Destination Truth is like a magic trick, hiding the oft-sought "truth" behind the false-color curtain of FLIR thermal cameras. Through these devices the viewer is treated to the wondrous conjuring of red-hot Blobsquatches and the bright yellow Blob Ness Monster. Unfortunately, the only thing truly eluding Josh Gates and his crew is a reason to stay tuned. One can only stomach so many fleeting glimpses of whatsits through these devices, which have become the crutch upon which the show limps, before groaning aloud, begging for something more concrete.
To the show, the benefit of these gizmos is obvious: it provides tantalizing "evidence" to examine and keeps the viewers hooked.
However, unlike Ghost Hunters - Destination Truth's more disciplined cousin - Josh Gates and his team don't often take the time right then and there to explain their thermal anomalies. These images are seldom corroborated by standard or infrared video, which would, at the very least, establish scale and relative position. Is that a tree? A boulder? Is it that thermal target standing atop the rock or rising up from behind it?
It strikes me as I watch the show that little can be discerned by the poor resolution of a device that was inarguably built for an altogether different purpose. This isn't the military/law enforcement grade FLIR used to track targets from helicopters above. This is the type of device used by individuals in the Air Conditioning and Heating industry. So, while it might provide supporting evidence, Destination Truth is foolish to rely so much upon editing images from this gadget with cuts to the fearful faces of assistants.
Speaking of which...
Spare us the reaction shots from frightened but otherwise useless "assistants" who contribute little more to the expedition than being "scream queens".
3 comments:
Cullan,
Destination Truth is such a shabby show that I stopped seeking it out after the first few episodes.
How much dreck can we TV viewers take?
Not as much as the SciFi network or History Channel thinks.
Rich
Couldn't have said it better myself Cullan. I watched this week because, well, I was too lazy to change the channel after GH. I was astounded at their "investigation" of the old mosque. Drawing straws to see who has to go in? Good lord, reports like that and real paranormal investigators would have been having wrestling matches to see who got the honor of going in! Then the "evidence" collected. A bunch of audio feedback and some pixelation on a nightvision cam that they say is a "shadow". I laughed when they had the "expert" listen to their supposed EVP's. Like I told Michael, no way they would have gotten J&G to listen because the response would not have been nearly as positive as their guy.
Josh is funny but the show is a farce.
Which begs the question, how does one discern spectral EVP voices in another, unfamiliar language to just random noise caught on tape? I think anything picked up in that temple would have to be very clear and very recognizable as humanesque.
Yeah, I was bored watching how everyone kept getting "freaked" out by all that went bump in the night. I remember an investigation I tagged along on a few years back to an abandoned "haunted" church in Oklahoma. It was out in the country among cows and what not. When during the vigil, a strange thumping noise rose up all the investigators began recording in earnest and talking to the spirits. I headed to the door, but someone urged me to stay inside. Yeah, right. Outside, I saw the culprit: an armadillo making it's way into the crawlspace underneat the church.
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