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TWO REASONS...
...why I will not be hiring the host of Destination: Truth on the SciFi Channel to go on any scientific expeditions for me:
1) (when in the Gobi desert seeking giant acid-spitting worms, after they found a dinosaur fossil): "We took a sample of the fossil to see if we could get DNA out of the organic matter."
2) (when in the Australian rainforest seeking the Yowie, and finding a tree with severly scratched bark): "We took a sample of the bark to see if we could find any organic matter."
(All quotes paraphrased.)
1) (when in the Gobi desert seeking giant acid-spitting worms, after they found a dinosaur fossil): "We took a sample of the fossil to see if we could get DNA out of the organic matter."
2) (when in the Australian rainforest seeking the Yowie, and finding a tree with severly scratched bark): "We took a sample of the bark to see if we could find any organic matter."
(All quotes paraphrased.)
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Haven't seen the show, but speaking as a cryptozoology buff...
For fuck's sake! Anything portrayed as "reality" on the Sci-fi channel is going to be fake, because apparently the network execs think fake crap makes good TV, but they should at least try not to spout obvious bullshit on the air.
That said, I will now criticize them not only for being fake, but for being fucking stupid as well.
Going to Australia to look for the fucking yowie (yeah, Aussie bigfoot, that's really likely) instead of investigating the claims of thylacine sightings? Godalmightydamn, you're probably safer doing that in scrubland/brush (on the mainland, or in Tasmania) than dicking around the fucking rainforest looking for a yowie. There's antivenom for snake and spider bites, but running across a cassowary and getting disemboweled by the combination of sharp claws and a really powerful kick is a lot harder to treat.
And going to the fucking GOBI? To find the "Mongolian Death Worm", something that almost everyone with even a remote interest in cryptozoology agrees is a myth? Oy. Goddamn, you stupid bastards, if you're going to basically get paid for lazing around and doing sweet fuck all, do it somewhere other than a fucking desert!
Also? By faking this shit, and focusing on crap that those of us with a rational (or even semi-rational) approach to cryptozoology dismiss as myth and folktales, they're hurting the field.
Christ all-bloody-mighty, if I had that kind of funding, I'd put together a a REAL show about investigating cryptozoological stuff, a reasonably competent camera crew, and pack bags for Paraguay so fast your head would spin. Chad (African country) would be even better, but I don't speak French or Arabic, and the place is a warzone at the moment.
Re: Haven't seen the show, but speaking as a cryptozoology buff...
And then they went to Vietnam, to check on a supposed sea serpent in Halong Bay. They dick around on a boat with a fish finder and see something big, and catch a vague shape on camera swimming around, and then as night falls the host and a cameraman dive into the bay. Which was the STUPIDEST thing I've seen them do yet, and almost got them hurt, as after dark they almost got run down by another boat - the wake sucked them up against the buoy they were moored to. And they also said that the visibility was down to a foot because the water was so murky, and the bay was so full of nets and discarded debris that it was dangerous down there. They enhanced the camera footage and sent it to a Vietnamese curator who took one look at it and said "Whale shark." (I was impressed at that, actually - I was assuming it was either debris, some sort of weird current, or a school of fish.)
The only segment where they found something interesting, and it wasn't the creature at all, was still wrapped up in stupid. They were in Dar es Salaam looking for the Popobawa. Now, it's been 30 years since I lived in Africa, but at the time Dar was wild enough that my parents, when they traveled to the city's port to pick up the big box of supplies we'd had shipped to ourselves, left me with friends because they refused to take me to Dar.** So these guys spend a night with expensive video equipment running around the streets of Dar looking for this batlike creature. GAH. The interesting part is that afterwards (or edited to look like it was done afterwards) they interviewed other people who didn't believe it, and then a folklore expert who pointed out that the reports go in cycles that correspond exactly to elections, and that it's mostly used to stir people up and vote for whoever.
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* I reflexively spelled that "yaoi".
** We all called it "Dar" and I feel properly expat-ty when saying it. :D
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2. I actually can't fault them for the Vietnam trip on choice of subject (although I certainly can criticize their lack of basic dive safety!) because the Vietnamese con rit (loosely translates to "centipede") were consistently sighted between 1883-1903, and generally described as being a sort of giant marine arthropod, which is a hell of lot more plausible than most alleged sea serpent sightings. Additionally, the most thorough description of one (supposedly a beached carcass, included at end of post) comes from the same Halong Bay -- did they say if it was a new sighting, or were they just going off the old description's location? If it's a new sighting, that's one thing, but if they were just going off the old description, they should have gone looking for somewhere deserted, or at least with much less boat traffic. Engine noise and pollution probably drove off/kept away anything large living in/migrating to the bay long ago.
3. I like the folklore expert's line. Cryptozoology would be much more respected if most of the people interested in it wouldn't swallow every story that comes down the pike. *looks up popobawa* Especially when the alleged creature is THAT ludicrous. Come on! Goddamn, if they were in Tanzania couldn't they have gone looking for the mngwa instead? That's at least semi-likely to exist. No, wait, what am I saying? That would require semi-rational thought, a willingness not to go running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and most of all, a willingness not to make up bullshit for the sake of ratings!
Now that I'm done ranting, even with your admittedly old memories, do you recall any mention of the mngwa that treated it as a real animal? Supposedly, it's a big cat, grey fur with black markings. Some attacks/deaths attributed to it in the 1920s and 30s. Claims of it not being a lion or leopard spring from a survivor's testimony and some hairs found in and around a corpse's defensive wounds. To be honest, I suspect it was just a leopard (or possibly a lion/leopard hybrid) with a weird mutation in the genes that code for coat color.
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"The most remarkable evidence for the existence of the con rit comes from a Mr. Tran Van Con, who reportedly discovered and touched a dead, beached con rit on the shore of [H]along Bay, Vietnam in 1883. It was a remarkable sixty feet long and three feet wide, dark brown on top and yellow below. The body was made of chitinous segments three feet wide and two feet long. These segments were hexagonal in shape, with a 2'4" filament protruding from both sides of each segment. The tail segment was similar, but two extra filaments protruded from the bottom corner of the hexagon. When Mr. Tran Van Con touched the segments, they were hard and produced a metallic sound, similar to the sound produced by the shell of a horseshoe crab. Unfortunately the head of the creature was missing."
I'm skeptical about the alleged size, as these things have a habit of growing in people's memory and the alleged witness waited a LONG time (wiki claims almost 40 years, but then again, it's a wiki) to give his testimony, but the general description is sufficiently detailed enough to lend some weight to his claims. (That or he was an excellent bullshitter.)
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I don't remember anything about the mngwa from my Africa years. Amusingly enough, I did have a cryptozoological link, though: one of the other researchers on the Seronera research station at the time was Dr John Bindernagel, who'd work doing research and teaching, save up money, and then periodically take a sabbatical to go look for Bigfoot. I caught a show on Bigfoot a couple of years ago, and they interviewed him. :D I think his quest is misguided, but it does kind of warm the cockles of my heart to know he's still out there looking. XD
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