My Thoughts on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch
Or probing the aliens for a change and seeing how they like it
By MARTIN REZNY
First, I have to say, I love the whole idea of doing a reality show filled with PhDs that’s documenting an ongoing research project. I legitimately thought we will have proof of alien life way before we could ever have a reality TV show that’s somehow not a complete waste of time and actually says something about reality. That’s an accomplishment right there.
Beyond that, I obviously love the idea that the research project in question is finding a genuinely anomalous place and probing the hell out of it, in full view of the public. I honestly believe that this approach to culture is the way of the future — not just escapism, not just memorization of history, but the viewers being there in real time with the pioneers, able to collaborate.
I guess the new model for the History channel is to be making history, rather than reporting on it. Because don’t let the naysayers confuse you — this is historic. Pretty much regardless of whether the researchers will be able to truly explain this phenomenon, this is a new approach to strange phenomena.
There have been shows that on the surface attempted something similar, ranging from Ghost Hunters to Ancient Aliens, but there’s a world of difference between random people running around random places or having thoughts in armchairs, and a dedicated team of experts using the scientific method to investigate a specific location for an extended period of time.
This is also very new in that this level of technological resources has so far been only available to military and intelligence organizations who tend to keep all of their findings secret. Ostensibly for “security” reasons, but there’s nothing secure about small shadowy groups of people mastering advanced technology for their exclusive benefit while fossil fuels make the planet burn.
But let’s get into the specifics of what happened on the “show”. To answer my titular question, I don’t get the feeling that the aliens like being probed back. To be clear, by “aliens” I mean “others”, as in intelligence other than ours, not necessarily space aliens or any other more particular definition of aliens.
Judging by the number of individuals who ended up in a hospital, the message seems to be for us to stay away. Interestingly, there haven’t been any human fatalities, while there have been cow fatalities, which seems to imply that the local aliens have the power to kill with ease and get away with it, but a rather strict rule not to kill or even permanently disfigure humans.
That doesn’t strike me as particularly malevolent. Strict, maybe, but the phenomenon seems to be able to do whatever it wants, so if it isn’t doing something, it’s likely because it doesn’t want to be doing it. In other words, we cannot stop it, it’s stopping itself. Well, unless there’s a power even greater than the phenomenon itself that’s limiting the harm it causes.
Overall, it seems to me that the phenomenon is actually always trying to do the minimum necessary interference to prevent being probed in the most potentially revealing ways. It allows cameras, computers, and sensors to work most of the time, but shuts them down whenever it seems like they would have a higher than low chance to detect or uncover something peculiar.
The devices then often return to full function, or their failures are only selective and partial to begin with. Clearly, it is in the power of the local forces to permanently disable every piece of technology on the ranch, in addition to killing all the researchers. Why would such power need to act subtly?
I guess the obvious answer is that if its goal is to not get fully scientifically understood, the less it interferes and the more subtly it interferes, the less comprehensive the gathered data will be and the harder it will be to convince most people that anything at all is happening there in the first place.
Which I guess is another aspect of this project that makes it unique — so far, such phenomena have been treated with so much reverence or were so successful at scaring people away that not enough data got gathered, allowing the skeptics to remain skeptical of the very existence of strange phenomena.
It seems that stubbornness is what it takes to call out the bluff of alien/paranormal entities/forces. Their apparent power level enables them to wipe us out or rule us, if they wanted it and were allowed to do so. Since they’re hiding instead of ruling us, they’re not willing to use any awesome powers they might have on a large scale, and so hide and seek it is.
In fact, if I had one piece of advice as a social scientist and kind of a witch for the researchers on the ranch, I would advise them precisely to treat it much more like a game. At this point, it’s safe to hypothesize that there may be a specific intent to thwart revealing readings. That requires a tactical response.
What makes this harder than playing a game against a human is the fact that at the very least, the local intelligence appears to have access to what the people in the area think or know, in addition to all of the data in all of the local electronic devices. The local intelligence could even be precognitive, which would make the game harder still, but there’s still stuff you can do.
It’s a bit like playing against a cheating AI in that you have to account for the fact that the opponent sees more than you can see, potentially all of your pieces at all times, along with their intentions and what tools they have and how those are designed to work, while you see none of the opponent’s.
That by itself could create the appearance of being precognitive, but it’s not actually the same as being precognitive — it’s just being effectively predictive. Any time an experiment on the ranch is being discussed and set up over an extended period of time, you’re giving ample warning to the aliens.
For any larger experiments, this unfortunately cannot be avoided, but it does mean that spontaneous successful small-scale detections could be made, especially if you assume that the interference, surveillance, and response time capacities of the phenomenon aren’t infinite. It may have limited attention.
There appear to be some indications throughout the events of the show that at certain points, the phenomenon’s ability to interfere with multiple people and devices at the same time was oversaturated, like for example when five GPS sensors were used at the same time and one of them didn’t fully fail.
I believe the limitations of the interference capabilities could be tested by using many different devices simultaneously at different places to achieve different ends. So far, it seems that several different devices at the same location trying to do the same experiment can definitely fail. What if there were a hundred detectors on the ranch doing a hundred different things? The fact that some of the surveillance cameras record UAPs hints at that.
Additionally, playing against a mind reader may require more randomness and compartmentalization of knowledge. In practice, it would mainly mean more last moment, improvised decisions that weren’t part of any preconceived plan. If actions following such quick, maximally unpredictable decisions would still be thwarted, that would indicate that there may be some precognition taking place, or that the response time is near instantaneous.
But if at least the capacity or response time of the phenomenon are limited, then even precognition may not help it cover everything up. You could stage a big invasive experiment to force its attention to be primarily on it, and then you could try to do a bunch of smaller, spontaneous stuff all around the ranch at the same time to hopefully stretch the interference powers beyond their limits. If you just dig a big hole, you basically have to expect it to be plugged.
As it was mentioned repeatedly on the show, even all the failures are good data of something going on, but what I would suggest is to turn that into a focused experiment that tries to determine the limitations and motivations of the interference capability in order to learn how to oversaturate or avoid it.
Beyond what was already mentioned, it’s also an open question how local the phenomenon is. It seems evident that it stretches beyond the borders of the ranch to at least the whole mesa, as evidenced by the UFOs that were seen beyond the border of the ranch after a radio broadcast of the alien signal.
If you wanted to make decisions about local experiments or store data safely, maybe it would be enough if the people and hardware involved were staged far away from the ranch. There is some evidence of the hitchhiker effect, which could be accomplished maybe by quantum entanglement as Travis Taylor suggests, so the people involved should probably never enter the ranch.
The reason for that is that in order to be entangled so that the phenomenon can track you at any distance, you probably have to be “touched” first in some more conventional, and presumably localized, way, like by a beam limited to the speed of light and line of sight, or something even more close-range.
All of this is highly speculative, but it again could be tested — make someone have an important role in the decisions on the ranch who never visits it, never meets anyone who has been there in person, and maybe never even directly communicates in any way with them. Then see if aliens read their mind. To factor in time travel shenanigans, you could decide they will never go to the ranch or meet with anyone who ever did at any point later in the future.
Ultimately, time may be an important factor to consider that I don’t think is being considered, at least not yet. Correlations are frequently observed, and ancient people’s lore has been considered, but there were no attempts so far at tying any happenings in an astrological way, or in other words, looking for correlations between events and the positions of objects in the solar system.
For starters, if the phenomenon is using natural geography to help trigger something like a wormhole, then the configuration of the solar system may play a part as well in a physical way that we don’t currently understand. Additionally, if the aliens have any schedule, then they probably don’t use our modern calendar or time zones. If it’s anything comprehensible to us at all, using the solar system as a natural local clock would probably be it.
Not to mention that if the phenomenon is not just intelligent, but to some extent spiritual in the way how the ancient peoples have seen it, astrology has deeper overtones or presumed function than simple time measurement. Maybe there’s something more to it that a more advanced civilization has mastered, or maybe it’s a product of their technological field to begin with.
In any case, an intelligence that can operate a wormhole is hardly bound to the same conception of linear time that we are, which would also be a possible mechanism for its presumed precognitive ability. If it can see future because it already is there to some extent, then what the researchers decide to do in the future may be much more important than what they have done in the past.
Overall, it seems to me that they should start treating it more like an intelligent conversation partner, rather than a hole in spacetime to be poked and prodded. Maybe that’s why the ancient native American-looking being who visited Travis Taylor in his dreams right after they invited something using the rabbi’s ritual was just shaking its head. If you want to have a conversation, maybe try more talking and fewer techno-enemas.
Well, these are my thoughts on what I’ve seen so far, at least. I’m really looking forward to the next season and all the lasers and rockets and drills, oh my. Hopefully, the team will manage to stimulate some of the more exotic or communicative responses, since there’s only so many times a light in the sky feels special and profound. I certainly wish them luck, and hope they’re not just waking up a giant sleeping insane elder god.
