L. Coleman Appears On “Bones”
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 15th, 2011
The “Bones” investigative team examines the body of L. Coleman, perhaps killed by a “Chupacabra.”
Brennan (Emily Deschanel, R), Booth (David Boreanaz, L) and Hodgins (TJ Thyne, C) investigate the death of a man thought to be killed by a cryptid “Chupacabra” in “The Truth in the Myth” episode of “Bones,” which aired on Thursday, April 14 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. Cr: Ray Mickshaw/FOX. Used for promotional purposes.
Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. The messages started coming late on Thursday and early Friday, and I was surprised by them. Word is that “I” was mentioned as a victim of a cryptid on “Bones.”
“Bones” is an American crime drama television series that premiered on the Fox Network on September 13, 2005. The show is based on forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology, with each episode focusing on an FBI case file concerning the mystery behind human remains brought by FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) to the forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel). Created by Hart Hanson, the series is based on the life of author and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, who also produces the show. Its title character, Temperance Brennan, is named after the protagonist of Reichs’ crime novel series. Conversely, Dr. Brennan writes successful mystery novels based around a fictional (in the Bones universe) forensic anthropologist named Kathy Reichs.
Here is a sample of the emails that have been received:
I don’t know if you watch BONES, but it’s on right now and this particular episode happens to be about the Chupacabra. Basically, a debunker named Lee Coleman goes off in search of the Chupacabra to debunk on an episode of his show. I found it too uncanny that the corpse-in-question has a name similar to yours and is on the hunt for an elusive cryptid. Just wanted to give you the heads up. Tina Sena
Watching “Bones” episode on cryptozoology. A lot of fun, with a kind of backward homage to leading American cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, with “Lee Coleman,” a debunker of cryptozoology, killed allegedly by the “Chupacabra,” and Agent Booth insisting to the always-skeptical Dr. Brennan that he personally sighted a Yeti in Nepal.Matt Bille
Did you watch BONES on tv last night?!? It was about this ‘myth breaker’ guy who went around debunking cryptids, etc. His name was Lee COLEMAN. He was supposedly killed by a chupacabra. He didn’t have a beard, but come on. Then there was his nemisis, I forget his name, who was a suspect in Coleman’s death, who was the one who tried to prove the existence of cryptids, etc. That’s the guy that should have been named Coleman, but this is tv. But anyway, cryptozoology got a nice plug for an hour. Phyllis Mancz
At the official “Bones” site, these notes can be found about this episode (6:18), which is entitled “The Truth in the Myth” (co-written by John Francis Daley, who plays psychologist Lance Sweets on “Bones,” and Jonathan Goldstein, a Americo-Canadian author):
Booth figured he had to be a tourist because of his clothing. He sent his description to local hotels and someone responded with a match. Lee Coleman was staying at the Pine Tree Manor. He disappeared, leaving all his things behind. Booth recognizes the name Lee Coleman but Brennan does not. Lee Coleman is the host of Kill the Myth, a television show on the Wilderness Network. He debunks various myths and legends. He was likely in the woods for his show, trying to disprove the existence of the chupacabra.
This episode’s “Lee Coleman” is played by Leigh McCloskey.
Later,
Booth and Brennan eat at the Diner and watch footage from Lee Coleman’s program. He often used hidden cameras in his work. Perhaps there are hidden cameras in the forest where he was killed! Brennan believes everything has a reasonable explanation but Booth does not agree. He tells her he saw a Yeti in Nepal. Brennan dismisses it as a hallucination but is troubled when this upsets Booth.
And,
Nadine Tweed visits Booth at the FBI. She realizes there may be another suspect and he could be after her too. Terry Bemis used to have a show on the Wilderness Network. He is a famous cryptozoologist and Lee Coleman had him kicked off the network. Nadine stopped working for Terry and started working for Lee. Terry made threats but she received a disturbing email from him just yesterday: “Heard about Lee. Some people get what they deserve, I guess. Wonder how things will turn out for you?”
Furthermore, the “real” cryptozoologist shows up,
Brennan shares with Booth that there is a logical explanation for what he saw in Nepal: Ursus Arctos isabellinus. It is a seven-foot tall bear covered in ice. She believes Booth saw what he saw. He is just calling it by the wrong name. Booth is grateful she gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Booth and Brennan watch a taping of Seeing is Believing, the low budget show hosted by Terry Bemis on a public access station. As soon as he sees Brennan, he invites her on camera to be interviewed, toting her as one of his frequent guest scientists. Brennan immediately tells him she doesn’t believe he is a scientist. He is also a suspect in the murder of Lee Coleman. Terry cuts to a commercial.
At the FBI, Sweets interrogates Terry Bemis. He insists the email he sent to Nadine meant nothing. He was simply angry about losing his show. He also lost an imminent publishing deal to spread his findings. He could have legitimized cryptozoology. Lee destroyed his life. Yet, he didn’t kill Lee: the chupacabra did it for him. Terry doesn’t think the FBI will find the creature. With all the tourists headed there, it’ll be long gone by now.
The episode will be here for awhile:
Craig Woolheater passes this along: “This video is the full episode and it will be live on Friday, April 15, 2011. It will be available for 5 weeks on hulu.”
In this episode, the cryptozoologically-aligned actors are R.F. Daley as Terry Bemis; Leigh McCloskey as Lee Coleman; and Jo Anne Worley as Diane Michaels.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
My kids love this show. They also know about my interest in crypto.
I may hold off, and see if they alert me to it first.
Kind of a weird homage! Then again, don’t we all get consumed by our passions? 😉
It was fun. It’s a cool show even if they do (like other forensics shows) have all the newest equipment imaginable and sometimes stretch the bounds of what such equipment can decipher. There’s an interesting philosophical tension between Booth and Bones in addition to the romantic one: Bones is an atheist, Booth a Catholic, and they have had their clashes on the value of belief. On this one, Booth was hurt Bones doubted he’d seen a yeti, but at the end of the show he teases her by hinting it was maybe – or maybe not – a lie. On the whole, the episode was well done, with some of the scientifically trained characters endosing cryptozoology although displaying various degrees of seriousness about the chupacabra. Bones complains to the tabloid TV host that he’s starting with the conclusion and working backward, which, while certainly not true of all cryptozoologists, is a trap even the best-intentioned people can fall into.
“Bones complains to the tabloid TV host that he’s starting with the conclusion and working backward, which, while certainly not true of all cryptozoologists, is a trap even the best-intentioned people can fall into.”
Indeed. “The sasquatch does not exist. Therefore (1) any explanation for it that sounds mundane – e.g., a bipedal cow, a bear running on two legs or a ten-foot-tall actor – is automatically the most likely one, regardless of how real-life whacko it actually is; (2) the absence of fossils proves it isn’t real…”
Just sayin’. 😉
I find Temperance Brennan to be one of the more annoying characters I have ever seen on screen. She makes Mr. Spock look and sound like a goodtime bar buddy. Booth, though, I really like. You saw a yeti, man. Stick to your guns. You might enjoy a beer with Peter Matthiesssen.
(From personal experience, I know. He would.)
One of the most unfortunate lines placed in this fictional episode by the “Bones” writers was this one: “the absence of fossils proves it isn’t real…”
Of course, there are fossil candidates for the Yetis, including Gigantopithecus, needless to say!
Loren: true indeed.
But a scientist should never attempt to deduce current existence from fossil evidence. In the instant case, the scientist should pay attention to the 5% – that is five percent – of all the primate species estimated to have lived for which we have any evidence, at all. Paleontologists constantly gush over how many dinosaur fossils remain to be found. And, what, we’re done with primates? We are certain that no ape species have ever lived in North America? But that’s how we think, isn’t it?
I think the problem for folks like Bones is that, when they are confronted with a scientific conundrum outside their narrow field of specialty, their need to sound like experts trumps their scientific objectivity. They refer back to stuff that’s been pounded in their heads since childhood – ghosts aren’t real, silly! and neither is Bigfoot! – and spout them back.
Bones would never react favorably to my telling her: look. You can’t deduce anything from a six-month-old pile of bones.
She should learn a lesson from that, ya think? Booth has.
I think the mention of “L. Coleman” is more than coincidental. I watch that program from time to time, if I have some free time. I am definitely going to Hulu.com and watch that episode since I missed it.
Personally, I think that they should make more episodes of “Bones” like this one. It tends to educate those who are ignorant to the study of Cryptozoology, and really aggravates those who are skeptical of Cryptids.
DWA, yes. I should have noted that the fallacy of reasoning backwards from a conclusion is something anyone can fall into, whether they are arguing that a particular phenomenon DOES exist or that is CANNOT exist.
I’ve never been of the “fossils prove is doesn’t exist” school, since all the univerally-accepted fossils of the modern chimp and gorilla could fit together in my hat. So the absence of any Gigantopithecus remains north of China from any period, and the absence of any sasquatch-candidate speces remains from anywhere in North America, is not conclusive, although it is troubling.
I dont see what fossils have to do with finding a living breathing thing. Fossils are proof of past existance and exstiction.
exstinction, my bad. crappy key board.
korollocke: that is the point, indeed. Fossils are what was; they cannot be seen to point to what is, except insofar as they show the lineage of things we know exist.
Fossils are fabulously rare when it comes down to it. I’ll bet my lifetime salary that no one that ever sees this blog will become a fossil no matter how hard they try. (Now to figure out how to collect.) We probably don’t have any trace of the vast majority of the animal species that have inhabited this earth. (Invertebrates, bet on it. But even if you have bones, dying in the right place under the right circumstances is …well, play the lottery, it’s safer by a lot.) The absence of fossils means…wait for it…we don’t have any, yet. It says nothing at all about what might be now; it doesn’t even tip my hand one direction or the other.
Matt Bille: I guess I’m not too troubled by the fossil absence for pretty much the reason you state: here we have two extant species, and your hat holds all the evidence of their lineage. In fact, we may have sasquatch lineage already in hand and not even know it, just not the links that got from the fossils we have to what exists now. Links are missing, a ha, get it? (Beats a Messin’ with Sasquatch joke.) Aaaanyway. We don’t know we have anything with the sasquatch because we don’t know what the sasquatch is. Knowing what the chimp and gorilla are helped us make the connections in those cases…long after the live animals were in the scientific catalogue.
But given her experience with them, Bones should know that even if bones tell the story, their absence doesn’t, necessarily.
Booth having seen a yeti just gives me the warm fuzzies. Never would have seen that as a skeleton in his closet.
So to speak.