Thursday, June 7, 2012

FACT OR FAKED: Reptile Rampage; Gasoline Ghoul

SyFy - Original Air Date: 5/22/2012

Videos not investigated: Speakesy Specter in which a weird shape seems to enter a paranormal investigator's body, but it's just a foreground-background camera focus issue.  (When will ghost-hunting groups actually learn the specs of their cameras?)  Forest Fire Alien seems to show an alien reaching out from behind a tree beyond a campfire--but it's easy CGI work. NASA Triangle UFO is merely a reflection of Venus within the telescope's optics.

Reptile Rampage posits that a 7' red-eyed lizard man is attacking cars in South Carolina. Alligator bites are one possibility, but the team doesn't see upper-lower bite marks. Stray (or deliberate) bullets? The holes don't look gnawed enough, and no one heard gunfire. Vandals with power tools? Results are similar to the effects, but what about the witnesses who claim to have seen the creature? The team dresses Ben as a lizard man and posts a video online to test how people respond. The video does bring out believers, and the reactions convince the team that the whole thing is likely a hoax/prank that has since snowballed through local believers.

Gasoline Ghoul seems to show a blue "spectral" shape on a gas station surveillance camera. Plasma formation? EMF & radiation sweeps turns up nothing. Trash in the wind? Too sharp and clear in the video; the original "ghoul" is fuzzy. Laser or flashlight flare? That just wipes out the camera, but with plexiglas near the camera, it looks better--though you can see the camera's reflection. The solution?  A bug on the camera lens.  Though the bug is not blue, it reflects blue from the station's blue paint job and looks like an exact match.  Two cases up, two solved.  A great job of scientific investigation for Fact or Faked this week!

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