TV
How ‘Torchwood’ Formed an Unexpected Gateway to Horror
As a repressed teen with a burgeoning interest in horror and a big lesbian awakening coming her way a decade later, Torchwood was something of a foundational show for me. It was one of the first pieces of media I can remember watching that made me question the concept of heterosexuality as the default setting. It was far from perfect in its presentation of this concept, but it was better than I was getting elsewhere.
And best of all, it could be scary. I was hooked.
Like a lot of nerdy kids growing up in Britain in the early 2000s, I had a major Doctor Who phase. During showrunner Russel T. Davies’ first tenure (2005–2010), I watched each new episode religiously, had action figures lined up along my windowsill, and even got some artwork featured on the kid-friendly companion show Totally Doctor Who (2006–2007). Yeah, I was just that cool.
My dad, a life-long science-fiction fan, was fully supportive of this phase and didn’t bat an eye as I rolled seamlessly into watching Torchwood, Who’s adult spin-off show, when it arrived on BBC Three in 2006. But while he would occasionally sit down with me for an episode of Doctor Who, he wasn’t particularly interested in Torchwood, so I watched it alone in my bedroom, unsupervised and unexamined.
How Torchwood Led Me to the World of Horror
I’m grateful for that. If my parents had looked a little closer at the show, I doubt I would have made it past the first episode, because Torchwood started as it intended to continue: splattered with blood and pretty damn queer.
As a repressed teen with a burgeoning interest in horror and a big lesbian awakening coming her way a decade later, Torchwood was something of a foundational show for me. It was one of the first pieces of media I can remember watching that made me question the concept of heterosexuality as the default setting. It was far from perfect in its presentation of this concept, but it was better than I was getting elsewhere.
And best of all, it could be scary. I was hooked.
“Modern” Talk and Subversive Stereotypes
When Doctor Who made its triumphant return to British screens in 2005, I was 12, living in a small, insular town on the east coast of Scotland. Homophobia ran rampant in my high school and the community at large. When I look back on my lonely, confused teenage years and wonder why I didn’t realize I was queer sooner, the answer is painfully clear. It was easier to hide, even from myself.
The British television landscape didn’t help. Queerness was largely absent on mainstream TV at the time; where it did appear, it was typically presented for laughs. Some of those jokes are still funny. Many cut deep, even now.
Openly gay showrunner Russel T. Davies certainly wasn’t afraid to insert queer jokes into Doctor Who and, later, Torchwood. But the humor tended to stem from the absurdity of homophobia, rather than coming at the expense of the queer characters themselves. In the Who episode “Gridlock” (2007), for instance, an elderly lesbian chastises Thomas Kincade Brannigan (Ardal O’Hanlon) for insisting on calling her and her wife “sisters,” with Brannigan responding that they should “stop that modern talk — I’m an old-fashioned cat.” The episode is set five billion years in the future on the planet of New Earth and Brannigan, a humanoid cat, is in an inter-species relationship with a human woman with whom he’s had a little of kittens. But two women being married? Still considered “modern talk.” Good fun.
But Davies’ queer influence on Doctor Who went much further than jokes. With the introduction of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) in the very first season of the revival, Davies gave Who not only its first-ever openly queer character, but a horny “omnisexual” who subverts stereotypes by looking and acting like an archetypal masculine hero, all while flirting with everyone in sight. Harkness even kisses both Rose (Billie Piper) and the Doctor (played at the time by Christopher Eccleston) on the mouth before his heroic self-sacrifice in “The Parting of the Ways” (2005).
As Davies told Pink News in 2020, he was “thirsty for that kind of material” growing up — and he clearly wasn’t the only one. Captain Jack immediately grew a fan following, making him the obvious candidate for a spin-off show.
That show is Torchwood, which continues Jack’s story following his death, resurrection, and realization that he has become accidentally immortal. Believing the Doctor can “fix” him, Jack hunkers down in Cardiff to await the Doctor’s inevitable return, joining and later leading the Torchwood Institute — an organization set up by Queen Victoria to defend the Earth against alien and supernatural threats — along the way.
With a presumed adult audience, Torchwood was able to turn the queer dial up several notches. But it also leaned harder into the horror elements that the more family-friendly Doctor Who could only flirt with.
Blood and Bodies (and BBQ Sauce)
After a brush with Halloween (1978) when I was far too young, it took me years to build up the courage to start watching horror movies again, despite my growing fascination with the genre. To ease the transition, I read a lot of scary books, looked at the pictures on horror DVD cases, and watched Torchwood.
Torchwood is not a horror-forward series, but it certainly has its moments. The debut episode, “Everything Changes” (2006), sees an alien creature with a face “like Hellraiser” ripping a custodian’s throat out with its teeth, sending gouts of blood spurting in every direction. The third season, known as “Children of Earth” (2009), deals with an alien threat demanding that the human race hands over 10% of its kids, claiming they will “live forever.” When we get a glimpse of the fate that awaits them, the image is truly nightmarish.
And then there’s “Countrycide” (2006), an early episode that feels like a Welsh folk horror take on The Hills Have Eyes (the remake of which was released earlier the same year), complete with corpses stripped down to bloody skeletons and a fridge full of human meat. The true horror of the episode? There appears to be no alien influence at play. When the traumatized Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) demands an explanation for the murder and cannibalism, the all-too-human ringleader provides one that offers no catharsis or comfort, saying he did it “‘cause it made [him] happy.”
Sure, Torchwood could also be supremely silly — see the sexy Cyberwoman slathered in BBQ sauce getting pecked at by a pterodactyl (“Cyberwoman,” 2006). But I can’t deny that the series sparked my creepy curiosity. Episodes like “Countrycide” made me eager to seek out the films that influenced the writers. I also tracked down several of the series’ tie-in books, which could be even more explicit in their gore. Andy’s Lane’s Slow Decay (2007), involving an alien tapeworm that makes its hosts so hungry they’ll eat anything — rats, other humans, even their own flesh in a pinch — has always stuck with me.
What I appreciate most about Torchwood in hindsight, however, is not its willingness to show blood, which Doctor Who has always been squeamish about, but the way it challenged my small-town understanding of sexuality as a teen.
Quaint Little Categories and Problematic Queers
Jack Harkness’s sexuality was no secret going into Torchwood, so it’s no surprise that showrunners Chris Chibnall and Russell T. Davies seized the opportunity to delve deeper into this aspect of his character. In the second episode, “Day One” (2006), Torchwood’s medic, Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), comments that the only thing they know about the mysterious Jack is that he’s gay, because “period military is not the dress code of a straight man.” Tech wiz Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) challenges this narrow notion, noting that Jack will “shag anything if it’s gorgeous enough.” Jack, who was born in the 51st century, later teasingly chastizes his team for their limited 21st-century understanding of sexuality: “You people and your quaint little categories.”
Like Davies’ Who before it, Torchwood does not relegate Jack’s queerness to mere words. Throughout the series, we see him engaged in a will-they-won’t-they flirtation with Gwen in between making out with multiple men, from the closeted World War II captain (Matt Rippy) whose name he stole, to former-lover-turned-enemy Captain John Hart (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s James Marsters). By season two, Jack is getting hot and heavy with Torchwood team member Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd). In the final season, “Miracle Day” (2011), he has same-gender sex scenes that were heavily edited for the UK broadcast and lambasted by bigots.
And Torchwood isn’t content to place all its queerness in Jack’s basket, though it struggles to handle its other characters’ sexualities with as much nuance. Owen, Toshiko, and Gwen all have queer encounters throughout the first season, with some even resulting in sex. None of these are what I’d call particularly good representation, however, especially by modern standards; all involve predatory elements and none are ever mentioned again, with the characters going back to exclusively heterosexual relationships afterward. The show’s understanding of gender was also limited, with the episode “Greeks Bearing Gifts” (2006) even shoehorning in an uncomfortably unfunny joke at the expense of an unseen trans character.
But it wasn’t all bad. By far, Torchwood’s best representation outside of Jack comes in the form of the aforementioned Ianto Jones.
Ianto Jones and Coming Into Your Queerness
Ianto undergoes a major evolution during his run on Torchwood, starting out as the unassuming “tea boy” and gradually growing more emboldened, funny, and heroic. At the same time, he’s coming to terms with the idea that he’s not as straight as he (and the audience) originally thought.
At the outset of the series, Ianto is trapped in a doomed relationship with a woman partially converted into a Cyberwoman. But as Torchwood’s first season progresses, Ianto begins to flirt with Jack; the two are implied to have hooked up in “They Keep Killing Suzie” (2006), with season two’s debut, “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” (2008), making their relationship official as Jack asks Ianto on a date. Gwen later walks in on a steamy, shirtless moment between the two in the episode “Adrift” (2008).
By the time the third season rolled around in 2009, Torchwood’s already slight core cast had been decimated, creating more space for exploration of Ianto’s relationship with his newfound queerness. The season opens with Ianto nervously exhilarated by the idea that people recognize him and Jack as a couple. When Jack asks if it matters, Ianto admits it’s “all a bit new to [him].” Later in the same episode, in response to his sister asking him if he has “gone bender” (a British slang term for gay, usually used as an insult), Ianto explains that “it’s weird. It’s just different. It’s not men, it’s… It’s just him. It’s only him.”
While I know plenty of bisexuals who aren’t thrilled by the trope of a character only being attracted to one specific person of the same gender, the idea that you might not know you’re queer until you know really struck a chord with me. Years later, when I came to the gradual realization that I was a lesbian in my early 20s, I thought of Ianto Jones. There was no singular dashing Captain who unlocked my queerness. But it was all a bit new to me, too.
Ianto sadly did not survive the season. Following the grand tradition of burying your gays (and Torchwood’s own compulsive need to murder most of its cast), “Day Four” ends with Ianto dying in Jack’s arms, heartbreakingly telling the immortal man that “In a thousand year’s time, you won’t remember me,” with Jack promising that “I will.”
Fans remember him, too. A shrine to Ianto Jones exists in Cardiff Bay to this day.
Torchwood was Flawed Yet Formative — and Often Very Fun
I never finished Torchwood. By the time the fourth and final season rolled around, I was preparing to leave for university, had already dropped off Doctor Who, and was slowly graduating to more explicit horror media. Torchwood wasn’t what I needed anymore, especially in its newly Americanized form. I watched a few episodes but never found out how it ended.
A few years later, I would kiss a woman for the first time, and a few years after that I would finally admit to myself that yes, I was queer (duh). Another deeply queer, horror-tinged TV series, Hannibal (2013–2015), would play a crucial role in that self-acceptance, helping me find a queer community that made it easier to finally come out.
But for all its flaws and problematic tropes and BBQ-slathered sexy Cyberwomen, I can’t deny that Torchwood played a role, too.
Welcome back, fellow ranchers! I genuinely hope you’ve been enjoying our journey through Season 7 of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Since we’re basically caught up, and I have some interesting news, we can finally take a step into Brendan’s Ufology Corner (name is still being workshopped). Please bare with me while I work through all of this, or you can skip to the first subheader if you want to get right into The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch coverage.
David Grusch and Australia’s 1971 UFO Intelligence Report
On June 9th, 2026, David Grusch and a coterie of politicians, notably Representative Jared Moskowitz, Representative Tim Burchett, and Representative Anna Paulina Looney, ran a press event at the Capitol. They stood in front of a microphoned podium with a “Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets” board on the front. Much was said in that amount of time, but it’s a few specific points and the event’s timing that are of particular note.
David Grusch, whose bombshell 2023 testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability brought Ufology back into the zeitgeist (along with Ryan Graves and Commander David Fravor), mentioned one thing that struck a specific chord for many people. Grusch’s specific mention of Australia’s 1971 Intelligence UFO Assessment raised a few eyebrows. But why?
The Government’s History of Covering Its Own Ignorance
That assessment is important for many reasons, though proof of aliens doesn’t necessarily rank high at the top of that list. This previously classified document shed light on how intelligence agencies were studying the topic. It basically said that governments were shifting public focus on, then, UFOs to hide the fact that they really didn’t know what this phenomenon really was. So, did the government want to get to the bottom of this? Or was their only goal to save face when they came up short on answers?
Could this be an analog to what David Grusch feels currently? He wasn’t necessarily taken seriously in his 2023 testimony. In fact, claims of alcoholism and pointed character assassinations of Grusch grew as the seconds passed. It feels like a plea from Grusch that the government needs to help protect him from, well, the government.
Grusch’s 60 Day Disclosure Warning
But it goes deeper than that. Ignoring the fact that Tim Burchett said the Chinese spy balloon was used to cover up the fact that Grusch was openly talking about biological entities. And ignore the fact that Leslie Kean said that these biologics happened to be the pilots of recovered UAPs. Grusch claims there are several dozen retrievals that have taken place where non-human biologics were discovered.
Think that’s all? Think again! A little over a month ago, David Grusch made a statement that we should be seeing an escalation regarding ‘D’isclosure in the next 60 to 90 days. But why does that matter?
The Greada Treaty, D-365, and the July 2026 Disclosure Timeline
Roughly 35,000 BC saw the waning civilization that inhabited the Orion constellation, and slowly expanded outwards in search of overcoming potential generational losses. Now, this next part was succinctly put together by a Twitter page Oyagaa-Oomo Network, but it’s the best way to fully understand the importance of the press conference. Basically, visitors from Oomo have confirmed a disclosure strategy and are reducing their stealthiness to validate goodwill, which was agreed upon in the Greada Treaty in 1954 (which was signed between President Eisenhower and The Greys, which was supposedly facilitated by Valiant Thor). An account known as NOAY, which I’m still struggling to understand how it applies, released a clue that states “D-365”. That clue was released by NOAY on July 24, 2025.
All this leads many to believe that D-365 implies July 24, 2026, which would fall directly in line with David Grush’s comment about 60 to 90 days, could be D-Day Two. Could this all be bunk? Sure. Could this be all too real? Definitely. Will July 24, 2026, be the day 500,000 Greys begin their colonization of Earth?
If you’re still reading, thank you! It’s now time for us to head to our second favorite ranch in Utah to see if we get any closer to uncovering The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.
LIDAR Scans, Underground Arcs, and Dr. Francke’s Return to the Mesa
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 9:10 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Thomas Winterton, Technologist Pete Kelsey, Kaleb Bench, and Sam Deriso sit around the Command Center table. Pete Kelsey shows the team an image from his terrestrial LIDAR scans, which he took when the drilling started at the top of the Mesa. The image Pete has is taken from the top of the Mesa, looking southwest. What we see is something that isn’t unusual for the team, but is for Pete’s LIDAR scans: displaced data.
Pete reveals an image that shows data that is not just displaced, but underground. Moreover, the data is in an arc pattern. Does this mean signify more proof of The Bubble’s barrier?
Mesa Drill Site – Later That Day – 10:35 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Technologist Pete Kelsey, Sam Deriso, Thomas Winterton, Kaleb Bench, Archaeologist Chris Roberts, and Triple A Drilling (Jed Murray and Bo Camp) stand atop the Mesa. They are joined by special guest and GPR expert Dr. Jan Francke, who we last saw on Season 6 Episode 12 of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Dr. Francke was the man who found the 400-foot-long object inside the Mesa, which sparked the drilling initiatives.
GPR Inside Borehole One Triggers Mysterious Signals at 33 MHz and Beyond
Dr. Francke is back on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch to run new GPR scans. But this time, he’ll be inside the Mesa. Using his cutting-edge tools, Dr. Francke will run his GPR through Borehole One. And his new equipment will allow the team to see the depth and distance of the anomalies. He will also be running this scan while Triple A gets back to drilling.
The drilling begins with Dr. Francke, Erik Bard, Sam Deriso, and Thomas Winterton at the top of the Mesa, while Dr. Travis Taylor and Kaleb Bench will run the computers and analyzers at the bottom of the Mesa.
As the experiment kicks off, Sam Deriso notices a 33 MHz signal. Once alerted, Travis notices that he is also seeing that signal on his spectrum analyzer. What’s weird is that 33 MHz is the same signal given off by the drill bit beacon used by Mark Construction in Season 6 Episode 11 “Hard to Handle”. The beacon that was on the tungsten drill bit that was destroyed by the Mesa’s Type A ceramic material. If that wasn’t enough, Travis starts to see both a 1.2 and a 1.6 GHz signal.
This leads Thomas Winterton to question whether or not the drill is stimulating the object(s) within the Mesa.
Gamma Readings Spike as Artemis Testing Lab Weighs In on the Ceramics
Dr. Jan Francke starts to run his GPR device down Borehole One. While that is going on, Chris Roberts begins to inspect the drill core samples with a gamma ray detector. That’s when Chris notices 108 CPM. Then 110 CPM. And then 115 CPM. While that’s not an unsafe count for CPM, it’s highly irregular for a sand mesa. In fact, Travis says that it is about 10 times higher than it should be. It’s also the same count they had from the Type A ceramics when they initially found them.
With the drill one third of the way to its goal, and Dr. Jan’s scanning complete, the team calls it a day.
What Is That? Literally.
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 11:16 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Jim Royston, Chris Roberts, and Thomas Winterton sit around the Skinwalker Ranch Command Center table. On a video call, they have the team from Artemis Testing Lab. The team consists of Bob Dodge, John Sherman, and Serge Fayeulle PH.D. These are the people Chris Roberts sent the Type A ceramics sample to.
Testing Finds the Type A Material Undatable and Unlike Any Known Ceramic
But, before we learn what they found out, what exactly is thermoluminescence testing? The tl;dr is this: they take a sample from ceramics or pottery and cut through that sample. The dust from that cut is used and put in a special contraption that measures the amount of stored light energy in the object. The sample is then heated up to 500 degrees Celcius. Once heated up, some light will be emitted. That light is then measured, where its intensity and value determine an object’s age.
Rigorous testing of the Type A ceramic material reveals that it is undatable. Bob is also completely sure that the object wasn’t fired (created with heat, as ceramics or pottery usually are). But, to cross their I’s and dot their T’s, Artemis also ran an XRF analysis on the material.
Artemis reveals the object isn’t ceramic, but contains similar properties to plaster. But how could a piece of plaster do that to a tungsten drill bit? This information seems helpful for the Skinwalker Ranch team, and Travis says he wants to take the materials back to the lab at UVU with this new information.
Smoke Machine and High-Speed Cameras Target the Bubble’s Western Boundary
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 2:37 PM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Thomas Winterton, Erik Bard, Jim Royston, and Sam Deriso stand outside the Command Center during a wild windstorm. This presents the perfect opportunity for a test they’ve been wanting to run surrounding The Bubble boundary. Erik reveals that they want to see how smoke interacts with The Bubble’s boundary, and this west-to-east wind creates the best conditions. The plan will be to blow smoke from the west side of The Bubble while driving in and out of the boundary.
West Side of The Bubble – 3:32 PM
Thomas Winterton picks up a giant, industrial-grade smoke machine while Travis sets up high-speed cameras.
With Thomas on the back of the pickup truck, the team gets the experiment going. Thomas turns the smoke machine on while Jim starts driving the truck backwards through 33 miles per hour winds.
Smoke Tests Confirm Physical Barriers at The Bubble and Hint at The Blob’s Presence
The smoke acts as you would think, shooting out of the long barrel as smoke does. But as the team approaches The Bubble boundary, the smoke acts as if it’s hitting a wall and dispersing in all directions. Once through the boundary, the smoke goes back to shooting normally. To see if this was a fluke, Jim drives back through The Bubble. And, as expected, the smoke acts as if it’s hitting a wall at the exact spot of The Bubble boundary.
Erik instructs the team to head to the eastern side of The Bubble, and they head over there.
Experiment number two starts with Jim driving out of The Bubble’s eastside boundary. Once the smoke hits the boundary, it acts as if it’s hitting a wall. Every sign points to The Bubble’s boundary being a physical anomaly. It seems to be proven time and time again. And since that’s been all but confirmed, Erik tells the team to head over to The Triangle to test out The Blob.
Once at The Triangle, Travis and Thomas get in a cherry picker and go about 30 feet in the air. Travis sets off the smoke machine and expects the smoke to blow in a straight line. At the 30-foot mark, the smoke seems to maneuver itself around an invisible object. Does this also prove The Blob is a physical anomaly, too?
High-Speed Footage Reveals Smoke Anomalies on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – The Next Day – 10:41 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Thomas Winterton, Sam Deriso, and Jim Royston sit around the Command Center table. Erik has some fun data to share with the team that only furthers the probability of The Bubble and The Blob being physical anomalies.
The first video comes from one of the high-speed cameras, with a final processing through Erik’s Meta-Frame. Erik overlaid a motion change-detecting filter over the video. The video of the smoke hitting The Bubble boundary shows the smoke fanning out in multiple directions, rather than going straight through.
A second video is from a camera that was shooting at 120 FPS. It’s another filtered video. But this one doesn’t involve smoke. As the team fires off the smoke machine, a UAP appears hundreds of feet in the air. Almost as if it’s monitoring them. The last video we see is from The Triangle test, where the smoke moves around The Blob.
Final Thoughts
As interesting as the smoke experiment was to watch, it was an incredibly weak way to end the episode. This should have been the start of the episode, but the Artemis stuff didn’t have enough of a punch for a stinger. But what really pisses me off is how the smoke experiment didn’t need a data review. We saw all we needed to see during the tests! Sans the singular UAP, of course.
Why does The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch feel the need to CONSTANTLY repeat things over and over again? Do they think we’re stupid? Well, actually, yes, they do. Season 7 Episode 4 “Smoking Guns” is another in a long line of plain, boring episodes. Minus the part where we learned the ceramic is actually plaster-like, we are left with a seemingly nothing episode.
Anyways! Something, something, something, fun little setup, The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch. (Hey showrunners! See what happens when I phone in my outro? It has little effect on the entire article. I’m underwhelmed by my outro as much as I’m underwhelmed by this episode! Pick it up, do better, and let’s have some fun!)
Welcome back, fellow Ranchers! As much as I’ve been complaining about this season of Skinwalker Ranch in general, it feels so good getting back into it. While I have severe issues with this show, it’s been an absolute blast getting to tune in and watch it become a bastard of what it once was. Their natural flows of talking head interviews have slowly amalgamated into awfully scripted rehashing of things we’ve heard 10 times already, all while they stand in front of an improperly lit green screen.
And maybe that’s why I love this show.
Brandon Fugal’s Villain Era and the Charm of Trash TV
I grew up watching the Sci-Fi Channel B-movies that gave the channel its true namesake. I love trash TV. I love The Curse of Oak Island and The Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch. But those shows handle themselves in a much more respectable manner than this show. At least those two shows don’t hide their greed behind slimy Botox-ed smiles. But it’s fun watching Mormon millionaire Brandon Fugal slip into his Villain Era. The man we came to know and love throughout the first few seasons has Cronenberg-morphed into a greedy shell of a human who wants nothing more than to use his money to gain fame.
That’s enough of that. This is the last Skinwalker Ranch article before I’m all caught up, so hopefully the next article has some fun Ufology news for you all! But, until then, let’s head back to our second favorite ranch in Utah to see if we get any closer to uncovering The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch.
(Oh, and one rocket launch attempt, will it go off properly? Stay tuned!)
Drilling Resumes on the Mesa: A 4-Foot Vertical Borehole Begins
Mesa Top – 9:10 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Thomas Winterton, Kaleb Bench, Erik Bard, Sam Deriso, and archaeologist Chris Roberts are atop the Mesa for something spectacular…the drilling is about to start back up! We’ve come a long way from Thomas wholeheartedly against drilling, to being the one [basically] running the entire drilling operation. Even Brandon Fugal used to be against the drilling.
Jed Murray and Bo Camp of Triple A Drilling arrive to kick things off. Thomas Winterton explains to the drillers that, rather than finishing Borehole Two in the way that Borehole One was completed, they want to do things differently. A 4-foot diameter hole will be dug vertically to connect Borehole Two to the top of the Mesa. There’s only one small caveat: Brandon Fugal wants them to go slow so as not to damage any potential objects within the Mesa. Jed and Bo say it will take a couple of days if they can’t go at full speed. Dr. Travis Taylor and Thomas head to the bottom of the Mesa to monitor data equipment, while Erik Bard and Sam Deriso will stay up top to monitor equipment.
Triple A gets their large drill in place and begins the process. Within seconds of the drill starting, Travis starts to receive the dreaded 1.6 GHz signal. He radios to the team on top of the Mesa, and after a quick check, Erik and Sam confirm that they, too, are receiving the 1.6 GHz signal. Thankfully, the first 8 inches of drilling go off without a hitch.
Sick Calf Inside The Bubble Raises Radiation Concerns
The Corral – Later That Day – 3:15 PM
It wasn’t until now that I realized we haven’t seen Ranch Manager Jim Morse or Ranch Caretakers Kandus Linde and Tom Lewis once this season. Have they departed the show? Or, did they ask for too much money, and the producers just cut them out of the show? Because last time something like this happened, they were front and center.
Thomas Winterton, Erik Bard, Thomas’s sons Kevin and Micah, and Dr. Haleigh Lundgreen meet outside of The Corral. This is Dr. Lundgreen’s first time back on Skinwalker Ranch since Season 5 Episode 9 “Spinning Out”, where she was monitoring a cow who was experiencing extreme distress. But why are Thomas’s kids here, you may ask?
It seems that Kevin and Micah Winterton lend a hand with the ranch’s cow population. Which, unfortunately, are nothing more than grazing test animals.
After the drilling started earlier in the day, the kids realized one of the calves was acting very strange. The calf was sitting in the same spot for a very long time and separated itself from the herd. On top of that, this happened to the cow while it was inside the western side of The Bubble. The same episode that Dr. Lundgreen was previously on brought her to the ranch because a cow had become irradiated.
Dr. Lundgreen Finds Elevated Vitals and Signs of Possible Radiation Poisoning
The good doctor takes some measurements on the calf and finds some distressing results. The calves’ heart and respiratory rate have significantly increased, and it’s showing a high temperature of 103.3. Dr. Lundgreen states these COULD be secondary symptoms of Chronic Radiation Poisoning. (Notice how she made sure to say COULD. I’m surprised Brandon Fugal didn’t fight to get the word ‘could’ out of the final cut.)
They all take the calf back to the Corral, and it basically snaps back to life immediately. But that doesn’t mean all the glitters is gold. Dr. Lundgreen takes some blood samples from the calf in the hopes that we can learn something more. Let’s not keep our fingers crossed that we’ll see a follow-up on it, though.
Mesa Drill Site – 5:43 PM
Triple A ends up making it about four feet down on their first day of drilling. They wrap up, but we can expect to see more developments in the coming episodes. Hopefully.
100 Drones Deployed at The Bubble Boundary
Western Bubble Boundary – 6:18 PM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Jim Royston, Thomas Winterton, Sam Deriso, and Kaleb Bench meet up with Preston Ward and his team from Sky Elements (who we last saw on Skinwalker Ranch in Season 6 Episode 8 “Swarm Weather”). If Preston is at the ranch, that means one thing: DRONES.
Preston says he and his team are going to set up 100 drones and fly them in a 10×10 pattern. That drone pattern will move in and out of The Bubble boundary up to 1000 feet, in horizontal stacks. The plan is to monitor specific data on where and when the drones malfunction. Brian Woodard will also fly his POV drone. What I find most compelling about Preston and his team is Preston and his team. They do drone shows for a living. And if they consistently had errors, there is no way they would be as big an organization as they are. So when issues arise on the ranch, and Preston has these gigantic, show-stopping issues, I find it to be the most compelling evidence we see on the show.
While Preston and his team are setting up the drones, Brian gives his POV drone a test flight. But something happens, and the drone goes wild; Brian loses control, and the drone crashes hard into the ground. The drone had shorted out and fallen out of the sky. This also happens to be the same exact location where the calf got sick.
And, as if on cue, Preston notifies the team that they are having drone connectivity issues.
Drones Lose Connectivity Before the Bubble Boundary Kills 30 More
8:38 PM
All drones have finally connected to the network, and they are preparing to start the night’s experiments. But then things go to hell in a drone basket. 40 drones drop connectivity. And then more, and more. Something starts to suck all of the ranch’s bandwidth from the drones. Preston notifies the team that the bandwidth is currently at a 99% utilization, which is wild because the ranch has its own Wi-Fi towers.
And then out of nowhere, they all come back.
Things seem to be back to normal, so the drones begin their flight. 98 of the drones go off, while two stay firmly planted on the earth. The drones continue their flight plan and approach 250 feet in the air. It’s time for them to make their first pass out of The Bubble boundary. Suddenly, as they pass through, 10 drones go offline. Then 20. Then 30.
Right as the drones go offline, Dr. Travis Taylor reads 1.6 GHz on his spectrum analyzer. But no one else gets that reading, not even Erik.
Preston’s drones continue their flight pattern, losing and gaining connectivity. One drone starts wobbling out of formation, but they’re set to return to the ground, so it doesn’t go too awry.
It’s time for part two of the experiment. Preston and his team send two drones at a time in a sweeping pattern up to 1,000 feet. While that’s going on, Travis does what he does best: fires a rocket. (From Homestead Two.) Right as Travis launches the rocket, something zips across the sky!
Drone Data Reveals The Bubble Boundary Is 120 Feet Wide
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 1:15 PM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Jim Royston, Thomas Winterton, Technologist Pete Kelsey, and Kaleb Bench sit around the table in the Command Center. They’re joined by Preston Ward and Matt Edminster of Sky Elements via video call.
Matt Edminster starts by showing the data he had collected. We are looking at an interesting graph of data; an orange and green line inclines from left to right, the lines overlapping and separating at multiple points. We learn that the green line indicates a long-range wireless signal while the orange line is Wi-Fi. These lines should be overlapping, but this data indicates heavy communications loss–the Wi-Fi loss coincides with each time the drones crossed The Bubble’s boundary. Every time they came back into The Bubble, the Wi-Fi reconnected.
They have similar data points from the secondary formation drone flights, too.
And all of that becomes way more important than anyone could have thought. Some quick math by Dr. Travis Taylor revealed something fascinating. Basically, they are able to measure the data loss of the drones from inside to outside The Bubble. Two feet per second for 60 seconds equals 120. The width of The Bubble’s boundary is 120 feet!
Pete Kelsey’s terrestrial laser scanner shows an interesting anomaly above Homestead Two. Erik Bard thinks it might be displaced data. So they maneuver the image to a more horizontal view, and we can clearly see that the anomaly truly is displaced data from the tree line below. That tree line, which is displaced by 200 feet, is exactly where Travis previously saw the blue orb UAP. Erik even has some fancy Meta-Frame data that shows a distinct light emerging over Homestead Two.
Final Thoughts for The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch S7E3
Maybe it’s my simple lizard brain, but every time this show uses drones, I eat it up. They’re so pretty to watch, even when it all goes awry. And I really can’t get over how Preston and his team always have tech issues on Skinwalker Ranch, which they say are unlike any they have anywhere else. THIS is the stuff I wish the team would focus on. Because of that tech issue, the team was able to [potentially accurately] measure the width of The Bubble’s boundary! That’s great TV!
MORE OF THAT PLEASE.
And all the data-loss stuff astounds me. Whether you’re a believer in this kind of stuff, it’s hard to disagree with missing data. Plus, with the amount of money that Mormon millionaire Brandon Fugal spends on this ranch, you can bet your ass he’s not paying for broken stuff. Anyways, thanks for going on this journey with us, and we look forward to seeing you on the very next episode. Maybe then, just then, we’ll get slightly closer to getting to the bottom of The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch.
