FYI - History Channel Series - Monster Quest!

I just happened to be watching a show on the history of the Irish Mafia earlier and an ad came on previewing the new series on the History Channel called "Monster Quest". It airs on WEDNESDAY nights at 10PM EST/9PM CST. Looks like the series began on halloween weekend but their are plenty of episodes left. I post here for the members awareness.

MonsterQuest

From Bigfoot to Swamp Beast, Monsterquest reveals the truth of legendary monster sightings around the world. Deploying the latest in hi-tech equipment, each episode scientifically examines the best evidence available, from pictures and video, to hair and bones, as well as the eyewitness accounts themselves. From pilots to policemen to ship captains, a number of seemingly credible people have seen things they can't explain. One part history, one part science and one part monsters, MonsterQuest discovers the truth behind these legendary monsters.

The link takes you to the show page on the History Channel site.

There is also a neat interactive monsterpedia of some of the beings being investigated this season.

Enjoy

I saw the one on Bigfoot and was not impressed. In fact it was down right ridiculous. I'm not even going to waste my time listing all the things I saw wrong with that show.

"MonsterQuest discovers the truth behind these legendary monsters."

I bet its going to be like one of those rediculous NGC documentaries, where the producers are only interested in finding out a possible rational explanation for everything. Every show ive seen on the NG Channel and on the Discovery Channel about this topic follows the same pattern. They come up with interesting eyewitness accounts of the alleged beasts, maybe even a convincing photograph. In the last 10 minutes of the show every claim that the creature is real is being "professionally" debunked and explained as either a known natural occurance or the overactive imagination of the eyewintesses, who will look like total idiots.
Like theyre all in it together to make people look dumb. Like the folks who live in the sticks all their life dont see the diffirence between a bear and a sasquatch.

Actually, I managed to catch the last few minutes of the Bigfoot episode, and I didn't think it was too bad at all.

Researchers set a "trap" (a board with nails protruding through it) for a Bigfoot to step on. The idea was that they could collect DNA samples through blood if the animal stepped on it and was injured; and for all intents and purposes (as far as I could tell from the show) it seemed to have worked. They managed to collect blood and hair samples.

The samples were sent to labs for analysis. The hair was said to be remarkably similar to human hair, except it was missing a medula (hair dissection). It was also stated to not be hair from a bear or any other known animal.

As for the blood, there were initial difficulties that were not allowing the DNA to be analysed, which turned out to be a chemical inhibitor from the galvanized nails used on the board (zinc or nickel?). After the inhibitor was identified, it was removed and the problem solved.

I believe what they said was that chimpanzees have 35 variations in their DNA that are different from human DNA. The DNA collected from the nails had only 1 variation. The scientist doing the analyzing concluded that the DNA either came from an, as of yet, unknown primate, or a mutated human.

Also, I believe it was the same research group that had rocks thrown at their cabin all night from the darkness of the woods. One rock even knocked over a camera that was set up on a tripod outside.

I didn't see the whole show, so maybe someone could explain what was so horrible about it? I am looking forward to watching this week's episode (Birdzilla, or "thunderbirds", which actually corelates to another recent cryptid thread link here), as long as it doesn't interfere with Ghost Hunters.

[edit on 20-11-2007 by CloudlessKnight]

reply to post by LeopardSeal


It's not so much that they did that as they looked totally unprepared for the one I saw.

Their sole purpose was to go to that remote cabin and try to make contact with Bigfoot or get evidence of same. Yet, they seemed to have little equipment and also seemed as though they weren't even trying. Wouldn't it be smart to have full motion video cameras posted everywhere filming on motion trip instead of just cameras?

On the last night when they thought the whole ting was too boring and decided to have someone go in the woods and throw rocks on the roof it was almost laughable. Everyone runs inside the cabin in this big dramatic deal like they are being stalked. Are we that stupid to assume that a BF couldn't rip into that cabin **again***! After all, wasn't that why they went there in the first place, because it had been invaded? Why didn't they all take a pair of night vision binoculars and go off in the direction they thought the stone came from? No, lets all huddle in the cabin like we're under enemy attack in Vietnam.

It just seemed like everyone was ill prepared and just going thru the motions and had no intention of finding BF.

They scraped a nail and went home, almost literally!

What a bomb!!!!

There will also be another Bigfoot epidsode on the 28th of November. Here's a program guide.

reply to post by CloudlessKnight


First, the "researchers" did not set a "trap", it was the cabin owner and it was merely to keep whatever entered the cabin before from doing it again.

Second, there was not rock throwing "all night", it was 2 rocks and IMO I think they did it themselves.

Last, what researcher runs and hides inside a cabin from the very "research" they are supposedly performing?

These guys had no intention of doing anything more than grandstanding and hoping the viewers were stupid enough to swallow it.

The one on the homboldt squid was excellent. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. I thought their plan was going to fail miserably, in trying to attach a camera to a squid, but it actually worked. Even if they caught a Gaint Squid on film instead of a giant homboldt, they are only the second team to even catch a live Gaint Squid on film.

But if that was a giant homboldt, my god. That is a impressive animal.

Just saw the newest one last night and again was not impressed. They rehashed old news mostly and (no offense) highlighted an all woman team that IMO was laughable. One woman recounted how a BF visited her tent in the night and was rubbing the fabric. "I wasn't frightened" she said (nutjob) as it seemed like he was enjoying himself." Yea! Maybe if she were about 20 yrs younger and in that time of the month she may have found out that BF wasn't there to rub tent fabric. I don't mean to be harsh but these women just seemed like a joke to me. This was more apparent after seeing the pictures on their gamecams that were obviously pointed at a logging road because they got plenty of pictures of vehicles. So they must have been deep in the wilderness there!

The other group did seem to be much more in tune with the whole process as I was impressed with the traps they set and their willingness to hike deeply into areas known for heavy activity.

If nothing else I was very pleased to see that the Patterson footage was given even more credence by scientists who did microscopic analysis and found some very interesting primate info regarding the head and mouth.

All in all I give it a C+ at best.

The Bigfoot one was ok. IMO the researchers are total wimps. I want a show with the guts and technology of Destination Truth, but with real creditability, and Documentary style. Destination Truth is edited to be exciting, and ends up looking rigged, while monster quest is more like real documentary, but with only 10 min of trying to find the monster in question.

Originally posted by Cyprex
The Bigfoot one was ok.

You mean the first one, right?

Agree with jbondo on the latest bigfoot episode. Mostly a whole lot of nothing, but the Patterson footage info was awesome. Basically verifies this was the real deal. Never saw that mouth movement on the film before this.

reply to post by testrat


Agreed. That was one massive squid. I think the one video analyst calculated it it about 100 feet long?

Originally posted by DimensionalDetective
Agree with jbondo on the latest bigfoot episode. Mostly a whole lot of nothing, but the Patterson footage info was awesome. Basically verifies this was the real deal. Never saw that mouth movement on the film before this.

Yea, the upper lip indention was convincing for me because the same feature can be found on other apes, like chimpanzees. I think they mentioned brow movement as well? Brow and mouth movement show that there were facial muscles. I've always leaned towards the Patterson footage being real, so I'm happy. I didn't get much else out of that episode, except what not to during when trying to find Bigfoot.

What kills me is these "experts" always come storming into an area like a parade.

If I were BF I'd watch them for awhile as they "set up" and then clear out until they left. I mean even less intelligent animals will clear out of an area that smells of human stench.

This is why I think people see them by chance more often than not. Because they aren't announcing themselves and sometimes surprise the BF that don't see or smell them.

Although the women decided to try and draw them in by wood knocking and singing IMO most BF will bolt unless it's a possible family group protecting young and feeding ground. Obviously I'm just making a guess based on research but you'd think someone would try the stealthy approach. Although BF would still most likely know you were there before you saw them I think it's worth a shot. Could get lucky! Obviously the noisy approach has been done and nada!

I'll bet if the Victoria Secret girls set up camp out there BF's would come from miles around.....Even if they didn't I'd take a shot at it!

reply to post by jbondo


You're right though; every time there are researchers setting out to find Bigfoot, they storm through the forest very loudly, and always wonder why they never catch anything where they set up. Animals like deer will avoid areas for a long while where hunters have passed through, so it's not a stretch to say that Bigfoot would as well. It would be nice to see a team of people trained in stealth set up the equipment. It doesn't take a scientist to set up a camera.