Here I am again with a review of the third episode of the Discovery Channel show Lost Monster Files (LMF). In the previous posts, I explained how I was left unimpressed by the quality of evidence and the dramatically overreaching explanations suggested by the cast. This episode continues the trend of mashing together the existing lore, the background from Ivan Sanderson’s (not) “lost” files, eyewitness stories, and their field investigations to produce an incoherent and rather insulting show for anyone who knows anything much about cryptid history.
This episode, they took up the Thunderbird – a legend of an enormous bird in the forests of Pennsylvania. It’s a history I know fairly well. LMF forgets all that or just condenses it into one stinky regurgitated pellet of barely recognizable bits, and, instead, focuses on recent claims along Chestnut Ridge, part of the Allegheny Mountains southeast of Pittsburgh.
As with the previous two episodes, it starts with the sensationalized claim that “a creature has been terrorizing” the place…
Except they can’t find it, so… not very terrifying.
They do tell us about the most famous account of a thunderbird: the attack on 10 yr old Marlon Lowe in 1977. Marlon is still alive. They interviewed him at a Pennsylvania location. The details are sparse, as usual, but they fail to mention this incident took place in Lawndale, Illinois. That’s rather important considering this is all about PA. They also never examine the implicit claim that the bird lifted him. The drawing shown with the story depicts a child lifted by his foot into the air even though Marlon was never actually lifted this way (or at all). It is not possible for birds to lift more than their own weight, and they are very lightly built. But, nevermind, whatever.
I notice that the show never seems to give ample time to note all the critical information that might help viewers understand the stories – they have a set agenda to push and can’t fit too much into a short format. This is the rotten part of TV shows like this; they present a skewed story to the audience, who probably won’t fact-check and will assume these actors are doing something akin to actual research.
They head to Chestnut Ridge where a farmer says a huge bird, larger than he’s ever seen, has been spotted three times on his land. Unfortunately, he compares its size to the large birds in the area including pelicans and storks, except neither are not found anywhere near here. Oops.
The attempt to lure a large bird at the farm with (trigger warning) dead rabbits is a failure, but the producers can’t stop themselves from giving Brittany an ambiguous “hit” by claiming she sees a large bird (that looks for all the world like a super common turkey vulture). It disappears without her seeing it fly away. Nevermind, whatever.
The show then throws at us a ridiculous story that the local airport has caught mystery objects in the air over the ridge that are unidentifiable as planes. Therefore, these might be large birds or they might be military planes. Is it really possible that several large birds are flying repeatedly, unnoticed, but show up on radar and are mistaken for planes. Really? REALLY?
The team hikes up to an area they think might have nests spotted by a drone. (It’s a tiny hot spot among the roasting rocks. Nevermind, whatever.) They find a deer skull that Brittany says was pecked at by a beak. And they find a large “pellet” regurgitated by a bird of prey. It’s 3-4 inches long. A 3-inch pellet is not unreasonable for an eagle. They also find remains of a normal-sized raptor nest, long abandoned. All of this is not very unusual, except they make it so.
The DNA result on the pellet shows it’s from an eagle but the DNA is mixed with all the animal remains in it. So they suggest it might be something that ate an eagle. I am not making this up – they really are reaching that far. They end up concluding that the animal might be a (long-extinct) Teratorn or an eagle with gigantism, both of which are baseless because a regular eagle will suffice to explain the findings.
There are a few more obvious points where the episode egregiously misleads viewers.
Location, Location, Location
They fail to explain locational information about the Thunderbird. The main tales of modern Thunderbirds took place in Illinois, and in the “Black Forest” of north central Pennsylvania in the 1970s. They could have at least mentioned that. Sanderson had known about the reports in the Black Forest area, but I never heard Chestnut Ridge mentioned until extremely recently.
Perhaps the people producing this show are just clueless about the US. When they showed examples of the Alleghenies, they stuck in what appears to be a photo of the Alps. This is not Pennsylvania or anywhere in Appalachia:
Area of High Strangeness
The area of Chestnut Ridge has recently been surging as an area of all kinds of paranormal activity. The fact that Thunderbird sightings have also been escalating in the past year is certainly related to more people looking for strange things, and more people willing to take their claims seriously. However, that does not mean that large unknown birds really exist here. You name it and people have claimed it in the Chestnut Ridge area – Bigfoot and other cryptids, UFOs, Bigfoot coming out of UFOs, earth lights, hauntings, portals, etc.
How to hide a huge, flying thing that millions of people are looking for
Of all mystery animals, those that fly, and that are excessively large, are the hardest to keep hidden. Millions of people are active bird-watchers and migration routes are monitored. Every year, citizen scientists all over the country take part in a bird count, actively cataloging birds. It’s absurd to suggest that even off track migrants won’t be noticed (they frequently are, and it makes for big news), or, that they deliberately hide from human binoculars.
After three episodes, LMF is formulaic, contrived, and non-credible. There is a pattern of outright carelessness, ignorance, and disrespect for the topic of cryptozoology and, frankly, it dishonors Sanderson’s memory. It’s very difficult to fit nuance and reason, let alone an entire investigation, into a 45-minute program. When you try to do that with a cast who pitch sensationalistic nonsense, and producers that are making stuff up, you end up with a very awful result.
Episode 1 review: Lost Monster Files – Carolina Chupacabra review
Episode 2 review: Lost Monster Files produces some abominable research
Oh my goodness, this episode frustrated me so much because it’s a topic I’ve been investigating for years and the misinformation here was egregious (in addition to the typically shoddy science and “evidence”). Thank you for calling it out. You’re 100% correct in that Sanderson’s investigation into Thunderbirds centered on north central Pennsylvania, in the area of Renovo. I’ve yet to see any documentation that he was investigating sightings on Chestnut Ridge in western Pennsylvania, and I’ve read his Thunderbird file from the same archive featured in this program. I’ll allow there’s a chance that the Lost Monster Files crew came upon something that I haven’t seen. But it certainly seemed like they bent the truth to the point of snapping in order tie Sanderson into the more recent claims of Thunderbirds in western PA. And they brought in Marlon Lowe, which I thought was the high point, but as you pointed out, they neglected to mention his incident took place in Illinois. I know you’re supposed to shut off your brain to enjoy this alleged entertainment, but Lost Monster Files is just a raging dumpster fire.
I want to state that I have not watched the episode, nor do I plan on it. But I want to share a story about this episode.
I had been contacted by the production company producing the series early last year after they stumbled upon my article (which you linked in yours). Over an hour, we talked about sightings in northcentral Pennsylvania, and I had even sent them a lot of information about the Black Forest Region. I did explain that Chestnut Ridge is not a hot sport for Thunderbird sightings, and they should focus upon the Black Forest region was where they wanted to go or possibly Westmoreland County, which had a number of reports a couple years ago.
The response I got was “Yeah that’s what we’ve been told but we really want to set it in the Chestnut Ridge area.” I was disappointed in the phone call because it was a waste of my time – they already had their mind made up when I talked to them and nothing that I could have said or done would have changed it.
Thanks so much for your addition! I’m afraid this is the usual type of exchange with reps of these shows. They have little interest in accuracy and it either is a waste of time to talk to them, or, they pump you for ideas and then steal them without credit.
Oh my gosh, thank you. I really liked the Holzer files and was so sad that it got canned and watched this after finding out this is the “replacement.” It’s so, so bad. It’s not even bad to the point of enjoyable, it’s just plain BAD. The constant AI images and diagrams are misleading and a huge eye sore. It just takes any good will of credibility out and fat away from the show (which was very little to begin with.)