Note: This got really long, especially with the illustrations so this first one will just be the Dartmoor case. Once I get my nerve up to watch these guys again, I’ll tackle El Cajon.
This Beast of Dartmoor portion was a much anticipated episode on my part and probably on the parts of a few others here. This was because we had already had quite a bit of discussion and had reviewed the video many times, and done a fairly thorough analysis, probably more thorough than FoF did. I don’t know about anyone else but, having flown around the area in Google Earth from many angles and levels and having watched the video several dozen times before the show, it all had a very familiar sense for some reason lol
The episode starts out in a now familiar fashion with the six investigators sitting around the ‘Situation Room’ reviewing videos to tackle for this week’s episode. The team goes through several videos, debunking a few of them in rapid-fire succession which is probably to instill a sense of “these guys know what they’re doing” in the viewing audience. While discussing the Beast of Dartmoor, it is mentioned that a Dr C J Farmer at the University of Utah (a vertebrate specialist and biologist) thinks that the legs of the creature in the video are too long and slender for a boar and was thinking possibly a pony except that the tail does not match. One thing I must point out is that the person’s name is actually C G Farmer, not C J! Strike one for accuracy. The team does bring up the possibility of a lion and also the rare (but unlikely) black lion which I mentioned above.
When the reviewing is done, the team settles on a “solid” UFO case and a cryptozoological case. The Beast of Dartmoor is the crypto case and a triangle of red lights floating in the air over El Cajon, California, is chosen for the “solid” UFO case. Bill, Larry, and Jael will check out the lights, and Ben, Austin, and Chi-Lan make sure their passports are in order for a hop across the pond to check out The Beast.
The Beast of Dartmoor
In the car ride, the conversation is about how wild and hidden the area. At one point Austin says something like 368 square miles of just absolute nothing but untouched terrain. Ben also has to bring up that the Beast is not the only paranormal activity there and starts telling of stories where your hands get pulled and something tries to pull you over to the side of the road.
They decide to meet John Downes, a Cryptozoologist who also is an expert in the folklore of Dartmoor. They are about to ask him to look at the video and tell them what he knows of the Beast and he immediately goes into a story about the Devil’s Hunting Pack. The team gasps and with wide eyes breathes out “No” They gather round like expectant children waiting for a bedtime story and John tells them of a mean and nasty Squire in the 1600s who, when he died, had the Hounds of Hell unleashed upon him to drag his soul to Hell. The story goes that these hounds are what people are seeing all over Dartmoor.
John goes on to say that he’s been coming there for the last 45 years (although he would only have been 5 or 6 at the time given his birth year being in 1959– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Downes ) and has known people who have seen the black dogs. I have no doubt about that, there are many black dogs. Are they all pets of Satan? (GHI should have asked him in this week’s episode) I am more doubtful of that. John admits that he’s never seen them himself, adds that there are enough stories up to the present that there has to be something.
The team then heads into the park and decides to look for the exact spot where the video was shot. They find a potential spot which looks to me like Fernworthy Reservoir. See the image below for a Google Earth view from the same angle as the direction the team is looking when they proclaim that they have found the spot where the video was shot from. Fernworthy Reservoir is in Devon and IS in Dartmoor National Forest. Sounds good, right?
No. It does not. Look at the video frame below from the original http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y87IJ4-Rw-c Chi-Lan says that they are standing right where the video was shot. Does the image above look anything like the image below?
It doesn’t? Come on, squint your eyes a little and try again. Now does it? No? Okay. Tough crowd! Take a look at the next image. This is where I think the video was shot from. Look a bit better? Yes? This is in Cornwall. The lake is 45 MILES away from Fernworthy Reservoir. Strike two for accuracy. I wonder if I even need to continue this? Well, I will.
The team heads to an animal training facility where they have large animals so they can see if any of them look like what was on the video. They meet with Jim Clubb, the owner of Amazing Animals Studio. They talk with him about some of the more popular theories about the Beast, you know, dog, pony, or even a lion and fortunately, AAS has all three of them right there so “we can shoot them” I did a double-take even though I knew what he meant.
First up is the Pony Experiment. The ponies are native which is more than can be said for a lion. Chi-Lan films the pony running around and declares that the speed is pretty good. It is? I wouldn’t say that, but okay. There is a big difference between the back end of the pony and the Beast and the leg proportion is wrong. The pony lays down for a rest and the team says that it’s easy to say that a pony is not it. Well, since they don’t know their lake from a hole in the ground I’m not giving them many points for visual interpretations anymore, although a pony did NOT look too likely.
Next it’s off to the Green Screen Stage. With this setup, they can film the animals and plop them into the scene and see how the animal would look running in the wild. Personally I thought they should have hauled the lion out to the lake and turned it loose after one of the team members so we could see it at a full run and video that. The producers did not like my idea for some reason.
They refilm the pony and use that as an example of superimposing it against the backdrop of the moors. To their credit, they did blur the video to mimic the 3-second original. The pony still did not look too likely a candidate.
Next they bring out Fydyow (hey, we’re close enough to Wales where I can do that) a black dog of some sorts. Okay, so my identifications skills are not razor sharp when it comes to domestic dogs! Lol Sonia Turner, the trainer, goes across the room while Austin holds the dog by the collar. Looks like a mastiff of some sort? (The dog, not Austin) Sonia goes over and “revs up the dog” and Austin lets go his grip and they film him (the dog again, not Austin) bounding across the screen. Chi-Lan says the gait and appearance weren’t very similar at all to the Beast of Dartmoor and Ben agrees. So do I for that matter. So, it’s not a dog. The dog is debunked along with the pony. Wait a second, aren’t there a couple hundred different breeds of dogs (especially when you count cross-breeds, etc)? So just because ONE type of dog didn’t look right, the entire possibility of it being a dog is debunked? Way to go gang!
So, now, let’s bring out the lion. Yeah, to quote Austin “I’m all about a lion!” Well, I have to admit, I too am curious about how the lion looks since that was the form I was first reminded of when I saw the original video. They haul out a lion who starts walking around and hamming it up for the camera. They (the trainers, not the team, of course) start taunting the lion and trying to get him worked up but the lion isn’t too impressed and doesn’t give any real good footage. Barely walking fast. Well, of course not, the darn room is too small for him to get up to speed.
They rev him up some more and get ready to film one last scene which Chi-Lan knows ahead of time that this last pass is going to be the fastest. And sure enough, it is, although it’s not really all that fast. The team says that that was the shot that matched the Beast the best. And I have to agree. Of the three very uncontrolled, haphazard, “tests” the lion does get points for matching the original video the best.
Austin says that “anatomically” that looked almost exact. But “from a kinesiological standpoint” (someone got out his dictionary) it wasn’t quite exact.
At this point they bring up the Wild Boar idea, and it’s off they go on a Boar Hunt. Or as the title says, a “Tracking Expedition” The first part of the tracking is to track down a tracker and they find one in the person of Danny Bamping. Danny thinks it could be a wild boar. Recall that C J, er, C G Farmer above thought it WASN’T a boar. Danny also says there’s a chance it could be a cat.
Ben asks what sort of things people are seeing there and Danny replies with “Cats, large black cats” and goes on to talk about species that have been released apparently into the wild that may now be being seen. Oh, and since there have been many species released, there could be hybrids. Uh oh!
Austin asks where they might find wild boar or cats and Danny is happy to oblige. But they are nocturnal so instead they go looking for signs of the boar or cat’s activity. They soon find the hoof of a sheep. A sheep is not a small animal, Chi-Lan says, and Danny agrees and says whatever killed it has to be something BIG! A fox or a dog or a cat. Fox ain’t that big, believe me! At least not big enough to warrant the dramatic music they play.
Not content with just a hoof, the team spreads out to see what else they can find. Sure enough, fur and a sheep carcass that looks to be in a rather bad way. They determine that it is related to the hoof from before and that things have been just strewn across the whole hillside. It turns out to be a ram which means it’s even bigger than they thought. Austin repeats that it had to be something BIG to drag it this far.
Ben, in a moment of reason, asks how they can tell if it was actually killed or died of natural causes and Danny says that if they can find puncture wounds it was killed rather than “just died” and proceeds to poke it with a stick. Wonder what sort of puncture wounds a stick makes? Sure enough they find a little hole but add that the teeth (or tooth since I see only one hole) could be much bigger than that because of skin shrinkage over the last week.
So now there’s evidence that “there’s a big predator around” Ben says he doesn’t know what could do that to its prey but that people have been seeing these strange creatures on the moors for centuries so maybe it IS a Hound from Hell. Okay……
He does then say that they should try to find it and catch it on camera. I have no problem with that, sounds like a good plan. Maybe they could test how fast it could run, too….
But, there’s a problem. Most of the animals which they think might be the Dartmoor Beast are nocturnal. So we now cut to a night scene with them traipsing around with IR camera and thermal imaging systems. Um….just a second, if I may….I’d like to just briefly point out that the original video that started this whole thing was <b>shot in the daylight!</b> Granted, I think it was near sunset, but the sun was still UP. Guess we can at least rule out a vampire.
Anyway, logic notwithstanding, the team is now in the dark (or has been since episode one, when you think about it) and they are searching for more signs of prints, carcasses, etc. And of course, right off, we get a “Did you hear that?” I didn’t but let’s listen closely. Now I hear it, a pretty low, guttural growl. And this point I can’t hear a flipping thing they are saying because of the darn suspenseful music they treat us to. The sound editors must have studied at the GH School of Obscuring the Real Sounds.
They (Ben and Austin) radio in to Chi-Lan who is monitoring something back at “base” and tell her about the sound and that it was louder than that lion. Um, another point of order. These folks have obviously never heard the full range of sounds a lion is capable of making.
More dramatic music and unintelligible conversation, although even without the music….
Then a reflection on the thermal (a reflection of eyes) They see something and even circle it for us, but again the circle is halfway OFF the screen and they do NOT pan to center it. Strike three on equipment use.
It’s directly in front of them but they can’t tell anything so they head closer. Maybe we’ll get to see how fast they can run. They move closer and the dramatic music increases to a crescendo and we get glimpses of something moving in front of them and then…..horses. Maybe The Beast IS a pony. They bring up the fact that the deep growl was not a pony and I have to agree with them. If Joe Chin were along, I’d suggest he was responsible but since he’s off filming for GH or GHI or whichever one he’s bounced back and forth between, we have to clear him of any guilt in this episode.
Leaving the ponies behind they come across another sheep carcass that has been picked clean and let Chi-Lan know that “if something took this thing down, it had to be huge” But then Ben says that it’s possible that it died naturally and that it was simply scavenged. Well, maybe there’s hope for at least Ben.
But then Austin tells us of the internal and external temperature being the same so it’s been there a while and if it was a predator it was huge. “Natural causes” as a possibility just doesn’t get much air time does it.
A quick flight later and they are back in the Situation Room telling their tale to Bill, Larry, and Jael. Jael is more interested in whether or not Ben saw Big Ben. Chi-Lan talks about the only way to solve this being to go out into the moor which they did and found bits and pieces of sheep all over the place. Little bit of exaggeration there, but okay.
They recap the superimposing and show the dog and pony and lion in the same scene (well, as close as you can get from 45 miles away) but dismiss all three. They admit the lion couldn’t get up to speed so it wasn’t a real good test.
Then things just go off the deep end. They estimate how large the creature would be to take down the prey (remember before it could have been a simple fox) and the speed of it. Not only that they create a 3D model “MonsterQuest-Style) showing a HYBRID of a cat and “maybe a boar” and present us with some “escapee from a genetic engineering lab”
At this point they get so outrageous in their suppositions that I was in fits laughing at them.
So, the moral of the story here is if, in your incompetence, you can’t find what you’re looking for, just make something up! They show the 3D model running side by side split screen with the original video and conclude that it could be a cat, but that England has said there are no cats there. Chi-Lan pipes up about there being 20,000 new species discovered every single year. What she neglects to mention is that I don’t think any of these really were what you would consider mega-fauna. Yes, a lot of new frogs, a lot of marine animals, bunch of insects, but (if the 20,000 is even accurate) nothing really on this scale.
Ben ends up repeating about the Devil having a personal pack of Hell Hounds. The video was not hoaxed and that there was something very large and unexplained there, and the case is left a mystery.
I will repeat my findings above and wish to stress that I think this video was not even shot in Dartmoor National Forest but rather 40 miles west of it and about 45 miles away from the reservoir that they claim was the spot. Given the shoddy investigation skills it takes to miss something like that, I can’t really give much credibility to anything they find. And I didn’t even get to go to the UK to figure this out.
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