This show was just plain awful! (But deer and squirrel video capture was great).

The biggest disappointment here was Autumn Williams. Her “field surveillance and research techniques” expertise included pathetic attempts at calling-in Bigfoot as if she were dealing with a spring gobbler and luring it with a tempting smorgasbord of bacon, rabbit, and liver as if her quarry was a half-starved coyote. A tiny plot of ground, not much larger than a backyard flowerbed, was cleared and the soil loosened up in the high hopes that this elusive creature with its impressive stride would tiptoe precisely across.

Rob Mariano placed a crude sign, “BIGFOOT STEP HERE.”

My thoughts exactly!

When these tried-and-true “field surveillance and research techniques” failed, Autumn Williams had Rob Mariano bloody his hands by repeatedly bludgeoning a tree with a wooden baseball bat. Other members of the SCI FI Investigates team were encouraged to whoop and hoot at the surrounding darkness.

Where was this intrepid Bigfoot researcher’s video and photographic evidence? Her state-of-the-art equipment “captured” squirrels and deer in the dead of night with impunity. Why not Bigfoot?

Where was this researcher’s Bigfoot hair samples and DNA analysis?

How many casts of footprints can Autumn Williams show us that were collected on different dates and in different locations that belong to the same specimen in this area she has chosen because of countless reports, signs, smells, et cetera?

What about three-toed Big Hairy Smellies?

Is Autumn Williams typical of what the Bigfoot research community has to offer?

What truly makes SCI FI Investigates enjoyable is the humor and chemistry between the team members: “Boston Rob” Mariano (skeptic), Deborah Dobrydney (Crime Scene Investigator), Rich Dolan (paranormal investigator), and Dr. Bill Doleman (archaeologist).

Mariano’s attempts at hoaxing his own Bigfoot video end in hilarious failure.

That scene alone was worth the price of admission!

No one-hour (less commercials) paranormal investigative show is ever going to solve any enigma. People have always encountered unexplained lights, objects, creatures and entities. Closure is too much to hope for. The only exception would be a television show that zeroes in on a single event such as the so-called “Philadelphia Experiment” and proves within all reasonable doubt that the whole thing was a hoax.

I will be watching SCI FI Investigates: Mothman on October 25th.

Count on it.

—Robert A. Goerman

Better yet, how about some old re-runs of the Leonard Nimoy show from when I was a kid, what’s it’s name, “In Search Of”?