Thomas Winterton

And so my wife and I built a couple of small motels.

We decided we needed a plan B.

And, uh, as the viewers may or may not see on the series, we live in an area where there's a lot of oil wells.

Sometimes if like when they'll pan the shot, if you look out in the distance around the ranch, you'll see a lot of oil wells that are out there.

Um, we've got a lot of oil under the UNA basin and, um, and so, uh,

We decided to build these little motels, and we specialize in high-end.

We are a little boutique hotel.

Our rooms were extremely luxurious and nice, and we catered to the upper-end oil field guys, the engineers and the geologists and that.

And when Brandon bought the ranch, he sent Jim Morse, who's the ranch manager, out to

And this was really the first weekend that Jim had come out and Brandon had said, you know, go see if you can wrap your arms around what exactly we just picked up.

And so Jim came out here and he was going through town and he actually ended up stopping and staying at my little motel that I'd built.

And we got visiting and the next day when he was checking out, we were just talking and I'd mentioned that I'd built the hotel myself and that I was a contractor.

And he said, oh, well, we just bought Skinwalker Ranch.

I don't know if you've ever heard of it.

And of course, living in the basin, the ranch is famous around here.

When Mr. Bigelow had it in the Sherman's

right as they were transitioning between the Sherman family and Mr. Bigelow was when I was in high school.

And so it was kind of the height of all this activity that was taking place.

And, uh, and so, you know, in high school we tried to sneak out there as kids and, and try to sneak onto the property.

And so when Jim said, uh,