I was enjoying Small Town Monsters but do you know what? It literally has become just another Finding Bigfoot series.
Firstly, for the love of whichever god or idol they worship -GET SOME DECENT SOUND EQUIPMENT! Same as all the paranormal programs that by ultra-high quality cameras but after 20 years or more of that trash still "Damn. The mic never picked up the voice3/sound!" and of course "Dammit! I was too slow and I don't think the camera caught the full body apparition in time!".
Enhancing alleged "tree knocks" and other sounds -in this episode there is no doubt that there are lynx calls and those explain the "baby crying" sounds reported. Come on ffs -these witnesses are hardcore woodsmen and hunters and they have no ***** idea what a lynx sounds like? As for the team I would have thought that by now they understand natures 'little secret' -animals and birds LIVE and MOVE ABOUT in the woods and forests. Sorry to break that to everyone. One of their cameras even films a wolverine -in fact they film mountain goats and bears and they do apparently know and understand there are wild animals in the area. Those would explain 90% of night time "sounds" that, even on repeat playback I can hear sod all on.
Get decent audio equipment or just do not bother. Its a joke. Digital recorders are NOT the high point of science either. All that noise and you have to try to make out what MIGHT be in amongst it all.... I have a digital recorder plus a hand held tape recorder. Repeatedly I have shown people how you can clearly hear things said 10 feet (3m) away with the (cheap) tape recorder but the digital one (expensive) is a mush of sound. It's no wonder paranormal scammers keep 'hearing' all these messages!
Then we have the footage. Or lack of footage. At the end of the episode, after 9 days at this 'high activity' site, we are told that with hindsight the team should have utilised its night cameras more than they did. What the actual F***????
You are going to an area where there are claims -nothing more than that- of high Bigfoot activity at night so you film a lot during the day (gotta have holiday footage) and at night use the weakest camera gear and constantly talk about rocks falling into the water. Rule 1 in investigation is that if something happens repeatedly, every night at the same location then the cause is very likely natural. Pure and simple. What you should do is put out audio recorders (for what they are worth because unless an animal says "Hello, I am a raccoon" or "I am a fox" then all you have is something moving about, growling or grunting. That is NOT evidence of anything and certainly not of "Bigfoot".
If you place out all of the night vision gear you have in conjunction with audio devices then you might get something. We are told (repeatedly) where all of the activity appears to be coming from but are any night cams placed out in those areas -No. Looking through FLIR scopes in dense woods/forests will get you nothing. And in this investigation that is what they got -nothing.
What sort of half-assed effort is this to gather evidence or film Bigfoot when the equipment that would really help is not utilised while the team has fun and a bit of a laugh around the camp-fire? Someone flipping over their kayak was turned into a drama sequence...I am guessing to relieve boredom between...well...nothing.
"There should be no hunters up here!" uh...okay, Einstein then those 'mysterious' sounds that everyone agrees were gunshots were...what? Very likely the sound of gunshots came from a fire-arm and who uses firearms -wolverines? Nope. Elk? Nope. Lynx? Nope. Oh -humans!
A "mystery" human handprint on the back of the cabin indicates that someone -a human being- was hanging around. One of those from the cabin itself? I'll believe them that it was none of them but you add the gunshots to the "rock throwing" and the fact that "something" was observing the cabin from high ground (the fire pit) and "something" was also making "wood knocks" and do you know what you have proven? That one or more persons was in the forest, maybe even living there permanently, and they were hunting as well as having fun with those at the cabin.
What appeared to be highly strange in the first part and had us all waiting for part two...well, in part 2 we find that there was no bigfoot activity band that the team were not even carrying out a proper investigation. It made the Finding Bigfoot team look like a hard core crack team of scientists while the Small Town Monsters crew were basically the Mountain Monsters team!
Having watched most of the series videos including those involving the house set bang smack in bigfoot territory (The Bigfoot Project) where we hear -or try to hear- the audio 'evidence' and listen to accounts of how they "think" they might have caught a glimpse of Bigfoot or were surrounded by some I give up. When you describe how a puma kills and caches its food then to say "We are not supposed to have mountain lions here so its a mystery" Well, no. It's a feckin' puma, dumb-asses! We know they are travelling about the US and often journey through areas where, officially, they do not exist -one of their documentaries (excellent, too) covers that very subject: Lions of the East.
Another thing about The Bigfoot Project is the finding of a lot -a lot- of cattle bones at a certain out of the way site. We know from studying puma that they drag their prey off (even a foal) to a secluded spot to eat and then cache and will even take some of the kill into a tree. A puma is not going to pile up 30+ (it is unclear in one clip if it is stated "50") and will not hang the pelvic bone on a broken low-hanging branch -it was in a position where it could not have been dropped from above and simply "caught" on the branch.
Look at this practically; everyone in the area is supposed to know each other. Strange lights have been seen at low level. I believe in one episode gunshots are mentioned. Firstly, people out poaching/hunting do not give a crap if they cross into private property. Isolated spot who is going to challenge them? So hunting explains some incidents especially if a 4x4 and lights are used (we have that in the UK) . The number of alleged cattle is almost ridiculous and the fact that the stench from decomposition has not been smelt indicates that the cattle were not all killed on site and that indicates two possibilities. Either the spot has been used to dump any dead cattle -the bones have never been tested for age but some look very old- over many years (legally with previous property owners consent or just as a "convenient spot"). The other possibility is that rustlers take cattle and butcher them at that location at night then leave the remains while all of the joints of meat are taken to sell. A possibility and when you remember that they have a good few coyotes locally then any waste meat/offal would be consumed quickly. I did ask whether checks had been made to see whether cattle had gone missing locally or whether anyone knew whether this was a local dump site -twice. On both occasions I received no response.
It's all very entertaining and full of played out drama and some very nice filming but in all honestly I have reached the stage where I am beginning to ask how much of this is genuine and not just entertainment? The STM people have also produced a short series on Bigfoot and other strange phenomena (The Ridge,etc) and the thing that strikes me -they are all very entertaining and some I have watched several times- is that those behind the series speak about UFOs and theories, etc but have only a very basic, almost newbie knowledge. In fact, some of those interviewed in the series who have "been at this 30 years now" display almost the same level of knowledge and in one episode a woman is interviewed who displays all the symptoms of being fantasy prone -it is so obvious.
For me the STM team is producing some entertaining films but not that I would take seriously anymore; I watch them to just chill after an 18 hour day when my brain just needs mush. Not quite as badly acted or faked as The Mid West Ghost Hunter and definitely not as faked and staged as Twin Paranormal but it does make me wonder whether they have decided that making entertainment is far more lucrative and productive than being scientific?
