Hello, fellow Ranchers! Our deepest apologies for our mysterious disappearance last week–it was out of our control. Did the government try to silence us for our weekly disclosure of all things High Strangeness? Who am I to say it wasn’t them? Whoever it was can’t scare me off. It’ll take more than men in black and white van surveillance to quiet me!

I want to get right into this week’s episode of Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch, but we need to have a frank conversation about drones real quick. Droneaggedon has taken complete control of the media in the past few weeks. My Twitter feed is nothing but grainy potato-quality videos of things in the sky. Let’s be honest: 95% of what we see over our skies ARE indeed planes (commercial and private). And this is coming from someone who believes in aliens/NHI/Bigfoot. 

In an unsurprising turn of events, Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green have weaponized this ongoing fear and are now telling their constituents to shoot these “drones” down. DO. NOT. DO. THAT. If you do, I sincerely hope you get arrested. If you see what you think is a drone here are the steps: 1) take a CLEAR video 2) do not narrate the video 3) check sky and flight maps above your location before posting the video 4) DO NOT stoke fear. Just because you don’t know what you’re seeing DOESN’T mean it’s nefarious in nature.

Also, this whole discourse behind “stolen” radioactive material is just laughable. Think before you post. Sorry, I’m not trying to be the mom of this subject, but it’s getting completely out of hand. 

ANYWAY. Let’s switch topics and discuss what we’re all here to talk about…the Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch.

Putting The Pieces Together

We join Duane Ollinger, Charlie Boy, Josh Feldman, and James Keenan at the Bead Site: Vent Holes shortly after finding the skulls in the vent holes. Duane starts his excavator, which still has the rock wheel attachment, and begins digging into the wall. Shortly into the digging, Duane notes how solid the rock face feels. 

Josh tells Duane to momentarily stop so that he can take a look at why this rock face feels harder than it had before. Josh and Charlie Boy dig around the base of the rock face to see if there is a reason behind this change in hardness. James and Josh make a discovery that changes the game. There is a solid slab of rock in the ground–it’s a big, flat sheet of sandstone. 

James realizes this is the ceiling top/roof of a more extensive set of sandstone slabs. He also posits that these were specifically put here and were puzzled together to create a larger object. Examining this manmade structure, they notice something under the roof slab…a recess. James shoves his hand right into the hole, and Duane hastily tells him to be careful because it could be a snake pit. A cursory feel inside this hole reveals to James the skulls (which were filmed when Josh used the endoscope camera inside the vent holes). James declares this to be a crematorium. 

A Night Under The Stars

Chad Ollinger and Eric Drummond are still at the open-pit mine, which Eric found through his drone LIDAR scans. It starts to get late, and the guys decide to set up camp for the night. Eric thinks this mine site could date all the way back to the Spaniards. But he’s confident this is a very rich dig site.

Night falls on the men and their camera crew when suddenly they’re awoken by the sound of crunching and scuttling. Chad thinks it’s probably just a wild boar, but they decide to check it out anyway. Upon waking up, the camera guys realize that one of the operators (Joel) is missing. After a few seconds of terror for their missing friend, Joel returns to camp. Joel had heard a sound in the brush and went to investigate. 

I cut Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch a lot of slack at times, but this bothered me a bit. A cameraman heard a sound in the woods around them at night and went to investigate. That’s fine. But why didn’t he take his camera? You’d think someone on the ranch with the sole purpose of investigating odd occurrences would take their camera if they heard something out of the ordinary…right?

Eric makes a note of a putrid animal smell emanating from the forest. He also thinks it would be a good idea to make loud noises so that whatever is in the woods knows that they know it’s there. Eric starts banging and making noises…and then we see eyes. Large yellow eyes reflect off the flashlights shining its way. Whatever this creature is… it’s BIG. 

Chad says they’ll sleep in shifts. 

Morning comes, and the men need to get back to searching. They decide the best option is to split up to double the search efforts. Eric plans to take a cameraman and look further into the mineralization veins, while Chad plans to take a different cameraman and look for more cave openings. 

Eric heads off and quickly finds more malachite and hematite deposits. The debris pile around these deposits indicates the wall/area has already been worked through. Chad soon finds a cave opening, though it’s too tight for him to squeeze through. He also notices tons of malachite in the area. 

Eric locates more of the indicator materials and decides to take some samples for testing. Chad checks out the first location, where they found the open-pit mine with the shoring planks (like those in the South Cave: Great Cavern). There also happens to be tons of hematite in this area, too. As Chad looks around, rocks start to cascade down the hill. 

Thinking it’s Eric, Chad doesn’t seem too caught off guard. More rocks fall, more terror falls across Chad; it’s something that’s moving. Chad calls out to Eric but gets no response. This leads Chad to run toward the direction of the scuttling. Branches snap as whatever lurks in the woods monitors Chad. 

Chad and Eric eventually meet up and realize that whatever is watching them is actually stalking them. Could this be the same creature from the night before? The two men know they’re nothing but sitting ducks here and need protection. Eric says they’ll return to this area when they have more people…and weapons. 

Burning Down The House

Back at the Bead Site: Vent Holes, the four men plan their next steps. Josh carefully removes the top sandstone piece, revealing what’s beneath it. James sees a large skull directly under the surface. Josh carefully removes a few more pieces of the sandstone, uncovering more bones. Duane wonders out loud what went on in this location. 

With information about more bones in this area, James seems to think it’s not a crematorium but a sacrificial altar instead. He reveals that fox and coyote were sacrificed to the Aztec War God Huitzilopochtli. But does that mean that this is an area of important religious meaning? Or were the Aztecs protecting something? Charlie Boy wonders if they were protecting a deeper cavern. 

Thankfully, Duane realizes that this area, whatever it represents, is truly sacred. He says they can continue digging, but they should move the rock wheel over a few feet to avoid disturbing anything that could be of historical context. Everyone agrees this is the best course of action. Suddenly, a harsh windstorm sweeps over the four men… Could someone or something be warning them? 

So What Now?

Chad and Eric are back at the Hideout with Eric’s indicator material samples. Their goal is to crush, sieve, and pan the materials and hope they find some minerals (and hopefully gold!). Chad crushes the samples, and Eric starts panning. They come up empty. 

Eric says this process is basic but successful and will be the best way to determine if they’re on the right path. Chad crushes some more samples, and Eric pans it again. While they don’t find much, Eric does notice some black sand, which he says is associated with gold. With no real answers, Eric decides to run a handheld metal detector over the crushed debris…beep…beeep…..beeeeeeeppp. 

Eric sifts through the larger debris and finds a GOLD NUGGET!

Back at the Bead Site: Vent Holes, Duane gets back to digging into the rock face. After some time, Duane backs off and lets Charlie Boy look through the debris. That’s when they notice there is a significant difference in soil composition. The sediment around the base of the rock face is completely different from the surrounding dirt, sand, and debris. 

This means there could very well be an opening right below the rock face where Duane is digging. “This could be a game changer,” says Duane. 

Final Thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts about Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch, Season 4, Episode 5. The prevailing thought is that it’s pretty flat for an episode two away from the season finale. Very little information is gleaned from anything done by anyone. The creature stalking Eric and Chad is entertaining, but all it does is remove them from the open pit mine area. They easily could have grabbed Josh or Charlie Boy, a few guns, and gone back out there. Every now and then, it just feels like they walk away from potential positive steps.

Learning what we did from what they found at the Bead Site: Vent Holes is cool and fascinating, but it doesn’t progress them to finding a cave. Sure, they found different soil under the rock face, but there was just too much filler in this episode. Multiple rehashes post-commercial breaks could have been cut out to provide them more time for opening the recess under the rock face. Why couldn’t they have dug it out a few more feet? Put a camera in the new hole and really leave us wanting more.

Obviously, I will be back for Episode 6, but I can see how an episode like this could be a turnoff for casual viewers. Nevertheless, with two episodes left, I hope this season gives us a few more answers to the Mystery…at Blind Frog Ranch.