Syfy
channels investigative series is in its third season now and continues to find
interesting anomalies to look in to. There are six “experts” with unique skills
who meet to discuss paranormal events, usually found on the internet, and they
choose two cases to examine more closely. They then split in to two groups of
three and off they go.
The
personnel currently on the show are Ben Hansen, the team leader who is ex FBI,
Bill Murphy is the lead Scientist, Jael de Pardo is a journalist, she
previously worked on Destination Truth, Austin Porter is a stunt expert. Two
newer participants are Lanisha Cole, photographer, who worked as a
demonstration model on the Price is Right and replaced Chi Lan Lieu on FOF and
finally Devin Marble, the tech specialist who joined in season two in place of
Larry Caughlan Jr.
This is a
great program if you are open minded and not too stuck in any belief system. I
don’t believe in the paranormal myself but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying
the show. The team come across as warm, friendly and together, and kind of
remind me of a grown up version of Enid Blytons famous five (yes, I know there are
six of them) but maths aside they get together to go on adventures and try to
uncover a mystery. Over the course of three seasons they have looked in to such
things as a “ghost car” caught on video and chased by police, a lake monster in
Pennysylvania, Cattle mutilations, UFOs, reproduced the “battle of LA” from
1942 when the army had a craft of some kind in spotlights and shelled it
(personally I think that this was one of the Nazi UFOs, not a theory they
examine in the program), and cryptozoological creatures such as big cat
sightings, Sasquatch, etc.
The team
don’t seem to have an agenda other than trying to recreate what they are
investigating. For example, with the ghost car which allegedly vanished while
being pursued by police they showed that the car probably drove through a loose
panel in a fence, which by the time the police got there had settled back in to
place. When they investigated a civil war ghost haunting a cemetery they could
not adequately reproduce the evidence they were studying so concluded that it
may indeed have been a genuine paranormal anomaly. They did not say it was
proof of the paranormal, just that they couldn’t explain it. The team go
through trial and error experiments with each case using photos/videos, stunts
and scientific methods before reaching their conclusion. It is interesting
watching and I always find it entertaining.
My own
conclusion on the paranormal is that given enough time and resources everything
can be explained; although I would qualify that statement by saying that it’s a
big universe that we live in so there may be many things that are not readily
explained. The program is entertaining and also informative as it takes you
through how to spot computer generated images and hoaxes and as I have already
said does not set out to prove or disprove the existence of the paranormal. I
find it laughable that people like James Randi criticize the program (a nasty and negative
person if ever there was one, I could go through how he has manipulated
evidence in order to prove his position but people like that are not worth the
effort). If you don’t believe then switch over and watch something else! This
is meant to be entertainment, nothing more. I think it is sad that such people
feel they have to ridicule others in order to make themselves look superior.
I will
continue to suspend my belief and continue watching.
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