Checkmite
Skepticifimisticalationist
I just finished enduring an hour of a show (presumably a series) on Fox called Unexplained Mysteries. Expecting something new and wonderful at least, I was disappointed by the realization that basically it reiterates everything every other such show has reiterated for the upteenth time already.
This episode's title was "This Strange Planet", and dealt with "Earth Energies and Mysteries".
The first segment dealt with "Ley Lines". It started with witnesses describing experiences in old caves and artificial rock structures, in which they have hallucinations involving strange spirals and flashes of light, that sort of thing. The show said that similar experiences have happened in places like Stonehenge, whereupon some "Ley Line Investigator" came on the screen talking about how millions of people are "drawn to sites like Machu Piccu, Stonehenge, Avesbury, Silbury...and often they don't know why." Funny, I always thought they went there to see the cool stoneworks. Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical of the notion that somebody would make highly expensive travel arrangements to the Andes and hike all the way the hell up into the mountains because "I don't know why". I suppose there are some who spend such money for absolutely no reason...
Next we went to Seattle, the - according to the program - "first city in the world to have mapped all its Ley Lines". While saying this, they showed some official-looking seal with the words "Geo Study Division" around the outside. I'm wondering if they were actually trying to convince the viewer that the city officially commission the "study". Ley lines are apparently discovered when people take a map of the city, mark all the churches and arbitrarily chosen natural features, and play connect the dots. Over and over again, interviews were intercut with graphical "maps" of Seattle's ley lines. Then we got to talk to a fellow walking next to a highway with a dowsing rod that looked plastic, using it to "scan" some shrubbery. Says he, "If we were were in old England or Scotland, there would be a standing stone here, marking this important location. But Seattle is only a hundred years old. What we need to do is set a standing stone here, with benches and the like, to mark this spot as sacred." These words were uttered by this man, standing on a relatively thin strip of overgrown grass between a major freeway and what looked like a grain field.
Next, we went on to the Marfa Lights. A skeptic got about 15 seconds of airtime, talking about car lights on the freeway. Other people got sound bites in, too; including theories such as satanists, aliens, a strange earthen communication system, and the definitive "I don't know what it is, but it's there." We got to see video of some of the Marfa Lights, and they certainly didn't look like car headlights, the way they crisscrossed and stuff; but all this time I've known about the Marfa lights I've never understood why somebody doesn't just walk out there and meet them. I mean, they say if you "wait where they form, they never come", but all the videos we see of the phenomenon show people waiting in a field a mile away from the lights, and watching. Why not just wait for them to appear, revv up the Hummer, and go get the damned things when they show up? If private property is an issue, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to solve.
We moved next to Avebury, where the stones are. They showed a few crop circles already claimed by the Circlemakers, and the usual oddball theories. Then they showed UFO video footage. The UFOs were mushroom-shaped, spun, swung this way and that, and were a dull orange glowy color. That's right folks, they were candle-balloons; real live fake UFOs specifically designed to make people think they're seeing UFOs. I know, because I've made a couple, and that's exactly what they look like.
Then we went to the Bermuda Triangle. We got to hear one "survivor" relating a story of aviatory chaos over the Triangle, followed by a synopsis of the Flight 19 incident which - mercifully for my mental state - ended with some footage of a salvage ship pulling pieces of an old Avenger aboard from the depths.
By this time it was becoming clear that they were running out of things to talk about, as we took a trip to my neck of the woods to an oddity called the "Great Lakes Triangle". The show talked on and on about "disappearances"; however, the only two cases they talked about were simple accidents. The first was the case of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Fitz was an ore ship bound for Cleveland when it was caught and sunk by a ferocious storm on Lake Superior. The storm was one of the worst in area history, and it sunk the ship with no trouble at all, leaving no survivors. The ship can be seen sitting at the bottom of the lake today from a plane flying overhead. These people tried to make a mystery out of it. For example, there was a claim that "both of the ship's radars mysteriously failed during the storm". Never mind that they easily could've been ripped off; I want to know how they figured this out, since there were no survivors. Then they spoke of some flight or other - also bound for Cleveland, coincidentally - that flew over Lake Michigan, malfunctioned, and plummeted into the lake. It was found, of course, but "the weather was clear and there was no distress signal" - both factors that automatically scream "mysterious forces at work!" to the advocates of Bad Triangles.
Finally, after a brief glance at "sprites and jets" as some form of earth language, at the very end of the program, we got to a cute little phenomenon known as the Taos Hum - a very low frequency noise that only sensitive-enough ears can hear, that drives hearers into agitation, sleeplessness, lack of balance, and even nosebleeds. The noise is heard in Taos, New Mexico, and has actually been measured - allegedly - to somewhere between 33 and 80 Hz. Since the sound is supposed to slightly oscillate (many descriptions liken the sound to a "deisel engine idling in the distance), a "range" of Hz is probably the best we can hope for. There is no explanation for the hum, though the gummint's ELF transmitters in Wisconsin and UP Michigan have been blamed by some. None of that mattered to the show, which seemed to advocate that is was an "earth hum" of some sort. "It's for you...it's some lady named Gaia, and she sounds pissed..."
What I want now are two things. First, I really want a skeptical show. Not something quite as brash as Bullsh!t, but along the same vein. I must admit that Bullsh!t rocked, but Penn sometimes came off as just too condescending. In one episode about UFO abduction conventions, his narration made fun of an advocate because said advocate was a podiatrist. It was funny, and I could relate to it...but I want something more than just "look at what kind of people believe in this stuff". For example, the segment about Feng Shui was excellent - actual experimentation with 3 different "masters" getting 3 different "results". Too many people complain that "science never takes things seriously that they don't like", and Bullsh!t's levity, perhaps unwittingly, played into that mindset. Too many people also think of skeptics as stuffy know-it-alls that like to spout figures from obscure "studies" to make their case. I want a show where we watch interested people undertake serious investigation of the "phenomena"...something where we can show people that "no, we're not just dismissing it with ridicule off-hand...we've done real tests and gotten actual results that support our dismissals". I also want it to last longer than 30 minutes, and to be family-friendly enough to run on something other than a premium cable channel.
What? Oh yeah, I did say "two things", didn't I? The second thing is that I want to host said show.
Oh well, one out of two's not bad....
This episode's title was "This Strange Planet", and dealt with "Earth Energies and Mysteries".
The first segment dealt with "Ley Lines". It started with witnesses describing experiences in old caves and artificial rock structures, in which they have hallucinations involving strange spirals and flashes of light, that sort of thing. The show said that similar experiences have happened in places like Stonehenge, whereupon some "Ley Line Investigator" came on the screen talking about how millions of people are "drawn to sites like Machu Piccu, Stonehenge, Avesbury, Silbury...and often they don't know why." Funny, I always thought they went there to see the cool stoneworks. Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical of the notion that somebody would make highly expensive travel arrangements to the Andes and hike all the way the hell up into the mountains because "I don't know why". I suppose there are some who spend such money for absolutely no reason...
Next we went to Seattle, the - according to the program - "first city in the world to have mapped all its Ley Lines". While saying this, they showed some official-looking seal with the words "Geo Study Division" around the outside. I'm wondering if they were actually trying to convince the viewer that the city officially commission the "study". Ley lines are apparently discovered when people take a map of the city, mark all the churches and arbitrarily chosen natural features, and play connect the dots. Over and over again, interviews were intercut with graphical "maps" of Seattle's ley lines. Then we got to talk to a fellow walking next to a highway with a dowsing rod that looked plastic, using it to "scan" some shrubbery. Says he, "If we were were in old England or Scotland, there would be a standing stone here, marking this important location. But Seattle is only a hundred years old. What we need to do is set a standing stone here, with benches and the like, to mark this spot as sacred." These words were uttered by this man, standing on a relatively thin strip of overgrown grass between a major freeway and what looked like a grain field.
Next, we went on to the Marfa Lights. A skeptic got about 15 seconds of airtime, talking about car lights on the freeway. Other people got sound bites in, too; including theories such as satanists, aliens, a strange earthen communication system, and the definitive "I don't know what it is, but it's there." We got to see video of some of the Marfa Lights, and they certainly didn't look like car headlights, the way they crisscrossed and stuff; but all this time I've known about the Marfa lights I've never understood why somebody doesn't just walk out there and meet them. I mean, they say if you "wait where they form, they never come", but all the videos we see of the phenomenon show people waiting in a field a mile away from the lights, and watching. Why not just wait for them to appear, revv up the Hummer, and go get the damned things when they show up? If private property is an issue, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to solve.
We moved next to Avebury, where the stones are. They showed a few crop circles already claimed by the Circlemakers, and the usual oddball theories. Then they showed UFO video footage. The UFOs were mushroom-shaped, spun, swung this way and that, and were a dull orange glowy color. That's right folks, they were candle-balloons; real live fake UFOs specifically designed to make people think they're seeing UFOs. I know, because I've made a couple, and that's exactly what they look like.
Then we went to the Bermuda Triangle. We got to hear one "survivor" relating a story of aviatory chaos over the Triangle, followed by a synopsis of the Flight 19 incident which - mercifully for my mental state - ended with some footage of a salvage ship pulling pieces of an old Avenger aboard from the depths.
By this time it was becoming clear that they were running out of things to talk about, as we took a trip to my neck of the woods to an oddity called the "Great Lakes Triangle". The show talked on and on about "disappearances"; however, the only two cases they talked about were simple accidents. The first was the case of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Fitz was an ore ship bound for Cleveland when it was caught and sunk by a ferocious storm on Lake Superior. The storm was one of the worst in area history, and it sunk the ship with no trouble at all, leaving no survivors. The ship can be seen sitting at the bottom of the lake today from a plane flying overhead. These people tried to make a mystery out of it. For example, there was a claim that "both of the ship's radars mysteriously failed during the storm". Never mind that they easily could've been ripped off; I want to know how they figured this out, since there were no survivors. Then they spoke of some flight or other - also bound for Cleveland, coincidentally - that flew over Lake Michigan, malfunctioned, and plummeted into the lake. It was found, of course, but "the weather was clear and there was no distress signal" - both factors that automatically scream "mysterious forces at work!" to the advocates of Bad Triangles.
Finally, after a brief glance at "sprites and jets" as some form of earth language, at the very end of the program, we got to a cute little phenomenon known as the Taos Hum - a very low frequency noise that only sensitive-enough ears can hear, that drives hearers into agitation, sleeplessness, lack of balance, and even nosebleeds. The noise is heard in Taos, New Mexico, and has actually been measured - allegedly - to somewhere between 33 and 80 Hz. Since the sound is supposed to slightly oscillate (many descriptions liken the sound to a "deisel engine idling in the distance), a "range" of Hz is probably the best we can hope for. There is no explanation for the hum, though the gummint's ELF transmitters in Wisconsin and UP Michigan have been blamed by some. None of that mattered to the show, which seemed to advocate that is was an "earth hum" of some sort. "It's for you...it's some lady named Gaia, and she sounds pissed..."
What I want now are two things. First, I really want a skeptical show. Not something quite as brash as Bullsh!t, but along the same vein. I must admit that Bullsh!t rocked, but Penn sometimes came off as just too condescending. In one episode about UFO abduction conventions, his narration made fun of an advocate because said advocate was a podiatrist. It was funny, and I could relate to it...but I want something more than just "look at what kind of people believe in this stuff". For example, the segment about Feng Shui was excellent - actual experimentation with 3 different "masters" getting 3 different "results". Too many people complain that "science never takes things seriously that they don't like", and Bullsh!t's levity, perhaps unwittingly, played into that mindset. Too many people also think of skeptics as stuffy know-it-alls that like to spout figures from obscure "studies" to make their case. I want a show where we watch interested people undertake serious investigation of the "phenomena"...something where we can show people that "no, we're not just dismissing it with ridicule off-hand...we've done real tests and gotten actual results that support our dismissals". I also want it to last longer than 30 minutes, and to be family-friendly enough to run on something other than a premium cable channel.
What? Oh yeah, I did say "two things", didn't I? The second thing is that I want to host said show.
Oh well, one out of two's not bad....
