Fortean Themed TV Programmes—Helpful Or Not?

[Tunn11]

Is the current plethora of TV programmes on Fortean subjects helpful or harmful?

There have been discussions on various programmes under various topics but as a general issue are they doing more harm than good?

Many years ago such programmes or news items were pretty rare (Arthur C Clarke’s series, Patrick Moore’s can you speak Venusian and a few “silly season” news items) Now there are seemingly whole channels devoted to a few subjects. They seem for the most part, uncritical and fitted to a format to keep the audience watching.

Aliens are almost inevitably greys, ghost are spirits of the dead, or demons and the population and distribution of bigfoot is amazing. Our ancestors only learned to bang two stones together because aliens taught them. Anyone seeing a light in the sky starts speculating on alien life and the existence of “energies”, “portals” and “spirits” is unquestioned. Any tech used is rarely explained and any evidence rarely scrutinised.

There are exceptions of course but they tend to be buried under tons of credulous tripe.

So, back to my question. Is all this stuff helpful in bringing these subjects into some sort of mainstream or unhelpful in that it puts off serious researchers and forces some Forteana into even more obscurity?

 

[Sharon Hill]

The effect of TV shows on paranormal belief hasn't been well studied. People watch for different reasons. If you are predisposed to belief and have lesser critical thinking skills, these shows will greatly enhance belief. They are designed to be entertaining and most people think they are educational (and truthful). The content is highly misleading and typically very simplistic, as you suggest. The appeal is to an unscientific audience.

The question of "helpful" or "harmful" is relative. It totally depends on your personal perspective. But I think we can say that the plethora of paranormal TV is a result of several factors I can think of off the top of my head: It's pretty cheap to make reality shows, it's so easy to do that amateurs make their own and put it on YouTube or Amazon Prime, people enjoy vicarious paranormal investigation (for various reasons), and there is a widespread wish for the world to be enchanted or mysterious. Related; the real world sucks monkey balls right now. People want to be part of something bigger.

 

[Coal]

Is the current plethora of TV programmes on Fortean subjects helpful or harmful?

Going by the quality of the trailers and the few excerpts I've seen, they are utter tripe that does nothing but perpetuate tropes that have been around for decades, without ever getting close to anything useful.

People want to be part of something bigger.

Yea, this. Western society has gotten very secular, which is good, but people seem to need to believe in something, and tbh, I'd rather it was ghosts or bigfoot that "Believe in our ideology or you must die." Not that either makes any sense, but still, lesser of two evils etc.

 

[MercuryCrest]

I think they're good and bad. It's good to see that they're popular, as that means that this stuff is more out in the public mind.

I think they're terrible because many people know how heavily edited they are and I could see that pushing someone more to the mindset of, "It's ALL made up, because clearly these shows are."

 

[maximus otter]

My opinion? Keeping Fortean matters in the public eye is a good thing.

“Dim people gonna dim”, but a proportion will become interested and look deeper. We graduate from Eagle and Bunty to Heuvelmans and Shuker.

maximus otter

 

[stu neville]

Is the current plethora of TV programmes on Fortean subjects helpful or harmful?

For some people they're a useful income stream. [Cough]

This is a good question, and I do try to answer it fairly regularly. The balance between solid research and entertainment is the crux of much of it, as Sharon mentioned above. Most field investigations are, in real life, very dull, slow and uneventful work which makes for boring telly. People want a ghost train, jump cuts, creaks and groans, and producers follow the money. That's what it comes down to - however, there are good ones, and when I find them I'm quick to praise them.

 

[catseye]

I think, like Sharon, that in today's world there's something of a loss of the sense of 'wonder'. Not necessarily a need for religion but a need to know that there are still things out there that we don't know. People like to speculate, they like a touch of 'what if...?'

That said, I really dislike the non-critical element in these programmes. Any unidentified noise must be 'something' trying to get in touch.

 

[Tunn11]

On balance do these programmes encourage more people to come forward with stories/sightings or fewer? Of those that come forward are they more or less likely to believe a "mundane" explanation than they were twenty or thirty years ago?

I suppose that is unanswerable; but I wonder whether people who saw a ghost/bigfoot then were afraid of being labelled drunks or mentally unstable if they reported it. Are they likely to attract that criticism now or are they just likely to be seen as credulous or more likely to have their experience accepted? There are a number of posters on here who have shared experiences on this forum that they haven't told anyone, or very few people about.

A point I think I made elsewhere, where do you go with a really good piece of footage (sorry!) of a Sasquatch? You can have it lost in the sea of tripe on reality TV or dismissed by the mainstream frightened off by the reality TV.

 

[catseye]

On balance do these programmes encourage more people to come forward with stories/sightings or fewer? Of those that come forward are they more or less likely to believe a "mundane" explanation than they were twenty or thirty years ago?

I suppose that is unanswerable; but I wonder whether people who saw a ghost/bigfoot then were afraid of being labelled drunks or mentally unstable if they reported it. Are they likely to attract that criticism now or are they just likely to be seen as credulous or more likely to have their experience accepted? There are a number of posters on here who have shared experiences on this forum that they haven't told anyone, or very few people about.

A point I think I made elsewhere, where do you go with a really good piece of footage (sorry!) of a Sasquatch? You can have it lost in the sea of tripe on reality TV or dismissed by the mainstream frightened off by the reality TV.

I think, if the footage were REALLY good, it would find its own outlet. It may take a while, but good stuff filters upwards, just as the real crap slides down. Each may get their own five minutes of fame, but only the stuff that's not easily dismissed will hang around in the public consciousness.

 

[Coal]

We graduate from Eagle

Wow, that takes me back. Dan Dare and the Mekon. They were the days.

 

[Kondoru]

Yes, but some folk dont graduate.

 

[Sharon Hill]

On balance do these programmes encourage more people to come forward with stories/sightings or fewer? Of those that come forward are they more or less likely to believe a "mundane" explanation than they were twenty or thirty years ago?

I suppose that is unanswerable; but I wonder whether people who saw a ghost/bigfoot then were afraid of being labelled drunks or mentally unstable if they reported it. Are they likely to attract that criticism now or are they just likely to be seen as credulous or more likely to have their experience accepted? There are a number of posters on here who have shared experiences on this forum that they haven't told anyone, or very few people about.

A point I think I made elsewhere, where do you go with a really good piece of footage (sorry!) of a Sasquatch? You can have it lost in the sea of tripe on reality TV or dismissed by the mainstream frightened off by the reality TV.

In a twist on this idea of encouraging people to come forward, when a colleague and I were running an investigation group, we had a number of women with children contact us insisting that they were being plagued by demons in their homes. I'll reiterate, this was not just one time. They were all fans of these TV shows. The exaggeration and sensationalism translated in unintended ways. There is an unfortunately large segment of the population that can't discern bad content and believe what they see on TV is real. Then, they adopt that faked framework to apply to their own experiences. Frankly, social media is the bigger culprit in the decline of reasonable society but there are real world consequences to garbage TV shows.

 

[Tunn11]

In a twist on this idea of encouraging people to come forward, when a colleague and I were running an investigation group, we had a number of women with children contact us insisting that they were being plagued by demons in their homes. I'll reiterate, this was not just one time. They were all fans of these TV shows. The exaggeration and sensationalism translated in unintended ways. There is an unfortunately large segment of the population that can't discern bad content and believe what they see on TV is real. Then, they adopt that faked framework to apply to their own experiences. Frankly, social media is the bigger culprit in the decline of reasonable society but there are real world consequences to garbage TV shows.

That's worrying and frightening.

 

[Bad Bungle]

In a twist on this idea of encouraging people to come forward, when a colleague and I were running an investigation group, we had a number of women with children contact us insisting that they were being plagued by demons in their homes. I'll reiterate, this was not just one time. They were all fans of these TV shows. The exaggeration and sensationalism translated in unintended ways. There is an unfortunately large segment of the population that can't discern bad content and believe what they see on TV is real. Then, they adopt that faked framework to apply to their own experiences. Frankly, social media is the bigger culprit in the decline of reasonable society but there are real world consequences to garbage TV shows.

A survey was done on a sample of readers of 'quality' broadsheet newspapers and 'popular' tabloid comics, with the question 'how much do you believe what you reading is true ?'. Not surprisingly about 75-80% of the broadsheet readers (Times, Telegraph, Guardian) trust the editorials in their paper. But it was about 40-45% of the Sun readers - this implied they know what's printed is mainly b*llocks but they're buying it for the entertainment value, not to be told what to think. I have little interraction with social media but I 'trust' the information on this Forum (the way it's sourced, gathered and presented) as I trust its members. That does not mean I can underestimate with impunity the intelligence or integrity of those unfortunate enough to be plagued by demons - well except some of them obviously.

 

[stu neville]

I was actually discussing this with Peter Laws the other day - he being a man of the cloth, he points out that there has long been a tendency by the more devout churches to ascribe any paranormal activity to demonic forces, but there's a trend many of us have noticed that in recent years Stateside this has bled into the mainstream. I've said before, twenty years ago the tone was quite neutrally secular in such programmes, but now lots of them leap to 'demon!' as the go-to explanation. As fortean pursuits do tend to reflect the wider zeitgeist it's tempting to speculate that this is indicative of a retreat from pragmatic reason in US society, as Sharon suggests, but we need to be careful that this doesn't become about culture wars .

 

[Tunn11]

I guess if unexplained things are happening one is likely to latch onto anything giving an explanation whatever one's social status. It may once have been a priest or doctor who was approached but now it's more likely to be something seen on TV or the net. There may also be the tendancy to fit these events, perhaps unconsciously to the "rationale" explained by the media.

 

[Coal]

That's worrying and frightening.

Which is why some of us remain sceptics. Nonsense has consequences.

 

[catseye]

I was actually discussing this with Peter Laws the other day - he being a man of the cloth, he points out that there has long been a tendency by the more devout churches to ascribe any paranormal activity to demonic forces, but there's a trend many of us have noticed that in recent years Stateside this has bled into the mainstream. I've said before, twenty years ago the tone was quite neutrally secular in such programmes, but now lots of them leap to 'demon!' as the go-to explanation. As fortean pursuits do tend to reflect the wider zeitgeist it's tempting to speculate that this is indicative of a retreat from pragmatic reason in US society, as Sharon suggests, but we need to be careful that this doesn't become about culture wars .

And I've noticed that the 'ascribing anything they don't understand' to demons seems to mean that they also embue any kind of activity with 'eveil intent'. Any noise has to be a voice screaming 'get out!', any banging has to be 'threatening'. Then they start finding scratches on themselves and the entire event builds into an 'evil entity' kind of paranoia. If nobody ever mentioned 'demons' or 'demonic attacks' I wonder if these happenings would be rather more neutrally investigated?

 

[Mythopoeika]

And I've noticed that the 'ascribing anything they don't understand' to demons seems to mean that they also embue any kind of activity with 'eveil intent'. Any noise has to be a voice screaming 'get out!', any banging has to be 'threatening'. Then they start finding scratches on themselves and the entire event builds into an 'evil entity' kind of paranoia. If nobody ever mentioned 'demons' or 'demonic attacks' I wonder if these happenings would be rather more neutrally investigated?

I've got some scratches on my arm. It must be a demon!
It can't possibly be caused by the scratchy feathers coming out of my bed pillows!

 

[catseye]

I've got some scratches on my arm. It must be a demon!
It can't possibly be caused by the scratchy feathers coming out of my bed pillows!

Paranormal Reddit is an object lesson in this. Some people over there will tie themselves into knots of 'well, what if....' rather than just apply Occam's Razor. They seem to want every single little event to be a Big Unexplained Paranormal Happening.

Sometimes an insect is just an insect...

 

[Bad Bungle]

They seem to want every single little event to be a Big Unexplained Paranormal Happening.

Want or need - the alternative to a paranormal event is a normal, mundane, trivial event. A series of these being the ALL of your life can be a disturbing and depressing thought. Maybe we are after all 'wired for weird'.

 

[catseye]

Want or need - the alternative to a paranormal event is a normal, mundane, trivial event. A series of these being the ALL of your life can be a disturbing and depressing thought. Maybe we are after all 'wired for weird'.

I think we'd all like to think there are things out there that we can't explain. My objection is to those who don't even bother to look for an explanation and jump immediately to some convoluted theory that is often as ridiculous as it is long winded.

I recent saw (again, over on Reddit) someone trying to convince the entire site that he had been attacked by some unseen assailant during the night. He was demonstrating 'scratches' that 'mysteriously do not break the skin'. Obviously trying to get someone to jump to the 'demon' conclusion, with such leading remarks as 'I slept unusually deeply' and 'the house is over 100 years old' (gasp).

The marks were obviously creases in his skin from sleeping either in a rumpled shirt or on a crumpled sheet. He either could not see this, or could but was trying to whip up viewers into a 'demon' frenzy.

 

[Zeke Newbold]

So recently I caught a TV documentary made for Channel 5 (UK) called The Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle

In this there were two - rather glam - male presenters in their thirties, one black and one white (maybe they're well known people) who alternated between each other. They tackled the topic with location shots from Bermuda, Peurto Rico and Florida and went out on boats and planes interviewing a string of bright-eyed adventurers and experts.

They accounted for the mystery disappearances in terms of meteorological and geological phenomena such as rogue waves, hidden barrier reefs, geomagnetism messing with compasses, atmospheric disturbances caused by lightning storms, hurricanes, and so on. It was all rather convincing.

Of course it featured a lot of the faults of modern television (and British TV in particular) - viz breathless and slightly condescending delivery (I felt I was watching Blue Peter at times!), endless repetition of the show's premise (in case the viewer has been napping), over-reliance on visual gimmicks, distracting digressions and an intrusive soundtrack.

Also, even though it was a quiet debunking exercise, they mentioned `the triangle` every few minutes and kept showing pictures of the alleged area. So a viewer would have come away with the idea that there actually IS a triangular zone in the sea which is significantly more hazardous than other parts of the ocean. This is an assumption that I thought had been pretty much disproved of late - and seemed to conflict with their otherwise `scientific` approach.

That said, if the documentary had just been about boats and weather conditions then I might well have switched over after about a quarter of an hour!

So, yes, on balance I would say that this was an example of `helpful` Fortean themed television: it was educational and inspiring and never appeared to be sneering at those who favoured a paranormal explanation for things. And, most of all it was up-to-date - with the latest in scientific thinking being squeezed out of the guests. I intend to seek out a DVD version of this show.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Small Town Monsters have produced some intriguing documentaries that are filmed on location and often feature original witnesses. Their Bigfoot episodes are of a much higher quality in terms of investigative methodology than most and they certainly don't run around in the dark with a night vision camera screaming because they hared a noise from the woods....

Some of their work is free on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/c/SmallTownMonsters/videos

Some of it is pay per view of available to purchase on DVD or as a download ( I buy mine through iTunes). Their investigation into the Flatwoods Monster featured two original witnesses and certainly made me reevaluate this case.

Then you have:

https://www.hellier.tv

Hellier is free to watch on YouTube and in many ground-breaking in terms of production values for an amateur production. The aim of the the team was break through the stagnant mainstream paranormal TV format and offer something new and original. I know I enjoyed the 14 episodes but it does seem a bit 'Marmite' in that people either seem to love or hate it

 

[hunck]

So recently I caught a TV documentary made for Channel 5 (UK) called The Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle

In this there were two - rather glam - male presenters in their thirties, one black and one white (maybe they're well known people) who alternated between each other. They tackled the topic with location shots from Bermuda, Peurto Rico and Florida and went out on boats and planes interviewing a string of bright-eyed adventurers and experts.

They accounted for the mystery disappearances in terms of meteorological and geological phenomena such as rogue waves, hidden barrier reefs, geomagnetism messing with compasses, atmospheric disturbances caused by lightning storms, hurricanes, and so on. It was all rather convincing.

Of course it featured a lot of the faults of modern television (and British TV in particular) - viz breathless and slightly condescending delivery (I felt I was watching Blue Peter at times!), endless repetition of the show's premise (in case the viewer has been napping), over-reliance on visual gimmicks, distracting digressions and an intrusive soundtrack.

Also, even though it was a quiet debunking exercise, they mentioned `the triangle` every few minutes and kept showing pictures of the alleged area. So a viewer would have come away with the idea that there actually IS a triangular zone in the sea which is significantly more hazardous than other parts of the ocean. This is an assumption that I thought had been pretty much disproved of late - and seemed to conflict with their otherwise `scientific` approach.

That said, if the documentary had just been about boats and weather conditions then I might well have switched over after about a quarter of an hour!

So, yes, on balance I would say that this was an example of `helpful` Fortean themed television: it was educational and inspiring and never appeared to be sneering at those who favoured a paranormal explanation for things. And, most of all it was up-to-date - with the latest in scientific thinking being squeezed out of the guests. I intend to seek out a DVD version of this show.

It was shown last night & I watched as an alternative to the Jubbly show.

Despite no ‘paranormal’ weirdness featuring, there were interesting details such as ‘breakers’ - the tops of underwater mountains/volcanos which are normally invisible being just below the surface but potentially lethal should a boat hit one, & the sheer depth of the ocean around Bermuda which is the remains of an extinct volcano rising from the ocean floor, making finding wreckage of boats/aircraft extremely difficult.

The Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic, said to be around 9000 metres deep & large enough to fit 5 Grand Canyons or the entirety of Everest.

Also the amount of Magnetite in Bermuda & surrounding area which could have a bearing on strange compass readings.

Also discussed - severe downdraughts from large storms which can force aircraft to lose height drastically, and the world’s only hurricane simulator in a vast warehouse where various strength of storm & windspeed are simulated

I found it interesting & fairly informative.

 

[catseye]

I've been watching a lot of Curious World's stuff on YouTube this week (don't judge me, I've had a fortnight's holiday and it's cold out there). I'm impressed by the way he tries to trace sources for his stories and doesn't just repeat ghost stories as fact without at least checking.

And, in another media-related thingie, I was listening to the Christmas edition of the Ghosts and Folklore podcast, which is largely about poltergeists, where he talks about the term 'poltergeist' being invented, and how, before this, any messy, destructive and/or noisy phenomenon was attributed to 'demons' or boggarts. So maybe the whole 'everything is a demon' is just a term coming full cycle?

 

[Tunn11]

Just re reading some of this following your new post @catseye when I realised that you've invented a new Fortean term;

They seem to want every single little event to be a Big Unexplained Paranormal Happening.

Sometimes an insect is just an insect...

"Buph"; for a mundane incident which is blown up into a major Fortean event.

 

[catseye]

Just re reading some of this following your new post @catseye when I realised that you've invented a new Fortean term;


"Buph"; for a mundane incident which is blown up into a major Fortean event.

I'll take that...

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Which is why some of us remain sceptics. Nonsense has consequences.

I agree.

But 'they' said that stones couldn't fall from the sky, that the mountain gorilla was a myth, giant squid were just sailor's tall tales....

That is what drives me on, you just have to sort the golden wheat from the mountains of ill-informed chaff.