Jesse Michels interviews Brandon Fugal, owner of Utah’s Skinwalker Ranch, about alleged UAP sightings, electromagnetic anomalies and what he calls the ‘hitchhiker effect’. Fugal gives a detailed first-time public account of unusual activity he says followed him home after an ‘aggressive’ ranch experiment, including his dog growling nightly at a corner of a room and a story in which his wife’s wedding ring went missing and was later found in an unlikely location after prayer.
Fugal recounts a series of claimed incidents at the property involving equipment failures, GPS anomalies, medical emergencies and sightings of unidentified objects. He alleges unmarked Blackhawk helicopters and other aircraft have appeared during experiments, and says senior state officials have been unable to obtain explanations. He also alleges that nearby oil-and-gas drilling was permitted against his objections and says he has initiated legal action.
The conversation moves into UAP politics: Fugal accuses former AARO head Sean Kirkpatrick of denying a prior 2018 briefing that Fugal says Kirkpatrick attended, adding that he posted a photo as proof. Elsewhere, Fugal repeats claims about anomalous ‘engineered material’ beneath the ranch’s mesa, purported gaps or manipulation in historic aerial imagery, and a ‘bubble’ or field effect mapped by the team. He also describes a carcass he says was tested and linked to an extinct direwolf lineage, with DNA results he characterises as mostly inconclusive.
The episode mixes personal testimony, institutional allegations and speculative interpretations, with many claims presented without independent verification in the transcript.
Discussing drilling and ground-penetrating radar results, Fugal claims his team found historical aerial images that appear ‘smoothed’ in a teardrop-shaped area tied to their subsurface target. He further alleges the ranch’s aerial record is missing for 1964–1969, presenting it as an additional anomaly but without identifying the data source or repository on-air.
Read this moment →Fugal accuses former Pentagon UAP official Sean Kirkpatrick of falsely denying prior involvement with Skinwalker Ranch, saying Kirkpatrick attended a confidential briefing with him in April 2018. Fugal says he later posted a photo of Kirkpatrick at the meeting ‘with the receipts’ after online criticism questioned his account.
Read this moment →Brandon Fugal describes what he calls a ‘hitchhiker effect’ after an ‘aggressive’ experiment at Skinwalker Ranch, saying odd activity followed him home for weeks. He says his wife’s wedding ring went missing and was later found in the pocket of a robe she had not worn for months, after she prayed and ‘saw’ where it was in her mind’s eye.
Read this moment →Fugal claims unmarked Blackhawk helicopters and other unidentified aircraft have appeared during experiments despite what he describes as airspace restrictions, and says the activity ‘compounds the mystery’. He adds that he has been unable to get ‘answers’ even from senior state officials, though he does not provide names or documentation in this exchange.
Read this moment →Fugal recounts an incident involving a former president of a large Hell’s Angels chapter who was on the ranch as security, saying the man stood immobilised for around ten minutes behind ‘Homestead 3’ before ‘coming to’. Fugal adds that the man later went to hospital for weeks after returning home, and that the day also involved UFO sightings and widespread phone malfunctions.
Read this moment →Fugal alleges that after his team extracted ‘engineered material’ during drilling on the mesa, an oil and gas operator obtained permits to drill on adjacent land near his border. He says his objections were filed with local authorities, and that he has an ongoing legal action challenging the operation, which he characterises as ‘reckless’ and ‘highly suspicious’.
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