March 20, 2017 by phicks2012
In recent years I’ve stumbled across rather a HUGE number of TV programs where teams of people wander around in the darkness whispering, looking for “cryptids” — creatures whose existence has yet to be—or else cannot entirely be—proved or disproved by science — and finding absolutely nothing. I’ve actually watched some of these shows when there was nothing else on TV that I had any remote interest in watching. However…..;-)
I know as soon as the show starts that they will find nothing. They will, of course, interpret “nothing” as “something”, but you will never actually see a cryptid, or clear evidence of one, and the teams will never get a remotely identifiable photograph or any other sort of concrete evidence of ANYthing. They will shout a lot, making sure anything in a five mile radius knows they are coming. They will claim as fact things that are only wild speculation — like such-and-such being a “known behavior” of the given cryptid, or that the creature is “definitely there”. They will shout “Oh my God! There it is!!!” but the camera will stay focused on “them” rather than making ANY attempt to shift toward the “creature” they supposedly are seeing, and if they get a still photo of something it will be an unidentifiable blur. Sheeesh!
Just ONCE, might it not be nice if SOMEthing was found? Oh, maybe not the particular outrageous D&D Monster (like the Mapinguari, or the Aswang, or the Subteralien from “Monsters Underground) that they’re looking for in that episode, but SOMETHING?
Really, folks! Just how long can a TV series like this persist when NOTHING is EVER found or proven? Well, a LONG time, evidentally, because some of these programs keep getting renewed over and over again — or replaced by others with the same sort of format.
Hint to the “search teams”: Just for once, take the right equipment to do the job right! Take extra batteries, flashlights powerful enough to illuminate more than a single square foot, cameras that actually work well in low light and have shutter speeds high enough to stop motion, and equipment to collect samples. Don’t find “mysterious slime” in a cave, or “mysterious hair” on a bush, and neglect to take samples of it — or to tell us what it turns out to be!
I mentioned “Monsters Underground” earlier because at least it’s interesting watching them work their way through caves and caverns even if the “creatures” they tend to look for more closely resemble comic book aliens than anything remotely likely to exist on earth. However, there are literally DOZENS of similar shows: Monsterquest, Mountain Monsters (what a JOKE), Beast Hunter, Is It Real?, Weird or What?, Destinantion Truth (Really?), Finding Bigfoot, Killing Bigfoot, Swamp Monsters and Mystery Quest, just to name a few.
Let’s face it, it’s NOT impossible that we (meaning mankind) will discover new species in the deep oceans, deep underground, or in other largely inaccessible areas. Species thought to have been extinct for millions of years (like the coelacanth) sometimes show up again in places other than in episodes of “Primeval”. The Giant Squid has finally been photographed alive, and it’s not entirely impossible that some specimens of meglodon (though NOT large enough to swallow a submarine) might still exist.
But honestly, I’d rather see serious scientists exploring such possibilities rather than watching rednecks (those who aren’t funny enough to be on Duck Dynasty) run around in the dark making enough noise to wake the dead while supposedly trying to sneak up on Sasquatch.