Your Thoughts On MonsterQuest?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on November 1st, 2007
Monster Quest or MonsterQuest (the production company spells it both ways) – or at least their first program – was on last night, Halloween.
I missed it.
I knew the program was on and told you all about it via Cryptomundo. But I missed it due to the fact I was on the radio during that exact hour (10-11 pm Eastern), talking about cryptozoology on the Brad Steiger Halloween Special on The Jeff Rense Radio Program.
Someone mentioned on a yahoolist I was on the program. I can’t imagine my segment was long, as I only recall mentioning Champ a little during a short Whitewolf Entertainment interview here at my museum. (They were mostly here to quote me for the “Mystery Canines” program.)
Anyway, what did you think of it for content, visuals, ability to keep your attention, production values, and documentary cryptozoological worthiness?
I’ll catch a rerun sometime in the next week, but am interested in your comments now. What’s your instant review of it?
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.
Caught it on our DVR, and will review it later today.
Actually, I thought it was great.
Until the part with Benjamin Radford came on.
Then, I took a baseball bat and bashed in my TV.
Saw it. Didn’t really see anything new. What I saw of it they didn’t show any of the videos of Champ that are out there.
Sergio wrote “Actually, I thought it was great.
Until the part with Benjamin Radford came on.
Then, I took a baseball bat and bashed in my TV.”
Wow, what a violent reaction to a little thoughtful, critical analysis! Sergio is apparently not comfortable hearing both sides of a story; he prefers to just get one point of view and agree with that. Even the skeptics’ token 3 minutes at the end, following 45 minutes of pro-Champ talk is too much. I haven’t seen this sort of intolerance to other points of view since Bush took office.
Overall I thought the presentation was well done. The persons included were relevant to the presentation, and the computer graphics were useful, especially the sonar data for mapping Lake Champlain.
As usual, the overuse of graphics occurred. The Monster Quest “monster eye” was frequently splashed on the screen, too frequently for me. Also, the Plesiosaur again served as the reference for whatever may be in the lake (again too frequently), even though whales and fish were discussed as culprits.
The newest information to me was the apparent echolocation recordings that were taken in 2002. This could support the land-locked whale hypothesis, especially since the show also discussed the remains of a whale discovered under 8 FT of mud at the end of the 19th century during some construction; Lake Champlain used to be connected to the Atlantic by the St. Lawrence seaway.
I also never knew there were land sightings of Champ. One woman described seeing TWO separate creatures, one green, the other brown, in 1987 within the space of a week! Each creature came out of the woods, crossed her yard under a lamp post, and headed towards the lake.
Some suggest the best candidate for lake monsters and sea monsters, at least in some cases, may be some type of pinniped, or seal-like animal. However, has anyone heard of echolocating pinnipeds?
I had high hopes for this show when i seen the previews of it this past week.. but it was the same old information.. i was bored half way into it. One interesting note was the echo sound recordings of an “unknown creature” recorded at 3 different spots on the lake.
I hope the bigfoot episode has much better evidence than the single photo of “champ” that they showed over and over, which happend to be very old and played out.
My prediction for the bigfoot episode: we see several shots of the patterson film with a few computer animated bigfoot sightings.. just like the other 3 bigfoot shows that the travel channel and national geographic channel have been showing for the last few years… boring.
As I recall, various sonic recordings have been recorded for walrus and elephant seals that seem to indicate pinniped echolocation may be on the verge of being more clearly established.
A quick google found no shortage of articles out there on the subject.
See, for instance:
Nature 300, 635 – 637 (16 December 1982); doi:10.1038/300635a0
Evidence that seals may use echolocation
DEANE RENOUF & M. BENJAMIN DAVIS
Department of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada A1B 3X9
Loren:
Thanks for the link on pinniped echolocation. I of course then found a link disputing this, Why pinnipeds don’t echolocate; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=10790051&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google.
Without reading the entire paper, what I can gather is that the authors feel since pinnipeds are amphibious, unlike cetaceans, any biosonar they would display would be insignifcant and nowhere near as developed as cetaceans, who spend ALL their time in/underwater.
If a lake-locked pinniped will not describe Champ, then is it back to a long-necked cetacean that has kept some form of echolocation? The time factor for evolving characteristics such as echolocation has to be compared against the geological history of Lake Champlain and its access to the Atlantic.
I fell asleep watching it dang it. From what I saw it pretty much seamed like stuff I already saw before. I will not fall asleep during the BigFoot episode as that is my favorite cryptid.
Although this episode was bit repetitive (felt padded in places) I enjoyed the program for the most part and would look forward to future episodes. Pretty good mix of eyewitnesses, skeptics, science and history.
One annoying thing: when the camera crew is unspooling a long cable into the lake with the underwater camera tethered at the end, you can hear one crew member say “I’m seeing something strange here….” and of course the program comes to a pause for advertisements.
When the program resumes, nothing is said about what the crew member saw. One of the oldest “red herring” tricks in the book to keep people from turning channels. Kinda lame.
hey loren & everyone last night new segment of monsterquest was A++ wonderful. im definetly looking forward to watching future segments of monsterquest. thanks bill green 🙂
The show has potential. Did not see much new information. But atleast they are not treating the sightings and what not like a joke. I am looking forward to the upcoming episodes. Lions in the Suburbs should be interesting. My parents spotted a big black cat here in Knoxville Tennessee long ago. So I find the subject close to home.
I, for one, take some offense at the use of “monster.” In fact, serious cryptozoologists should probably begin distancing themself from such an obviously sensationalized term. Monster, to me, defines the Wolfman or Dr. Frankenstein’s creation.
The show was good, not great. There was a good deal of repetition in both visuals and interviews; I don’t understand why as there certainly is enough information available to stifle repetition, why they chose not to use it is beyond me.
The problem with shows that have cryptozoology as their main content is that they are too short in duration. One topic could (should) easily take up a month’s worth of programming, or at the very minimum, two back to back episodes.
The show fills a void. I hope it gets better as it goes along.
What I found to be interesting was the echolocation recordings at the lake. It reminds me of the sound a fishing reel makes when reeling in the fishing line. I hope Monster Quest has new evidence on criptids in upcoming shows. If not then I may be disappointed.
I really like the show. Like what Mainemike said, too much suspense were used in the program. C’mon we tuned in … just give us the dang information and spare us the suspense-talk ;).
Eireman,
Nice to see you saying “Dr. Frankenstein’s creation.” Too few people have actually read the story and know/remember that the monster itself is not called Frankenstein. I’ll have to catch one of the upcoming Lake Champlain episodes before next week’s Sasquatch one, which sounds very interesting.
Good afternoon Cryptos…
I enjoyed the show, especially the “Monster eye” teaser. I enjoyed the update on the search for Champ and appreciate their efforts, the echo-location segment by Ms. Muggenthaler was very interesting.
The overall quality was much better than I expected, thank you. A segment describing the equipment and gear would be helpful.
I especially liked Benjamin Radford’s hair style, he reminded me of me. Ben, you can do better than the water-logged lawg premise…LOL
The Squatch episodes should be interesting. Let’s hope they live up to their promise.
live and let live…
ole bub and the dawgs
I thought it was brilliant.
It was very even-handed, and brought up alternative ideas on the basis of the sightings, such as large sturgeons and boat wakes.
The show also spent a great deal of time on eyewitnesses, and the Mansi photograph.
I was hoping that Benjamin Radford would make an appearance on the show, which he thankfully did. I think his hypothesis is the most reasonable explanation for the photo (last I checked his analysis is available online), and the show spent a good portion explaining it (of course I still disagree with him about Meldrum and what not, but that doesn’t mean his arguments are not valid).
I would like to read a more indepth analysis of the echolocation recording, which is very interesting to me.
Overall I liked the show a lot.
It was alright. One of my favorite parts was when those workers found a mysterious whale skeleton buried 8 feet in the soft earth near Lake Champlain. That part really hooked me.
Also some of you might hate me for this but I support Benjamin Radford’s hypothesis to the Mansi photograph. I do believe in Champ very much though. Its just a mystery that we need to keep searching for.
It appears that the nature article was written in 1982, and the paper challenging the concept was written in 2000, if I’m reading this right.
It’s still very curious.
Darhop,
That is so funny! I fell asleep during the show also! I saw maybe the first ten mins. and the last ten mins. of it. What I did see was ok, I guess. I think I remember them talking with Adrian Shine (well-known authority on the Loch Ness Monster). Anyway, as Loren said, I guess I’ll have to catch the rerun. I have to say that I’m also one of those who is looking forward to the Bigfoot show the most.
For those who missed it, you can buy the show on iTunes. I’m downloading the Champ episode now. Can’t wait to see it.
I really enjoyed the debut episode of “Monsterquest,” even your part, Mr. Radford. I actually thought your analysis of the photo was a very plausible explanation of what is in it. You did a great job, actually, despite how some may react to skeptics (I think folks like you keep us sane and keep our feet on the ground). It was actually refreshing to see Hajicek actually give skeptics at least 3 minutes to kind of challenge the true believers. Maybe he will give skeptics more time on future programs. Don’t let them get you down, Mr. Radford. I appreciate you.
Reviewed it on the DVR. Well done, high quality, but nothing really new in this review (but, if there WAS something new, wouldn’t we Cryptomundians have already seen it, here?).
Perhaps next week’s Squatch episode will have something…
I enjoyed the show very much and thought Ben added a lot! (although his section should have been longer, but since they had the biologist that also was a skeptic, I think overall it was pretty balanced). I agree that the log theory appears to be the best explanation for the photograph.
I do wish they had talked a bit more about the history of the sightings…were there any traditional Native American/First People stories about a creature in the lake?
Well, there is that dodgy bit of data that the Native people around Lake Champlain called the monster chaousarou.
However, I’ve always wondered if that name (1) only refers to a large fish, thus the sturgeon, or (2) is a journalistic hoax, based upon some newsperson trying to come up with a dinosaur-sounding name.
Humm.
On the other hand, as Ben knows, I think his tree-trunk/Mansi photo theory just doesn’t float!
this is the program description i found on my digital cable box for next weeks episode of Monsterquest:
“An expedition investigating a report of a Bigfoot attack at a Canadian fishing cabin finds blood and tissue samples.”
sounds interesting 🙂
I watched the whole thing. Actually, I fast-forwarded through much of what I assume was “looking, not finding anything, and showing people with anecdotes about what they might have seen”. The end was predictable: Nothing new. No pictures. No video. No new audio. No new sonar. Not one shred of evidence – but, the researchers are undaunted and “plan to return”.
My disappointment was predictable, I suppose. How many of these do we need to see before we say, “Wake me up when the real party starts?” Seriously, all they need to do is roll titles, show the “mansi” picture, voice over with, “we found nothing new”, and roll credits.
Save us all an hour of time.
I liked this show. It wasn’t a lot of new information but at least it was repackaged and all in the same show. I am very interested in the Sasquatch attack episode next week
I feel it is rather early to tell the success of another ” paranormal cable show” , but I thought the opening show SUCKED!! I would like to see more meaty shows on crytpos and not the Hx of… Show more overwhelming evidence and keep it balanced so not to spook off crypto virgins and or skeptic alike.. Rock On Moster Quest.. I’m rooting for you , just dont let me down like that show on Sci-Fi channel.. Destination Truth..
“Show more overwhelming evidence and keep it balanced,”
D’oh!
I don’t think the show wasn’t trying to prove anything, so presenting new evidence for or against the “monster” would be unnecassary. It just meant to examine the existing evidence, which I think it did wonderfully.
I liked it, I’d recomend the show to others.
I taped it and didn’t get a chance to watch it until today. All in all, I think it is one of the better examples of this type of show I’ve seen in a while. I think it covered the subject fairly well without doing it in a hokey, over-hyped way.
On any of these shows I don’t hold out much hope of anything new being turned up by the show’s investigative crew, but after seeing the new video of rock throwing incident from a future episode, maybe that is about to change?
I think monster quest was a good idea, i was flipping through on the remote and i was shocked too see this program. I didnt know that this show was going to be on. Champ was up first for the first show, i thought the information given was done very well, i knew there were many accounts of people seeing champ on land, i do believe there are many more. To figure out what exactly what that thing is lurking in the water is a good opinion discusssion it could be a pinniped of some sort. The pleasioaur theory is interesting to discuss. I hope this riddle is solved once and for all. It seems the reasearchers on the program are very aggressive at finding evidence in the exsistence of the animal.