Each Season is 3 discs, for a total of 21 discs. I began at the beginning: Season One, Disc One
Wikipedia entry on Kirlian Photography How Does Kirlian Photography Work?
The final wacko, um, I mean researcher in this episode is Cleve Baxter, polygraph expert for CIA who uses polygraphs to study plants. He cuts his own hand, to see if he gets a response from the plant. WTF? The experiment fails..perhaps he's performed it too many times? He tries again with an assistant. He cuts her hand (shouldn't he have gotten a fresh plant instead of a fresh victim?) Oh wow, the plant reacts to her as he slices her hand! He concludes that it is a reaction to her apprehension and pain, pointing out the spike on the graph at the point when he is about to cut her. He also believes the bacteria in yogurt has "primary perception" He puts yogurt in a test tube, inserts silver wires in the yogurt and hooks them to the lie detector. Next he stirs some antibiotic into some yogurt in another beaker. The yogurt in the test tube does not react. New experiment: He pours milk into some yogurt in a separate beaker. After 20 seconds the bacteria finds nutrient in the milk. The other yogurt in the test tube reacts. It wants some milk, too. WHAT? So the conclusions are that plants and even bacteria can react to something that is happening to other life forms nearby. Nimoy asks, "Did you ever wake up with a feeling that something happened to someone you know? ...Plants may have carried the message to you." This reminds me of the blossoms in Narnia telling the Princes that Aslan was dead. He then says that plants can understand us and communicate, but for the time being we can only listen to them with our machines. One day those machines may be unnecessary.
Strange Visitors The high-pitched electronic theme music is really awful.
Native American legends/origin stories. Man and Animals were the same. stone ruins in Mystery Hill in New Hampshire. Indians of this region did not build in stone. Where did these ruins come from?
Mystery hill's layout reminiscent of ancient european cities. walled streets ending at a type of temple. Charcoal deposits between the rocks have been carbon dated at 3000 years old.
an inscription on a boulder is thought to be Phoenician, the style of masonry is the same. So the conclusion is that the Minoans crossed the seas from Crete to North America. Perhaps they saw no future here and left. Here is the Wikipedia entry on the site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Stonehenge I'm skeptical of the explanation given on the show. Especially the sensationalism of the sacrificial stone. I like this explanation from the above link: "Artifacts found on the site lead archaeologists to the conclusion that the stones were actually assembled for a variety of reasons by local farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries. For example, a much-discussed "sacrificial stone" which contains grooves that some say channeled blood closely resembles "lye-leaching stones" found on many old farms that were used to extract lye from wood ashes, the first step in the manufacture of soap."
After watching the first two episodes, I am hypothesizing that most of the topics presented in the series are sensationalized and after 25 years of further study many of the theories presented have probably been disputed. It was probably a riveting show in the 1970s, before the instant-answers and collective knowledge of the internet, and I'm sure it sparked quite a bit of interest and imagination in its viewers. I can see how it would hold a nostalgic place in original viewers' hearts. Posted by
William McCauleyJanuary 29, 2013 at 11:11 PMI watched it when it originally aired back in the 70's. At the time I thought it was pretty Hokie! I kept watching it though. Mainly because of the sensationalism of the subjects and I liked Leonard Nimoy. Their seemingly serious approach made me laugh sometimes. Simply because they expected people to believe it. And probably a lot of people did. Most of the time it was too Rediculous to believe. For the period it was better than most TV fare. I think that is a reason I really don't remember much about 70's TV. It was pitiful with the exception being PBS.ReplyDeleteAndrea HensleyJanuary 29, 2013 at 11:24 PMOh my gosh, I used to watch this as a kid! I loved it! (I'm better now, I swear.)ReplyDeleteAdd commentLoad more...
A classic Harlan Ellison Star Trek script is comin…
New Blog: Mainly Just Because
Trekcast Episode 108: Star Trek: Into Discussion
Each Season is 3 discs, for a total of 21 discs. I began at the beginning: Season One, Disc One
Wikipedia entry on Kirlian Photography How Does Kirlian Photography Work?
The final wacko, um, I mean researcher in this episode is Cleve Baxter, polygraph expert for CIA who uses polygraphs to study plants. He cuts his own hand, to see if he gets a response from the plant. WTF? The experiment fails..perhaps he's performed it too many times? He tries again with an assistant. He cuts her hand (shouldn't he have gotten a fresh plant instead of a fresh victim?) Oh wow, the plant reacts to her as he slices her hand! He concludes that it is a reaction to her apprehension and pain, pointing out the spike on the graph at the point when he is about to cut her. He also believes the bacteria in yogurt has "primary perception" He puts yogurt in a test tube, inserts silver wires in the yogurt and hooks them to the lie detector. Next he stirs some antibiotic into some yogurt in another beaker. The yogurt in the test tube does not react. New experiment: He pours milk into some yogurt in a separate beaker. After 20 seconds the bacteria finds nutrient in the milk. The other yogurt in the test tube reacts. It wants some milk, too. WHAT? So the conclusions are that plants and even bacteria can react to something that is happening to other life forms nearby. Nimoy asks, "Did you ever wake up with a feeling that something happened to someone you know? ...Plants may have carried the message to you." This reminds me of the blossoms in Narnia telling the Princes that Aslan was dead. He then says that plants can understand us and communicate, but for the time being we can only listen to them with our machines. One day those machines may be unnecessary.
Strange Visitors The high-pitched electronic theme music is really awful.
Native American legends/origin stories. Man and Animals were the same. stone ruins in Mystery Hill in New Hampshire. Indians of this region did not build in stone. Where did these ruins come from?
Mystery hill's layout reminiscent of ancient european cities. walled streets ending at a type of temple. Charcoal deposits between the rocks have been carbon dated at 3000 years old.
an inscription on a boulder is thought to be Phoe
nician, the style of masonry is the same. So the conclusion is that the Minoans crossed the seas from Crete to North America. Perhaps they saw no future here and left. Here is the Wikipedia entry on the site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Stonehenge I'm skeptical of the explanation given on the show. Especially the sensationalism of the sacrificial stone. I like this explanation from the above link: "Artifacts found on the site lead archaeologists to the conclusion that the stones were actually assembled for a variety of reasons by local farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries. For example, a much-discussed "sacrificial stone" which contains grooves that some say channeled blood closely resembles "lye-leaching stones" found on many old farms that were used to extract lye from wood ashes, the first step in the manufacture of soap."
After watching the first two episodes, I am hypothesizing that most of the topics presented in the series are sensationalized and after 25 years of further study many of the theories presented have probably been disputed. It was probably a riveting show in the 1970s, before the instant-answers and collective knowledge of the internet, and I'm sure it sparked quite a bit of interest and imagination in its viewers. I can see how it would hold a nostalgic place in original viewers' hearts. Posted by
William McCauleyJanuary 29, 2013 at 11:11 PMI watched it when it originally aired back in the 70's. At the time I thought it was pretty Hokie! I kept watching it though. Mainly because of the sensationalism of the subjects and I liked Leonard Nimoy. Their seemingly serious approach made me laugh sometimes. Simply because they expected people to believe it. And probably a lot of people did. Most of the time it was too Rediculous to believe. For the period it was better than most TV fare. I think that is a reason I really don't remember much about 70's TV. It was pitiful with the exception being PBS.ReplyDeleteAndrea HensleyJanuary 29, 2013 at 11:24 PMOh my gosh, I used to watch this as a kid! I loved it! (I'm better now, I swear.)ReplyDeleteAdd commentLoad more...
A classic Harlan Ellison Star Trek script is comin…
New Blog: Mainly Just Because
Trekcast Episode 108: Star Trek: Into Discussion