Unexplained: Legends & Lore

SciFi Channel - Original Air Date: 11/20/08

In this episode, George Noory looks into stories from "the greatest storyteller ever born," Lionel Fanthorpe -- whom the caption claims is the author of more than 250 books (Wikipedia says author or co-author).  They start with Springheel Jack, who began attacing people in 1837 and was a thin creature which breathed blue fire before leaping away, cackling.  Fanthorpe says that strange beings may be half-forgotten memories of races that once inhabited a land before it was invaded by modern humans.  The next story deals with Time Travel.  In Roxom (sp) Broad (a lake) two 17th century swimmers were crossing the lake when the water vanished and all at once they were surrounded by Roman soldiers. They followed the procession for several minutes, until they faded back into the water.  Fanthorpe says this is the first evidence of a timeslip at the Broad.  Later, a yatch saw the same thing.  Noory relates a story of a cab driver who hit an apparent 18th century man who appeared out of nowhere before being struck and killed.  He also mentions a pilot who entered a cloud to emerge in a WWII dogfight and returned to the present with bullet holes in his plane.  Fanthorpe tells of a 1932 flyer who flew over an abandoned Edinburgh airfield and saw it alive with activity from WWI.

Next they turn to vampires and a blood-curdling vampire attack story.  (With elements from Langella's Dracula -- or the other way around.)  Fanthorpe explains to a caller that drinking someone's blood would, traditionally, give you their strength.  Asked what a ghost is, Fanthorpe says three or four theories should be considered. Some apparitions are psychic recordings of emotional events.  He says the scariest story ever told would be the tale of the Barbados coffins -- which mysteriously rearranged themselves, repeatedly, in a sealed crypt.  What could move such large, lead coffins in a sealed room?  A caller asks how we can know whether a strange feeling we have is a ghost.  Fanthorpe replies that a vivid dream is hard to tell from reality, but we should apply the same tests to a strange situation that we would to determine whether we were dreaming.

While I enjoyed the stories in this show, they strike me as being more myth than history -- and some seem to be combinations of elements from several other stories.  Fun to listen to, but not to be mistake for fact.  After watching three of these shows, Unexplained with George Noory seems a mile wide, but not very deep.  How it may develop is hard to tell.  My guess would be that it will remain more about stories -- like this episode -- rather than becoming more critical.  So far, though, UwGN has been a fun diversion.

Unexplained: Monsters

SciFi Channel - Original Air Date: 11/16/08

Monster expert Lee Frank joins George Noory in this episode of the show.  Frank has been to Loch Ness and looked for bigfoot, and is convinced that unknown creatures remain at large in the world.  (He cites the usual exotic finds - squid, coelacanth, etc.)  Mermaids, however, he dismisses as imagination and pent-up hormones.  Frank defends the largely discredited Rines flipper photograph, and seemingly draws broad conclusions from less-solid Loch Ness evidence.  Frank says that at first it was thought unlikely that Nessie could be a plesiosaur, because the loch is so cold -- but now we know some dinosaurs were warm blooded, so perhaps that's not so outlandish.  He also claims such creatures are reported in 75 lakes around the world.  Frank dismisses criticism that Nessie reports are inconsistent in their discriptions, describing a creature with "baleen mouth" (?), red eyes, and horns, though pleseosaur like.  The show also uses the discredited three-hump photo (in actuality, bales of hay covered in tarps set in a shallow part of the lake) to illustrate the monster's multi-humped or shape-changing back.  A caller asks for more empirical evidence to support the claims of Nessie and Bigfoot, and asks what Frank has.  He replies they don't have good empirical evidence and they need it.  He believes the witnesses are credible and calls for more research.  (Which, IMO, is a nice admission from a monster hunting expert.)

During the bigfoot segment, Frank plays a tape he thinks might be a bigfoot cry. It's a coughing, growling sound that some think might be a bear. The show also displays a "hidden bigfoot face" picture and a brief movie (which looks like a costume) with no explanation.  Frank then shows some "recreations" of bigroot prints (which I doubt would hold up to scientific scrutiny), and dismisses the idea that hoaxers could have made all of the many prints found.  He then defends a footprint from the Patterson film (see previous blogs, especially the Is It Real Bigfoot episode).  He also mentions the late Grover Krantz as a serious scientist who has investigated the bigfoot/yeti phenomena.  He also says that investigators keep certain information about the prints secret from the public, so prints will be harder to fake.  (Nothing like witholding evidence!)  A caller asks why we haven't found any bones.  Frank says that we don't find deer or bear carcasses (I'm skeptical of this), and "nature takes care of its own."  Franks says it is certainly possible that these creatures live in caves and avoid humans, which has helped bigfoot survival.

A caller asks if sightings of strange creatures coincide with world events.  Franks points out that the Loch Ness sightings started when a road was built around the loch.  He's surprised that more bigfoot sightings didn't happen after Mt. Saint Helens.  He also says there is clearly a breeding population in Loch Ness, and that three creatures have been sighted at once.  (Is he talking about the debunked photo?)  He also says there is plentiful food in the loch "a veritable garden of eden" -- a fact that Adrian Shine, at least, would dispute.  Asked if anything else coul make the bigfoot tracks, Frank notes bears can walk upright for a short distance, but witnesses say they're not seeing bear.

I liked this episode better than the UFO show; with one guest for the whole half hour, it seemed more focused.  Still, it strikes me that suppositions and theories are often being stated as fact here -- and a casual viewer would not be able to discern the difference.  FYI Here's an interesting page on Loch Ness hoaxes.

Unexplained: UFOs

SciFi Channel - Original Air Date: 11/16/08

This is George Noory's new show, playing every night or so on the SciFi channel.  It's a half-hour format covering a single subject each night.  Unfortunately, I missed the first segment of this episode, which was probably about the Stepheville, TX sightings.  (See previous Howls blogs.)  The second segment included some fuzzy footage of lights in the sky and strings of lights, with not much explanation of what we were supposed to be seing (perhaps I missed that), though some was supposedly from a police car camera at Stephenville.  The second segment featured an interview with expert Linda Mouton Howe and a police witness, who talked about the Stephenville case, as well as taking a few caller questions.  In the third segment, George interviewed frequent Coast-to-Coast guest (and Dreamland host) Whitley Strieber.  Striber talked about his alien encounter/abduction/molestation -- details of which are probably familiar to readers of Communion (or those who have seen the movie).

This is the first show in the series I've watched, so it's a bit hard to judge (especially having missed part of it), but it seemed a bit heavy on the story/mythos/conspiracy elements and pretty much free of scientific counterpoint.  Still, if you like Art Bell's old radio show, this is probably worth looking at.  A half hour, though (minus commercials) is not a lot of time to dig into the subjects presented.

INVESTIGATION X: Siberian Apocalypse

Discovery Channel - Original Air Date: 11/10/08

This program (which shares a name/subtitle with an earlier program about the same mystery) starts with a reenactment of an air burst explosion that devastates San Francisco -- a blast similar to the famous Tunguska Event of 1918. Believed originally to be an asteroid or meteor strike, there have been no meteor fragments found. Other possibilities are an explosion from within the earth -- a freak eruption of volcanic gas, a collision with "mirror matter," and even UFOs. The only way to solve the mystery is to gather physical evidence -- and so this show sends an elite group of geologists, physicists, and astronomers to the explosion's epicenter. One scientist, Dr. Kletetschka, believes that half the mass in the universe is trans-dimensional "mirror matter" -- which we can only detect through gravity or when it strikes the earth. He looks for a magnetic signature in the oldest trees left standing. Another scientist, Boslough, believes the event was a low altitude air-burst asteroid explosion, which destroyed over 800 square miles of forest but left no crater. During the event, people heard a series of booms (20-21) and one witness described the sky opening up. The explosion left a butterfly-like "fall pattern." In 2007, an Italian team claimed to have found an impact crater nearby, but expert Boslough sticks with his air-burst theory -- and he seems to have the computer simulations to back him up. This is a high-tech version of the 1960s Soviet matchstick experiment from the earlier Siberian Apocolypse show -- which the show recaps. But Boslough believes the explosion was more powerful, and burns on trees seem to suggest he is right. Kletetschka beleives the air burst came from his mirror matter, and hopes the wood of the trees will provide the magnetic signature proving his theory. They take core samples in the area until they find a tree the right age.

Geophysicist Morgan has a very different theory. He believes that volcanic gasses built up in the basalt (volcanic) planes of Siberia. A massive eruption of superheated gas (a "Verneshot") triggered the Tunguska explosion, and the debris hurled into the air would explain the atmospheric glow reported after the event. He's looking for shocked quartz to help prove his theory. The final theory is that a UFO caused the blast; benevolent aliens saved earth from a meteor by crashing their own space ship into the deadly object. The Russian scientist found no spaceship, but many "strange" rocks. Kletetscha's samples don't have the magnetism he hoped for, though he vows to search again. Morgan does find his shocked quartz, but that only proves a Verneshot might have happened in the past. Tree scarring bears out Boslough's theory, and he is able to adjust his computer model to explain the possible Italina crater as well (by simulating less of the asteroid exploding). Though the final verdict is still out at on the event's cause, NASA scientists urge that we guard our planet against strikes by near-earth asteroids.

Crop Circles: Mysteries in the Fields

Discovery Channel - Original Air Date: 2002

This show starts with the debunked video of two balls of lights forming crop circles. (A video made by a special effects firm -- though later in the show, they do note this film is a hoax -- and then use it again to illustrate a beliver's story.) The show then states that some circles have been hoaxed, but what about the rest? Can they really all be hoaxed? This show takes MIT students and tries to fake its own crop circle. An expert states that the first incident was in the 1700s, but the circles have been building in numbers and complexity beginning in the last 25 years (since 1978). In the summer of 1991, Doug Browley and Dave Chorley (sp?) claimed to have made the circles for the last 15 years. Some, though, didn't believe their story (though Doug & Dave did inspire copycats). The show asked 3 MIT students to replicate 3 effects -- explusion cavities (blown nodes), magnetite particles (on the circle perimeter), and balanced geometry in the circle itself. The show claims that most crop circles are made (or appear) at night, and many have strange balls of light (unexplained -- though the pictures of ones they showed looked like badly photographed birds to me) associated with them. They say "natural" crop circles can take hours to form, or just a few seconds. (Though they offer no proof to either of these statements.) On scientist/believer suggests that many circle formations would take too long to form for people to make them during one night. (Though he fails to take into consideration the possible number of hoaxers working -- as some of these circles look like mathematical/artistic projects to me.) There are also anecdotal reports of people being healed by circles. Some people believe the circles are natural phenomena. Others believe that they're being made by human, pagan artists who are "anarchists."

The MIT students will attempt to duplicate what the BLT research group (which cliams to be the only publisher of peer-reviewed crop circle information) considers the signs of "real" crop circles. (I.E. non-manmade ones.) The students bring mashing boards (per Doug and Dave) as well as various gadgets to replicate the magnetite "contamination" (a "meteorite cannon"), a microwave generation "gun," and other effects. Interestingly, the microwave projector screws up the video equipment, sucking all the power out of the cameras' batteries. After checking their equipment, the students head out into an Ohio field in the middle of the night to begin their circle making. It takes them a while to get well coordinated, and they've only alotted themselves 4 hours to make the formation. Using their microwave gun and their meteor cannon after makign the circle, they soon start running out of time. (Though it seems to me that scattering magnetite while making the circle would have been easier than doing it afterward.) In the end, they use an explosion to scatter the magnetite. The next day, a different set of students check the circle to see how "real" it may be. (They also experience a power outage while flyinhg in their helicopter -- another supposed crop circle effect.) The investigating graduate students give a B+ to A- range grade. The size of the circle is excellent, but there weren't quite as many of the blown nodes, magnetite, and radiation effects as they'd hoped. This was the students' first effort, though. The narrator wonders who would go to all this trouble for a hoax. (Well, a group of MIT students obviously did.)

This show was originally broadcast around the time of the movie Signs. It is filled with unsubstatiated, anecdotal stories about crop circles, more myth than fact. But it also has the highly interesting MIT experiment. Are anomolies found in the area proof that crop circles are real? I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that when one goes looking for anomolies, one is likely to find them. (Very few spots on earth are compltely "normal.") Science is about forming hypotheses and then testing them to create theories, and refining knowlege until one discovers how things work -- by duplicating effects. I'm not seeing a lot of that here. ("There will be magnetite in a crop cricle," is certainly an hypothesis, but I'm not sure what good the prediction does.) Personally, it's hard for me to look at pictures of crop circles without seeing them as what I believe they are -- artwork. And that's what the students conclude, too. One even suggests going out and making your own; it's fun.

Uncanny Radio - New Podcast Home - Maybe

I've been experimenting with BlogTalkRadio, and I think I may have found a new home for the Uncanny Radio podcasts.  If I've done everything right, there should be a re-broadcast of the first UR show tonight at 10pm, Central time (11/15/08).  Here's a link to the new site:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Stephen-D-Sullivan

After the show broadcasts/podcasts live, it should be available in the archive as well.  And will hopefully stay there for as long as we want.

That's assuming I've done everything right.  Tune in and let me know if it worked.

If it works, our new segment - featuring Bob Beutlich -- should air next Wednesday night, 11-19-08 at 10pm central time (and then be archived automatically).

With luck, we'll even have the podcasts available on iTunes soon.  Stay tuned, and wish us luck!

(And if it doesn't work, I'll try it again tomorrow.)

UFO HUNTERS - Hist. - Heartland Explosion

History Channel - Original Air Date: 11/12/08

In April 16, 2008, at 10:38 PM, something "exploded" over Kokomo, Indiana.  People investigating saw lights in the sky, which more than one witness describes as a "fireball."  (There are the usual blurry pictures.)  Initially, the local air base (15 miles away) denies any involvement, though later they say their F-16s were dropping flares and maybe have "accidentally" broken the sound barrier.  A local paper reports that a meteor shower may have been the cause.  (Personal Note: Fireballs can break the sound barrier and cause sonic booms.)  The UFO Hunters set up offices to interview witnesses and try to figure out what happened.  (Being the show this is, I'm sure they'll find a government conspiracy at the least.)  Three months earlier, in January, a witness saw a tower-like flying object.  He grabbed his video camera and shot pictures -- which show a hovering light (and a passing car).  As usual, the witness accounts are contradictory -- though many describe a fireball, and some pieces breaking off.  For a while, the police believe it might be an airplane down.  There's even a mention of a debris field.

MUFON has invesatigated and turned up video of local fighter jets dropping flares.  They also did an aerial recon and may have found a possible crash crater or as the show says "UFO crash site."  Since the pictures were taken, spring rains have flooded the location.  A sheriff says that though there were emergency first responders sent out, they never found any crash site.  A witness then describes something breaking up in the air.  (Note: a common fireball phenominon.)  A former air force man describes a bright ball of light accompanied by another, smaller ball and then a series of smaller lights.  Calculating sizes based on the car and the light in the video, they think the size of the thing is about 40 feet -- the wingspan of an F-16; but, it seems to be hovering, which an F-16 can't do.  The team eventually finds the crater they're looking for, but no evidence of impact; an expert declares it might just be a sinkhole.  (And that proves correct.)  The team builds a "sonic boom cannon" to try and recreate the event and gathers witnesses to listen.  They hope to duplicate the experience and thereby learn the size of the object creating the boom.  Witnesses don't totally agree, but the sonic booms do seem to match those of an F-16 flying at 5000 feet.

The team disagrees on whether this was merely a military plane or something stranger.  (It still sounds more like an actual fireball to me.)  Though at least there wasn't much talk of government conspiracy.