Brendan Jesus
Welcome back, fellow explorers! I hate to break it to you but I don’t have any interesting Ufological news for you this week. However, I will say that I haven’t received a cease and desist yet from Elizondo’s “tenacious” lawyer on anything I’ve said thus far. I guess every day is a good day until then! Anyway, it’s time for us to trek back out to the desolate lands of the Uinta Basin and see if we get any closer to revealing the Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch.
Where Do We Go From Here?
We join Duane Ollinger, Chad Ollinger, Charlie Boy, and James Keenan at the Miner’s Shack. They’re discussing the recent cave floodings and what they should do next but it’s clear they need a new plan of attack. James says, from his experience, you never know what’s going to happen on a dig site but it’s important to remain flexible and follow where the site leads you.
Duane thinks a good spot to look into could be the beginning of where the Keyhole Cavern starts as seen from the Quantum Imaging. That’s when Chad mentions the Bead Site (which if you followed along with us for Season 4, you’ll be all too familiar with). James has no clue what Chad is talking about and asks for clarification. Charlie Boy tells James that the Bead Site is a sacred place.
They head out to show James the Bead Site. Duane reveals that many people sneak onto the property to leave offerings at the Bead Site. James quickly notices that the location of where the beads are found is a rock overhang shelter that faces south and would have been great for shelter in the winter. He also sees some charcoal burn marks and says that based on what he can see, the burn marks indicate a long period of occupation.
Chad points out the Bead Site: Vent Holes to James. While it will take one full season for us to get a look into the Bead Site: Vent Holes, James is fairly certain this location was used as living quarters. He thinks the best plan of attack here is to catalog the area and authenticate the beads that were found. Duane heads out to get the excavator for them to dig into the soft soil at the base of the rock.
Later in the day, or the next day (it’s very unclear), Chad brings out someone to try and authenticate the beads. Dr. Bob Morton (who we will meet again in Season 4 Episode 1) is a material scientist and x-ray specialist whose goal is to understand the beads and how they got there. After analyzing the samples, Dr. Morton ascertains the beads have traces of gold in them and that there are variations in the hole sizes of each bead. This means that each singular bead was forged by hand!
Dr. Morton believes the beads are approximately from around the 1500s and were most likely trade beads. We learn that the Venetians used these types of beads for trading and that’s how the Spaniards would have come in possession of them. James follows up Dr. Morton’s findings by saying that these beads would have been better than gold to the Native Americans. This is an important finding as it is another piece of evidence that puts a timeframe to objects found on the ranch. Granted, we have the wood from the box within the Water Pit that was carbon-dated to the 1500s. At this point, we can disregard everything we’ve learned in Season 4 as the team doesn’t have that important information yet.
Drill Baby Drill!
We meet up with the team at the Bead Site. Duane has the excavator and starts to scoop out dirt into separate piles. Charlie Boy runs over the piles of dirt with his metal detector to try and find anything of importance. That’s when James makes an interesting discovery and pulls out a scraper stone. These stones were used for butchering meat and straightening projectiles. He tells us it was probably Uto-Aztecian and was found on the same strata as the beads.
Chad takes a look in the hole and pulls out a bone. It looks like the hip bone of a cow or deer. James says something like this would have been used as a mask and adorned with feathers or animal skin. At this point, the excavator has reached as far as it can go without destroying the rockwall. That’s when Chad makes ANOTHER discovery! He pulls out a grinding stone and James tells us it’s a metate. But we’re not done with discoveries yet!
Charlie Boy, using his trusty metal detector, finds a coin in the dirt. The coin is revealed to be a Spanish coin with the year 1784 embossed on it. And James immediately finds another coin with the year 1782 on it!
Wanting to continue drilling, but realizing they need a new plan, they order a horizontal drill and a water tanker. Chad hasn’t run a drill in a few years but he is confident that it’s like riding a bike. Before they can get everything up and running, Charlie Boy realizes they were sent the wrong connector hose. Some quick rummaging around in one of the trailers and they find the right connector pieces and they’re off to the races. Almost.
Chad gets the drill in place but the tanker truck needs to be moved closer. The only problem here is that the tanker trunk has to move a lot of weight over very loose and soft soil. Being the expert he is, Chad is able to maneuver the tanker truck into the right spot and everything is good to start drilling. One odd thing I noticed here is that in the background of a few of these shots, you can see Ryan Skinner who isn’t technically introduced until later in the season. Was he just milling around the whole time? Or was there a storyline cut for time/consistency? It’s not a huge deal but it was weird to see him before he was formally introduced.
The drilling starts and it starts smoothly. After they get about 30 feet into the soil, Chad mentions that the drill is free-spinning. This is a good sign as it implies the drill head has reached an open void. It’s also a great sign that the water from the drill has stopped spurting out of the hole. But all is not well that ends well when water soon starts to come back out of the hole. That tells the team the void they are in is very small.
What Now?!
All four men meet up back at the Miner’s Shack. Chad is certain that the Bead Site is a dead end for trying to find a dry open-air entrance into the Keyhole Cavern. Duane seems to think the Bead Site: Vent Holes would be a good place to look into. He also thinks that James should use his magnetometer to look around the Bead Site area to see if they can find any possible voids in the earth.
Back at the Bead Site, James uses his magnetometer. That’s when Charlie Boy makes an odd discovery. He finds a rock that has a cross chiseled into it. James says this could either be a religious sigil or a trail marker. The team is ready to call it a day when Duane sees something out of the ordinary—something that is about to flip everything on its head.
Duane notices an odd rock formation and tells Chad to look into it. The rocks look shoved into this opening and it just looks… off. Chad starts to remove the rocks. His hip-attached metal detector starts to beep like crazy. He rummages his hand around the dirt where it was detected and he pulls something out of the ground. James takes what Chad found and realizes it’s a slag ingot bar… it’s low-purity gold!
“F*ck,” Duane says with a grin on his face.
Final Thoughts
While it may not push the investigation forward a la getting inside a cave, I personally love it when they find objects on the ranch that point to people being on the ranch 500+ years ago. Obviously, there have been civilizations to exist in what is now the United States long before us, but there’s something beautiful about seeing objects of their existence become unearthed. And seeing the slag ingot bar means there is some type of gold on the ranch in some capacity.
It’s still frustrating that it seems like every time they try and find a cave opening it turns out to be a dead end. Knowing what I know from Season 4, we’re still not any closer to finding a way inside and Duane’s ailing health makes me wonder how long he’ll continue on the show. Not saying I think the show will end but at some point, I think Chad will take over.
We may have learned more about who was on the ranch in the 1500s, but we still haven’t really learned what is on the ranch now. But we still have five episodes left in Season 3 so maybe, just maybe, we’ll get somewhat closer to finding out the Mystery… at Blind Frog Ranch.
