No doubt we can think of tons for this list and undoubtedly the vast majority will be after Lifetime took over. Here are some for the list:

Fertility statutes
99% of the animal ones (with the exception of the wild horses and sea lions being killed and the bloodhound who helps solve crimes)
Chocolate as an aphrodisiac
Twins and their bonds

message in a bottle was completely pointless

fertility statues was really bad, a couple of broads get pregant!!! wow!!!!

No doubt we can think of tons for this list and undoubtedly the vast majority will be after Lifetime took over. Here are some for the list:

Fertility statutes
99% of the animal ones (with the exception of the wild horses and sea lions being killed and the bloodhound who helps solve crimes)
Chocolate as an aphrodisiac
Twins and their bonds

Excellent nominations, crystaldawn. IMO, fertility statues stands alone on a pedestal of worthliness all by itself.

I'm sure many will disagree, but I thought the Vince Foster story was completely out of place. This is a polarized political era and that segment almost seemed like a ploy to cheaply capitalize. IMO, UM should have been above that. Cable programs and the network news magazines were all over that "case" and, of course, they can do a much more thorough job given time allotment. UM should be about unique true crime incidents that don't earn coverage elsewhere. Likewise, if Stack and UM survived today, I would hope they wouldn't have pointlessly isolated an aspect of the Iraq situation to question as an unsolved mystery.

Yes! Those fertility statues were dumb, and then there was the aphrodisiac one.... not the best.

How about the money falling from the sky?

Chair of Death, chair of death, chair of death....

Not only should they never have made the one about the statues, I'm sick of seeing it.

That sideshow act showing the video of the woman allegedly 'sweating' gold leaf flakes from her skin!:rolleyes:
Stupid, hokey and unbelievable!:mad:

That sideshow act showing the video of the woman allegedly 'sweating' gold leaf flakes from her skin!:rolleyes:
Stupid, hokey and unbelievable!:mad:

WHOAH! I've never seen that one! :eek: :eek: Bizarro indeed! :eek:

I like the line from the fertility statues that went something like "Usually all it takes is a man and a woman, and a few cozy nights." :o :D

LOL! I totally forgot about that, Zero.

That's awesome. :)

Haunted Bunkbed, Need I say more?

Don't forget the one about the lady striken with cancer that claimed a tiny UFO flew in her window and circled her body and flew back out and she was miraculously cured of cancer. :rolleyes:

I can't stand the child genius who prefers museums and archeology digs. That boy is a chore to listen to - I'd love an update on what he's up to these days.

I like the line from the fertility statues that went something like "Usually all it takes is a man and a woman, and a few cozy nights." :o :D

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm sick of Lifetime constantly showing the case of the man who tried to blow the school in Missouri. It seems like this case is on every other week.:mad:mad: :

I'm sick of Lifetime constantly showing the case of the man who tried to blow the school in Missouri. It seems like this case is on every other week.:mad:mad: :

It was on again today??? I taped UM. I guess I'll have to forward that part. :rolleyes:

Money falling out of the sky
Minor league baseball player who reserects his career
OJ Simpson

The segment from the UM Ghosts DVD collection where the woman's baby is cured from jaundice after the mother sees a light down the hall, and then she has electric shocks go through her and the dryer acts up for the son. This segment was so bad it made me laugh!

Any of the Lost Loves, Ghosts or Psychic segments - they should have exclusively stuck to Missing, Unexplained Deaths and Wanted. :o

Well I am not completely in agreement with many of the stories mentioned as "worthless", but here is my personal list, which includes some stuff that was already mentioned.

Fertility statues
Money from the Sky
Plenty of those miracles cases that focus only on Christian religions without looking at various other faiths(Buddhist, Pagan, Wiccan, ect).

But if there is one case I am appaled at seeing on UM it would be one that has not been mentioned yet, that being the one where Howard Storm has a nightmare that transforms him from atheist to minister. This story just reeked of televangelism IMHO. It appeared to have a blatent message of:church-goers=good, non-church-goers=bad.

No doubt we can think of tons for this list and undoubtedly the vast majority will be after Lifetime took over. Here are some for the list:

Fertility statutes
99% of the animal ones (with the exception of the wild horses and sea lions being killed and the bloodhound who helps solve crimes)
Chocolate as an aphrodisiac
Twins and their bonds
fertility for sure...who the hell cares?????:rolleyes: that is not an unsolved mystery if the women got pregnant, am i right?? the only mystery here is how these gullible people think a statue is responsible for their becoming pregnant...UM, GO BACK TO SCHOOL AND GET SEX EDUCATION AGAIN, AND THIS TIME, DON'T FLUNK!!!!!!!!!!!

Lets don't forget the segment featuring Dr. Browning who predicts earthquakes. :rolleyes:

At least Lifetime had the good sense to never show that one.

No doubt we can think of tons for this list and undoubtedly the vast majority will be after Lifetime took over. Here are some for the list:


The Ellenders. It was a bitch to find.

To me, one of the most pointless segments was the one about the "lucky" rock.

I must correct you, crystaldawn, on one animal segment that was shown. Mable Woods dog kettle being burned down and killing of those 99 helpless dogs.

That segment broke my heart as I'm sure it did many other dog lovers. :(

Maybe I'm the only one but most of the Lost Loves. I like some of them but some it was just getting out of control. Little Billy wants to reunite with Little Johnny from the first grade who saved him from the bully on the playground.

The Money falling from the sky
The Chocolate as an aphrodisiac (sp)-might have been more to the segment

Little Billy wants to reunite with Little Johnny from the first grade who saved him from the bully on the playground.

So true UMFanatic. :lol: I was watching one a few days ago where a lady wanted to find her music teacher that inspired her. I mean the majority of us probably have an old teacher we wouldn't mind seeing again but to have it featured on a tv show as great as UM just doesn't make sense.

Old topic but what the heck;

First one that came to mind was Tony Marabella... guy falls over playing baseball...shiit happens n errr the end...something like that :rolleyes2

Well I think these segments were designed more so the show wasnt just about death and missing people. I mean I like the murder and missing segments as much as the next person and studying the cases and stuff. However I also liked a lot of those segments that did not deal with taht stuff. I enjoyed hearing about people tracking down people that made huge differences in people lives. I mean yeah there were some segments were out there and some that were not very good or not believeable or even totally bs. However I wouldnt say any of them were "worthless." I mean like with the one about the guy who wanted to track down the guy who helped him in grade school and protected him from bullies and was a friend to him when no one else was. I mean he wanted to thank the guy because this kid might have killed himself or might have done something drastic. But I guess I appreciate it more becausE I was bullied myself in school so I have a different feeling towards a segment like that than someone who was nt bullied. I mean he wanted to thank the guy and let him know he appreciated it. He used the show because it was a well known and for many years a highly rated show so the chances of you finding who you were looking for were fairly good while you otherwise might not find them. I think to label segments like that worthless is a little harsh.

I can't stand the child genius who prefers museums and archeology digs. That boy is a chore to listen to - I'd love an update on what he's up to these days.

He probably used his intellegence the wrong way and is in jail with Kevin Poulsen. Remember computer whiz Kevin?

Who could forget Dark Dante? LOL. Where's Dislimb with the mug shot when you need him?

Who could forget Dark Dante? LOL. Where's Dislimb with the mug shot when you need him?

Haha, the mug shot of Dark Dante (can't remember the geeks real name) is actually kind of creepy..even though I would lay him out in about 15 seconds eh..hah..but um i think the mug shot we're thinking is from after he is apprehended and has the blonde ass hair or whatever..haha. Pretty cool segmant actually

the one on bigfoot was stupid....hey UM guys bigfoot and the lochness monster was exposed as hoaxes long ago...they did a bigfoot type one after the bank robber tunnel segment....

also around the time of the bank robber segment was the one where some little girl sees what happens when she's about to die only to come back to life....hahah....it was so cheesy the way they did that segment.....

the fertility one sounds really dumb

lost loves are really boring too...who cares!

Siberiankiss why be so negative? I mean who cares about lost loves huh? I dont know I guess I just dont like the negativity. Yeah some of them are corny. Actually I do not think either big foot or loch ness monster have been proven to be hoaxes.

Siberiankiss why be so negative? I mean who cares about lost loves huh? I dont know I guess I just dont like the negativity. Yeah some of them are corny. Actually I do not think either big foot or loch ness monster have been proven to be hoaxes.

I'm not really sure about Bigfoot, but probably the most famous picture taken of the Loch Ness Monster, I want to say it was taken in the 1930s was proved to be fake a couple of years ago.

Some of the lost loves were very moving (the vietnam vet who looked for his nurse, the six siblings separated in oklahoma), but some of them seemed almost like a waste. Okay, I could see the one where he found his friend from the orphanage, but the one where the girl found her teacher? Not to sound mean, but there are many unsolved cases, murder or otherwise, which could have used the airtime more than this case, and other superfluous cases like this. There is something called the internet. Sorry if it sounds mean to some, but that's my opinion and I'm glad I'm not the only one that felt this way.

Some of the lost loves were very moving (the vietnam vet who looked for his nurse, the six siblings separated in oklahoma), but some of them seemed almost like a waste. Okay, I could see the one where he found his friend from the orphanage, but the one where the girl found her teacher? Not to sound mean, but there are many unsolved cases, murder or otherwise, which could have used the airtime more than this case, and other superfluous cases like this. There is something called the internet. Sorry if it sounds mean to some, but that's my opinion and I'm glad I'm not the only one that felt this way.

Good point about the woman looking for her teacher. But I'm not sure if the internet was nearly as advanced then as it is now. Therefore, the show could have been a last resort.

I can't stand the child genius who prefers museums and archeology digs. That boy is a chore to listen to - I'd love an update on what he's up to these days.

Yeah, that kid really annoyed the hell outta me!! And I am one whose all for intelligence and brain power. His just wanting to save the world and cure illness and "Kumbaya" grated my nerves!:mad:

Wow, I g uess I am surprised. Well that was what I meant with the lost loves is yes, now these days the internet is a very good option. However your average person did not have the internet before probably 1996, 1997. Back then it was not as advanced either. Before the mid 90's almost no one had the internet. So the show was a last resort. As for the kid, well he is a kid, a lot of kid's have dreams like that. I mean yes he might have b een a chore to listen to but I think it is more an example of people being jealous that a kid that young could be so smart.

I really disliked the alien/alien abduction segments. There was one with the woman who "communicated" with UFOs with her flashlight. That one was really worthless. As for the "lost loves..." some were really good. Upthread someone mentioned the Vietnam Vet looking for his nurse; good example of why that kind of "lost love" story was important at that time.

Also didn't care for the "mysterious creatures" features. Most were rather silly....

OJ Simpson

I don't blame you for mentioning the OJ segment. In fact, in his book Outrage, Vincent Bugliosi wrote: "Anyone who says this case is a mystery and Simpson might actually be innocent is either being disingenous - a euphemistic way of saying he or she is lying - or is suffering from a severe intellectual hernia, or is just not aware of the evidence. I know of no fourth option."

In Outrage, Bugliosi pulled no punches. And I strongly believe that he won the debate against Alan Dershowitz in the UM segment. This was the same Vincent Bugliosi who prosecuted Charles Manson, and later wrote a book about that case (Helter Skelter).

I don't know if you have ever read Outrage, but Bugliosi did a good job in explaining why OJ Simpson got off scot-free. The book also explains how the verdict could (and should) have been different.

The OJ case, because it really isn't an Unsolved Mystery, now is it?

Even if you take that out of the equation, I still think they should have avoided that topic, because the OJ trial had been covered to death by virtually every single television show in existance. What new info could UM provide? Now, 10 years later, it holds up better, but we had already heard it all before.

This is the same reason I think there should never be an UM segment on the JFK assassination (if the show ever comes back). We've had 43 years of every possible theory. Do we really need ANOTHER segment on it?

they did a UM segment on the OJ Simpson murders??????

no they didn't! no way...lol i need to see this episode

hahahahhaha this is the funniest thing I've ever read. A UNSOLVE MYSTERIES segment on the murders of Ron and Nicole. What was the unsolved mystery?

somebody please tell me, what did the segment show and what could Robert Stack possibly have said?

wait wait i bet i know what the OJ segment covered.

Robert Stack: "Experts are wondering how the 12 jurors are able to breathe and walk when the not guilty verdict proved their brains don't function."

*cue the creepy music*

they did a UM segment on the OJ Simpson murders??????

no they didn't! no way...lol i need to see this episode

hahahahhaha this is the funniest thing I've ever read. A UNSOLVE MYSTERIES segment on the murders of Ron and Nicole. What was the unsolved mystery?

somebody please tell me, what did the segment show and what could Robert Stack possibly have said?

The segment aired in November 1996 (when the civil trial was taking place). It posed the question of whether the police could have planted the evidence. Vincent Bugliosi and Alan Dershowitz debated on the issue in the segment, which showed a variety of archive footage related to the case.

When that segment was later repeated (after OJ was found liable in the civil trial), it included a new ending in which Robert Stack noted that it was a case with "no winners" and "two families forever ruined." He then added the fact that OJ was acquitted of Ron and Nicole's murder, and found liable in their deaths.

I don't blame you for mentioning the OJ segment. In fact, in his book Outrage, Vincent Bugliosi wrote: "Anyone who says this case is a mystery and Simpson might actually be innocent is either being disingenous - a euphemistic way of saying he or she is lying - or is suffering from a severe intellectual hernia, or is just not aware of the evidence. I know of no fourth option."


Vincent Bugliosi is a legal rock star in my book. I haven't read Outrage because I really couldn't take any further info on the Simpson case, so I appreciate your take on it, Kane. What a great quote.

My vote for a segment that never should have been made is - and I hope I'm not making this up, or have the wrong show here - the one where a woman came home to find an intruder in her house and ran away to call police. When the police came, they were surprised that the intruder had not moved from the spot "he" was in, and eventually got close enough to realize that "he" was a mannequin.

Wait, was that Forensic Files or something?

My vote for a segment that never should have been made is - and I hope I'm not making this up, or have the wrong show here - the one where a woman came home to find an intruder in her house and ran away to call police. When the police came, they were surprised that the intruder had not moved from the spot "he" was in, and eventually got close enough to realize that "he" was a mannequin.

Wait, was that Forensic Files or something?

It doesn't sound familiar. I don't recall such a story ever being on either UM or Forensic Files. So more than likely, it was never on UM.

It doesn't sound familiar. I don't recall such a story ever being on either UM or Forensic Files. So more than likely, it was never on UM.

Jeepers, sorry. Where in the heck did I see that?

The case with the woman and the mannequin was from Rescue 911. I remember seeing it when I was little and even then I thought it was stupid.

I dont know about Bugliosi or as I like to call him the Bug. I read Helter Skelter and it was a book he largely wrote to make money. He also screwed up a lot of basic details about the case even simple things like Charlie Manson's height. The Bug said Manson was 5'2 when in fact Manson is at least 5'6. Never been a fan of the Bug personally. However I have not read his book on the Simpson case so I will read that first before judging that book. However Simpson probably did do it but the evidence was very circumstancial. Cochran's line "if it doesnt fit you must acquitt" really got to the jury. It is kind of like with the Robert Blake acquittal. Blake was aquitted not because the jury did not think he did it but because the evidence was simply too circumstancial. The same with Simpson, I am sure a lot of the jurors thought he did do it but acquitted him because the evidence was too circumstancial.

any of those UFOs, Miracles, Paranormal cases; after all the show wasnt named Unsolvable Mysteries.

Chair of Death, chair of death, chair of death....
Really I enjoy this one, but it is kinda stupid. I still like it.

Theraputic Touch!!! Need I say more!

That one where the lady spits out gold - that has got to be the most ridiculous and fake story on UM EVER!

Last episode featured a ghost named Isabella who stalked the Mann´s family.

The story itself and the way it was depicted looked a little hokey. In a scene the son (who seemed to weight 300 pounds at least) was attacked by his little and thin 16 yo wife, who was apparently possesed by the ghost. To see the actress acting like it was a bad Exorcist parody and dominating her huge husband just made me laugh :).

I also watched a preview of a segment about a man who could make rain indoors. I haven´t seen the episode itself but it seems a story that UM shouldnt have done.

I also watched a preview of a segment about a man who could make rain indoors. I haven´t seen the episode itself but it seems a story that UM shouldnt have done.


I'm not sure if I mentioned it on THIS thread, but I have mentioned the Don Decker case as being one of the least believable stories UM has done... I knew someone from Stroudsberg, PA and they thought the Don Decker case was a bunch of B.S.

In any case, I'm with you on this one. :)

RAIN BOY how could I have forgotten that one. Chair of death was not to bad, I just saw that episode the other day. It seemed to be made in more of tongue in cheeck style just by the music that they used.

"The magic rock" (!!!) :lol:

'UFO Healing' on the UFO Boxset. This had no place there and had nothing to do with UFOs nor anything related. Not to mention this story doesn't really have enough bearing to be metioned otherwise. For that boxset, it is just filler compared to classics like Hudson Valley UFO and UFO Odessy (Wythville Virginia UFOs).

I havent seen this one, but the story about the guy who makes it rain indoors that was mentioned on another thread seems entirely false.

The Fertility statues. A complete WASTE of time.

Good god I saw this crap about Margaux Hemmingway today, what's it all about? I still can't see the actual "Unsolved Mystery"... talk about boring ohno: What's also terrible is that is it aired with the case of the 18 year mystery bottle journey. Had it not been for Andy Cook's rampage in between, I think that would have been the worst hour in UM history. I'm pretty sure the ad breaks were more entertaining.

I've nominated this one in the "worst cases" thread, but no one seemed that interested, but I'll nominate it again here: the one about the family who discovers that their entire development, but specifically their own house, was built on a slave burial ground (evidently unbeknownst to the builders). Shortly after discovering unmarked graves in their back yard, "mysterious" incidents happen, explainable only by ghosts. What incidents? For one, "massah" buys a new pair of shoes for his wife, and they disappear --- only to turn up mysteriously outside, stolen by the black ghosts conjured up by these people, since they don't have any black neighbors to blame and mistrust and serve as an excuse for what I'm sure is an expensive alarm system on their house.

Then, after a few more similarly stupid "occurences," the coup de grace: in frustration at all the petty thievery these "black ghosts" have brought upon their house, the family decides to kick 'em all off the plantation: that's right, they, in a panic, start trying to dig up the graves in the back. Lo and behold, the 29 year old woman unused to heavy work or even much in the way of exercise who suddenly starts doing something as strenuous as digging up soil is struck down by a heart attack. How could a 29 year old woman die of a heart attack? I know! The BLACK GHOSTS KILLED MASSAH'S DAUGHTER-IN-LAW!!! It certainly couldn't have anything to do with the heavy labor she just took up without any preparation (I live in the northeast, where every year a any number of 40 something men keel over shoveling snow, which is a lot lighter than earth, but what do I know?)...

This segment was appallingly R-A-C-I-S-T RACIST; I don't mind ghost nonsense when it's just nonsense, but the dripping subtext of this one --- a white family who conjure up imagined black people to blame a series of minor inconveniences on and then the tragic death of a young woman --- still rankles me. Why would they produce such utter garbage? Why facilitate this kind of insensate hate?

...only to turn up mysteriously outside, stolen by the black ghosts conjured up by these people, since they don't have any black neighbors to blame and mistrust and serve as an excuse for what I'm sure is an expensive alarm system on their house.

This segment was appallingly R-A-C-I-S-T RACIST; I don't mind ghost nonsense when it's just nonsense, but the dripping subtext of this one --- a white family who conjure up imagined black people to blame a series of minor inconveniences on and then the tragic death of a young woman --- still rankles me. Why would they produce such utter garbage? Why facilitate this kind of insensate hate?

LOL. You seemed pretty worked up and sincere in your assertion that this segment was overtly racist so please excuse me taking it lightly. Your statement at the top cracked me up, having to blame black ghosts because they couldn't find any black neighbors to mistrust.

We differ in that I'm sympathetic to those folks blaming the ghosts of slaves for the death of their daughter, and I don't consider that to be out and out racism. We also differ in that I believe its more a case of these people, and even moreso their neighbors with the shoes, projecting some serious white guilt into the story. Where you see racism I see people trying so hard to prove that they aren't racist they talk to, be unjustified victims of, and even apologize to, "ghosts of slaves".

However we're in agreement on one matter because I don't find the claims of a supernatural haunting to be the cause of that woman's death either. But I will say that if this case is true, if these people are indeed being haunted by the ghosts of slaves, well let's just say...I understand. I could totally understand a ghost's POV being, "Mother****er...I can't even be dead without white people trying to mess with me??! Nuh-uh...you folks are getting haunted!! Where the shoes at?!!?."

Well, I agree that if there were black ghosts haunting this family, I would totally understand why --- these people disturb my peaceful slumber to blame me for stealing their mother****ing shoes just to get some cheap publicity? Oh yeah, one dead daughter, coming up.

However, as Scooby-Doo and rational thought have taught us, THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS GHOSTS. At least, there are no such things as ghosts who can affect the physical world, and certainly no such thing as ghosts who kill people for vengeance. Especially not people who have perfectly explainable heart attacks as a result of trying to do too much after years of doing too little.

To defy reason and physics to blame imaginary black people for the death of their daughter in order to get on a television show is the vilest sort of exploitation of racial tensions that have plagued and continue to plague or nation. Let's not forget, real black people were lynched as a matter of course in the American South for a hundred years for so much as looking at a white woman ****-eyed; to literally dig up the ghosts of that despicable past for some cheap notariety is beyond everything. It replays a horrible extended "episode" that got hundreds of innocent black people killed in a viscious and unjust fashion over the course of a hundred years and, moreover, makes a mockery of all of their deaths, and it threatens to reopen national scars that were perhaps beginning to heal, all to gain one family a little media exposure. I can't imagine anything more disgusting and selfish.

It's worth noting, by the way, that precisely NO other families in that development reported any sort of problem. Just these *******s.

No doubt we can think of tons for this list and undoubtedly the vast majority will be after Lifetime took over. Here are some for the list:

Fertility statutes
99% of the animal ones (with the exception of the wild horses and sea lions being killed and the bloodhound who helps solve crimes)
Chocolate as an aphrodisiac
Twins and their bonds

Hiya Crystal!

I agree with some of your picks. I think the fertility statue was probably the #1 most worthless segment.

I think that you left out an important one -- the boys who found the big rock in the woods that brought them good luck. This one is the #2 most worthless segment.

Chocolate as an aphrodisiac is puzzling. The aforementioned silly segments have some sort of pertinence in relation to the paranormal etc... There is nothing paranormal or even mysterious about chocolate. I might have to change my mind at put this one at #1.

The boy who sent the message in a bottle that "went around the world" is worthless, but not quite as worthless since it is possible, though unlikely, that it did travel around the world.

I disagree with the twin stories being worthless. I think there is some scientific evidence to suggest that twins do indeed have some sort of "ESP" in some cases. What causes this or how it works is unexplained, of course. Twin studies (in various fields of science) have been an integral part of science for a long time.

I would have been happy if the "lost loves" category had never been a part of UM, though it did serve as a utility for people to reconnect, so it isn't all bad. I just hate watching them. I would put all lost loves segments behind the segments I just mentioned as the most worthless.

No doubt we can think of tons for this list and undoubtedly the vast majority will be after Lifetime took over. Here are some for the list:

Fertility statutes
99% of the animal ones (with the exception of the wild horses and sea lions being killed and the bloodhound who helps solve crimes)
Chocolate as an aphrodisiac
Twins and their bonds

I completely agree. A few other people have mentioned the "magic" rock, that one was pretty awful too. And the woman with the gold foil coming out of her skin and diamonds falling out of her eyes and ears. And I don't particularly care for the "Lost Loves" segments but that's because I usually end up crying when they show the update and subsequent reunion. I'm a bit soft-hearted. :o

Another segment I believe shouldn't have been made was the one about the Mann family who was being haunted by the ghost of Isabella Kramer. The entire thing was just completely unbelievable to me. When Alan claimed that his 90-pound wife had attacked and overpowered him in their bedroom, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. And in the re-enactment the nosy mother and dad are listening outside the door!

I actually enjoy most of the ghost segments, though I suppose they don't really qualify as "unsolved" mysteries ... but they are mysteries nonetheless.

I still think OJ Simpson is the most ridiculous segment, I cannot believe they did this on Unsolved Mysteries. that must be #1

Face on Mars! Even Art Bell stopped bringing that one up........

Just thought of another one: the segment where people claimed they heard a humming in their ears. No one but these people heard such a hum. This sort of thing is unprovable one way or the other and should have never been on UM. Not only that, but the whole concept is silly.

The fertility one was kinda far-fetched...but you never know. I must defend the ghost and unexplained ones, those are my favorites, with murder and missing a close second. I don't see how the Black Hope Curse segment is considered racist; it's one of my favorite ghost stories by far. Keep in mind I don't believe in curses, but hauntings yes. I found the two couples very believable.

The fertility one was kinda far-fetched...but you never know. I must defend the ghost and unexplained ones, those are my favorites, with murder and missing a close second. I don't see how the Black Hope Curse segment is considered racist; it's one of my favorite ghost stories by far. Keep in mind I don't believe in curses, but hauntings yes. I found the two couples very believable.

I suppose there is a "crisis of faith" question here: if you believe in ghosts, I suppose it isn't racist. But if you don't believe in ghosts, like I said, it's dripping with subtext. Since I think the very notion of ghosts is absurd on its face, I don't have much sympathy for white families who want to blame dead slaves for the death of their daughter, and see something quite suspiscious in the whole thing. Had they been the ghosts of white people, would their daughter be alive?

Hiya Crystal!

I agree with some of your picks. I think the fertility statue was probably the #1 most worthless segment.

I think that you left out an important one -- the boys who found the big rock in the woods that brought them good luck. This one is the #2 most worthless segment.

Chocolate as an aphrodisiac is puzzling. The aforementioned silly segments have some sort of pertinence in relation to the paranormal etc... There is nothing paranormal or even mysterious about chocolate. I might have to change my mind at put this one at #1.

The boy who sent the message in a bottle that "went around the world" is worthless, but not quite as worthless since it is possible, though unlikely, that it did travel around the world.

I disagree with the twin stories being worthless. I think there is some scientific evidence to suggest that twins do indeed have some sort of "ESP" in some cases. What causes this or how it works is unexplained, of course. Twin studies (in various fields of science) have been an integral part of science for a long time.

I would have been happy if the "lost loves" category had never been a part of UM, though it did serve as a utility for people to reconnect, so it isn't all bad. I just hate watching them. I would put all lost loves segments behind the segments I just mentioned as the most worthless.

Just to clarify its not that the twin segment is unworthy to be looked at or anything its just that I didn't think it was something Unsolved Mysteries should have shown. I mean what is unsolved about that...its pretty apparent that they do have a special bond. IMO that was the problem in the later years, they kept showing science and paranormal crap that really had no clear cut answer to it and therefore wasn't going to be "solved". In the early years it seemed more about finding people who were missing, solving crimes or speculating about what happened, stories that had definite answers out there even if we may never know what they are. My two cents anyway.

This segment was appallingly R-A-C-I-S-T RACIST; I don't mind ghost nonsense when it's just nonsense, but the dripping subtext of this one --- a white family who conjure up imagined black people to blame a series of minor inconveniences on and then the tragic death of a young woman --- still rankles me. Why would they produce such utter garbage? Why facilitate this kind of insensate hate?

I think this is a spot-on analysis, mozart. It's the new "Indian burial ground." Pretty offensive! The fact that it was a slave cemetary made it a sensational story...persecuted people coming back to take their revenge on innocent white people. If it had been a regular old cemetary, it would have been too boring to mention on tv.

I suppose there is a "crisis of faith" question here: if you believe in ghosts, I suppose it isn't racist. But if you don't believe in ghosts, like I said, it's dripping with subtext. Since I think the very notion of ghosts is absurd on its face, I don't have much sympathy for white families who want to blame dead slaves for the death of their daughter, and see something quite suspiscious in the whole thing. Had they been the ghosts of white people, would their daughter be alive?
yes, I agree, I see how it would depend on whether you believe or not (as I do, I've seen two and am an amateur ghost hunter, but you don't have to believe me :) But still, was it not a fact, that the ground was old burial grounds? I don't think it mattered whether the people were black or white, I just don't see it as a issue of race, but that's just me!

I have not seen this racist ghost segment!

...I feel so left out.

*grin*

Isabella Kramer was the greatest Segment ever created. IT was like Watching Elaine From Seinfeld Overpower Newman

The magic rock segment is so bad it's good. The acting on it is horrible "It's really cool".... Could they have found less believable actors to portray the boys?

I can't stand the child genius who prefers museums and archeology digs. That boy is a chore to listen to - I'd love an update on what he's up to these days.
LOL. Maybe I am wrong to agree, but that kid is so anoying!!!! I kind of feel bad for kids like that who never had a chance for a normal childhood. There is part of him who is really disturbed. I do wonder what became of him????

I dunno. I can totally see how it is racist to sensationalize the fact that it was the graves of slaves. However, I just watched that one on the DVD set, and the Haneys really seemed genuine. People that age dont risk all they have worked for in life over something they dont believe in. Maybe Im easily duped, but I defintely thought that THEY believed what was happening to them was real. Whether or not I do, not sure....

And to whoever said that the Haunted Bunk Bed segment was worthless, right on! Seriously, at one point they said they thought it was the devil. If a "devil" as we know it truly existed, I doubt that it would spend its time playing with radio dials and putting paint brushes in cans.....

Even the family wouldnt show themselves.

Silly.

I have to say the fertility statues were an all time low. . .

I have a new and sort of strange addition to this list, in that it does involve an "unsolved" death. These types of cases are of course usually well past the threshold of minimal interest, and are, personally, my favorite kinds of cases along with missing persons. So this is a bit of an exception to the usual rule.

Nevertheless, I just recently re-watched the Kenneth Inge (Enge?) case; this is the one about the guy who is found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his own garage. A pickup truck was also in the garage, but not running when Kenneth was found. At first glance this appeared to be a suicide, but some of Kenneth's friends kicked up a fuss and said he wasn't the type to off himself. It came out that Kenneth, an auto body mechanic, was in a fight earlier that evening with another auto body mechanic over who was going to take home a cocktail waitress. Kenneth had lost the fight and the girl, and in retaliation had intentionally broadsided this other mechanic's car with his own car as he was leaving the bar. This other mechanic, being the mental giant that he was, decided to go to Kenneth's home to give Kenneth's truck as good as his own had gotten; while he was kicking Kenneth's truck, he claims he heard a groaning coming from inside Kenneth's garage. When he went to check it out, he saw Kenneth on the ground, to his eyes apparently just passed out from a night of heavy drinking. He left him there, unaware, apparently, of how dangerous a place the garage had become, owing to a lethal amount of carbon monoxide that had been inside of it. Kenneth was found dead later in the same spot this other mechanic left him. The other mechanic freely admits to all of this.

I nominate this one as a stupid case for UM principally because the "competing narrative," proposed mostly by a friend of Kenneth's, to the authorities' account of what happened is so undifferentiated. The authorities don't even claim that Kenneth killed himself intentionally; since the car was found off, this would be a tough claim anyway. The authorities suggest that Kenneth sat inside his truck, engine running, for a little while, anticipating yet another confrontation with the other mechanic - I think they deduced Kenneth was waiting for the other mechanic because he was apparently found with a shotgun nearby. After a while, he starts to realize that the carbon monoxide is getting to him and this was, in general, a terrible idea, and so he turns the car off and attempts to exit the garage. Drunk and disabled because of the carbon monoxide, he doesn't quite make the door, and ends up dying from the remaining exhaust in the garage.

Kenneth's friend claims that what happened was that the other mechanic arrived while Kenneth was still in full possession of his faculties, though Kenneth had apparently still had allowed the truck to run in the garage for quite some time before the other mechanic showed up - even Kenneth's friend concedes this point. When the other mechanic shows up, they fight, the other mechanic gets the best of Kenneth again, knocking him to the ground. Then, before leaving, the other mechanic shuts off the pick up truck, leaving Kenneth.

The problem with this theory is that the coroner assures us, on camera, that there were no signs on Kenneth's body of a fight shortly before his death. He did not appear to have been assaulted.

This, to me, is a really, really lame case for UM; even if we accept Kenneth's friend's narrative of Kenneth's death, and not the "official" version, exactly what crime could the other mechanic be charged with? Even in the alternate theory of the case, there is clearly no intent to kill Kenneth, since the other mechanic, by Kenneth's friend's own admission, would have had to turn the truck off himself. Moreover, if there was enough carbon monoxide in the garage to kill Kenneth, it must have been because Kenneth, and no one else, had been running the truck in the garage for some time before the other mechanic even showed up. So, by both accounts, Kenneth was the one chiefly responsible for the garage being filled with carbon monoxide, and, at worst, the other mechanic turned the truck off, attempting to keep the garage from becoming unsafe for human habitation, but he apparently was too late in his efforts. I don't see how charges could be filed, even if we take everything Kenneth's friend says for gospel truth.

I find it quite surprising, therefore, that they would have bothered to film this case, when they, as we know, turn down so many worthy alternatives. Check out this case, about which I only recently found out, which UM was asked to profile, but never did. So far as I can discover, it has never been solved; indeed, the missing person in question does not even appear on the Doe Network or the Charlie Project:

John Bealer started July 30, 1993, the way he started most days, waking around 7 a.m. and preparing for work. He didn't have a long commute. Miller's, the auto shop where Bealer worked as a mechanic, was a quarter-mile from his house along Route 309 in Germansville.

He grabbed the morning paper and met his wife, Barbara, on their back patio for coffee. They lamented the news that Nazareth was ending its Cruise Nights. Both were car enthusiasts, and even had his and her '57 Chevys.

He left at 7:45 a.m., she recalled. She was recovering from an operation, but decided to work for a few hours. She left around 11 a.m.

She returned home at 2 p.m. A garage door was open, the couple's Plymouth inside, its hood up. A radio blared. John had wanted to replace a gasket in the car; he must be doing it, she figured. Even drained the antifreeze, she noticed.

His wallet, keys and other belongings sat undisturbed in the house. She called his name, inside and outside. Silence answered.

She began calling friends and relatives. No one had seen him.

Two days shy of 51, John Bealer was gone.

At 6 the next morning, his wife called the state police. That afternoon, they searched the largely rural area with a helicopter. Fliers with his description -- 5-foot-3, 145 pounds, gray hair, green eyes -- spread throughout the community.

About 300 people canvassed the area two days later -- but found nothing.

<snip>

Mrs. Bealer tensed anytime she read or heard that a body had been found. She wrote to "Unsolved Mysteries," but the show's producers declined to televise her case.

The above information is excerpted from an article by John P. Martin that appeared in the article originally published in the Monday, January 9, 1995 edition of the Allentown Morning Call.

Nevertheless, I just recently re-watched the Kenneth Inge (Enge?) case; this is the one about the guy who is found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his own garage. A pickup truck was also in the garage, but not running when Kenneth was found. At first glance this appeared to be a suicide, but some of Kenneth's friends kicked up a fuss and said he wasn't the type to off himself

I disagree. I think this was a good UM segment in that it showed how blurry the line is between accident, suicide and murder. As you can attest to mozartpc, there are tons of cases that where those lines are blurred and it is impossible to conclusively make a determination.

From what I have learned from coroners, they usually always go with murder first unless there is clear cut evidence against it.

Detectives, who are overworked, tend to always try to go with accidental and suicide whenever possible.

I haven't even gotten to insurance investigators or personal injury lawyers who have their own agendas.

I disagree. I think this was a good UM segment in that it showed how blurry the line is between accident, suicide and murder. As you can attest to mozartpc, there are tons of cases that where those lines are blurred and it is impossible to conclusively make a determination.

From what I have learned from coroners, they usually always go with murder first unless there is clear cut evidence against it.

Detectives, who are overworked, tend to always try to go with accidental and suicide whenever possible.

I haven't even gotten to insurance investigators or personal injury lawyers who have their own agendas.

But Mastermind, my point was that, just from judging the evidence at the scene and the cause of death (carbon monoxide inhalation), the only kind of "murder" that would be possible would be someone trying to poison him in that way. The problem is that even the people claiming the authorities' story is false concede that the guy who supposedly did this turned the truck off; they probably concede this because, since the truck was found off, he must have been the one to turn it off if Kenneth Enge wasn't responsible for the whole incident in the first place.

But the obvious problem with that is: why would he do this if he was trying to kill anybody? Again, even Kenneth's friend concedes that the other mechanic turned the car off. So, essentially, he is conceding the other mechanic had no intent.

QED, there is no "murder," per se. Even the people who think so don't think so. It's like the least compelling "mystery" ever.

I posted this before. I think Ingey (sp?) sat in the vehicle for some time with the engine running . He then shut off the engine and continued to sit in the truck. He heard Heck arrive and got out of the truck, collapsing before he reached the door. The friend interviewed in teh segment is actually Ingey's uncle.

Georgia Rudolph cannot be brought up too often in any Hall of Shame. The most beautifully filmed pile of garbage to behold! :(

The story itself and the way it was depicted looked a little hokey. In a scene the son (who seemed to weight 300 pounds at least) was attacked by his little and thin 16 yo wife, who was apparently possesed by the ghost. To see the actress acting like it was a bad Exorcist parody and dominating her huge husband just made me laugh . Oh gosh I hope I don't sound too mean but that chubby hubby was...not attractive. At all. I thought to myself, gee I hope that new wife is happy: Stuck with a very overweight hubby AND getting to live with his parents! WOW!

I posted this before. I think Ingey (sp?) sat in the vehicle for some time with the engine running . He then shut off the engine and continued to sit in the truck. He heard Heck arrive and got out of the truck, collapsing before he reached the door. The friend interviewed in teh segment is actually Ingey's uncle.


I discovered that actual spelling of Kenneth's last name is Engie. For years, I thought his surname began with an "I" because it sounded like it was being pronounced, In-gee.

Old topic but what the heck;

First one that came to mind was Tony Marabella... guy falls over playing baseball...shiit happens n errr the end...something like that :rolleyes2
The stupidest thing about that case is that if you look at the guy's numbers, you can't even tell when he "got better" cause he never did, he always sucked. Topped out hitting .225 in brief AA action.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=marabe001ant

I have to nominate one (lesser known) case that I saw on UM on Spike and made a brief post on - Conradina Olsen.

Essentially, the segment is this: woman is looking for her ancestor (great-grandmother, i think) who got on a train and rode away, never to be seen again, sometime in the early 20th century.

The focus of the segment is two-fold, a "psychic" told the woman some generic and unverifiable crap about great-grandma, which convinced the woman her great-grandfather murdered Conradina and that she's buried in Missouri because some town there has an old story about a woman who got off a train, fought with a man, and was killed. The whole problem with this is that the segment makes clear the Missouri story took place 20+ years before Conradina disappeared. What, then, was the point of making it the focus and why, other than a fondness for magical thinking and deficiency in drawing conclusions, would the woman ever think this had anything at all to do with her ancestor?

I think the purpose of all these 'stupid' segments was to add some light-hearted content to the show. In order to gain a wider audience.

After so many stories of murder and missing persons a story like Rainboy could have worked as a comedy relief. Not to me BTW :rolleyes:

The child genius segment
Tony Marabella segment
Fertility statues

I didn't like the story about the dork who had the message in a bottle who was trying to find the people who found it and then wrote him a letter back. What mystery is this? Let's say that he did find the couple who wrote back to him...THEN WHAT? Outside of a possible 5 minute conversation that they would have, what else could they have possibly had to catch-up on/talk about? It just seemed kind of creepy to me that the boy (as an adult) would still be worried about finding 2 people who wrote him a letter, WHOM HE DID NOT KNOW AT ALL.

I also was never fond of the fertility statues or the story about the guy who got hit on the head and he became a psychic for the CIA (I think I'm remembering this story right). And the Kenneth Engie story I actually enjoyed but I do see how there really isn't a myster involved at all. If Curtis Heck did come back and rough him up, he still didn't kill him intentionally. At best he could have gotten some sort of manslaughter charge but that would even have been tough to get considering he wasn't going there to kill him. I guess some people just don't want to except the truth sometimes.

It's important to keep in mind that a show with a schedule like Unsolved Mysteries had to rely on filler episodes every now and then.

The fertility statues and the "madness of world leaders" scream filler.

Sometimes they were not able to get cases or had production demands that required a filler segment.

Yes there's always filler on just about any news show (especially anyone's local news program), but the story about the message in a bottle always grinded my gears for some reason.

I think it was the first UFO story ever featured on UM but the Gulf Breeze UFO story is regarded by nearly everyone with an interest in the subject as a complete hoax. I think UM (and a lot of other people) got fooled on that one. In fact, I'm not even sure that segment even appears on the UM UFO DVD set.

Also the "Guardian" UFO story from Carp, Ontario. Total and complete hoax. The only reason anyone gave it any credibility is because Bruce Maccabee bought into it. I've talked with Dr. Maccabee before and though he does seem to be a really nice guy I think he got fooled by some Candian rednecks with some road flares and a white pickup truck.

I think it was the first UFO story ever featured on UM but the Gulf Breeze UFO story is regarded by nearly everyone with an interest in the subject as a complete hoax. I think UM (and a lot of other people) got fooled on that one. In fact, I'm not even sure that segment even appears on the UM UFO DVD set.

I believe the model in Walters home was not found until way after this segment aired. Considering nearly 6,000 people saw the UFO, how could they NOT show it!!! It would be like not doing a Bigfoot segment under Strange Legends,

This model may not necessarily prove a hoax. Walters may have built the thing as a visual aid. There are also some difficulties he would have deploying this model.

Also the "Guardian" UFO story from Carp, Ontario. Total and complete hoax. The only reason anyone gave it any credibility is because Bruce Maccabee bought into it. I've talked with Dr. Maccabee before and though he does seem to be a really nice guy I think he got fooled by some Candian rednecks with some road flares and a white pickup truck.

I don;t quite appreciate your phrase "Candian rednecks". Please refrain from using that phrase or any other potentially derogatory comments about ethnicity.

What proof do you have that it is a hoax? How is this case any different from ANY of the UFO cases they show. Are you suggesting the UM not have shown UFO cases?

WRT Gulf Breeze it wasn't just the model. It was also that witnesses came forward that they helped Walters fake the photos. I also read his book and the bit where MUFON gave him the sealed 3D camera and how he handled that seemed very fishy to me. And the real clincher is that the photo of the UFO hovering over the road has been conclusively proven to be a fake. Can't really blame the producers of UM, Walters fooled a lot of people and made a whole truckload of cash off of book advances. I think the fact that this segment was not included on the DVDs speaks volumes.

OK so at least the Gulf Breeze was a pretty good hoax, but looking back at it I'm amazed that so many people bought into the Guardian case. First there's the laughably fake "classified" documents, the badly faked alien footage, leaving the video as the only thing even slightly credible. The clincher was the stories from other UFO researchers who felt that Bob Oshcler and Mrs Lambanek were working together to fake the whole thing. Looking at the "saucer" footage 20 years on now, it looks... fake.

So anyway, although I consder myself a UFO skeptic, I really enjoyed the UFO segments on UM. The Wytheville case and the Texas case were well done and still have me scratching my head.

So anyway I do consider myself a UFO skeptic but I really enjoyed the UFO

I think the fact that this segment was not included on the DVDs speaks volumes.

I don't think that would have stopped them from putting it on the DVDs.

They've put the Anastasia episde on video and it was proven she was a fake.
They even had the update that said so.

I think it has more to do with rights and space requirements.

I can't stand the child genius who prefers museums and archeology digs. That boy is a chore to listen to - I'd love an update on what he's up to these days.

Didn't you hear? He just retired.

Normally, I try to be cool about kids, but that child genius made me want to choke him out! Him whining about the dinosaur bones...ugh!:eek:

The aphrodisiac segment was also wack as hell!:confused: That made the show jump the shark....

The segment where the guy keeps being mistaken for another guy who supposedly looks just like him. However, nobody knows who the "twin" is nor do they ever ask him his name, job, etc. whenever they run into him (usually five minutes before the first guy shows up). The whole thing is ridiculous.

The segment where the guy keeps being mistaken for another guy who supposedly looks just like him. However, nobody knows who the "twin" is nor do they ever ask him his name, job, etc. whenever they run into him (usually five minutes before the first guy shows up). The whole thing is ridiculous.

Jim Boomgarden. A lot of people here thought this case was a hoax. A relative of his actually posted semi-recently and said that Jim passed away a few years after the segment aired and that they never did locate the twin.

How about the one about stockbrokers using astrology as a guide for doing their job? In the segment, several stockbrokers (one in siloette) were admitting to using astrology, and their clients not knowing about it. Several random people off the street were interviewed and were asked about it, they each said they would think the stockbroker was crazy. One stockbroker was crediting his use of astrology for saving his clients tons of money, because he was able to foretell a huge drop in the stockmarket. What do you all think about this segment? True or totally made-up?

How about the one about stockbrokers using astrology as a guide for doing their job? In the segment, several stockbrokers (one in siloette) were admitting to using astrology, and their clients not knowing about it. Several random people off the street were interviewed and were asked about it, they each said they would think the stockbroker was crazy. One stockbroker was crediting his use of astrology for saving his clients tons of money, because he was able to foretell a huge drop in the stockmarket. What do you all think about this segment? True or totally made-up?

I think he was one lucky stockbroker. The very fact that he was unwilling to appear on camera and share his story tells you all you need to know, I think, about consulting the stars for stock advice.

I know I am in the minority on this, but I like the message-in-a-bottle segment. That's the sort of light-hearted fare that I understand UM wanting to include. There's still a mystery; if you'll recall, the guy who put the message in the bottle put the bottle in the water into Lake Erie from the Quebec side of it. When he got the message back - 20 years later - it came in an envelope postmarked San Diego. Much of the segment was focused on whether or not the bottle could have actually circumnavigated the globe; by finding the person who sent the message back, the guy hoped to find out if the person had actually found the bottle recently on the coast of California - which would suggest that the bottle had indeed made it out to the Atlantic from Lake Erie via the St. Lawrence River, and then been taken by the currents all the way around the globe to the other side of the North American continent - or whether the person had found it somewhere close to where the guy had throw it in the water, but only mailed it, for whatever reason, years later from San Diego. I, for one, would like to know the answer to this question, so I thought it was a fun little "mystery": could a message in a bottle really make it around the world?

I also thought the Jim Baumgartner segment was a fine segment, if indeed he was telling the truth (which, apparently, he was). There was someone, in his case, he was actually looking for, so there was a real mystery to be solved there. I don't usually like the "Lost Love" segments, but this is one of the few for which I make an exception.

As for the ghosts & UFO segments, to me, they are not great subjects for Unsolved Mysteries, because they are never going to be "solved" in any meaningful way most of the time; the best that can usually happen is that a hoax will be exposed. That said, I realize that most of them are harmless fun, so I try not to be too much of a sourpuss about them, but there is once case I mention upthread that I thought was truly awful: the one about the black slave ghosts who come back from the dead to murder white people. I mean, this was just the worst kind of racist pablum. It indulges every sort of terrible, racist stereotype and racial fear that coddled suburban white people secretly nourish, and all for something that ISN'T EVEN REAL!!!!!!! Just an awful, awful segment; if I were Stack, I would have refused to narrate it. I think it is that offensive.

As for the ghosts & UFO segments, to me, they are not great subjects for Unsolved Mysteries, because they are never going to be "solved" in any meaningful way most of the time; the best that can usually happen is that a hoax will be exposed. That said, I realize that most of them are harmless fun, so I try not to be too much of a sourpuss about them, but there is once case I mention upthread that I thought was truly awful: the one about the black slave ghosts who come back from the dead to murder white people. I mean, this was just the worst kind of racist pablum. It indulges every sort of terrible, racist stereotype and racial fear that coddled suburban white people secretly nourish, and all for something that ISN'T EVEN REAL!!!!!!! Just an awful, awful segment; if I were Stack, I would have refused to narrate it. I think it is that offensive.

This is personal taste and viewpoint. Your more into the Unsolved Murders rather than the Mysterious Phenomenon. Fine, it's your perrogative. Several people loved this segments and for a time UM was the only show on TV during the 80s and 90s that handled

Unsolved Mysteries was indeed inspired a lot by "In Search of.." and in fact took over that shows audience in a way.

Personally I think there UFO and Ghost segments were as well done from a production standpoint. The Mothman, Roswell, Allagash Abduction cases, and Black Hope Curse are among the more memorable and frightening

I hate to break this to you, but the reason you like Unsolved Mysteries has nothing to do with seeing these cases solved. You like UM because of that internal desire and fear that people have of the unknown, whether it be an unsolved murder,

We are frightened of the Cindy James case for the same reason we are frightend of the Allagash Abduction...we fear the concept of an unseen subject that we are powerless to stop.

Nobody is a 100% sure of anything in life. There is always that percentage of doubt and uncertainty that makes life interesting. UM is about that percentage of doubt and uncertainty.


That's why we love mysteries so. ;)

In regards to the Lost Loves segments.

The success rates on Lost Love segments was suspectedly going to be high., due to the fact that the search subjects were not avoiding being found. It's easier to find a family member living in Des Moines, Iowa than a suspected murderer hiding in God knows where.

I do wonder at times if Unsolved Mysteries clearance rate was bolstered by a lot of these Lost Loves clearances.

Glad so many mentions on that message in a bottle story. The interviewee seemed so flaky, like he was an attention hound, and so happy that UM wanted to speak to him.

I just remembered a segment that was kind of bogus. Remember the guy who would go into a "trance" and "channel" dead artists and create these works that supposedly resembled the styles of the artists? How convenient they happened to be artists like Monet, or Van Gogh. It was a bit of a stretch.

How bout that stupid bitch who was crying gold? That segment was a total crock. THat should have never wasted air time

Don't forget the one about the lady striken with cancer that claimed a tiny UFO flew in her window and circled her body and flew back out and she was miraculously cured of cancer. :rolleyes:



LOL

The Aprhodisiac, Fertility statues and the message in a bottle all were very weak segments. Yet to me the weakest was the whole segment but part of it and it was the Man in Black one. I think the Men in Black segment was a good idea for a segment and the first part was interesting. But the lady that claimed she saw a men in black because of seeing a man in the street dressed in black was the weakest thing I've ever saw in the show. I mean, she didn't even interact with the guy. That was as big as stretch as I've ever seen in the show. I have never seen anything with such a lack of credibility not even the Clifford mom saying it wasn't her little boy who was found dead because she had a "feeling". To me that was a low point for the show.

I also agree about how a bad idea the Tony Marabella segment was. They should at least have waited until he got to the majors league. Now it's a pretty bad segment as the guy ended up being a total bust. It's like nowadays you see it and it's like "Tony Marabella had amnesia and got better and suddenly improved his baseball career". And you go "Tony who?". That ended up being the most dated segment because of it.

The Aprhodisiac, Fertility statues and the message in a bottle all were very weak segments. Yet to me the weakest was the whole segment but part of it and it was the Man in Black one. I think the Men in Black segment was a good idea for a segment and the first part was interesting. But the lady that claimed she saw a men in black because of seeing a man in the street dressed in black was the weakest thing I've ever saw in the show. I mean, she didn't even interact with the guy. That was as big as stretch as I've ever seen in the show. I have never seen anything with such a lack of credibility not even the Clifford mom saying it wasn't her little boy who was found dead because she had a "feeling". To me that was a low point for the show.

The thing that I hated about the Men in Black segment, is that it's the freaking Men in Black. That alone is worthy of the segment being split into 2 commercial breaks. You don't relegate it to 10 minutes, and have it be weak.

That was a dropped ball, big time by Unsolved Mysteries.

The thing that I hated about the Men in Black segment, is that it's the freaking Men in Black. That alone is worthy of the segment being split into 2 commercial breaks. You don't relegate it to 10 minutes, and have it be weak.

That was a dropped ball, big time by Unsolved Mysteries.

Yeah the movie was out at the time and I think they just did a lazy job of trying to capitalize on it.

I just remembered a segment that was kind of bogus. Remember the guy who would go into a "trance" and "channel" dead artists and create these works that supposedly resembled the styles of the artists? How convenient they happened to be artists like Monet, or Van Gogh. It was a bit of a stretch.

Oh yeah, that was "Gasparetto" and he was from Brazil. I wonder how legit this guy is.

Oh yeah, that was "Gasparetto" and he was from Brazil. I wonder how legit this guy is.

yeah, I think his full name is Luis Antonio Gesperatto. I think he is the real deal, I think it would be extremely difficult to make so many wonderful paintings on his own accord without getting some assistance from the spirits. IIRC, he didn't even look on the canvas when he was painting them.

Sorry if its been mentioned but I watched this case when I was a kid about a mysterious woman who was at a bar and met up with this guy but communicating with 'eye language' or something and then from there foul play occurred. Anyone remember?

OK...so this is just my personal opinion. The episode that I think should never have been made is "Mystery Hum" and here's why. It's not the actual episode that is bad...I actually find the subject to be very interesting but...I cannot stand they guy that is being interviewed in it. I actually have had to skip over that episode when I'm watching the DVD sets. I don't know what it is about that guy...but he annoys me and gives me the creeps at the same time. When he speaks it's like nails on a chalkboard. It sounds like he is almost whining throughout the entire interview. I don't know...that's just my opinion. So he is the reason I think it shuld never have been made.

Yeah the movie was out at the time and I think they just did a lazy job of trying to capitalize on it.

Yep, and that's sad. It's why I think UM should have never made the segment. If you're going to make a segment on the Men in Black, don't be lazy and half ass it. They didn't half ass Son of Sam, Zodiac/Unabomber connection, Amelia Earhart, The Grand Duchess Anastasia, the first Sasquatch case, Flight 19, or Roswell, and those are extremely high profile.

Of course most of those cases were during the NBC run, and that could explain why those weren't half assed. Hell even the Mothman segment was made to capitalize on the movie, and it wasn't lazy. It was an excellent segment.

The only segment I felt shouldn;t be made was Pat Farmer, affectionately known as the "Satanic Grandma". :D

This was a segment where I felt UM took a really average story and simply jazzed it up to scare the crap out of kids watching it.:eek:

If you really look at the case, the Satanism angle was a small part of it. It was really about that women trying to keep the grandchild to herself.

BTW- Anyone think that 'Satanic Grandma' would be a great name for an 80s Heavy metal band!!!!. :p

Another segement I don't think should have been made was the Margeaux Hemingway one. Unlike the one about the Bruce Lee sketch, this one seemed to be grasping at straws and it really didn't add much. Plus I kind of remember in the original segment that they showed some tv show interview from her and it seemed out of place. Kind of it ended up being like some E True Hollywood story type of thing. As if they were capitalizing on the buzz of the story at the time.

Vincent Bugliosi is a legal rock star in my book. I haven't read Outrage because I really couldn't take any further info on the Simpson case, so I appreciate your take on it, Kane. What a great quote.

My vote for a segment that never should have been made is - and I hope I'm not making this up, or have the wrong show here - the one where a woman came home to find an intruder in her house and ran away to call police. When the police came, they were surprised that the intruder had not moved from the spot "he" was in, and eventually got close enough to realize that "he" was a mannequin.

Wait, was that Forensic Files or something?

You're not making that up but you've got the wrong show. That was on Rescue 9/11

No doubt we can think of tons for this list and undoubtedly the vast majority will be after Lifetime took over. Here are some for the list:

Fertility statutes
99% of the animal ones (with the exception of the wild horses and sea lions being killed and the bloodhound who helps solve crimes)
Chocolate as an aphrodisiac
Twins and their bonds

The fertility statues one was slightly boring, as I think was the aphrodisiac chocolate one. And the Loch Ness Monster/Bigfoot ones were also laughable, although I see why UM included them since they are such popular myths

I can go both ways with the Lost Loves segments. There were quite a few that were quite moving and touching -I was particularly moved by the one with the Asian-American Vietnam veteran who was trying to find his African-American friend who saved his life after he stepped on a landmine and the reunion they had. I can understand why people thought the one where that former student looking for her music teacher was unecessary even though I quite enjoyed that one and there were special circumstances with the case -the student's accident and her temporary memory loss and the like

On the other hand, they could be tedious and repetitive as well. With quite a lot of the cases, they seemed to be the same stories with the same circumstances with just the states and some of the details slightly different. It could get VERY boring after a while

Yay fertility statues! They were on again today. I guess UM needs to remind us about their decades old folly, while suckering Dennis Farina into narrating that mess... lol

I'm gonna go all "conspiracy theory" on you guys now, but you're used to crazy stuff in my posts. :crazy:

I wonder if some of these oddball segments like

the mediocre baseball player
the Tellington Touch animal lady
the heiroglyphic rock that had all the elements of nature
Rain Boy
Ripley's Believe it or Not fertility statues
Black Hope Curse (they got a tv movie outta that one)
chocolate aphrodisiacs
the now debunked Gulf Breeze UFO (gotta book deal, didn't he?)
some of the less believable psychics, ghosties, UFOs
Chair of Death (didn't that pub drum up some business on the chair legend?)
message in a bottle kid
etc....

Anyway, I'm wondering if maybe some of these folks were distant relatives, friends, cousin's brother's uncle's stepfather, neighbors, or somebody that was related to or had a connection to a UM staffer that gave them an inside edge on getting their weird segment produced.

Or if they had agents who pitched these people and their stories to UM in an attempt to obtain book or movie deals out of less than 15 minutes of "fame".

Honestly, for some of these, I can't really see any other motive, unless the UM people had an inside bet going about which one of them would succeed in getting the most ridiculous segment ever put on the air. :D

My top votes are:

-The healing UFO
-The Washington lucky rock
-Conradina Olson


Of course, y'all named plenty more. These are just the ones that come immediately to mind.

Anyway, I'm wondering if maybe some of these folks were distant relatives, friends, cousin's brother's uncle's stepfather, neighbors, or somebody that was related to or had a connection to a UM staffer that gave them an inside edge on getting their weird segment produced.

You know, I've actually had this same thought about the weaker unexplained death/wanted/missing persons segments on UM, and wondered if they were only on the show because someone on the UM staff had a connection to the victim or their family.

The best example I can this of is the segment about Kenneth Engie, who was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage, but his family thought it was murder because the ignition key was turned off. The problem is that their so-called "murder" scenario involved the guy Kenneth just had a drunken fight with earlier that night finding him passed out on the garage floor and then turning off the ignition key before leaving. Well, if that's true, then... so what? Turning off the key only means that the so-called "murderer" was concerned for Kenneth's well-being!

It really wasn't much of a "mystery" at all and should never have been on the show to begin with, but I just had this feeling that someone on the staff had a personal connection to it and didn't want to accept that he simply died because of his own drunken stupidity. The previously mentioned Conradina Olson segment is another good example as I wonder if someone involved with UM was related to her in some way.

I'd never thought of the personal connection angle before, but it does seem entirely plausible. Good thinking, TracyLynnS!

I could never get into most of the Lost Loves segments. A few were intriguing when there were other elements to the story, but the ones which involved people who had been gone for fifty years and were probably dead just didn't interest me all that much.

The animal segments didn't really bother me that much, don't mind a heart warming story once in awhile as long as its crafted right. The fertility statue episode left a bad taste in my mouth.

I was surprised someone mentioned Vince Foster, thought it was very intriguing personally.

Wow. I am surprised that so many people are down on the unexplained segments. I will give you the chocolates and fertility statues, but most of the ghost and or UFO segments I always find intriguing. At the very least they are unexplained phenomena that deserve a segment. The exception being the healing UFO and the woman featured in the men in black segment. I would give some (very little, but some) credibility to the guy, but if I am not mistaken, didn't the woman just get creeped out by some guy she saw on the street? How the hell did they ever think she would be interesting to interview? I don't believe every UFO case out there, but some are very interesting. But that lady was just a nut. I think that some of the men in black stories I have heard of over the years are interesting, and may have some bit of truth to them. But that segment makes anyone who might actually have a legitimate story to tell come off as insane because they decided to interview some nut case. Could have been an interesting segment, but was executed poorly.

In no particular order

Cokeville
The church explosion where no one was there for unexplained reasons.
Kurt Cobain and 2pac and Biggie
Fertility statues

What happened to Tony Marabella after he flopped with baseball?

Dennis depue. They should not have interviewed his daughter at least.

In no particular order

Cokeville
The church explosion where no one was there for unexplained reasons.
Kurt Cobain and 2pac and Biggie
Fertility statues
LOL, 2 of them are on the miracles dvd

Bryan Nisenfeld. If producers couldn't interview or get the consent of the student whom Nisenfeld's mom accused of having something to do with the death of her son, they should have canned the segment. Irresponsible journalism.

Dennis depue. They should not have interviewed his daughter at least.

Respectfully disagree. But for the show, DePuke may not have been caught.

My nominations are:

The fertility statues
The dude who made it rain indoors
The Devil Worshipping Grandma

Dennis depue. They should not have interviewed his daughter at least.

Why not? I could understand feeling horrible for her and her situation but she didn't seem to have any problem doing the interview. And family members were interviewed all the time on UM who witnessed horrible things happen to their loved ones. For instance, Larry Dickens mother and sister witnessed him get shot several times and were still interviewed.

The DePue segment was big stuff locally for me. The murder having taken place about 90 minutes down the road from where I grew up. And Marylinn's funeral, I later learned, took place just a few blocks from my house. She must have originally been from my area or something.

But I remember leaving for school a couple days after that segment originally aired and seeing the newspapers and local news covering DePue's suicide after he had been profiled on UM. How often did a criminal watch their own case on TV? The following week, the producers of UM were so intrigued by how the whole thing went down, Robert Stack actually announced what happened to DePue before he previewed that evenings segments.

I was all set to jump on board and bash the Lost Loves cases, but after thinking about it, I believe they brought a nice balance to the show originally. I don't have a way of proving this, but on the original Lifetime syndication, I think they played LL cases with much higher frequency than they actually aired.
Again, no proof, just going off memory.

So many mentions of the child genius, Philip Pauli.

Out of curiosity I checked LinkedIn, and there is a profile that I think could be him. No photo, but the location of his undergrad and general age totally fit the segment. If it's true, he's been working on brain injury research for the last 4 years.

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=198318022&authType=name&authToken=uMDe&trk=connect_hub_pymk_profile_photo

I'd go with Gold Foil Lady and Magic Rock if I was limited to just two segments to eliminate.

I was surprised by all the mentions of Philip Pauli as well. I always had a soft spot for that kid. I'm not a genius, but like him I was a brainy kid who read a lot and worried about the future, so I can relate to some of the stuff he talked about in the segment. Like to think Philip eventually grew up, gained some life experience, and became a healthy, happy adult.

So many mentions of the child genius, Philip Pauli.

Out of curiosity I checked LinkedIn, and there is a profile that I think could be him. No photo, but the location of his undergrad and general age totally fit the segment. If it's true, he's been working on brain injury research for the last 4 years.

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=198318022&authType=name&authToken=uMDe&trk=connect_hub_pymk_profile_photo

If that's him, that's really great. What a great area to be studying. There's a possibility to really help a lot of people.

But yes, that segment drove me batty. But I thought it was because I was jealous. :)

Dennis depue. They should not have interviewed his daughter at least.
Why not? He was still on the run and that segment flushed him out of hiding. Also, his daughter did not seem to have a problem with being interviewed. She obviously agreed to it. It certainly must have been very difficult for her, but I can see why she did it.

On a side note, I've always wondered how Dennis felt seeing his daughter being interviewed, reliving the trauma of that day. I hope he felt some guilt. Probably not. I also am curious to know if Julie made any kind of a plea or assertion about her father being on the run that just didn't make it into the segment. The hours and hours of unaired interview portions intrigue me.

What happened to Tony Marabella after he flopped with baseball?
This one is embarrassing to watch, considering he was never very successful.


Sorry, but I have to mention the Valley Hill Lights or whatever that segment is called. The skeptic on the show discounted the mysterious photos in a most convincing way and there was little other concrete evidence. Once the skeptic showed that the "names" in the photo emanated from the camera and a development error, that segment shouldn't have been made.

I have to add the blinking Jesus statue in here, too. I can respect that people thought they saw something and were moved by the experience. But the two photos appear exactly the same and there was no proven difference between the statue's photos. I think people just thought there was a slight difference and got excited, but nothing actually happened.

Sorry, but I have to mention the Valley Hill Lights or whatever that segment is called. The skeptic on the show discounted the mysterious photos in a most convincing way and there was little other concrete evidence. Once the skeptic showed that the "names" in the photo emanated from the camera and a development error, that segment shouldn't have been made.


I think the segment is called Kentucky Visions and I agree. It was so unconvincing. There are some instances of religious phenomena I believe, like the Virgin Mary sightings in Egypt. But a photo of golden lights and the camera error is way too weak to make a case for a divine visit.

The other ones I would have chose were already mentioned: the fertility statues, chair of death, UFO healing, magic rock, the Lake Wales haunting, gold foil lady, men in black. I never saw the aphrodisiac segment, maybe that's a good thing!

Two others I want to add are Nazca Lines and the one where the boy sees a saint or some type of religious figure. I think the boy's name is Chucky. Maybe someone knows more details. I was never a fan of those type of stories.

The Disc jock prank....gulf breeze UFO. I guess hindsight is 20/20.

As far as the aforementioned depue seg...I understand the brutal nature of some cases and i can't imagine how hard it is for the familes... On the positive UM brought him to justice. Other cases like rachel Runyon for one make my skin crawl but if it has a chance at being solved and the perp brought to justice I think it is a good thing.

Are there missing or murder cases that you guys doubt? The UFO and ghost cases are easy.

Are there missing or murder cases that you guys doubt? The UFO and ghost cases are easy.

I know we've had a lot of past discussion on whether the Kenneth Engie story should've even made it on the show. The unfortunate death of Engie seemed like a pretty clear-cut accidental death, not a murder.

Oh John Mirabella got arrested or something it seems....according to google. IDK if its him though.

My top votes are:

-The healing UFO
-The Washington lucky rock
-Conradina Olson


Of course, y'all named plenty more. These are just the ones that come immediately to mind.

why healing UFO? :confused: i know if i am sick to watch it and ask ufo for health

So many mentions of the child genius, Philip Pauli.

Out of curiosity I checked LinkedIn, and there is a profile that I think could be him. No photo, but the location of his undergrad and general age totally fit the segment. If it's true, he's been working on brain injury research for the last 4 years.

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=198318022&authType=name&authToken=uMDe&trk=connect_hub_pymk_profile_photo

someone else said he has a philosophy/theology degree :confused:

Chair of Death, chair of death, chair of death....

would u sit on that chair? :confused:

for those who want no paranormal/bigfoot why not call this program unsolved crimes ?

for those who want no paranormal/bigfoot why not call this program unsolved crimes ?

Yep. We get it.

Next.

would u sit on that chair? :confused:

At the time I posted that, Lifetime was airing that particular segment what seemed like every other day. I was extremely tired of it and wished it hadn't been made.

Speaking of overplayed segments, I'm surprised no one mentioned Resurrection Mary. :) (I actually liked that segment, but I know it was on heavy repeat on the Lifetime episodes for a long time, too.)

someone else said he has a philosophy/theology degree :confused:

Yeah, according to the LI profile he earned a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Univ of Denver in '09. Then he went to GW and earned a masters in Philosophy and Social Policy.

Like I said earlier, its not a slam dunk but it certainly fits.

And yes, LooksLikeCRicci, I think the reason we were all annoyed is at least in part due to jealousy. ;-)

I'd go with Gold Foil Lady and Magic Rock if I was limited to just two segments to eliminate.

I don't think I've seen the gold foil lady segment in 20 years.

The magic rock, I can agree with you. But I really loved that segment as a little kid. When you're a third grader watching this show and you KNOW you're most likely going to be too scared to get a good night's sleep, segments like this along with the reunions from the lost loves sort of balanced things out with your nerves. It was kind of nice.

I never saw the gold lady or the magic rock before...I did see the fertility statues. I wonder if the statues are still around or if they got destroyed.

Still tying to find out if that horrible baseball player with amnesia got arrested for fraud or not.

Still tying to find out if that horrible baseball player with amnesia got arrested for fraud or not.

On the one hand, segment with a story that ultimately goes absolutely nowhere. On the other, shirtless baseball players.

*Offers shoes*

On the one hand, segment with a story that ultimately goes absolutely nowhere. On the other, shirtless baseball players.

*Offers shoes*
:rotflmao: +1!

Two segments actually come to mind. The other day Lifetime re-aired the segment about Oliver the Chimp. For God's sake!! Talk about ten minutes of my life that I can never get back... I remember watching it and being amazed that Farina could keep a straight face. I sure couldn't.

Then there was the Sandra Anderson segment. She was the handler of the cadaver dog named Eagle. I'll bet UM came to regret giving that charlatan even 30 seconds of air time. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing the segment again after Anderson's crimes were exposed.

Two segments actually come to mind. The other day Lifetime re-aired the segment about Oliver the Chimp. For God's sake!! Talk about ten minutes of my life that I can never get back... I remember watching it and being amazed that Farina could keep a straight face. I sure couldn't.

YES!! I forgot about this one. I remember watching it but just missing the intro so at first, I didn't know what type of segment it could have been. Once I realized it was one of "those" types, I shook my head. What a waste.

On the one hand, segment with a story that ultimately goes absolutely nowhere. On the other, shirtless baseball players.

*Offers shoes*

I love you :love:

I am surprised that UM did not end up axing the baseball player case. Only because he ended up flopping as a result and never did make it to the major leagues. So Robert Stack's comments at the end are hilarious in hindsight.

I can't really say that UM should have avoided all of their ghost segments. I've always loved a good ghost story and a few times UM did alright IMO. Resurrection Mary and the St. James Hotel are still two of favorites.

This morning I saw the Loews Cottage segment for the first time and about midway through I told my mom that I was definitely going to add the segment to this list. We finished watching together and to my surprise, we were both laughing hysterically at the end. Apparently this haunting resulted in a lawsuit and counter suit between the buyers and sellers of this property. What we found so amusing was the end result of the legal actions. After years of fighting it out in court, apparently the judge arrived at his ruling in a matter of minutes, finding for the sellers. The judge advised both parties that he believed the hauntings were more likely to be the work of man, rather than anything other worldly. The best part was when Farina stated in a delightfully dry tone, that no further hauntings were reported after the judge issued his ruling. I wonder what that could mean...

At the time I posted that, Lifetime was airing that particular segment what seemed like every other day. I was extremely tired of it and wished it hadn't been made.

Speaking of overplayed segments, I'm surprised no one mentioned Resurrection Mary. :) (I actually liked that segment, but I know it was on heavy repeat on the Lifetime episodes for a long time, too.)

ok but would you sit on that chair ? :confused:

how do u explain all those deaths? :confused:

Yep. We get it.

Next.

the ID channel has lots of crimes, though mostly solved.

I just re-watched the Kentucky Visions segment after not having seen it in many years. HORRIBLE segment. I know UM had a lot of bad segments in its later years, but I think this surpasses even chocolates as aphrodisiacs.

Basically, the jist is that some idiot girls and a few of their moms stare at the sun and claim it does all sorts of phenomenon. You know, Ray Charles used to stare at the sun. Before he went BLIND. I'm sure if anyone stared at the sun long enough, they would see weird things too. I think it's telling 2/3 of the people there said they didn't see anything. Of course, none of them were interviewed.

And then one of them claims a photograph taken of the sun had an image of a tombstone with the name of a deceased relative on there. Joe Nickell, also of the Spontaneous Human Combustion segment, dispels that by proving it was actually the reverse image of the wording from the carton the camera came in (or was it the film?) I could have died laughing. He was much more pleasant here.

I'm surprised UM allowed this to air.

I just re-watched the Kentucky Visions segment after not having seen it in many years. HORRIBLE segment. I know UM had a lot of bad segments in its later years, but I think this surpasses even chocolates as aphrodisiacs.

Basically, the jist is that some idiot girls and a few of their moms stare at the sun and claim it does all sorts of phenomenon. You know, Ray Charles used to stare at the sun. Before he went BLIND. I'm sure if anyone stared at the sun long enough, they would see weird things too. I think it's telling 2/3 of the people there said they didn't see anything. Of course, none of them were interviewed.

And then one of them claims a photograph taken of the sun had an image of a tombstone with the name of a deceased relative on there. Joe Nickell, also of the Spontaneous Human Combustion segment, dispels that by proving it was actually the reverse image of the wording from the carton the camera came in (or was it the film?) I could have died laughing. He was much more pleasant here.

I'm surprised UM allowed this to air.

I was about to add to this thread and you beat me to it since I also just watched this episode. As an atheist all of these seem fake to me but I respect anyone who has their faith. But this one is ridiculous. Claiming to see a dead relatives name when it's pretty obvious it's a print from the film. Or the images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary which to me looked like a typical photo where the sun ruined it. Ive mentioned it before but the therapeutic touch is stupid. Im sorry, if I feel something is wrong, I am going to a dr not some weirdo who is going to wave their hands around me :rolleyes:

I think the reason I/we tend to groan so much about the lost loves segments is that they are all so similar. It seemed like every week there was some poor family with 19 children from the 1950's that got split up. They needed more variety.

And speaking of families with 19 children, don't even get me started on those idiot Duggars.

I just re-watched the Kentucky Visions segment after not having seen it in many years. HORRIBLE segment. I know UM had a lot of bad segments in its later years, but I think this surpasses even chocolates as aphrodisiacs.

Basically, the jist is that some idiot girls and a few of their moms stare at the sun and claim it does all sorts of phenomenon. You know, Ray Charles used to stare at the sun. Before he went BLIND. I'm sure if anyone stared at the sun long enough, they would see weird things too. I think it's telling 2/3 of the people there said they didn't see anything. Of course, none of them were interviewed.

And then one of them claims a photograph taken of the sun had an image of a tombstone with the name of a deceased relative on there. Joe Nickell, also of the Spontaneous Human Combustion segment, dispels that by proving it was actually the reverse image of the wording from the carton the camera came in (or was it the film?) I could have died laughing. He was much more pleasant here.

I'm surprised UM allowed this to air.

If there was a 'like' button I'd be pressing it multiple times right now lol. I've mentioned a few times on these boards about the "Idiot girls" dancing round in the forest. One of the most ridiculous segments….EVER!

The dreams segment-one woman dreams that a bear will be at her partners camping area & that he needs to drive carefully & wow a bear appears in the woods & he takes his eyes of the roads & has a minor prang. Another woman starts dreaming about her true love that she lost-obviously regretting their decision to part ways & that she had to settle for second best &lo and behold the reconstruction showed the family giving her the information about the wig & him having changed appearance before she said anything about his ghost saying she would not be able to recognise him-one assumes ghosts must appear only in the form the person would know them as & not the way they died. The other one is vaguely interesting if we could get any verification from the passenger in the car that this incident with the wheel coming off happened or if he actually said before he went round the corner that a car will come round with a wheel that comes off-without it this was worthless.

The dreams segment-one woman dreams that a bear will be at her partners camping area & that he needs to drive carefully & wow a bear appears in the woods & he takes his eyes of the roads & has a minor prang. Another woman starts dreaming about her true love that she lost-obviously regretting their decision to part ways & that she had to settle for second best &lo and behold the reconstruction showed the family giving her the information about the wig & him having changed appearance before she said anything about his ghost saying she would not be able to recognise him-one assumes ghosts must appear only in the form the person would know them as & not the way they died. The other one is vaguely interesting if we could get any verification from the passenger in the car that this incident with the wheel coming off happened or if he actually said before he went round the corner that a car will come round with a wheel that comes off-without it this was worthless.

I always kind of liked the psychic dreams segment.

I agree the first example was the most interesting but both the mother and daughter having the same dreams in the second one kind of blew my mind as a kid.

The Comedy Store Ghosts segment was quite silly.

All of the bible/miracles/shroud of turin/loads of bs segments. What a waste of time when there were fugitives that could have profiled and captured.

I always kind of liked the psychic dreams segment.

I agree the first example was the most interesting but both the mother and daughter having the same dreams in the second one kind of blew my mind as a kid.

Yep, it is amazing how things impressed you as a kid watching, but as a critically thinking adult you just laugh at when you see it again. I believed pretty much everything on the show or wasn't convinced it wasn't legit even with Katie the gold sweating psychic. Think the only one I didn't buy back then was the lucky rock.

The magic rock segment is so bad it's good. The acting on it is horrible "It's really cool".... Could they have found less believable actors to portray the boys?

YEAH! LET'S GO TELL MY DAD!

All of the bible/miracles/shroud of turin/loads of bs segments. What a waste of time when there were fugitives that could have profiled and captured.

I actually like these segments and I'm an atheist. I found them to be a nice mini delve into these historically relevant events (true or not). Gave just enough to open me up to the story and the history, open the mind to things I'd otherwise never research myself, but were done quick enough that I didn't feel like I was being smothered in it.

I'd take a thousand legends, bible mysteries, or buried treasures over a single Lost Loves segment myself.

But if I had to name a segment that shouldn't have been made, I'd go for the one with the two men who rented the same Colorado business store front and both disappeared, with the one weirdo writing a book about the prior one. It's just so absurd as a mystery, like there's something written on the store room wall or something that gets you killed if you read it?! Wouldn't someone killing the first guy for "knowing something" remove such a thing that would cause them to do away with the second guy? And how would they even know they saw whatever the thing was? And, personally I always found the idea of some guy fictionalizing a real life person's disappearance/suicide to be messed up.

Magic Rock of course. Stroke of luck? ehhh

Zodiac/Unabomber

I actually like these segments and I'm an atheist. I found them to be a nice mini delve into these historically relevant events (true or not). Gave just enough to open me up to the story and the history, open the mind to things I'd otherwise never research myself, but were done quick enough that I didn't feel like I was being smothered in it.

I'd take a thousand legends, bible mysteries, or buried treasures over a single Lost Loves segment myself.

But if I had to name a segment that shouldn't have been made, I'd go for the one with the two men who rented the same Colorado business store front and both disappeared, with the one weirdo writing a book about the prior one. It's just so absurd as a mystery, like there's something written on the store room wall or something that gets you killed if you read it?! Wouldn't someone killing the first guy for "knowing something" remove such a thing that would cause them to do away with the second guy? And how would they even know they saw whatever the thing was? And, personally I always found the idea of some guy fictionalizing a real life person's disappearance/suicide to be messed up.

Hated the Lost Loves segments back then, but nowcan appreciate them-especially the ones where kids were taken & sold by horrible women for money, it is really odd thinking about how even in the 1990's tracking down relatives was so difficult when nowadays we have all these ancestry websites.

The ones I cannot abide by are psychics & past lives-cannot believe they wasted half an episode on the Georgia Rudolph nonsense.

I really liked the one with the two missing guys, nothing more than two pig-headed fools going missing in the wilderness & perishing for me, but still an interesting story.

I could understand the lost love ones.........social media & ancestry/DNA websites weren't around back in the 80s/90s to help simplify things for people.

Other than that, the Kentucky Visions, Gold Foil Lady and some of the UFO segments do it for me (anymore, when I stumble upon those, I mostly FF through em myself)

The Mann House was beyond ridiculous, but I am glad they did it as it is one of the funniest segments ever.

The Mann House was beyond ridiculous, but I am glad they did it as it is one of the funniest segments ever.

This is how I feel about the most ridiculous segments, like aphrodisiacs. I'm glad they made it because of the comedy. :lol:

That being said, I saw the dream-walking segment on Amazon for the first time, and it has to be one of the most ludicrous ones ever profiled. Out of all the supernatural segments on the show, this was one where I just shook my head and couldn't even get a laugh out of it.

Satan's Grandma aka Pat Farmer

I hated lost love segments, too. But I was a teen, so I liked more action or horror segments and lost loves were "boring". But now that Im middle aged, I understand the value of the lost love segments and also like rewatching them. I remember the one about a selfish mom who left behind 6 kids, the oldest girl had to burn a tire to provide heating in winter, etc... the update was very cool, they could reunite with a deaf sibling, etc...

I hate the therapeutic touch,aprodisiachs, fertility statue, lot of UFOs that werent very serious, lot of ghost's stories, etc... the rain boy, etc.

Some posters said the animals segments were boring, but I find them interesting. I remeber the one about a missing dog, and the dog returning home after a year. Also, the one about dogs and people suffering with epilepsy. Great segments :)

Satan's Grandma aka Pat Farmer

Still more justified than segments on Missing Time, UFOs, and the Magic Rock. Despite the fluff it did remain a family abduction case.

Regarding Bo Tanner as a missing person who needed to be found was certainly a waste of time.

Satan's Grandma aka Pat Farmer

I'm confused as to why you think UM never should have done this segment. Pat kidnapped her grandchild and the parents wanted their son back.

I'm confused as to why you think UM never should have done this segment. Pat kidnapped her grandchild and the parents wanted their son back.

Didn't hit me until I realized I posted in the wrong thread! Yikes

Billy Hargrove & Michael Carmichael. Hargrove was plainly somebody whose life had totally unraveled, unable due to his ego to accept a senior officers decision that his platoon who didn't see combat shouldn't get medals, he then forged that officers signature on the form so they all got the medals & was then arrested for treason. His marriage was disintegrating with his wife rightly or wrongly believing he was having affairs & possibly had father a child with another woman. He was summoned to work, but instead chose to walk the dog, before killing himself where his wife would find him.

Carmichael is a more interesting one as he got called in &actually went, it would be nice to know exactly what he was called in for. He certainly seemed obsessed with proving Hargrove was murdered, was his inability to do so & depression over his death the cause of his own passing? His family life & career seemed pretty stable unlike Hargrove. I don't put a lot of stock in the metal box going missing thing-any killer would have taken them if they had any evidence, not left them sitting there. Also much is made of both men being called in &then found dead, but Hargrove didn't go in, instead he chose to walk his dog which indicates where his mind was at.

I think Carmichael might have been worth a segment with another case with better evidence than Hargrove, but obviously the narrative needed Hargrove even though it was hugely unconvincing as anything other than a depressed man seeing no future taking his own life.

Nova & Lady-wacky cat lady who says she has had multiple animals run away previously manages to lose another one on a road trip & believes her cat returned to her-most likely it was just another local stray who liked the food she left outside for cats.

Then we have Lady & Wolfka-two dogs who didn't return while the family were on a vacation, later a forest fire engulfed the area. Lucky ended up at somebodies house later on & was traced via her collar & somehow this is a miracle. The female owner was really annoying as it seemed she could care less about the other dog & the narration was that somehow the love of the children/family got Lucky back to them-well back to somebody else in reality & what about the other dog? Why would one be able to make it a considerable distance & the other not if cats & dogs have special telekinetic powers as is suggested in these segments? Is it not more likely that Wolfka ended up being attacked & eaten by a predator while Lady escaped? Or that they went too far out chasing prey, had no idea how to get back & when the fires hit one dog died while the other managed to escape?

The Oakville blobs

If I recall, there was a segment on child prodigies, which I thought was unnecessary.

If I recall, there was a segment on child prodigies, which I thought was unnecessary.

Yes! It was horrible. They interviewed a child who was a piano player and a genius, but his personality was annoying and awkward.

Therapeutic Touch-ugh.

Another segment involved bee stings, which was unnecessary.

Janie Halliday/Estella Vera-silly kid falls over the edge of a cliff & somehow her pious mother reading her bible back home meant God gave the kid the power to climb back up. Then while her son is fighting with some guy robbing an ice cream van his mother seems to be looking elsewhere while the guy drives the ice cream truck into her, apparently God sent a protective angel to save her-although it didn't save her leg from being amputated or from going into cardiac arrest.

I saw the UM segment where Chocolate is used as an aphrodisiac and another one where an African statue turns women pregnant.

Linda Tellington-Jones-silly woman who wanted to massage 400 plus pound animals who like attacking people.

After having watched most of the series, I have to say I think Unsolved Mysteries should have stayed away from parental kidnapping cases EXCEPT if there was a serious concern that the child may be injured. UM aired many early on but as we've seen (sometimes on this very board) they are messy and ugly and often involve he said she said situations that are impossible to litigate. As the series went on, there weren't as many and IIRC the Lifetime original episodes only had 1 or 2.

And my God, Lost Loves cases. Facebook and online directories have mostly made this obsolete, but when I watched the series on Amazon I did ALOT of skipping around because of these. Hated them as a kid too though, so my distaste for all but a small handful of them wasn't new! The better ones had that 'Mysterious' touch that is needed for an effective segment.

According to the Unsolved Website, several of the Lost Love cases have yet to be solved, which with all of this technology and social media, should have been solved by now.

I've said before that they shouldn't be made again, but now the US has made a sequel to the orphan train with the border separations so .... :lol:

According to the Unsolved Website, several of the Lost Love cases have yet to be solved, which with all of this technology and social media, should have been solved by now.

Lost Love cases had the highest success rate for being solved but like you said, not all of them were solved. The biggest one, in my mind, being Irene Love looking for his sister Delores and info on her birth parents. I can only imagine the reaction Delores had (if she ever found out) that the couple who adopted her when she was 9 were actually her birth parents and her childhood best friend from next door was actually her sister that they ended up moving away from. If you threw in a reunion, THIS would have all the makings of a Lifetime movie.

The contempt people have for Lost Love was how I always felt about the Treasure segments. I absolutely loved seeing the reunions.

Lost Love cases had the highest success rate for being solved but like you said, not all of them were solved. The biggest one, in my mind, being Irene Love looking for his sister Delores and info on her birth parents. I can only imagine the reaction Delores had (if she ever found out) that the couple who adopted her when she was 9 were actually her birth parents and her childhood best friend from next door was actually her sister that they ended up moving away from. If you threw in a reunion, THIS would have all the makings of a Lifetime movie.

The contempt people have for Lost Love was how I always felt about the Treasure segments. I absolutely loved seeing the reunions.

This is how I feel! The lost love segments don’t bother me as much as treasure segments. I skip through all those but watch the lost love segments

Lost Love cases had the highest success rate for being solved but like you said, not all of them were solved. The biggest one, in my mind, being Irene Love looking for his sister Delores and info on her birth parents. I can only imagine the reaction Delores had (if she ever found out) that the couple who adopted her when she was 9 were actually her birth parents and her childhood best friend from next door was actually her sister that they ended up moving away from. If you threw in a reunion, THIS would have all the makings of a Lifetime movie.

The contempt people have for Lost Love was how I always felt about the Treasure segments. I absolutely loved seeing the reunions.

According to a comment on the Unsolved.com page (https://unsolved.com/gallery/irene-love/) for Dolores, Irene was able to find her mother Ramona, but sadly, Dolores had already passed away by then. However, she was able to reunite with Ramona's other children.

Another comment mentioned that according to the California Death Index, a "Delores Wynn Henderson" passed away in 1991. She had the same birth year as Dolores, along with the same last names for her mother and father.

I agree that Irene's story was kind of like a lifetime movie. I also loved the Lost Love cases, especially the reunions. I do understand why some people might not like them since they are much different than the murder/missing/fugitive cases.

According to a comment on the Unsolved.com page (https://unsolved.com/gallery/irene-love/) for Dolores, Irene was able to find her mother Ramona, but sadly, Dolores had already passed away by then. However, she was able to reunite with Ramona's other children.

Another comment mentioned that according to the California Death Index, a "Delores Wynn Henderson" passed away in 1991. She had the same birth year as Dolores, along with the same last names for her mother and father.

I agree that Irene's story was kind of like a lifetime movie. I also loved the Lost Love cases, especially the reunions. I do understand why some people might not like them since they are much different than the murder/missing/fugitive cases.

Yeah. I just happened to read that on the UM wiki page. But it irks me that it took Irene that long to locate Ramona. Even before social media, I think she had more than enough information that should have made this a short search.

Although I'm still majorly curious to find out if Dolores ever found out the truth about Irene and her parents before she died. That's a ton of bombshell information to absorb after so many years.

And to add to the lost love segments, I think one of the reasons I liked them was because the reunions allowed us to see people on this show have some happiness. I craved it after seeing the people from the missing/wanted/unexplained death go through the kind of pain I wouldn't wish on anyone.

After having watched most of the series, I have to say I think Unsolved Mysteries should have stayed away from parental kidnapping cases EXCEPT if there was a serious concern that the child may be injured. UM aired many early on but as we've seen (sometimes on this very board) they are messy and ugly and often involve he said she said situations that are impossible to litigate. As the series went on, there weren't as many and IIRC the Lifetime original episodes only had 1 or 2.

And my God, Lost Loves cases. Facebook and online directories have mostly made this obsolete, but when I watched the series on Amazon I did ALOT of skipping around because of these. Hated them as a kid too though, so my distaste for all but a small handful of them wasn't new! The better ones had that 'Mysterious' touch that is needed for an effective segment.
I second the African statues and the chocolate segments. those for me are obvious that I use the Robert Stack "c'mon"

As I have gotten older I'm now a fan(in a nostalgia way) of the lost love cases. I have watched a lot of them that I would have otherwise maybe tuned out back in the day. I think social media sometimes makes us forget the way things were and I am glad that most of us on here were around before that era. back then that was a major link and those were legit mysteries for real people..and we have to consider some of these cases went back into the early/mid 20th century well before people could reconnect with any medium at all. I am particularly wowed by the Veteran segments like Fritz's Soldiers. that story is one of my personal favourites of any segment.

as far as children I think the parental kidnapping segments were fair. I see what you are saying though. I think they did it with the best of intention to find children that could have been endangered or were taken perhaps not against their will, but against the law(unless I am confused on that). in retrospect some segments would have been removed if all of the details were known. I think missing children are always a sensitive situation that people will typically act now and ask questions later.

Yeah. I just happened to read that on the UM wiki page. But it irks me that it took Irene that long to locate Ramona. Even before social media, I think she had more than enough information that should have made this a short search.

Although I'm still majorly curious to find out if Dolores ever found out the truth about Irene and her parents before she died. That's a ton of bombshell information to absorb after so many years.

And to add to the lost love segments, I think one of the reasons I liked them was because the reunions allowed us to see people on this show have some happiness. I craved it after seeing the people from the missing/wanted/unexplained death go through the kind of pain I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Yeah I'm surprised she wasn't able to find Ramona sooner. Unless she just didn't have many resources to search or people weren't willing to help her. It's especially sad realizing that Dolores died in 1991, a few years before the story even aired. I hope she was told about her sister before she passed.

And I agree about the happiness regarding lost love segments. It's a great refresher after seeing the tragic stories of murder, missing persons, etc. on the show.

Wasn't there some ridiculous story about a guy in a town who's friends told him he had a lookalike? But no one really knew who this person was or never bothered to approach him? I think he turned up dead before the so called mystery was solved.

Wasn't there some ridiculous story about a guy in a town who's friends told him he had a lookalike? But no one really knew who this person was or never bothered to approach him? I think he turned up dead before the so called mystery was solved.

The guy died after the segment aired, they never found this supposed twin, although supposedly on his deathbed his adopted father told his adopted mother that he had a twin which seems to be the only proof if you believe it. It is pretty hard to believe that they never saw each other in a town though, or that they would end up in the same area, that he or anybody else never came forward, or that nobody questioned the other guy when he would just shrug his shoulders. He did manage to locate a sister he didn't know about though.

http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/The_Siblings_of_Jim_Boumgarden

Comedy Store Ghosts-obviously a bunch of comedians trying to pull a fast one on people & boost interest in the place/tourism & for the author to sell her book.

Comedy Store Ghosts-obviously a bunch of comedians trying to pull a fast one on people & boost interest in the place/tourism & for the author to sell her book.

The only joke in that segment was that it was even made; I would presume this was a case of it only being chosen because it was so close to UM's headquarters in Burbank. Still, I have to admit at the time it was a welcome relief to the endless stories of violence and brutality.

Chair of Death, chair of death, chair of death....

I always liked that one to be honest,that Pub is gone know.

Lost Love cases had the highest success rate for being solved but like you said, not all of them were solved. The biggest one, in my mind, being Irene Love looking for his sister Delores and info on her birth parents. I can only imagine the reaction Delores had (if she ever found out) that the couple who adopted her when she was 9 were actually her birth parents and her childhood best friend from next door was actually her sister that they ended up moving away from. If you threw in a reunion, THIS would have all the makings of a Lifetime movie.

The contempt people have for Lost Love was how I always felt about the Treasure segments. I absolutely loved seeing the reunions.

I don't mind the episodes.

Looking at the Unsolved Website, Monica Libao has not found her birth parents yet.

Got two in the current episode I am currently watching-the fertility statues & Red Mercury segments.

The contempt people have for Lost Love was how I always felt about the Treasure segments.

And the funny thing is I can remember reading somewhere that the Treasure segments were among the most popular of UM's early years.

I don't hate them but most unsolvable legend segments are something I would skip.

For me as a young kid watching UM when it first came on, it was always jarring to go from murder/kidnapping/mystery to Robert Stack saying 'next we have a heart warming update'. I watched UM to get scared as a 7 year old, I didn't watch it for 'heart warming' things!

But yeah, I get it Um can get depressing sometimes. One example of this is that really long missing person rollcall from the episode w/ Bonnie Wilder in it. Not a single one of those cases has been solved, with the exception of one of the missing people being found dead (and the murder is unsolved).

Sam Zelikson & his lottery tickets.

Sam Zelikson & his lottery tickets.



Agreed. He just did what most ppl do when they play the lotto. Use birthdays or anniversaries

Agreed. He just did what most ppl do when they play the lotto. Use birthdays or anniversaries

Yeah, I am sure it was nice for him to 'see' his dead son-but the son could not even provide the winning numbers for him, if he had told him the winning numbers & then he bought one ticket & won it would be a story.

The alien segments, the fertility segment and the one about aphrodisiacs all get my vote!

Season 9 is full of crap-fertility statues, red mercury, winning lottery tickets, Qi Gong, school explosion with the kids being saved by God, rescue animals, bee stings, Oliver the simian, cancer dogs, aphrodisiacs, serial killer astrology, a family being hit by lightning, vampire groups, SHC, remote viewing, Dolly the sheep etc.

Season 9 is full of crap-fertility statues, red mercury, winning lottery tickets, Qi Gong, school explosion with the kids being saved by God, rescue animals, bee stings, Oliver the simian, cancer dogs, aphrodisiacs, serial killer astrology, a family being hit by lightning, vampire groups, SHC, remote viewing, Dolly the sheep etc.

I haven’t seen anything after season 8 for that very reason

I haven’t seen anything after season 8 for that very reason

it is different when you have the controls.

I'm not going to lie back in the early 00's I was watching all that on lifetime with my bucket of popcorn doing my best Michael Jackson face.

it is different when you have the controls.

I'm not going to lie back in the early 00's I was watching all that on lifetime with my bucket of popcorn doing my best Michael Jackson face.

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

I haven’t seen anything after season 8 for that very reason

I think Sky stopped showing them around 1995/1996 in the UK, so I missed a lot, some of them I saw on the DVD sets & compilations a decade or more back-there is still some great stuff, but it seemed the show just got a bit too into mainstream silliness. There were always daft segments, but they were usually limited to one every show at most, some of these ones have two or three in.

Ogopogo and that "never before seen on television" home video footage of what was almost certainly a beaver slapping its tail and diving down into the water. I mean, you can see its two little feet up in the air when the video's slowed down--WHICH WAS EVEN SHOWN ON THE SEGMENT.

I think Sky stopped showing them around 1995/1996 in the UK, so I missed a lot, some of them I saw on the DVD sets & compilations a decade or more back-there is still some great stuff, but it seemed the show just got a bit too into mainstream silliness. There were always daft segments, but they were usually limited to one every show at most, some of these ones have two or three in.

so in the early 90s sky showed UM? It's crazy that the farina versions are circulating still here.

so in the early 90s sky showed UM? It's crazy that the farina versions are circulating still here.

They were definitely showing them in late 1988 & possibly earlier-we didn't have Sky so my aunt would tape it & pass it on to us, along with various wrestling shoes & later in 1990 just before we got a dish European Strip Poker game Tutti Frutti off RTL. UM was essential viewing on a Saturday night at 8 o'clock with Cops following right after on Sky One. The Farina ones are still airing on one of the channels-CBS Reality I think, but I never watch them.

In no particular order

The church explosion where no one was there for unexplained reasons.


I didn't mind this one so much because it is interesting that no one was there. However Cokeville....there are no words for Cokeville...or the fertility statues.

My nominations are:

The fertility statues
The dude who made it rain indoors
The Devil Worshipping Grandma

DWG did kidnap her grandson, so it was a missing person case. I think UM played up the Satan stuff because it was the late 80s. I wasn't a fan of the FS segment, but can see where some might like it to counter the other dark segments. The Raining Indoors Dude, however, was a colossal waste of time that I'll never get back.

Then there was the Sandra Anderson segment. She was the handler of the cadaver dog named Eagle. I'll bet UM came to regret giving that charlatan even 30 seconds of air time. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing the segment again after Anderson's crimes were exposed.

Sanford, MI is about 30 min from where I live and a very small town. When all that went down, the area was in a major uproar.

Sanford, MI is about 30 min from where I live and a very small town. When all that went down, the area was in a major uproar.

There was a really good episode of the Court Tv show "The Investigators" that covered the Sandra Anderson case (as criminal fraud), sadly I've only seen it once.

Sonya Fitzpatrick-pet psychic apparently, yeah sure-she was born deaf & found she connected more with animals than people, which is perfectly logical seeing as their communication is mostly facial & mannerisms, we cannot understand any sounds they make fully & they will never make fun of you for having a disability/being different. Of course she claims she has telepathy with them-which amounts to no more than the usual psychic routine of making logical reasoning/guesses & vague pronouncements.

Albert Wong & Jessica Constant-great your kids are so clever one can play the piano & violin really well & the other one the cello, Mike Oldfield taught himself how to play about 30 instruments really well. Nils Lofgren can play pretty much any instrument.

Fallon Cancer-this one is really annoying, the one question that seemed obvious is if there was environmental pollution that was causing this problem is why were only children affected? The adults were drinking the same tap/well water & breathing in the same air. While it may have looked like a lot of cases it abruptly stopped after five years. Not saying there wasn't something to it, but it just seemed like a segment that went in with zero evidence. I doubt this segment would ever have been made if Erin Brockovich hadn't been released a couple of years earlier. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3322/canjclin.54.5.273

Tupac Shakur & Jon Benet Ramsey - not sure the two most famous and highly publicized unsolved murders of the past 30 years really get much additional beneficial exposure from a 15 minute UM segment.

Kurt Cobain - Cobain was depressed, in the throes of heavy drug addiction and had ready access to firearms. His death is clearly a suicide, its silly and irresponsible to claim otherwise on the basis of the wild-eyed speculations of a conspiracy theorist - particularly since the alleged conspirator behind his death had saved his life five weeks previous (Courtney Love phoned for help when he overdosed in Rome).

Tupac Shakur & Jon Benet Ramsey - not sure the two most famous and highly publicized unsolved murders of the past 30 years really get much additional beneficial exposure from a 15 minute UM segment.

I think UM in general jumped the shark when they went from a 'everyday people' show to these cheap celebrity cash-ins. I loved the show because they featured stories I would never had heard on the 6 o'clock news.

Tupac Shakur &
Kurt Cobain - Cobain was depressed, in the throes of heavy drug addiction and had ready access to firearms. His death is clearly a suicide, its silly and irresponsible to claim otherwise on the basis of the wild-eyed speculations of a conspiracy theorist - particularly since the alleged conspirator behind his death had saved his life five weeks previous (Courtney Love phoned for help when he overdosed in Rome).
Yeah I think that both of those were weak as it seems kind of obvious, but caters to a good conspiracy. I understand why they did it just as they did all of the UFO and supernatural stories. Of all the famous cases the one I got the most out of was Elvis. I heard that he did drugs, but I never knew how bleak things were for him when he died until I watched that segment. Recently Pricilla even went on record to say Elvis committed suicide.

I think UM in general jumped the shark when they went from a 'everyday people' show to these cheap celebrity cash-ins. I loved the show because they featured stories I would never had heard on the 6 o'clock news.

Seems they tried a lot of ratings ploys from 1996/1997 onward as the figures were slumping-bringing in Pierce Brosnon's wife, bringing in Virginia Madsen, doing lots of silly stories like fertility chairs, aphrodisiacs, pet psychics etc that were kind of catching on in society at that point & quick celebrity cash-ins with no real depth. Actually pretty peeved that the Amazon episodes didn't have any Madsen on them as I am quite a fan of hers.

Saw the one about the treasure buried on the grounds of the Alamo.

Saw the one about the treasure buried on the grounds of the Alamo.

Really weird because I hated the buried/lost treasure segments as a kid, but as an adult I really enjoy them-despite all the obvious silliness of most of them.

I can't stand the child genius who prefers museums and archeology digs. That boy is a chore to listen to - I'd love an update on what he's up to these days.

I know I am replying to like a decade old post- but I LOVE this segment. It always makes be laugh so hard.

I don't see what the issue is with the child genius segment. In fact, he talks very similar to how I did as a child. Probably explains why I had such difficulty making friends at that age: kids in the schoolyard would be talking about the latest cartoon and I would be talking about trans-Neptunian asteroids. :lol:

Maybe I am weird but I loved listening to that kid: his understanding of the hard sciences is nothing short of excellent.

I don't see what the issue is with the child genius segment. In fact, he talks very similar to how I did as a child. Probably explains why I had such difficulty making friends at that age: kids in the schoolyard would be talking about the latest cartoon and I would be talking about trans-Neptunian asteroids. :lol:

Maybe I am weird but I loved listening to that kid: his understanding of the hard sciences is nothing short of excellent.

The issue is that Unsolved Mysteries should be about wanted criminals and missing people. There have been a ton of missing people and wanted criminals who have never been featured on Unsolved Mysteries. I mean why didn't Unsolved ever do a segment on the missing Sodder Children? If you want to mix it up a bit, maybe do a UFO segment here or there, or even lost loves or ghost segments every once in a while.

I understand why lost loves is a part of Unsolved Mysteries or even ghosts and UFO's. The show did not need segments about child geniuses, animals with magical instincts, re-incarnation, people who can communicate with animals via touch or can cure ailments via touch, or stuff like that.

The show did not need segments about child geniuses, animals with magical instincts, re-incarnation, people who can communicate with animals via touch or can cure ailments via touch, or stuff like that.

I disagree and believe the 'lighter' segments really added some relief to all the brutal crimes and murders. If I wanted to watch a crime show only there is America's Most Wanted. That's not to say many of the lighter segments are just plain dumb but I liked a few of them. In fact, I once had a young child tell me very matter of factly about when they were 'big like me' and how they worked in a construction job and I instantly thought back to the UM episode. I also loved the episode where the Dog could sense a seizure. I see nothing bad or crazy about investigating phenomina like this.

The show was called Unsolved Mysteries not Unsolved Murders.

The Dover family segment. This was the family traveling in Mexico who lost control of their vehicle and smashed into a car killing all 4 people in the other vehicle (the Dovers all lived). UM mentioned the deaths only briefly in the segment, and not at all in the update. The Dovers wanted to thank the people who saved them - they were found and we were given one of these "feel-good" type updates when they were reunited.

I found the segment and the update extremely callous. The way it was presented there seemed to little or no consideration for the 4 people who died.

Don't forget the one about the lady striken with cancer that claimed a tiny UFO flew in her window and circled her body and flew back out and she was miraculously cured of cancer. :rolleyes:

can i just say that this was said almost 13 years ago and still makes me LOL

I'm with a lot of the others when it comes to the animal stories, the fertility statute, and too much of the paranormal.

Outside of that... my vote goes for the Kevin and Bean radio phone call about a murder confession. I was a kid when I originally saw that and even then it just seemed too obvious that it was a hoax.

Does anyone know if the Alamo treasure segment ever aired on reruns (Stack or Farina)? I saw it for the first time on Prime yesterday and was wondering why they wasted time and money (the re-enactments were good) on this segment.

The show did not need segments about child geniuses, animals with magical instincts, re-incarnation, people who can communicate with animals via touch or can cure ailments via touch, or stuff like that.

One of my favorite (non-crime) segments was an animal with magical instincts; the dog Harley who could predict seizures in people with epilepsy. As a kid AND as an adult, I'm fascinated over how some dogs could have that ability. Victoria Doroshenko's quality of life was changed for the better once they discovered he had this amazing gift and her seizures and anxiety reduced significantly. It's really an amazing story. And the segment ends with Robert Stack holding an adorable yellow lab. How can you not love that?

This is also further proof that dogs will always be more awesome than cats. But that's just my humble opinion.

One of my favorite (non-crime) segments was an animal with magical instincts; the dog Harley who could predict seizures in people with epilepsy. As a kid AND as an adult, I'm fascinated over how some dogs could have that ability. Victoria Doroshenko's quality of life was changed for the better once they discovered he had this amazing gift and her seizures and anxiety reduced significantly. It's really an amazing story. And the segment ends with Robert Stack holding an adorable yellow lab. How can you not love that?

This is also further proof that dogs will always be more awesome than cats. But that's just my humble opinion.

yep and also for me the segment where the hound tracks down a young girl that was kidnapped. that is one of my favorite segments and seeing the closure that the family had always stands out.

The ones where they would profile recently (at the time) dead celebrities always seemed really lazy. Cobain and Tupac immediately come to mind.

Most of those deaths weren’t that mysterious to begin with, but letting time pass at least adds more nuance the story — even if it’s still nonsense.

The ones where they would profile recently (at the time) dead celebrities always seemed really lazy. Cobain and Tupac immediately come to mind.

Most of those deaths weren’t that mysterious to begin with, but letting time pass at least adds more nuance the story — even if it’s still nonsense.

Tupac's death is quite mysterious as we don't even know who killed him....or Biggie Smalls for that matter. There are even crazy conspiracy theories that he faked his own death.