Until Now...

As if I wasn't enough of a sucker for UFOs, Loch Ness, ghosts, and all that other paranormal crap, now the History Channel has succumbed to creating series after series to study them and supposedly hunt these things down. Good move by them. I really enjoy their actual historical documentaries, but I could see how these "out of the ordinary" specials would boost the ratings. Plus, the History Channel's factual reputation gives these phenomena some sort of validity. 

If you watch these shows expecting to get definitive proof of these things' existence, as the episodes' previews imply, you'll soon find that every show is a complete let down. They all start off the same way:

"For centuries, there have been myths, legends, and folklore about (insert paranormal here). 

But none of the important questions could be answered, none of the vital clues discovered...

Until Now."

That phrase, Until Now. It makes me perk up like a puppy who has just figured out what the word "walk" means. It congers up thoughts in my head. "Oo oo Oo, they've finally discovered something for real this time. All the mystery is over!" An hour later, I'm left feeling disheartened and bamboozled. 

They spend 55 minutes telling the stories, showing the skeptics' views, then showing the barely significant details to debunk the skeptics, followed by their display of high tech devices they will use to study the phenomena in question, and finally actually diving in to some footage of them attempting to solve the mystery in question. 

The last five minutes of any episode ends up relatively the same:

"While we found no sign of (insert paranormal here) today, the evidence begs the question, 'what did farmer Dan and his wife Fran see on that warm summer evening?' As the technology becomes more advanced and the sightings become more frequent, we become more intrigued." 

Or something like that. And while the audience listens to that let down of a conclusion, the credits are rapidly flashing by the bottom of the screen. Before you can blink, your being sucked into another episode of UFO hunters. Only this time, they are investigating a site at which, legend has it, a metallic vessel crash landed in 1897 and an alien body was buried in the local  cemetery and the ship's debris tossed into the depths of the local well. This particular episode ended with them going down the well and finding nothing, and them x-raying the cemetery (since they weren't given permission to dig) to discover something very well could be buried there. I'm sure there is. After all, it's a bloody cemetery. 

The worst part of it all, it gets me every time. Right now, I'm going on my third hour of these shows. I just struggled to turn off an episode of MonsterQuest in which Bigfoot was apparently on the loose. I know their little tricks. Every time they're about to go to commercial they tease at the really cool evidence that looks like it's coming up after the break. But in actuality won't come till the end of the episode, and once it comes, it's disappointingly not conclusive.

I guess I like to see people argue for the paranormal. I enjoy watching those smarter than I use science in order to prove science fiction, or attempt to at least. Deep down, I think I'm still a wondrous kid who, like Agents Mulder and Scully, wants to believe that the truth is out there.