Episode Details

Jinkies! What happens when a family moves into a 512-acre cattle ranch in northeastern Utah and discovers every door, window, and cabinet bolted shut from the inside? For the Sherman family, the locks were just the beginning.

In 1994, Terry and Gwen Sherman purchased a remote ranch in the Uintah Basin, lured by cheap land and wide-open skies. Within weeks, they understood why the previous owners had fortified every inch of the house. Cattle started turning up dead with surgical wounds, organs removed, and not a drop of blood anywhere. One cow had an 18-inch hole cored straight through its body cavity. No predator leaves a scene like that.

Then came the wolf. A massive animal, three times the normal size, appeared in the fields and attacked a calf. Sherman fired four rounds from a .357 Magnum at close range, then grabbed a rifle and fired again. A chunk of flesh tore free, but the wolf just looked at him and walked away. No blood. Its tracks ended the next morning in the middle of a field and simply stopped.

The lights followed. Blue orbs with orange centers drifted across the property, floating through walls and hovering above the fields. One night, three of the family's dogs chased an orb into thick brush. Three yelps. The next morning, all that remained were three greasy spots on scorched earth where the dogs had been. Four bulls vanished from a corral and were found crammed inside a sealed metal trailer, cobwebs still undisturbed across the door, waking from what looked like a trance.

The gang investigates one of the most documented paranormal properties in American history. After the Shermans sold the ranch in 1996, Las Vegas billionaire Robert Bigelow deployed a full scientific team through his National Institute for Discovery Science. They documented close to 100 incidents, but the phenomenon seemed aware it was being watched. Activity spiked when observers were present but died the instant instruments were aimed at it. Cameras were vandalized. Sensors failed at exactly the wrong moments.

The story took a classified turn when a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst visited the ranch in 2007 and reported seeing a floating yellow object in the kitchen. Senators Harry Reid, Ted Stevens, and Daniel Inouye secured $22 million in classified funding for a government study through Bigelow's company, BAASS. Over 100 technical papers and 38 classified defense documents were produced before the program ended in 2012. The New York Times revealed its existence to the public in December 2017.

But the most unsettling finding was what researchers called the Hitchhiker Effect. The phenomena did not stay at the ranch. It followed investigators home. Blue orbs appeared at researchers' houses in Las Vegas. Military personnel reported strange activity at their own homes after visiting the property. Every one of five service members deployed to the ranch experienced something unexplained.

Today the ranch is owned by Brandon Fugal and featured on the History Channel. The questions remain open, the cameras keep rolling, and whatever lives on that land keeps watching back.

What youll hear in this episode:

The Sherman family's harrowing 18 months on the ranch, from mutilated cattle to a bulletproof wolf

A $22 million classified government investigation that produced more questions than answers

The Hitchhiker Effect and why what happens at the ranch does not stay at the ranch