Monday, February 1, 2010

MONSTERQUEST - Hillbilly Beast

History Channel - Original Air Date: 1/20/10

Another bigfoot show on MQ?  You betcha.  Did you think they were running out of new names for Sasquatch?  Apparently not.  The show features the usual scare stories and eyewitness reports.  Tim Farmer, a Kentucky ranger, thinks people are most likely misidentifying black bears, seldom seen until recently in Kentucky.  He thinks any unknown beast would liekly be seen by the thousands of trail cams set by hunters out in the woods.  And one such mysterious photo does exist (though it looks like the back of a bear to me).  Naturally, MQ sends out a team to hunt for the beast.  They set camera traps and send up a mini helicopter to scout for signs, and try to recreate the mysterious photo.  An acoustics expert theorizes the creatures may use infrasound (below normal human hearing) to communicate or stun prey.  The team uses "call blasting" to try to lure the beast (but has this ever been proven to work?).  The ranger notes that many animals make strange and unlikely sounds in the woods; he himself was scared almost witless by what turned out to be a fox cry.

This time, they do get return calls - including some they can't identify, which will be analyzed later. Investigating, one man thinks something threw a rock in the river near him.  Then they think they hear scared coyotes reacting to an unknown cry.  A tooth specimen proves inconclusive, partly because only photos are sent for examining.  They mysterious photo turns out to be an image of a bird, with false perspective making it appear larger.  (Kudos to MQ for this analysis.)  So, no monsters again, and only mysterious sounds for hints to things remaining unseen.  As usual with MQ, it's hard to tell where self promotion leaves off, and real mystery begins.

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