DESTINATION TRUTH - Ghosts of Masada & the Leprechaun

History Channel - Original Air Date 3/17/10

This review will be short, as a change in DVRs left my recorder unprepared to catch this new show in the series.  However, I did manage to catch most of it on a late-night re-run (while admittedly half asleep).  So, Josh & the crew go to Israel to look for ghosts, and Ireland to look for the little people.  They have the usual spooky encounters and just-before-the-break cliffhangers  Because they're amusing people, I'm amused.  On Masada, a forbidding hilltop fortress, they catch a mysterious, shadowlike figure on film where no people should be -- i.e. atop a long-deserted ruin when they're the only people around.  In Ireland, they catch some thermal hits and a few odd lights, but no solid proof of the little people.  As usual, the show gets by on the charm and (mis)adventures of Josh & the crew.  If you liked them last time, you'll probably like them now - especially in their swimsuits (in the Dead Sea).  Mostly, it seemed a pretty standard show.  If I have a chance to catch the full episode, and there's something more of note, I'll do a longer review or add to this one.

MONSTERQUEST - Sierra Sasquatch

History Channel - Original Air Date: 3/17/10

You'll never guess what's on MonsterQuest for this Saint Patrick's day?  Yep, another Bigfoot show.  I guess this shouldn't be surprising, my Bigfoot blank book is one of my best sellers.  So if MQ has gone to this well damn often, maybe we can't blame them.  Bigfoot is, well, big.

We start with Butch Young, a military trainee who had an encounter with 2 bigfoots (bigfeet?) during a nighttime wargame patrol.  He and his patrol didn't get a good look, but they know the humanoids they saw in the hills that night weren't other people in their maneuvers.  They have another military eyewitness -- this time in the day -- later in the show.  John Mionszynski is skeptical; he thinks most "bigfoot" tracks are known animals misidentified.  Naturally, MQ has to send out teams - including regular Jeff Meldrum - to look around, and examine, er, footage.  They take up a plane that can glide silently to do some recon, but turn nothing up.  They then look at a vacation film, from an anonymous family, that shows a mystery creature - which the science team will analyze.  The photo experts set up cameras and do some pretty accurate measuring, trying to determine how big the shape actually was.  The show is also working with a tracker this time, and the MQ team sets up a test to see if he's any good; the tracker does amazingly well.  But, they don't find new, conclusive prints, just one similar to ones found by a local witness.  A juvenile, maybe, they speculate.  Then they compare some human prints with some they believe are bigfoot.  Some of the prints they've taken might be juvenile bigfoot, though they certainly look human to me.  Of course, no one knows what a juvenile sasquatch print would look like.  The tracker says there isn't enough evidence to know.  Unfortunately, passage of time and weathering have made it difficult for the film experts to calculate the creature's height - 6-8' is the closest they can get.  But it still looks like a bear or a guy in a bulky costume to me.  So, once again, nothing conclusive.  Maybe when Destination Truth starts up again, we'll get some actual monsters.

One Week Left to Sign Up for Free Story for Haiti!

Just a reminder that the free story for Haiti is going out in a week!  Sign Up now. You need to be on the list by 3/17/2010 to get the story link.  (And, as my pal Stan Lee might say, I don't want anyone left out if there's a last-minute rush!)

http://stephendsullivan.com/wordpress/?page_id=570

Oh, and of course I promise never to give or sell the mailing list to anyone.

-- Steve

MONSTERQUEST - Lizard Monster

History Channel - Original Air Date: 3/10/09

The show scours Appalachia looking for the "Flatwoods Monster" a lizard-man seen in isolated parts of West Virginia.  Oddly, the creature seems to drive a hovercraft-like vehicle (or outfit) and emit noxious gas.  The story begins with a group of boys spotting a fireball in 1968, in Flatwoods, WV.  They followed where it fell and saw the monster; one was sickened by billowing fog/gas.  Joe Nickell, skeptic, believes the original reports (and memories of the thing) were distorted by strong emotions --in this case, fear.  Perhaps it was something fairly normal, misinterpreted.  MQ sends a team to investigate, including Frank Freschino, John Bainbridge, and renowned UFO researcher Dr. Stanton Friedman. They dig around a rotting tree where the creature was spotted, hoping to turn up evidence of toxins, but they find nothing unusual.  Freschino notes that many of the original witnesses were stricken with throat or lung cancer.  (I note that WV, with it's history of mining, has environmental and lifestyle issues that might produce pathologies like that without lizard men.)  The show then traces sightings back to the early 1500s and native American reports -- though there are sightings elsewhere in the world, too.  Next, the show relates the story of a Texan girl who discovered a strange skeleton in a cave: the so-called "starchild," which the show posits is a human-monster hybrid.  The owner of the skull makes a number of remarkable claims about the bones, and the MQ team's Dr. Susan Myster decides to perform some new tests.  A forensic artist will also try to recreate the skull's owner from existing data.

Meanwhile, the WV team sends up a balloon with a night-vision camera to see if venting coal gasses, which could cause hallucinations, may be in the area.  In 1952, a couple in a car encountered the Flatwoods Monster, which circled them -- emmiting sulfurous gas -- after their car stalled.  It touched the hood of the car, burning through the paint.  (Where that car is now, the show doesn't mention; nor does it show any photos.)  More recently,in 2004, a hunter spotted 3 whitish humanoid creatures, which Freschino believes are the same Flatwood monsters; he also believe the creatures wear armor (sometimes).  Nickell, though, believes that mass hysteria is a more likely explanation -- with rumors of monster spreading from one person to another.  He believes the Flatwood Monster started as a Cold War scare and has taken on a life of its own.  Dr. Myster concludes that the starchild is actually the skull of a human child, modified by a cultural practice (like "cradleboarding"), though it is unlike any modified skull she has seen before.  The skull was somewhat more dense than a "usual" human's, but still within standard variation.  So, no validation of the owner's fantastic claims.  The forensic reconstruction of the child's face does not look entirely human (though it's not terribly inhuman, either); it reminded me of an Egyptian pharaoh.  Soil samples tested from WV turn up nothing unusual - and even the previously "odd" samples turn up normal as well.  The team also fails to discover gas leaks.  The human stories remain compelling, but are they real?  Stanton Friedman notes that we should look forward, realizing that some of what we may have believed in the past is unjustified. (Well said, Stanton.)  I think Joe Nickell might agree with him.

This seems to be another MQ episodes tying together formerly unrelated monster and Fortean sightings -- in this case Flatwoods & starchild -- into one big "uber monster" conspiracy theory.   Because the connections the show draws are so tenuous, it will probably annoy researchers looking into the disparate sightings/phenomena.  It certainly annoys me.  But, I guess you gotta do what you can to fill up an hour of monster hunting -- especially after years of not finding any actual monsters.

MONSTERQUEST - Piranha Invasion

History Channel - Original Air Date: 3/3/2010

This episode of MQ posits that swarms of vicious piranha may be infesting freshwater rivers and lakes in the US.  Naturally, there are plenty of stories of fishermen catching piranha in the US.  But can a warm-water fish breed here, or are the sightings just pets set free?  Naturally MQ frogman Dale Pearson and company go to Tennessee to check it out.  But piranha don't seem to like the raw chicken being used as bait, and electrical wire dumped in the lake prove more dangerous to the diver than razor-toothed fish.  Of course, the show does feature scary fish stories as well as snatches of history and science.  The scariest stories come from South America, the piranha's native habitat.  There, piranha can pose an actual danger to people, and naturally nets strung to catch them turn a few of the ornery little bastards.  So do fishing lures; the piranha seem attracted by movement through their territory.  A scientist testing piranhas' reactions to cold temperature discovers that they get more sluggish the lower the temperature goes.  Though the fish can survive with temps in the upper fifties, when the water drops below fifty degrees, they're toast.  There are some warm inlets to the lake investigated, but -- despite the show's melodramatic warnings -- it seems unlikely to me that piranha pose any threat in the US.  At least, the show gives no solid evidence of any such threat.

FREE STORY FOR HAITI

FREE STORY FOR HAITI

The world has come together to help Haiti back to its feet after the devastating earthquake.  I thought it would be a good idea to give everyone a "thank you" gift for everything they've done so far — and to encourage those who have not donated to do their part.

Everybody who has donated to Haitian relief is eligible to download my Blue Kingdoms story "The Gift of the Dragons" for free.  There are three steps to claiming your free story.

1) Make a donation to Haiti. If you haven't made a donation already, click here to go to the Red Cross site and donate.  As I write this, the radio button for Haiti is the last one on the page (scroll down).

2) Publicize your donation. Make a post on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, or some other social networking site telling what Haitian relief  charity you've donated to.  Your post should also include the message:

Free story for Haiti @ stephendsullivan.com.

Which leaves you 95 or so characters on Twitter (more on other sites) to tell people where you donated and encourage them to do the same.  If you want, you can even reference this contest page directly: http://stephendsullivan.com/wordpress/?page_id=570.

3) Sign up for my newsletter. The story link will be going out to my mailing list, either in the March Newsletter or a special edition shortly thereafter.  (I promise not to sell your address/info or send things other than the newsletter & related announcements.)  You can use the form elsewhere on the site, or the one right below.

Name Email

The deadline for getting signed up for your free story is March 17, 2010.  (Shouldn't St. Patricks Day be your lucky day?)  The story will be in the form of a downloadable file suitable for use with a Kindle, computer, or other electronic reading device.  The last day for downloading the story for free will be March 31, 2010.

So, what are you waiting for?  Send in a donation and get signed up to get your free story today!

MONSTERQUEST - Mothman

History Channel - Original Air Date: 2/10/10

Full disclosure: I have a bit of skin in the game this time, as you'll notice in the following paragraphs.  (Not much, but a bit.)

MQ looks into the legendary Mothman, and though the legend comes from West Virginia, they start in La Crosse, WI (confusing Mothman with Manbat -- but then, MQ often plays a bit fast and loose with their "facts").  They have the usual eyewitness stories, from Wisconsin to West Virginia to Sacramento, and Joe Nichols and others to do a bit of skeptical investigation.  Joe thinks people have misidentified known animals, like the barred owl, which he says is a good match, except for its size.  Plus, the owl has red eye shine (a Mothman trademark). Friend of Uncanny Radio Nick Redfern (author of Three Men Seeking Monsters and contributor to Uncanny Encounters: Roswell) is among the researchers looking for the beast in Wisconsin.  They canoe into the wilds and hike ancient bluffs, searching for evidence, and also investigating animal eye shine.  They use owl calls to try to lure a barred owl in, for comparison to the stories, but all they find is shiny-eyed deer.  The examine some deer carcass photos, but the expert believes them to have been killed by poachers.

The show also looks into the traditional West Virginia story, talking to witnesses and recreating events. They speculate about Mothman as a portent of doom - including recent disasters and even 9/11.  David Weaver is a sketch artist MQ brings in to draw what the witnesses have seen.  He believes the sketches all portray similar creatures.  The scientific team believes the witnesses saw a smaller animal, and fear enlarged it.  They create cutouts at various sizes (with reflector eyes) and then test subjects on size recognition.  The size estimates vary widely, depending on the witness; some people doubled the size of the targets, calling into question what people are seeing and reporting.  Dr. Chad Marsolek talks about how human memory is effected by emotion; people viewing a disturbing image believe their memories to be accurate, when usually they are not.  He also says that a "weapon focus effect" could cause people to focus on the eyes and forget other details.

As with the better, MQ shows, this episode features a combination of legends and scientific investigation.  There's plenty of info for believer, investigator, and skeptic.  Linda Godfrey and I did part of a show on Manbat in Uncanny Radio.  I hope to get that segment back up on the internet one day. In the meantime, if you're looking for a fun gift for Mothman lovers, you can send them Everything the Government Wants You to Know about Mothman -- a blank book (suitable for filling with your own conspiracies) from Walkabout Publishing.