Stephen D. Sullivan

Inflatable Kayaking Fun

2009-07-05T16:14:00.000-07:00

Been doing some kayaking on a nearby lake lately. Wanted a kayak for years, and now I have a small fleet of inflatables. Since I was reviewing them on Amazon, I figured I'd share my thoughts here, too.

COLEMAN FASTBACK INFLATABLE KAYAK

Picked up this kayak recently at a heavy discount at Dick's Sporting goods. I wanted something I could transport easily, without car carriers and such. This kayak fits the bill nicely. It fits in the trunk in a plastic tub (or across the back seat). I got a 50 gallon for it, but a 35 would probably do, or even a 30. I also picked up a nice paddle, though Coleman's sturdy aluminum ones (not included) would probably have done fine. Overall, I'm very pleased with this boat. It inflates easily (get a rechargable pump -- mine came from KMart) and quickly. You may want to inflate the headrest, which has a small valve, by mouth. The clip-in seat is comfortable and has good back support. About the only problem I had with this is that the instructions are terrible; there are not 5 Coleman inflation valves on the kayak. (Only 4, if you count the tiny headrest one.) I spent some time looking for that "missing" valve.

Having gotten a sit-on-top Coleman afterward, I have to say that this boat is probably more than I initially needed. The nylon hull that surrounds the inflatable core is very sturdy, probably enough to stand up to rocks, sticks, and other hazards not found on the placid lake where I'm paddling. My guess is that this would be great for whitewater or long trips -- it has plenty of storage space, and even a water dispenser. It's fun on the lake, too, don't get me wrong, but a bit unwieldy for just one person to get into the water without dragging. Of course, it's probably rugged enough to drag; I just don't like to. Anyway, I love this boat, and it's a good place to start kayaking. If you want something less ambitious (or cheaper), try the Coleman sit-on-tops; they're great fun, too.

COLEMAN 1-PERSON SIT-ON-TOP INFLATABLE KAYAK

I was having so much fun with my Coleman Fastback inflatable, I wanted at least one more kayak so I could take other members of the family out paddling with me. I was reluctant, however, to pick up another fastback -- even at a reduced rate, it's quite a bit of money, and adding a paddle makes it even more. Fortunately, I stumbled upon this little beauty on sale at Dick's. It was so cheap, in fact, that I picked up two on consecutive days without even trying out the first. I was worried about that. I'd been pleased with my Fastback, and was concerned that the Sit-on-Top would suffer from comparison, that it might not handle the lake chop, or might not be sturdy. I needn't have worried. Though this Coleman doesn't have the rugged nylon hull, it is still a well-put-together product. It's also smaller and lighter, easy to carry under one arm, even when inflated. Don't let that make you think it's tiny and vulnerable, though. I was surprised how solid it felt, and how high it kept my 190# bulk out of the water. (It's rated to 325# or so.) Which is not to say you won't get wet using this. You will.

The sturdy aluminum paddles (included) will drip on you, and you're likely to get some spray from the chop, and ship a little water getting in and out. I don't know if this would be any good on the ocean or whitewater, but on a lake or calm fiver, it's just fine -- brilliant, in fact. I was surprised how nimbly it moved over the water. No, it's not as sleek as a solid hull, but what solid hull kayak can you pack in a 15-gallon tote? My only complaint? My stainless steel water bottle was just too big for the drink holder. Oh, well! (I kept it in the front luggage net.) I had a blast paddling this around -- probably as much fun as my Fastback (though the Fastback does have spray guards). It's a perfect little boat for a quick trip on a summer afternoon. Get one and get out in the sun!

MONSTERQUEST: The Last Dinosaur

2009-07-04T15:47:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 6/24/09

MQ goes to Cameroon, Africa, to search for the Mokele-Mbembe, a supposed throwback to the dinosaur age -- like a brontosaurus. The show features the usual compelling eyewitness accounts and supporting animations. Dr. Roy Mackal has spent a long time looking for the beast, but other scientists point out there is no fossil record to support the ongoing existence of such creatures. Mackal tells stories from explorers of three-toed tracks three feet across. Because of eyewitness reports, Mackal is convinced the creature is real: a living dinosaur. In 2004, Peter Beach returned with pictures and casts of supposed footprints. He says the local foliage, too tall for any known animal to reach, had been stripped. The prints and photos are taken for analysis. MQ sends a team to Africa to investigate, but -- already, at the start -- one of them says they're more interested in the eyewitness reports than in the opinions of western scientists as to whether the animal can exist. This does not bode well for scientific inquiry. The remoteness of the region makes just getting to the area in question difficult (especially in the rainy season). Locals draw a dinosaur-like picture in the sand, but the show's claim that these people have little contact with the outside world seems undercut by their western wardrobes. They do, however, pick a dinosaur out of a "mugshot book" of possible local animals.

Theorizing that the creature may hole up on local caves (15' across) during the dry season, the MQ team sets some camera traps and boats out looking for lairs. (At this point, we seem to be into speculation.) They find a deep hole, but the earth is too hard to excavate and discover what's inside. So they decide to use sonar to check the river bed, and seem to find some crocs, snakes, and perhaps tree branches. But they get no video, and most of their "discoveries" are mere speculation based on sonar blips -- especially when they seem to think they've found something with a big body and long neck. Surely this would have been worth further investigation, even if starting the motor might have scared the beast. (Maybe especially if.) Yet, they keep drifting and trolling the river, finally motoring down to the deeper headwaters. They think they may have found something here, too, but they drift too close to the Congo, on the other side of the river, and have to turn away to avoid political trouble. Their camera traps, as usual, turn up nothing out of the ordinary. The sauropod expert says that the toes on the casts are placed wrong for a dinosaur, and pictures of dino tracks bear this out. "Who knows?" one researcher says at the conclusion, "the next time we might get some film." Yes, that would be nice.

I'm a sucker for dinosaur stories, and the legend of this beast is fascinating to me. The witness stories are interesting and compelling, but the researchers seem to be entirely too invested in the reality of the creature and it being some kind of dinosaur. That's not a very scientific POV. And, I should point out that a recent episode of Destination Truth concluded that the beast was merely legend and misreporting of encounters with hippos. Sadly, another strikeout for MonsterQuest. By my count, that's no real monsters found (and only a couple of large animals). Better luck next season.

MONSTERQUEST: Killer Crocs

2009-07-04T14:54:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 6/17/09

MQ sets out to find the biggest killer crocodiles, beasts the show claims (in its opener) are growing larger and threatening humans. 1000-2000 people worldwide are killed by crocs each year. Naturally, the show has the scary croc attack stories -- which sound a lot like shark attack stories, and leave similar scars. Crocs have been around since dinosaur times, and their growth seems only limited by age (they never stop growing) and food supply. As humans encroach croc habitat, encounters grow more frequent. Crocs and aligators are often confused in the US south, the only place where they coexist -- though experts seem to think crocs are more dangerous. The show has plenty of stories of historical large crocs, and goes to India to see the skull of a giant man eater. As one team goes to look for crocs in the US, another takes on India's backwaters.

The teams get a lot of pictures of crocs, and find some big tracks/slides. The Florida team measures a croc, by distance, between 16 and 18 feet long -- the largest recorded in the US. The Indian team (from a distance) measures a well-known killer at 20 feet. The "legendary" croc skull turns out to belong to a 20+ footer, but not the 30' of legend. Clearly, there are some big crocs out there. But I can't help wishing that Steve Irwin were still with us to "bring 'em back alive."

MONSTERQUEST - Curse of the Mokey Man

2009-06-29T17:12:00.001-07:00

History Channel -- Original Air Date: 6/10/09

MQ goes to India to search for the legendary monkey man. Early animations make this seem like another bigfoot show. (As you know by now, one out of three MQ shows seems to be about bigfoot.) There are eyewitnesses of attacks by the creature, one of whom was beaten unconscious in an encounter in Delhi in 2001. Another has scars from an attack. Police have no explanation for the series of attacks aside from, perhaps, mass hysteria or mistaking a chimp or other ape for something larger. The show moves from Delhi to northern India to investigate more attacks. The show says that descriptions of the monster date back to Pliny in Roman times. The team goes to the Garo Hills nature preserve, and we start to get the usual tales of huge footprints and broken branches high in trees (not elephants, they say), and perhaps beds ot trampled grass. Naturally, we get the usual tromping around and setting of camera traps. (And I feel compelled to ask, has a crypto creature ever been caught on one of these?) They recover some hairs (whether from their own efforts or from a witness is unclear), and send them for anylsis. One of the researchers interviews a woman who claims one of the creatures broke into her house. It had bloody hands and mouth, and left traces on the hut, which the researchers gather for analysis.

Meanwhile, the hunt continues. One spiritual man suggests that the monkey man may even be Hanuman, the Hindu helper of the gods. Next, the team goes to a bone-seller market, where various bones are being sold for their (folk) medicinal values. No monkey man there, though. The spate of "attacks" seemed to have lasted 20 days, and an expert brought in to examine the wounds, didn't think they matched wounds/bites of a known animal -- but rather the incidents are the result of mass hysteria. From the day the hysteria finding was published in the newspapers, the attacks stopped. The hairs analyzed belong perhaps to a red panda, rare and not known in those parts. The monkey man blood sample turns out human -- raising the question whether the blood was contaminited, or the attacker merely human. The camera trap turns up animals and several mysterious blurs. Since one of the cameras is attached to a solar transmitter, it will continue to transmit until the equipment fails. That's a nice improvement. One of the researchers suggests that the hysteria in Delhi may be caused by smaller monkeys driven to desperate acts by hunger. In the wilds, though, he thinks there is still some chance of an unknown creature -- though perhaps the tales are of an animal now extinct.

While turning up no more evidence than the other MQ bigfoot shows, this show comes off better because of highly rational statements by some of the researchers. A nice change of pace.

MONSTERQUEST - Flying Monsters

2009-06-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 6/3/09

Near Australia, Papua New Guinea is remote, forbidding, and almost the size of Texas. People report sighting flying monsters with leathery wings and a wingspan of up to 30 feet -- the reports resemble a pterodactyl (and that's what the show's recreation depicts). After WWII, a man reports seeing a pterodactyl-like creature, and in the last 65 years, there are many similar reports. Garth Guessman is a researcher looking for these creatures on the largely unexplored island; Dr. Dave Martill also hopes to find an unknown animal. He thinks the "demon flyer" is likely a frigatebird or a new species of bat. Guessman says people aren't spotting the creatures because they're nocturnal, and claims to have seen the creature's lights (supposedly given off from its belly) himself. He will lead a MQ expedition to an area with recent sightings. A map from the 1600s depicts mosters as living on the island. One of the scientists lays out a quetzecoatalus diagram next to an SUV for scale -- the wingspan is more than twice as long as the truck. A cryptozoologist claims to have video of two bioluminescent creatures at night, which MQ looks at -- but the resolution is too low for standard analysis. So the show brings in a high-power analyst, who says the lights are not consistent with fires or known objects or species. Locals tell tales of night-flying, glowing scavengers and spirit creatures from the mountains. But perhaps they are only Flying Foxes -- bats with up to 6-foot wingspans. The team rousts some bats so they can see the fruit bats fly.

The trek into the jungle is long and treacherous. The team sets up their gear on a precipitous hillside. Despite their vigil, they turn up no new evidence -- just bugs and flying foxes. The lights they spot are merely campfires across the valley. They do catch a small bat in their bat net. The camera traps turn up only bugs and bats, as well. In the end, all the team has to for their efforts is witness stories.

This MQ show is filled with above-average use of animation to represent the flying creatures. Oddly, this show eschews calling the beast by it's common, cryptozoological name, "ropen" (mentioning it once ot twice) -- prefering to call it the "demon flyer." Whether they did this to avoid the controversy surrounding the ropen and creationist attempts to use it to disprove evolution, remains a mystery.

UFO HUNTERS: UFO Surveillance

2009-06-27T16:28:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 5/20/09

Are military and other facilities being watched by UFOs? One man claims to have video showing strange lights over Long Island. Because the man, Mark, has been diligent about recording his shooting times and locations, his films are good subjects for scientific analysis. Sight-line analysis shows that 6 out of the 7 sightlines are consistent with local airports. The one remaining film shows lights moving in ways the analyst says is not consisetent with conventional air traffic. A woman reports a strange flash in the sky on the same night as a reported UFO craft near Brookhaven National Laboratory. As usual, Bill and Pat seem ready to believe; Kevin seems skeptical. The team goes to investigate the site (from 1992) which seems to be in the same sightline as the previous films. MUFON claims that the fire department put out a fire from the crash, and the military took two days to haul the debris away. They have fuzzy video, purporting to be from the crash sight, but -- with all the mylar flashing around -- it looks like conventional air/space objects to me, if not an outright hoax. The team talks to local responders and a scientist at Brookhaven, but turn up no real clues; the scientist says he has seen no sign of UFOs, though he admits the accellerator's energy could be detected from space, if anyone had equipment to do so. The Brookhaven Fire Chief says that his squad did not respond to a fire on the night in question.

The team takes a forensic archeologist back to the supposed crash site to look for evidence (17 years later). There is some evidence of road clearing, and some evidence of damage to tree tops of the right age, but nothing more. Did soemthing fall through the trees in Southaven? With no solid evidence, the team turns their efforts to possible UFOs over Lawrence Livermore on the west coast. There, they hear more stories from UFO researchers, and more speculations about what might be spotted from space. Bill tries to tie together sightings in the sky and a nearby tire fire, which burns for two years. Bill also asserts the Feds covered up at both scenes; as usual, lack of actual evidence doesn't slow him down. They take some night-vision footage of a triangular light formation to an expert for analysis. He says he thinks it's not one solid object -- but Pat hastily concludes the lights could be watching Livermore. The team takes their own high-tech surveillance truck out to see if they can get footage of their own. Even with this array of gear (including a FLIR IR rig), airplanes still look like discs. When they don't see anything, Bill says that an advanced ET would know how to avoid being spotted. Kevin notes that statistically, some sightings are bound to match up with strange occurances -- like tire fires -- on the ground. Pat says the government could cover up evidence, but not accounts. He thinks UFOs are watching us. Bill says there is a conspiracy covering up ailen surveillance.

Rumor has it that this show may be cancelled. And after what essentially amounts to a two-year snipe hunt, I'm not surprised. (Though I did sign a petition to save it.) If UFO Hunters gets another chance, I'd avise them to go for newer cases and more solid evidence.

Theater Undreground: A Quartet of Comedies - Review

2009-06-22T19:18:00.000-07:00

Has it really been six weeks since my last trip to Theater Undreground in Richmond, IL? Hardly seems like it. Yet, TU’s ambitious spring/summer schedule has drawn me back to another theatrical treat.

The subtitle of this show is “A concoction of clowns, cacophony, conditions, and cows,” and you’ll find all of those things in this ambitious staging of shorts. The first half of the show (before intermission), featured not only three short plays, but also 2 skits plus some interlude music and improvisational introductions (by Theater co-founder Tim Mosbach.) The good news is that all the pieces of this show were fun — despite being staged by first-time directors. The not-so-good news is that I was an “audience volunteer” for an experiment that didn’t quite work in the first play — so, because I was moving between the stage and my seat (through a seemingly sound-proof backstage area), I can’t properly judge how the play turned out; I missed too much of it.

That play was “The Tragical Tale of Melissa McHiney McNormous McWhale,” and it involved a Las Vegas love story between a woman with an enormous butt and a clown with enormous feet, all told in Dr. Seuss-like rhyme. An interesting concept, but even before I was swept backstage, I’m not sure it was entirely working. Next came a sketch, “Coffee Tastes Like Mud,” which went a long way for a bad pun, but amused nonetheless.

“Family 2.0″ was better than the first play, though I got the feeling that the language had been cleaned up for Richmond. The cast performed well, and Dwayne Dethlefsen had me roaring as Husband 1.0 who turns into the family dog. The sketch “Parking Cars” about groomsmen-turned-parking-attendants also amused. The first half finished with “The Spotted Man,” about a very strange visit to a doctor’s office. The patient, Jeff Cook, brought a great combination of deadpan comedy and pathos to his role, and Katelin Stack — playing multiple medical-office parts — in turns amused, bemused, and titillated. Well played by all, though the end seemed abrupt and weak compared to the rest. Ian Hall’s musical interludes and song were funny and well performed.

The second half of the show was taken up entirely by “Hidden in this Picture,” by Aaron Sorkin, of West Wing and Studio 60 fame. The writing in this piece was clearly a cut above all the rest, featuring Sorkin’s usual love of words, quirky characters, and Hollywood. The staging was simple but effective, and the acting top-notch, especially by the two principals Chris Warren (The Director) and Christopher Troka (The Writer), whose characters are involved in shooting the final scene of The Director’s first film. The acting in this was so effective, that I found it hard to believe that I was not watching a Hollywood Director and Writer (as well as the two other Hollywood characters in the play). A great finish to an interesting suite of plays.

The only trouble is, I saw the show on the last weekend. So, now you’ll have to keep your eye on Theater Undreground’s announcements to catch their next show. They have a Facebook page, too. (But make sure you spell their name right; the RE’s in the second word, not the first.) Hope to see you in the theater!

(Cross-posted from my home page www.stephendsullivan.com.)

MONSTERQUEST: Killer Jellyfish

2009-06-06T00:28:00.001-07:00

History Channel -- Original Air Date: 5/28/09

Of course, we all know that there are deadly jellyfish in various oceans around the world, but MQ is looking for ones the size of small cars that travel in packs called "blooms." Are they taking over the seas? Witnesses give scary stories about box jellyfish and other breeds. Could pollution and ocean (global) warming be causing increases in jellyfish populations? MQ sends diver teams to look for these deadly creatures in both darkness and daylight. Some research suggests that box jellyfish may have some form of intelligence -- which would make them even more dangerous; they swim about as fast as people. One of the MQ divers gets caught in jellyfish tentacles, but his gear protects him, and it wasn't a box jelly anyway. The team sees some great sea life and they find some big jellies, but nothign like the monsters they're looking for. Guess the jellies are not taking over the seas after all.

MONSTERQUEST: Isle of the Lost Tiger

2009-06-05T22:38:00.001-07:00

History Channel -- Original Air Date: 5/14/09

Is the Tasmanian Tiger still alive on the island of Tasmania? This episode of MQ goes looking for the supposedly extinct beast. Eyewitnesses report seeing the wolf-like striped marsupial in recent years -- but is there any proof? 350 sightings since its supposed extinction, but one expert points out that witness memories and eyes are notoriously unreliable. MQ sends a team out to the remote SW corner of the island to look for the creature; they're toting the usual gear and camera traps. After the last tiger died in 1930, a naturalist launched an expedition in 1946; he thought he saw tracks, but found no animal. In 2008, some of the samples from that expedition were found; hairs are sent to be analized. A tiger-hunter says he has a recent picture of one (blurry), and pictures of sheep that have been attacked in the way the tiger killed.

Further, a couple claims to have distinctly seen a mother tiger and her child crossing the road one night. A biologist also saw one late at night and studied it for 3 minutes, but it fled as he got out his camera. Meanwhile, a scientist believes he can clone the tiger back into existence. He hopes to use Tasmanian Devil DNA to fill in the gaps in the preserved aniimal's genes -- but they're not there yet. The hair sample is not a match. The MQ team gets an intriguing but unidentifiable photo and a footprint that looks like a tiger (thylocene). This episode of MQ seems to get closer than most, but still no indisputable proof.

UFO HUNTERS - Underwater Area 51

2009-05-19T21:28:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 5/13/09

The team investigates rumors of an underwater alien base off of the Bahamas, possibly connected with the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) -- described as "the Navy's Area 51." It's known that the area is equipped for undersea war games and testing. They talk with former AUTEC employees, one of whom claims to have "seen" a giant USO (Unidentified Submerged Object) that manifested as a land mass appearing on radar. Compass anomolies accompanied the "hit," but no one actually saw anything. The target, supposedly 3 miles wide, then melted away. Kevin points out this could be merely a radar malfunction. Another former employee saw some kind of glowing object rising from the sea. Bill decides to try for a public tour of AUTEC, but they have no luck with the pubic affairs officer. (Can't imagine why anyone woudl turn UFO Magazine away. Aren't they reputable journalists? At least as reputable as Fox?) As they walk toward the front gate, a helicopter buzzes the area and a cop drives by -- but it could be a conincidence. Another man describes his compasses going crazy whenever he dives near AUTEC. The team takes a boat out and gets as close to the site as they can. Then they dive down and find some strange undersea cables, which run from AUTEC to the "tongue of the ocean" -- a deep-water drop-off. The cables vanish into the deep.

Having exausted their scientific exploration possibilties, they now go to a "remote viewer" -- which despite once being used by the US government, remains a scientifically unproven technique. The remote viewer describes USO objects and alien beings inside with three fingers. Bill concludes these are similar to other alien sightings. The RV man refuses to divulge more, saying it's "classified." So the team turns to a French UFOlogist. This "expert" claims the government has made a deal with the aliens; Kevin presses him for sources, and he says if he gave them out, they would all disappear. (Or be made to disappear by the goverment.) Kevin concludes that no reputable scientist would back up any of the UFOlogist's claims. The expert also has theories about extra-dimensional experiments and Atlantis connected to AUTEC. Pat says, skeptically, they're trying to roll every UFO theory into one giant burrito. Next, they talk to a pilot who claims to have flown through a strange tunnel of clouds and come out in the future (further than could be accounted for by the time of the trip). He claims to have made the trip 30 minutes faster and having consumed 10 fewer gallons of fuel than usual; Kevin does some calucations poving that, if the witness is telling the truth, his plane could not have made the trip as fast as it did -- it cannot travel at the required speed (not even with tail winds). Bill now ties these incidents, and perhaps AUTEC, too, into the Bermuda Triangle.

They then talk to a physicist, who explains how wormholes in space could make time travel possible. After that, they talk to two people who are searching for Atlantis. They've found an undersea formation similar to the Bimini Road (believed by geologists to be a natural rock formation). Pat goes diving with them and finds some interesting rock formations 20' down. He says it looks intentional (but one might think the same of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland). The structure, if that's what it is, is 4000 years old and made from beach rock. The researcher thinks it might be a former harbor. Kevin points out there's a lot of strange stuff going on around AUTEC, but no tangible proof of any kind, and certainly no proof of aliens. Bill and Pat seem to be willing to take the word of the remote viewer. And Pat again draws the connection between AUTEC and Area 51. (That might, also, be true -- but it doesn't mean there are aliens in either place; they could just be secret testing facilities.) While the information about AUTEC was intriguing (sadly, their website is currently down), it seems to me that by the end of this show, the UFO "burrito" had gotten very full indeed.

MONSTERQUEST: Gigantic Killer Fish 2

2009-05-12T19:47:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 5/6/09

The question this week is: Are gigantic killer fish lurking in America's waters? Giant groupers have been seen off the Florida coast; old and very impressive photos show the species before it was fished almost to extinction. A diver (seen, I think in other MQ shows), talks of his encounter a juvenile Goliath Grouper; he suffered a bad bite. MQ sends a team to look for such a fish. They find a very aggressive moray eel and, eventually, some larger groupers. They chase the fish, estimated at 300 pounds each, into a reef, but can't get closer. In Minnesota, a boy in shallow water is attacked by a large muskie (a thin, pike-like fish); in Wisconsin a man found a set of fish jaws that indicate a fish well over 5 feet long. A third man has video of a netted muskie biting his arm savagely. Another MQ team goes ice fishing for these monsters with special lures, camera traps, and even an ROV. They catch some aggressive fish and see some others on camera, but no monsters. They do, however, almost lose the ROV beneath the ice when their power source fails. They also get a tantalyzing sonar hit of a fish perhaps five feet long, but they can't get a picture. As happens often on this show, the MQ hunters come close, but we end up only with a story of the one that got away.

UFO HUNTERS - UFO Relics

2009-05-12T18:54:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 5/6/09

Is there any "trace evidence" of UFO visits? And, if there is, will Bill, Pat, and Kevin be able to turn it up? Pat points out that having something you can analyze is very rare. Kevin wants to make sure there is actual physical evidence, not just stories. Kevin says to meet his test -- the test of science -- an object has to be both extraterrestrial and manufactured. The team firsts goes to Pennsylvania, Bucks County, to be exact. They interview the witness (from the UFOs Over Earth show) who saw a craft drop a sparkling substance down into her trees. The team talks to MUFON (in a weird show cross-over) about what they did and what they found -- but the case was already a week old when MUFON collected evidence, and Kevin suggests contamination is a possibility. Oddly, or maybe not, what this show says MUFON concluded is not what the MUFON show said (see review). They Bill and company get distracted by the usual witness accounts, and Bill takes multiple similar accounts as "proof" of the reality of sightings and the "trace evidence." They then talk to a Boston UFO researcher who talks about a case in Poland where a witness found a strange ring of stones on the ground after sighting a glowing light. Another strange sighting yielded a strange hole in a snowy field, but no evidence of digging. Bill speculates that the UFOs are doing some kind of soil testing/exchange.

The team takes pieces of the "contaminated" tree and the rock to an expert for examination. Checking with an electron microscope, the expert finds some unexpected elements (boron) in the tree leaves, though that could be from fertilization -- and "strange" UV particles turn out to be bird urine. The rock turns out to be soil partially turned to glass, something that could be done by lightning, though that doesn't seem to be the case here. Pat speculates it might have been hoaxters playing a prank. The expert thinks vitrification would need industrial involvement. The team sets out to see if they can recreate it with common welding elements. They have some succes, but not enough to produce "rocks" like the ones they've seen. (They don't, I note, try using a kiln, which might produce greater heat for longer periods.) Kevin argues that it seems silly for advanced civilizations to be scooping up rocks and dumping sparkles on trees. Bill and Pat disagree.

Finally, they visit Bob White, who has a strange pinecone-like object he claims fell from from a trio of glowing lights. He found the object at the end of a long groove in the ground below where he sighted the objects. A former airforce man claims the object, when taken for testing, drained the hotel safe's batter 3 days in a row. He concludes the malfunction was caused, somehow, by the object; he also claims the object caused spots on x-ray film. Bob claims that the scientists he had test his object lied about their results; the team takes the thing for new testing. Their new expert says that the object is an aluminum alloy of unknown origin. He concludes the object is manufactured but, as Bill notes, was it made by us or ET? A second exert says this is not part of aircraft aluminum, and it has some silver content -- possibly to ehnance superconductivity and magnetic field repulsion. The first expert opines this material's properties woudl be most useful in space. (Though I must admit, I think I've seen these experts appearing in UFO cases before; perhaps they're UFO investigators in their spare time?)

In the end, though, Kevin concludes that the evidence is disappointing, with no clear UFO origin. Bill disagrees, as usual. He thinks the differernce between the evidence they have now and "absolute proof" is "tissue paper thin." Personally, I think their "proof" is actually the tissue paper. In a weird coda, one expert calls in at the show's end to speculate that the White object is some form of nanotechnology, unkown when the object was found in 1985. To me, it still looks more like a failed art project.

Ripe Conditions for a Fine Time -- Review

2009-05-09T10:02:00.001-07:00

Early on in the play Ripe Conditions, now being staged by Theater Undreground at the Civic Center playhouse in Richmond, IL, a character notes that conditions are ripe for tornadoes. Judging from opening night last night (May 8th, 2009), I'd say that conditions are also ripe for a rollicking good time. Ripe Conditions is the story of two hick brothers, Buster (Tim Mosbach) and Lester (Corey M. Keane), still living together in their ramshackle house despite years of rivalry and one-upsmanship. Their boisterous jousting escalates when an old flame, Ann (Charlene Aklinski), returns to town for the funeral of her brother. From there, the show gives the audience a near-nonstop barrage of adult-oriented reminiscences, jokes, innuendo, and slapstick. The cast is highly amusing, the script very good, and the direction solid. There's also more on-stage mayhem with sets and props than I've ever seen in a local production before. I don't want to give any of the play's secret twists and turns away, but when the first act nears its end, watch out! This production was highly amusing, and the few opening-night gaffeswere hard to separate from the general level of well-orchestrated chaos. My wife and I had a great time at the play, as did my fourteen-year-old son, though I have to warn theater-goers that the language and innuendo may not be for everyone. As Theater Undreground's promo says, "If you are offended by any of the following, you probably shouldn't come to the show: farm boys, bad words, bathing in movable tubs, Mother Nature's will, beer, cash crops, chain saw art ... [the list goes on a while, and I've shortened it for the review] ... kissing, bathroom jokes, innuendos, lots of broken stuff... You have been warned." So, if any of those things upset you, you might want to stay away. The rest of you, though, should have a tornado of a good time.

For a brief taste, check out the production's You Tube video, and be sure to notice the excellent show poster and graphics work by Marlena Wagner. (The tickets feel like baseball cards; collect them all!)

MONSTERQUEST: Mysterious Ape Island

2009-05-09T10:01:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 4/29/09

Another bigfoot show on MQ? You bet! It's been two or three weeks since the last one. (Okay, maybe more, but....) This one is set on Vancouver Island, near Seattle, WA, and Vancouver, BC. Native American legends say that a large ape stalks the island. From there, we get the usual interesting and compelling eyewitness reports (including an encounter in a camper, a sighting by a river, and a view from a boat) -- with witnesses who are sure the creature is not just a bear (or other animal) walking upright. Investigators speculate tha the island's geography makes it a perfect place to search for bigfoot, so MQ sends a team to look into it. They choose a spot called Meares Island, as it's had a lot of recent sightings. Scientists, though, note there is neither fossil record nor living specimine to bolster the many claims. The MQ folks do their usual surveillance and call blasting (which they claim has worked on previous expeditions -- though they seem to have neither audio nor video proof of this). Another team has plaster casts of footprints analyzed (though it is unclear -- and unliekly -- that these prints are solely from the site being investigated). The team thinks they spot some faded prints -- not enough to cast from -- and the expert seems to think the casts might be something unexplained. And of course there are camera traps and surveillance with Fleer IR cameras. But this is MQ, and if you expected them to actually find anything, you haven't been watching the show long enough. Another day, another snipe hunt. Personally, I look forward to the return of Destination Truth.

UFO HUNTERS - Alien Harvest

2009-05-05T19:34:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 4/19/09

So, what's up with cattle mutilations? Are they, as Bill suggests, something sinister -- UFOs, government plots, cults, etc.? Or are they, as Kevin (and skeptics) note, predation of cattle who have died naturally? As the team sets out, news comes of a "fresh" kill. This cow is still in the field, and its initial mutilation is missing eyes and tongue. A local investigator calls the tongue being removed a "cut," and the rancher suggests birds did not remove the eyeball. These are, however, suppositions after the fact. The "investigator" says that the perpetrators came back on successive nights to get more parts. (However, the missing parts do seem to be the "choice" morsels for predators.) And the rancher's "mysterious" loss of 26 cattle in 29 years (or was it the other way around?), don't seem like an unusual loss of livestock. Plus, since the predation happened on three consecutive nights, I wonder why -- if this was so unusual -- no one seems to have staked out the carcass. Pat notes no signs of people; the expert counters that he sees no signs of predators. So, naturally Bill suggests UFOs, or maybe black helicopters. (Notice that at this point, merely 10 minutes into the show, we're already deep into UFO Hunters' usual fishing expedition.) Pat points out that there are, as usual, several military bases nearby -- which could account for helicopters or strange lights. The investigator then claims to have followed a "moving" piece of metal in the cow's body that he followed with a metal detector -- he believes this was a "moving implant," trying to evade detection. (And now, one commercial break into the show, we've moved from fishing to the usual science fiction.) Bill connects this to the show's previous (unconvincing) Human Implant show.

A cult researcher says the slaughter does not resemble the work of a cult. Since they've "ruled out" predation and cults, the only possible explanations must be a UFO. They find a local video of a cigar-shaped UFO (the usual indistinct blur), and that seems to cinch it. Now we're down the rabbit hole of wild speculation with little or no chance of coming back. The theories that come out are the usual mutilation storieswith no real evidence. And we get plenty of weird ranch stories, too. Sensibly, a local sheriff says "I can tell you what it isn't, but I can't tell you what it is." He discounts predators, cults, occult, government, and other explanations. He, too, has seen a UFO, and thinks there may be a connection between the lights and the mutilations. As Pat notes, the one thing missing is actual physical evidence. They talk to an investigator with years of experience who has seen three geometric impressions near a mutilation, but not actually associated with it. Bill connects this to other indentations in UFO stories. But, sadly, despite the report, there seem to be no pictures or impressions of this supposed "evidence." Finally, the team sets up a stakeout on the dead cow to see if they can catch the culprit. They bring a Fleer infrared camera and a night vision scope to their stakeout, but they find nothing. "There is no alien harvest," Kevin concludes, "but it's a great smokescreen." (For the government.) Pat thinks that it's part of an alien project of some type, being chased by government helicopters. Bill thinks it's some kind of government-alien conspiracy. But, again, there is no evidence. Two weeks later, after the show has left, the same rancher has another mutilation -- 27 since 1991. Bill concludes the phenominon is real, and it is ongoing.

MONSTERQUEST: Sea Monster

2009-04-28T19:11:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 4/22/09

People are seeing something strange in the inlet waters of Florida, and MQ wants to find out what it is. Eyewitnesses describe it as a turtle-like ambush predator. Could it be the sea serpents described by ancient mariners? The show recaps Florida sea monster sightings. A local man, Gene, reports seeing the beast multiple times. The witness has over 40 hours of video evidence. (It looks something like a manatee to me -- perhaps ones with deformed fins.) For once, the pictures are of excellent quality, and the creatures -- for there are evidently more than one -- seem to have tri-forked tails. The witness takes the MQ aquatic team to the creature's secret location to investigate. Alligators, barracuda, and other local wildlife make the dive area dangerous. The show also sends the footage to several experts for analysis, all of whom seem (initially, at least) puzzled -- though one later says "manatee" and another walrus or seal (piniped). Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman makes another appearance to talk about sea monsters and finding new animals. MQ decides to create a piece-by-piece 3D model based on the tapes. As experts close in, one suggests that it is a Carribean Monk seal, thought extinct. The divers look for both the creature and a secret underwater passage that would allow it to get inland unseen. Sadly, the divers only get tantalyzing sonar hits. The final animation is approved by Gene, and causes two biologists to agree it is likely a manatee mutilated by an encounter with boat propellers. The third and fourth bilogists disagree, thinking it likely a seal, or perhaps a seal and a manatee swimming together -- and perhaps even the thought-extinct monk seal. Sadly, that's as close as the show gets. With this episode coming closer to finding a monster than any other MQ episode, perhaps this search would be worth another try.

UFO HUNTERS - Nazi UFOs

2009-04-28T17:05:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 4/22/09

Bill and Pat see some connection between the end of WWI and the start of the UFO flap less than a decade later; Kevin points out that though the German technology was advanced, it was conventional technology, not UFO tech. The team goes to New Mexico to talk to an Air Force vet who has a "mysterious" Nazi compass. The compass is a special one that points mechanically to the north star rather than using magnetic fields for navigation. The vet believes this compass was part of a German UFO navigation system -- guiding a formation he saw over NM as a boy. He got the compass from a military salvage yard; it was made in Germany. (The UFO connection seems a big jump to me.) So the team goes to Germany. There they talk to a man who believes that spiritual mediums, called the Brill Society (sp?) were channeling energy to power UFOs (or at least super weapons). Bill describes this power as "The Force" from Star Wars. Another man tries to tie flying saucers to the development of the Nazi nuclear bomb -- but he notes if they had it "...Do you really believe they would have lost the war?" Bill believes that German scientists withheld the tech from the Reich, and also that the use of spirit mediums is what gave the Germans a technolotical edge. As they look for German super-weapons, Bill says he thinks UFOs "seeded" the German technology. They talk to a geophysicist who speculates about using magnetic forces to power aircraft -- like the NM UFOs. At this point, the show is looking like even more of a fishing expedition than usual, and all Kevin's been doing is explaining technology in sidebars.

They go to a Polish underground Nazi complex called Der Reiser (sp?) to try and find a UFO connection. A local expert thinks there remain secret areas of the underground base -- which he proves using a burning tissue and an updraft. Somewhere at the end of this pipe, there must be a huge cavity, but all the entrances have been blown up. (Why has no one excavated this archological treasure?) They speculate that a secret craft was being built here. The guide leads them to a strange circular arch, "henge," that might have been a focus for the power of this super weapon/craft -- which had earlier been speculated as a possible time/space machine. (So, if this was so important, why does there seem to have been no serious archology?) Unfortunately for their theories, Kevin finds a water tower supported by an identical "henge" structure; Bill remains convinced the watertower theory is just camouflage. They see a hospital complex that one man claims was doing research of the effects of space on human physiology; Kevin points out that the equipment could have been used to treat respiratory problems. Kevin also points out that their leads always lead to dead ends and unverifiable witness reports; Bill says that's because all the info they're looking for is Top Secret. (That's right, everything's a conspiracy to Bill.) Back home, an aviation/UFO buff talks about the connection between German and post-war American aviation. He also gives more details about "The Bell," an experimental Nazi "aircraft" -- which the show suggests is related to the Kecksburg incident. The buff suggests that a Nasa scientist, former German, connects the Bell to Kecksburg. Bill connects the relocation placement of numerous former Nazi scientists to UFO sighting areas. And that's as far as the story goes. But despite Bill's wrap up at the end, the show has once again failed to prove anything, and leaves us with only more speculation and UFO mythology.

UFOS OVER EARTH: Fayetteville Incident

2009-04-26T16:35:00.001-07:00

History Channel -- Original Air Date: January 2009

MUFON'S crew is back with the last (so far as I know) in this UFO series. This episode covers the January 2007 "Fayetville Incident." The story starts with 5 guys on a fishing trip who spot strange lights in the sky. Later, one of the men, Chris, reports seeing a stange, shimmering alien being (though his story sounds like a waking dream to me). Soon, they're talking to more witnesses, some of whom claim to have experienced missing time. Eventually, Chris gets hypnotic regression to recover his "lost" memories. (This is not a proven and reliable scientific technique -- quite the opposite, in fact.) He relates a fairly typical alien abduction scenario. The team creates animations based on the witness reports. They conduct psychiatric interviews, and see no signs of psychosis, though they do say the subject, Chris, is subject to fantasies. The team is convinced this man is not hoaxing, but does that mean what he says is real? A polygraph expert says the witness isn't telling the truth regarding the events of that night (the alien and abduction). The team is disappointed with these results, but they confront Chris. He says he believes the story he tells, despite the polygraph results. MUFOn checks for similar sightings, and find none in the area, but there is one in Wisconsin -- which, though described as similar, doesn't seem to be a very close match to the animation. (Should it be surprising that two people from different areas can have similar delusions?) The MUFON folks, though, think it's likely not a conicidence. The show concludes that this is a "real phenomina" -- though they don't clarify whether "real," for them, means psychological or physical.

I can see why this show, the weakest of the set, wasn't broadcast alongside the other two. It consists mostly of taking heads doing interviews, and very little else. That the team pushed through to the polygraph is admirable, but their "desire to believe" is more evident here, perhaps, than in the other episodes.

MONSTERQUEST: Lake Demons

2009-04-16T19:36:00.001-07:00

History Channel -- Original Air Date: 4/15/09

MonsterQuest tackles Ogopogo, the monster from Lake Okenagen in Canada. They recount the usual stories and legend of the beast, and show brief glimpses of many of the famous photos -- most of which seem to show some kind of waves in the water. They also show some new photos, which seem to show something in the water with a boat in the foreground. MQ detected no forgery, but the pictures are terribly blurry, and, to me, seem as though they could be some kind of optical illusion -- though the witnesses claim they saw a creature. MQ mounts an expedition to explore the lake and underwater caves. The team quickly sees some interesting surface disturbances and feeding birds, but no signs of the monster. One man claims that the beast is a mega-serpent trapped in the lake. More witness tell intriguing tales of seeing the "creature." When the MQ helicopter spots a strange thermal trail, the team goes diving to investigate. Could it be a large cold-blooded creature bringing up cold water from below? The divers find nothing concrete, and one nearly gets lost in a sink hole at the bottom of the lake. The show speculates that the holes could be caused by a large burrowing creature. A professor theorizes that many sightings could be the result of unusual wave forms generated below the surface of the water. The team finds a strange carcass, about two feet long, on the bottom of the lake, but -- despite its resemblance to an old sketch made of the monster by a lake captain -- it turns out to be a decomposed salmon. Sadly, despite intriguing stories and video, we once again have a monster-free MonsterQuest.

UFO HUNTERS - Underwater Alien Bases

2009-04-16T17:19:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 4/8/09

Bill is convinced that there are underwater UFO bases, especailly off the coast of Florida (near Gulf Breeze). Kevin, the skeptic, wonders how they will find proof. Their first Witness, a former Navy man, has a satellite picture that seems to show two straight, intersecting lines underwater off the coast of Cuba. Unfortunately, since it's in Cuban waters, they can't investigate. (Maybe they could since last week's change in US/Cuba relations. Or maybe not, since later in the show they lose their approved visas when Cuba learns they want to hunt UFOs.) Bill insists these "lines" could not be natural objects -- though why underwater UFOs would need landing strips, he doesn't say. One of the strips seems to "point to" Guantanamo Bay. The team also interviews a Guantanamo Bay Petty Officer who saw strange lights in the water. He was ahead of a group of peers, but had not been drinking; none of his friends saw the lights. The team interviews a USO (Unidentified Submerged Object) "expert" who claims the USOs have force fields and can enter the water without a splash. He also says sources inside NASA and the military have told him the USOs live in a network of tunnels beneath the earth from Cuba to Alaska. He makes many other outrageous claims, too, all of which Bill seems to believe. They also collect the usual type of eyewitness stories. Bill compares these sightings to the Ed Walters Gulf Breeze UFO photos; he mentions that some believe Walters to be a hoaxer, but Gulf Breeze is still the UFO center of the world. (He neglets to mention there's an airforce base right next to Gulf Breeze which probably contributes to slightings of "strange thigns" in the sky.) They next interview an "expert" in the photos, who seems to believe in the photos' reality. They then "prove" how difficut the photos would be to fake (while, at the same time, using the well-known "flying hat" photo as an example of how to do a doulbe exposure). A ship captain claims to have seen a UFO bigger than his ship emerging from the water without making any wake. Kevin notes the captain was sleep deprived, and it may have been a sleep-related hallucination.

Pat goes out with a shark fisherman who claims to see glowing orbs under the water. Kevin says that these lights are being caused by bioluminscence, and Pat seems to confirm this. Unfortunately, there is no camera in the kayak with Pat. Also unfortunately, his boat gets bumped by sharks, and he goes missing for a while. While Pat was gone, Kevin, the shark guy, claims to have seen a very large glowing object in the water, and not bioluminescence. (I'm not convinced he knows anything about science or marine biology.) Too bad Pat missed it. The team tries some experiments to see if they can create an object that can enter the water without splashing, as USOs are reported to do. They use various hydrophillic (having an affinity for water) coatings to try to reduce the splash -- but they only make it worse. Naturally, Bill comes up with a science-fiction way, without any proof, that the UFOs/USOs could do be splashless -- and believes his own line. In the end, we have no new videos, only blurry old (dubious) photos. To answer Kevin's question, "How will we find proof?" We won't. At least, not on this show.

Martian Movies - What Are Your Faves?

2009-04-12T19:30:00.001-07:00

This question has been bugging me for a while now: Why aren't there more good SF movies about Mars? I mean, there are plenty of good SF books about Mars, dating at least back to Burroughs. Heinlein wrote Red Planet, one of my favorites, and there are many stories set on the Red Planet -- including my own Martian Knights -- right up to the present day. But movies (and even TV), has been lacking in the fictional Mars department. Now, I'm talking about stories set on Mars, not Martians coming to Earth -- so that rules out things like War of the Worlds and Mars Needs Women. And, yes, I'll grant you that the Martian Chronicles was pretty good, as were the Mars sequences in Babylon 5. But, for all the awe and interest inspired by Mars over the years, you'd think there'd be more Martian movies.

Okay, recently, we've had Doom, Red Planet, Mission to Mars, and Ghosts of Mars. The first didn't have much Mars in it, the second could have been set anywhere, and the third was just a red version of 2001 with some pseudo-science thrown in. Carpenter's movie at least had some mood, though it was really mostly a zombie film. Before that, Total Recall springs to mind, though much of that was set on earth and/or underground.

I guess what I'm really missing is the awe and mystery of Martian exploration, or maybe even an interesting Martian-Chronicles-like view of what life on Mars might be like. Maybe I'm looking for somewhat better-filmed versions of the Mars flicks from the 50s and 60s. Angry Red Planet is still high on my Martian faves. I also like Rocketship XM, and I recently spent a bit of time digging up Horrors of Mars (a.k.a. Wizard of Mars) on DVD. For all it's cheese, I kindof like HoM better than most of the recent flicks (even though it seemed a bit classier in B&W on an old TV). Which brings me to what might be the best of the ones I know, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, a well-produced and at times plausible journey to the Red Planet. At least, plausible for the time.

And maybe that's what's wrong. We now know so much about Mars, that maybe the mystery and excitement of going there -- and finding lost races and hidden secrets -- is gone. Maybe Hollywood doesn't think there's any interest left in the dry red ball of dust. Maybe the practical considerations have swept away the flights of fancy. But I hope not. I really would like to see a fun (if not entirely factual) Mars movie. Maybe some day they'll get A Princess of Mars into production. (Maybe they're waiting for all the Burroughs copyrights to expire.)

Or maybe, someday, someone will ask me to write a screenplay. I have this great idea for a story about love and war and cyborgs and . . . well, if you've read Martian Knights you might have an idea where I'm going.

I wonder, though. Maybe there just isn't the interest for space exploration that there was when I was a kid -- around the time we landed on the Moon. (And don't even get me started about the lack of Moon movies!) Maybe going to distant planets and finding strange lifeforms isn't as tantalizing as it was back then -- though there have certainly been plenty of TV shows tackling the subject (Star Trek, Stargate, etc.). Or maybe the subject isn't "big enough" for movies any more. Personally, I just watched Solaris (the original) and Horrors of Mars and I'm ready for a good movie about exploring the Red Planet -- or any foreign planet that George Lucas hasn't laid claim to.

What do you think? Is there some great Mars movie I've missed? What are your faves? I await your comments.

Dave Arneson, RIP

2009-04-08T15:54:00.001-07:00

Dave Arneson passed away today after a long illness. He was the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, the game that changed my life and resulted in marriage (my wife plays, too), kids, many friends, and a pretty cool career (ongoing) in the creative arts for me. Unlike Gary Gygax, with whom I had a long friendship, I'd only met Dave a few times. But though I didn't really know Dave, I honestly wouldn't be here writing this without him. So, thanks, Dave. May you have a clear star to steer by and warm winds to speed you on this new journey. And may the destination be even sweeter than you imagined. Godspeed.

UFO HUNTERS - Greys Conspiracy

2009-04-05T17:02:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 4/1/09

Are short gray aliens actually coming to earth to abduct people? Bill thinks so; Kevin thinks their so-called appearances have been influenced by movies and pop culture. They talk to a woman who was supposedly kidnapped (by greys) from a car with three friends -- though Kevin points out that no one else remembers the incident. Frankly, her experience sounds like a fairly common fantasy, very similar to the contactee experiences of the 50s. The team then moves to a couple who have "recovered" their alien experiences through hypnotic "regression." They then talk to a magazine publisher who believes in ancient astronauts, and from there move to the "star child" skull. They talk to the nurse who owns the skull and then the "expert" who has been studying the skull for years -- and is convinced of its alienness. Of course, since what he says about DNA testing isn't entirely true (there are many reasons a nuclear DNA test might fail), I tend to doubt the rest of his conclusions. Bill, of course, believes it all and ties it all into Roswell. They take the star child skull for capacity testing -- and the star child seems to have more skull capacity (15% more). But, as Kevin points out, that doesn't make it alien. They have a special-effects artist recreate the face that might have gone with the skull. Bill sees an alien; Kevin sees a misshapen human (I see the Elephant Man). They also talk to an exo-biologist about what aliens might or might not look like. Bill decides now that the skull looks like a hybrid (part of a plan to take over the earth). Kevin points out that Bill always has an excuse. For Bill, stories are proof, with no need for incontrovertable physical evidence. For him, as always, the myth is enough. For me? I'd like to have run a new DNA test.

MONSTERQUEST: Monster Close Encounters

2009-03-28T16:43:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 3/25/09

Yes, it's another MQ bigfoot show, and yes, we've got Loren Coleman as an on-camera expert again. There are plenty of eyewitness stories, including one of a car that hit a bigfoot and two people who then shot at it. The MQ team investigates the damaged car and looks for the wounded creature, though a local naturalist says a bear is the only possible suspect. They find some broken branches, and a bullet in the tree -- hoping that it may have passed through the creature before being lodged in the wood. Another man claims to have nearly hit a bigfoot on a busy highway -- a sighting confirmed by other witnesses. Another attack on a car is blamed on The Lizard Man, though Coleman believes it may have been a moss or algae-covered bigfoot. They take samples there, too, and decide to recreate the jaws that left the bite marks on the car. Another man claims to have nearly shot a bigfoot while hunting, while a younger man claims to have been grabbed through the window of a truck while out spotlighting deer. Both these people are polygraphed. The hunter passes the test; the grabbed man does not. Bite tests suggest that it woudl have taken 350 pounds of force to bite through a car fender this way -- a strength and attac mode suggestive of a dog. A primate, one expert says, would have pounded the car, not bitten -- and that's what hapened in the other case. The hair sample (claimed from the bumper) of that car yields nothing; neither does the bullet dug from the tree. Coleman claims that such encounters are becoming more frequent, and predicts that within 25 years, someone will be killed in such an incident. While the stories here are interesting, more than the usual MQ bigfoot show, they -- once again -- present no actual proof.

UFO HUNTERS - Underground Alien Bases

2009-03-28T15:39:00.001-07:00

History Channel - Original Air Date: 3/25/09

Bill, Pat, and new semi-skeptic Kevin investigate rumors of an underground base, possibly alien or collaborating with aliens, in Dulce, New Mexico. Kevin points out that they don't even know there's an underground base in the area -- never mind a strange & sinister one -- and just determining if there is a base would be good place to start. Naturally, there are "investigators" on site already convinced of both the base and the alien conspiracy. These people tell stories about aliens taking over the base and invading flying saucers that sound more like a video game backstory than reality. While Pat and Kevin talk to a native american who claims to have seen a UFO as big as three football fields in the area -- which is a well-known UFO base -- Bill talks to someone in Vegas about the "Dulce Papers," which claim there is a 7-level alien/human genetics experiment lab under a local mesa. That person has sketches of experiments supposedly drawn from photographs. The more "experts" the team talks to, the wilder and more video-game like the story becomes. When the stories devolve into crossing humans and animals, even Pat becomes skeptical (but not Bill). The expert also claims that a huge network of undergrount tunnels and shuttles webs the area. Cattle mutilations enter the picture, and a local sherrif says that the cows eren't killed by ET, but by military exercises -- and he has pictures of unmarked helicopters as "proof." He also has a picture of a "creature" incubated in a (now dead) cow. But the "human-shaped" head on the picture doesn't look like a hybrid to Pat (or me). A geologist says that the mesa in Dulce is big enough to hold a 4-mile-wide base, but some strata of rock would not be self-supporting. The team hires a guide and goes to the mesa top looking for vents, but finds only TV station repeater antennae. The guide says he knows there's 14 miles of tunnels under the mesa, but he refuses to show the team where their exits are. Since this is all on a reservation, the team doesn't press for more tangible info. (The entire area seems a hotbed for alien-tunnel-UFO folklore.) The team then visits the Greenbrier former secret government fallout shelter in White Sulfer Springs, WV -- just to prove secret underground bases can exist. And while the base is impressive, there's still no tangible evidence for the stories centering around the huge mesa in Dulce. Bill, though, believes every word of every story. As usual, this show gathers pieces of many differnt stories and then tries -- unconvincingly -- to tie them into one alien-conspiracy whole. But there remains no tangible proof.