Pseudo-TV: Ten shows that promote non-sense

Over the years there have been a lot of television shows that promotes things that are either non-sense, or just bizarre (I myself even admit that I loved these types of shows) and even today these shows seems to be more popular then ever.

Not only has the amount of these shows seemed to have increased, the amount of topics these shows are based on has also increased as well. Everything from conspiracy theories to psychics are now covered on these shows, and not just ghosts and UFOs anymore.

Here are what I consider to be the ten biggest TV shows that promote non-sense:

10. Brad Meltzer's Decoded - History Channel

This show examines mysteries and conspiracy theories that in a way have become a part of American folklore. What makes this show unique from other shows that examine conspiracy theories is that after the investigation is over, Meltzer will sometimes comes to the real, or at least a logical conclusion.

9. Doomsday Preppers - National Geographic Channel

This show profiles people who are getting prepared for some sort of doomsday event, which they are not only certain will happen, but they are usually certain what type of disaster it will be (some even almost seem to be happily anticipating that it will occur). While some of the people on this show do appear to be some what rational, there are others that appear to need some sort of mental health treatment for their paranoia.

8. Finding Bigfoot - Animal Planet

This show follows a group of bigfoot hunters, and their attempts to find the legendary creature. The bigfoot hunters use multiple tools, such as night-vision technology and FLIR cameras, in their attempts to find bigfoot. In fact they do just about everything to find bigfoot... and still can't find him.

7. Haunted Collector - SyFy

This reality show follows demonologist John Zaffis as he travels around the country, investigating allegedly haunted homes and buildings in which the haunting may be being caused by a certain object, or objects, within the property. After Zaffis has "determined" what object is causing the haunting activity, he then usually removes object (which is usually pretty nice looking and expensive) at the owner's request, and puts it into his own private museum.

6. Chasing UFOs - National Geographic

This show profiles three people, one skeptic, one believer, and one not quite sure what to believe, as they travel the world investigating claims of UFO sitings, and trying to capture UFOs on video. Basically this show is not much more than your typical UFO hunting TV show that fails to prove that aliens are visiting the Earth.

5. The Dead Files - Travel Channel

Featuring psychic medium Amy Allan, and former NYPD homicide detective Steve DiSchiavi, this show features the two conducting two "independent" investigations, first with Allan going through a walkthrough of an alleged haunted site (after her husband Matt goes through the place prior to her arrival to remove any objects that might "influence" her). During this time it is shown that DiSchiavi is interviewing people who have had paranormal experiences at the location of the investigation. The two then meet up and share the information they got. By all appearances this show seems to be nothing more then an attempt to prove that psychic powers are real.

4. Ghost Hunters - SyFy

One of the longest lasting shows on TV about ghost hunting (and one of the longest lasting shows on SyFy) this series flows members of "The Atlantic Paranormal Society", or TAPS for short. Often times they will debunk soft targets that are easy to debunk in an attempt to seem credible, yet don't bother to debunk things that are tougher to debunk for those who don't have enough knowledge into what might be causing such activity. This show has also spawned several spin offs.

3. Long Island Medium - TLC

The show follows Thersea Caputo, a woman from Long Island, New York, who claims to have psychic powers and can talk to dead people. The show showcases her randomly going up to people when she claims to feel a "pull" towards them. After talking to that person and asking them questions for several minutes (which looks an awful lot like a cold reading) she finally gives that person a message that she claims is from one of their loved ones from beyond the dead.

2. Ancient Aliens - History Channel

This show is one of the most criticized shows on TV, and with good reason. The show and the people on it do nothing more then promote pseudoscience and suggest that our ancestors were a bunch of idiots who don't know how to build complex structures or tools. The show and the people on it uses deceptive means, misunderstandings, and shoddy research in order to try to prove their claims. Most of the claims on this show have been dis-proven and discredited a long time ago.

1. Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura - TruTV

The only show that beats out Ancient Aliens in terms of non-sense and deceptiveness. Many of the subjects on this show have also been dis-proven or discredited. The show has one skeptic on it (versus four who are not) in what I suppose is an attempt to make the show at least seem some what credible. The only thing this show is really good for is scaring people into believing things that aren't real, and making conspiracy theorists feel their paranoid beliefs are justified.

Pseudo... Television

Ten years ago if you watched The Learning Channel, you could actually learn something from that television channel. Ten years ago if you watched the History Channel, you would actual see some real history lessons on that channel. Now if you get something useful and thought expanding from either channel, you've caught them on a special day.

It seems like so many channels that once presented actual stuff that's worth learning about, is now presenting mostly pseudo-science and conspiracy theories.

Where once crap like this mostly only showed on SyFy, is now quickly taking over networks who's original purpose was to show real science, and real history.

Now it seems that all these channels show either "reality" shows, or shows containing fringe science that a legit scientist would not touch with a ten foot poll.

Every one of these science networks is guilty of this, from shows about psychics, ghost hunting, UFOs, conspiracy theories, cryptozoology, the Apocalypse, pseudo-history, ancient aliens, and the list just goes on and on and on...

And The History Channel is the worst offender of them all, because just about everything I listed above, is on it's main line-up, or shown in re-runs.

In fact, finding a show on that channel with real history on it is about as rare as finding music on MTV (or what's called music, since many people don't consider it to be music).

I blame us, the people for this, since these networks give us what we want instead of what we need, and what we need is to expand our minds in the right direction.

Yes, I know that history and science are boring to some people, but I've always felt that real history and real science, once you've started to really learn the stuff, is allot more interesting then the fake stuff that's pedaled as being real.