful of hours later, he was at Skinwalker Ranch and all the way at the top of the Mesa?! I even rewound the episode a few times just to confirm. It was one of the handful of moments in this show that made me belly laugh like Santa Claus. 

We learn that Bo Camp and Jed Murray are at the 53-foot mark in their second vertical Borehole. Dr. Travis Taylor reminds us that this vertical hole is only several feet south of where they had a lateral drill destroyed last year during the drilling of Borehole Two. And if you remember, it was where the ceramic materials (which we now know are more plaster-like) were found. 

Triple A is ready to get back to drilling. While they do so, Chris Robert and Kaleb Bench sift through the spoils of the drill head. It’s not too long into the drilling that Chris hits gold, figuratively. Using his magnetic wand, Chris found two metal flakes. Thomas Winterton radios down to the science tent and tells the team to come back over.

XRF Analysis Examines Mysterious Metal Flakes as Mesa Drilling Comes to a Halt

Dr. Travis Taylor, Sam Deriso, and Erik Bard head over to the spoils pile to meet with the team. Chris tells them all that these flakes are very similar to the previous flakes found on the ranch. Jed Murray even confirms that these are not the types of flakes that would come off the drill head. If you remember, the flakes previously found on the ranch contained elements like iron, aluminum, europium and tellurium–these are all elements found in the materials used to make spacecraft. 

Erik says he’s going to go get his portable XRF device to measure the chemical makeup of this metal flake. The XRF device uses X-rays to determine the elemental composition of objects. He soon comes back with the device and begins to collect data on the metal flake. We learn that the flake is made up of iron and aluminum, but there is no europium or tellurium. One thing is for sure: they are ready to get those metal flakes over to Utah Valley University. 

Triple A gets back to drilling. When they are only 10 feet away from hitting their mark, the drill makes a popping sound. Fluid shoots out of one of the hoses…they blew a hydraulic line. The bad news is out: the drill will be out of operation for the rest of the day (episode). 

Rocket Experiments Target the Skinwalker Ranch Magnetic Anomaly

The Triangle – 4:25 PM

Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Jim Royston, Kaleb Bench, and Thomas Winterton meet up with Allen Isdell, Dave Barber, Jay Turicik, and Mike Turicik of LOC Precision. Travis says that, based on information gleaned from Sky Elements’ previous drone experiments, they want to research the magnetic anomaly located about 750 to 1,000 feet above The Triangle. Allen tells the team that they brought rockets that can reach about 3,500 feet. 

Travis goes over the plan for the evening’s experiments. They will be launching rockets of different sizes through two specific target zones: the 30-foot mark where The Blob is and the 750 to 1,000-foot spot with the magnetic anomaly. Since some of the rockets can go above the top of The Bubble, they are hoping that some interesting results can be found from that, too. Some of the rockets will have data-recording devices in them to measure all sorts of data that Erik can scrub over later. On top of that, several high-speed cameras will be set up around The Triangle for Erik’s Meta-Frame to compile. 

The first rocket launch uses a rocket that can reach 1,500 feet, and it won’t have any instruments on it. It’s more or less a test launch. They set up the rocket, and it seemingly goes off without issue. But the tail wiggled shortly after its launch, and the rocket’s body fell off. Even weirder is how the rocket’s parachute was completely ripped out from inside. Travis makes note that this is the third rocket this year that had its interior parachute chord severed.

Rocket Behaves Strangely After Entering the Skinwalker Ranch Bubble

The second rocket is set up and ready to launch. This rocket is six feet tall and chock full of telemetry equipment…and it can reach 3,500 feet! Allen sets off the rocket, but we soon learn that it only hits 2,200 feet. That’s just barely above the top of The Bubble. On its way down, the rocket seems to stop in midair right at the top of The Bubble. 

Here’s where things get weird. Due to the rocket’s weight and lack of wind, it should fall straight down. But it starts to fall away from The Triangle. It finally lands on the ground, but it’s 2,000 feet away from The Triangle and lands at the very edge of The Bubble. It really does look like the rocket fell down the exterior of The Bubble’s boundary! 

Amazed at this, Travis wants to get the third rocket up as quickly as possible. The rocket goes up, but the chute doesn’t release. There isn’t much follow-up on this rocket at all. 

Night Launch

8:05 PM

Now that night has fallen on Skinwalker Ranch, the team gets ready to set off some more rockets. The first rocket that is set to launch is a coil rocket. Inside the rocket is a coil of copper wire, which will be used to assist in measuring any potential unusual magnetic anomalies. The rocket goes off and successfully hits 3,400 feet. But who would have guessed, the chute doesn’t deploy. Dr. Travis Taylor and Kaleb Bench go to look for the rocket. They eventually find it and find the chute, which didn’t even unfurl. 

They set up for the final rocket launch of the night. This one is covered in LEDs and HUGE. “Now that’s a rocket,” Travis says earnestly. They launch the rocket, and it only goes up to 2,200 feet. Moreover, it suddenly veers off course and heads towards the Skinwalker Ranch Command Center, again with very little wind. This rocket, too, looks like it’s sliding down the outside of The Bubble barrier. 

Rocket Data Reveals Voltage Spike, LiDAR Correlation, and Possible UAP

Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 11:33 AM

Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Jim Royston, Kaleb Bench, and Thomas Winterton sit around the Command Center table. They get right into the data from the rocket launches. We start with video from the second rocket launch, which had the high-speed cameras attached to it. (Remember, the chute didn’t deploy on this one.)

The video starts with the ignition going off and the rocket blasting into the air. It all looks normal until Erik goes back to the start and goes frame by frame. Shortly after the launch, we see part of the exhaust shoot out horizontally, which is odd. It looks very much like something zipped through it! Dr. Travis Taylor says that’s the exact spot where Pete Kelsey’s GPS data was off from the LiDAR scans. 

Next, Erik pulls up video from the coil rocket night launch. The team placed a camera inside this rocket, which had a voltage meter inside. The rocket launches, and the camera catches the voltage meter showing a peak of 0.0237V. Travis says that number is several times higher than normal. But where did that happen? Erik was able to time the rocket flight and pointed out the voltage spike…was at 750 feet! 

Finally, we see one more night vision video from one of the night launches. Shortly after the rocket launches, a UAP zips right through the rocket’s path. “That’s not a bug,” says Dr. Travis Taylor. 

Final Thoughts on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch S7 Ep 8

I’m not even going to go over my thoughts on the drilling stuff. Of course, a hydraulic line burst right as they didn’t get any good data. What I do want to talk about is the information we gathered from LOC Precision. I feel the same way about the LOC experiments as I do about the Sky Elements experiments.

Sky Elements does drone shows for a living. LOC Precision knows rockets inside and out. When Allen Isdell or Preston Ward seem genuinely amazed by something that happens to the objects they use on a near-daily basis, that’s important to note. I believe Allen when he says his rockets can hit 3.5k feet. So when that doesn’t happen, I find more credence in that than most other stuff on the ranch. And watching the rockets fall down the side of The Bubble is incredibly compelling.

I don’t know much about voltages or magnetic anomalies, so I really can’t comment on whether Dr. Travis Taylor is correct when he says that number is several times higher than expected. But if Allen is impressed/amazed by what happened, then I should be too. Anyways, thanks for joining us for this episode, and we look forward to exploring with you next week! Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a little closer to uncovering The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch. 

From its very first scenes, The Summer Hikaru Died cemented itself as the best anime series to drop in 2025. And that’s saying something given the lineup that it found itself in. In a year that brought us new shows like Sakamoto Days and Gachiakuta, and new seasons of well-established hits like Dr. Stone and Dandadan, The Summer Hikaru Died still managed to rise above by virtue of its incredible composition. And a year after its July 2025 release, it’s still the anime of the Summer.

Serialized in the seinen magazine Young Ace Up starting in 2021, The Summer Hikaru Died is the brainchild of mangaka Mokumokuren. The manga started in August of that year to instant and resounding praise, both from audiences and critics alike. By 2024, the series had been picked up for an adaptation by animation studio Cypic. Just like the manga before it, it became an instant hit, garnering a fanbase of millions in just months.

One year out from its release, the impact the show has had is undeniable, and easy to understand. It’s a genre-bending masterpiece that explores some incredible emotional depths and genuinely contemplative themes. Beyond that, it provides a supernatural mystery reminiscent of Twin Peaks, involving the dark history of a small town and the strange spirits lurking around it. It’s a one-of-a-kind show, and if you really must see it to believe it, you only need to watch the first four minutes before you’ll understand why it’s so special.

One Perfect Opening and the Beginning to a Summer of Horror

The show opens on a pretty conventional scene for a horror story: a young man running through the woods in the middle of the night. Yelling out through the noise of a storm overhead, the boy, Yoshiki, calls for his friend Hikaru. As he scans the darkness looking for him, we get our first glimpse at the strange entity inhabiting these woods: a monochrome, amoeba-like form, a pinpoint of red light growing brighter and brighter at its center. Laying on the ground elsewhere, Hikaru is dying. He quietly calls out for Yoshiki as his arm stretches up, reaching for that light. And as red fills Hikaru’s pupil, as he walks towards it in his mind’s eye, in the real world Yoshiki is letting out a guttural cry as he finds his friend’s body.

The Bus Stop Scene That Defines The Summer Hikaru Died

And then it transitions to daytime, half a year later. In the heat of the summer, it somehow becomes even more sinister. In the light of day, there’s an uncomfortable energy to the small town of Kibogayama. The heat sits in the air as a haze, the sun itself is piercing, the day is painfully slow. And most noticeably of all, the cicadas are screaming, like nature itself is aware something is wrong and trying to sound the alarm. Yoshiki and Hikaru sit at a bus stop, talking and eating ice cream, seemingly fine.

It’s at that moment that Yoshiki speaks up: he knows that the Hikaru they found six months ago is not Hikaru. And he wants to know what the creature masquerading as his friend is. “Hikaru’s” face begins to melt into that amoeba-thing once more, as the creature begs him not to tell anyone. And as it embraces Yoshiki and tells him he doesn’t want to kill him…Yoshiki actually hugs it back. He’s seemingly resigned to accepting the abomination in front of him. To the point he’s even open to it playing the part of a dead friend.

An Ingenious Fable About Identity, Belonging, and Love

It doesn’t take long to realize that what you’re watching isn’t a simple horror mystery, or a coming-of-age, or a love story (but you’ll find plenty of people debating its exact classification online, trust me). It is all of those things, yes, but it’s also much more than the sum of its parts. The Summer Hikaru Died is a genuinely ingenious fable about the nature of identity, belonging, and love that interrogates these aspects of humanity thoroughly.

The questions it asks in this interrogation are hard to ignore, and maybe even harder to answer. What does it mean when grief becomes a form of love, and vice versa? How much of your love is tied to an idea of someone rather than who they really are? How do you keep going when the person you tied so much of your sense of belonging and safety onto is gone? And how does your very existence and sense of self change when you try to replace that person?

Exploring Grief, Estrangement From Self, and Queerness in a Familiar Place

The exploration of these questions is also heavily the reason for Hikaru’s effectiveness as a quintessential queer love story as well. They’re the reason why it’s one of the best of all time as far as anime is concerned.

Yoshiki’s journey of grief and his struggle with understanding his feelings towards both versions of Hikaru is painted in familiar brushstrokes for many queer people. Living in a small town, feeling completely and firmly in the outgroup, the set dressing is intentionally familiar. The show often likes to play in that familiarity to engender an otherworldliness, as you might have guessed from the description of the opening above. It’s an up-close sort of distance, representative of how out of place the main characters feel even at home.

How The Summer Hikaru Died Turns Nostalgia Into Existential Horror

Cultural festivals, excursions to the beach, breezy summer nights, these elements that are supposed to bring you nostalgia instead tip the scales to incongruity, to feeling out of place. There’s always a catch to these good moments that the show exploits for an emotional gut punch, especially in the seventh and twelfth episodes of the season. The harmony of good memories and warm weather turns into the dissonance of feeling like you have nowhere to run. It’s a sensation not unlike the opening of the show in those dark woods: of being lost in a place that should feel familiar, explored, but is ultimately much more isolating and terrifying.

One could argue it’s that very unfamiliarity that causes Yoshiki’s choice to keep the new Hikaru around. Yoshiki is rudderless in a culture and society he was always promised he’d find a place in but never really found. The one person he found solace in is gone, no matter how hard he tries to deny it. He’s isolated from even his family, who are as ghostly as the spirits manifesting around town. Yoshiki bears a burden that is impossible for the people in his life to understand, but one that many viewers will know all too well.

The Emotional and Narrative Entanglement of Yoshiki and Hikaru

And then, that struggle is compounded with another burden in having to manage and look over the creature impersonating Hikaru. In turn, the false Hikaru’s secret becomes his secret. Likewise, the false Hikaru’s attempts to adapt into human society draw obvious parallels to the queer experience. He might have the memories of the boy that was Hikaru, but there has been an intrinsic change in how he identifies that upends everything for him. He’s met with suspicion and even outright hostility on all sides; his very existence is a fight for survival. With attacks coming from the most unexpected angles, there’s a layer of subtextual discomfort about the persecution of queerness added to the show’s more literal haunted horror.

The relationship that the duo develops as they try to find a sense of normalcy, and the supernatural discoveries they make in the process, are so deftly interwoven that the two journeys become one and the same. They are inextricable, and that makes the writing of Hikaru so much stronger for it. It feels more purposeful, and more touching emotionally as you see these two try not just to survive, but to discover who they really are. And by that twelfth episode, what their relationship has turned into reaches this emotional crescendo that leaves you wanting so much more.

The Summer Hikaru Died is in no uncertain terms an emotional tour de force, and this is only barely scratching the surface of what makes it so strong. If you missed the boat on catching this show when it first released, let this article be the signal that you should absolutely dive into the unparalleled experience that is The Summer Hikaru Died.