Line #26 Series/InSearchOf


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/in_search_of.png]]
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3	''In Search of...'' is a syndicated documentary television series that was broadcast weekly from 1977 to 1982, devoted to mysteries and phenomena. It was created after three successful one-hour TV documentaries, ''In Search of Ancient Astronauts'' in 1973 (based on the book ''Chariots of the Gods?'' by Erich von Däniken), and ''In Search of Ancient Mysteries'' and ''The Outer Space Connection'' (both of which were written into popular paperbacks by series-creator Alan Landsburg) in 1975. All three feature narration by Creator/RodSerling, who was the initial choice to host the series. After the death of Serling, Creator/LeonardNimoy was chosen to be the host of the spin-off series.
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5	The series conducted investigations into the controversial and paranormal (e.g., [=UFOs=], Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster). Additionally, it featured episodes about mysterious historical events and personalities such as [[DidAnastasiaSurvive Anna Anderson/Grand Duchess Anastasia]], the Lincoln Assassination, the Jack the Ripper murders, infamous cults (e.g. Jim Jones), and missing persons, cities, and ships (e.g., UsefulNotes/AmeliaEarhart, Jimmy Hoffa, D. B. Cooper, the ''Mary Celeste'', the ''Titanic'', UsefulNotes/TheLostColonyOfRoanoke, the Bermuda Triangle). Because the show often presented offbeat subjects and controversial theories, each episode's opening credits include a verbal disclaimer about the potentially conjecturable nature of the evidence and theories to be presented:
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7	->This series presents information based in part on theory and [[WildMassGuessing conjecture]]. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.
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9	Compare and contrast with the various series hosted by Creator/ArthurCClarke (''Mysterious World, World of Strange Powers, Mysterious Universe'') that covered many of the same topics but did so in a more scientific manner, usually debunking the various theories or providing scientific explanations for phenomena instead of holding up any and all random explanations as equally valid, legitimate answers.
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11	In 2002, a reboot began airing hosted by Creator/MitchPileggi on [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci-Fi Channel]], but only lasted for eight episodes; in 2018, another reboot began on the History Channel (which used to air reruns of the original) hosted by, funnily enough, Creator/ZacharyQuinto, who played Nimoy’s iconic role of Mr. Spock in the Kelvin Timeline ''Star Trek'' movies.
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13	Not to be confused with ''[[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock The Search for Spock]]'', despite Nimoy's involvement.
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15	----
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17	!!This show provides examples of:
18	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The episode "Future Life" focused on predicting how people would live in the twenty-first-century. The progress of space travel and medical science is wildly overestimated while the phenomenal future predicted for computers is mostly accurate if a bit vague. The only really specific computer prediction is still rather fantastical, however, with its suggestion that NeuralImplanting could lead to a {{Transhuman}}.
19	* AlienAbduction: At least one episode on [=UFO=] sightings also discusses stories of abduction by little green men.
20	* AncientAstronauts: At least one episode is devoted to the subject, while other episodes on ancient wonders like the Pyramids, the Nazca lines, etc pose the question of outside "help".
21	* TheBermudaTriangle: Of course, there's an episode dedicated to this. It had actually already been debunked at the time, so the episode spends some time asserting that it's still unsolved and that debunkers are just trying to sweep the mystery under the rug.
22	* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: An episode is devoted to this and includes the perpetually famous Patterson–Gimlin footage.
23	* CapturedByCannibals: Discussed in the episode "Michael Rockefeller".
24	* DatedHistory: Quite a few of the mysteries aren't so mysterious anymore.
25	** For instance, they had an article about Carlos the Jackal as "The Most Wanted Man in the World." In 1994, the Sudanese government was convinced to give him up and he was arrested in 1994 and now is serving a life sentence in prison.
26	** Likewise, they did a story on [[MadDoctor Josef Mengele]]. He died in 1979 and his grave was found in 1985. Now that Mengele's identity while living in South America is known, the dramatic tales of Mengele's narrow escapes from {{Nazi Hunter}}s related in the episode have turned out to be bogus.
27	** In the same episode, the death toll of Auschwitz is given as five million, which is even higher than the inflated Soviet number of four million. The "four million" figure was, contrary to the claims of Holocaust deniers, never accepted by credible Western historians, although it was used by the Auschwitz State Museum in then-communist Poland at the time the episode aired. Five million ''is'' about the number of Jews who were killed in UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust, so it's possible the episode fallaciously conflated Auschwitz with the entire Holocaust.
28	** The episode on Eva Braun features David Irving, who is presented as a respectable historian. At the time this episode was made, Irving was already a very controversial writer with a reputation as a Hitler apologist. Later, as a result of his libel lawsuit against Deborah Lipstadt (reenacted in ''Film/{{Denial}}''), he would be exposed as a full-blown Holocaust denier and historical falsifier.
29	** Other subjects covered like astrology, dowsing, communicating with the dead, the predictions of Nostradamus, etc. have been thoroughly discredited as utter nonsense by modern scientific skeptics. Not that they had any scholarly support in the 70's, either.
30	** A 1981 episode was about the search for the ''Titanic''. The wreck was found just four years later. Of course, the episode repeats as truth the then-current theory that the ''Titanic'' sank in one piece, which was disproved when the wreck was found in two pieces. (Hence the reason pre-1985 ''Titanic'' films portray it sinking in one piece.)
31	** An episode covers the real account of ''Literature/TheAmityvilleHorror'', which has now been debunked as a [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie hoax]].
32	** Noah's Ark and the great flood is explored. Noah's flood being a myth has been the consensus of the geological community since the late Victorian era, so technically history had already marched on when the show was made. The episode acknowledges this and challenges the "nineteenth-century scientists" who disbelieved in the flood with the "twentieth-century scientists" who do. One of the "twentieth-century scientists" interviewed for this show is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M._Morris Henry Morris]], founder of the modern creationist movement who revived literalist claims about the idea (and was also an engineer rather than a scientist). There is a slight zig-zag here though: Since the 1990s, it has been proposed that the flood myth was inspired by a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis deluge that happened when the Black Sea was connected to the Mediterranean and filled to its current levels]]. If this happened, it would have happened in the 8th or 9th millennium BCE, so humans would definitely have been around to observe it; whether it actually ''did'' go down this way is highly controversial, though the hypothesis is still within the range of respectable geological opinion.[[note]]There is little question in modern geology that the water level of the Black Sea rose substantially during the Neolithic; however, why it rose, how much it rose, and how quickly is a matter of great debate.[[/note]] However, this is ''much'' more limited than the "Genesis flood" explored in the episode.
33	** There's an episode about [[DidAnastasiaSurvive Anastasia Romanova]], including an interview with an ancient-but-still-living Anna Anderson. In 2007, DNA testing disproved the idea that Anastasia could have survived the Russian Revolution. Anderson's DNA was preserved in part of her intestine that was removed in an operation and tested against that of the Romanovs', proving definitely she wasn't a Romanov.
34	* {{Dracula}}: There was an episode dedicated to him, complete with StockFootage from ''{{Film/Nosferatu}}'' being used to illustrate the Creator/BramStoker version of the character. There isn't really a mystery as such, since the episode mostly just relates the history of UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler. Although the episode itself leans towards HammerAndSickleRemovedForYourProtection, it's interesting to note that it was filmed on-location in {{UsefulNotes/Romania}} at a time when that country was ruled by the more modern tyrant of Nicolae Ceaușescu (who admired Vlad the Impaler, although that viewpoint is hardly uncommon among Romanians of all ideologies, who generally regard him as a national folk hero).
35	* InsaneTrollLogic:
36	** And it doesn't just come from the crackpots interviewed on the show; Creator/LeonardNimoy narrator himself uses it in spades. Almost every other sentence he utters consists of "Could this mystery be explained by ghosts/magic/aliens/telepathy?"
37	** At one point he asks how ancient Native Americans could draw pictures of elephants since they couldn't know what an elephant was, conveniently leaving out the fact that frigging MAMMOTHS AND MASTODONS lived alongside humans in the Americas until 10,000 years ago, which was common knowledge even at the time of the series.
38	* LandmarkOfLore: And there are many!
39	** The Pyramids
40	** Stonehenge
41	** The Bermuda Triangle
42	** Nazca, Peru
43	** Easter Island
44	** The Great Wall of China
45	* {{Mundanger}}: In addition to the standard episodes about the supernatural and extraterrestrial, every season had at least one episode about unambiguously real natural disasters, like earthquakes, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions, and the "mystery" of predicting and mitigating their effects. (Although the "Earthquakes" episode did include the debunked theory that planetary alignments can produce earthquakes.)
46	%%* NaziGold: The episode "Nazi Plunder".
47	* PirateBooty: The Oak Island treasure pit mystery.
48	%%* PsychicPowers
49	%%* PyramidPower
50	* ScaryStingingSwarm: The episode "Killer Bees" is dedicated to the Africanized honey bees which escaped from a Brazilian laboratory in 1957. Impressively, the episode predicts that Africanized bees would arrive in the United States in about 1990. In fact, it was in October of 1990 that the first Africanized beehives were found in Texas.
51	%%* SpookyPhotographs
52	* TheSeventies: While it technically continued into the early '80s, this is a '70s show through and through.
53	* ShoutOut: When the subtitle of the third ''Film/{{Star Trek\|III The Search for Spock}}'' movie was announced, many viewers and reviewers noticed the similarity between it and this series.
54	* StockUnsolvedMysteries: While not a work of fiction, the show presents well known mysteries and then offers practically [[WildMassGuessing every single wild theory]] under the sun as a possible explanation for them.
55	* TalkingHeads: Every episode has a significant chunk of time devoted to interviews with eyewitnesses and "experts" using this format.
56	%%* TimeTravel
57	%%* TheTunguskaEvent
58	* WhoShotJFK: The KGB, and the FBI covered it up because they didn't want to admit the Soviets outsmarted them. The show also alleges that "Oswald" was actually a Soviet lookalike (this is a real but less popular theory).
59	* WildMassGuessing: All over the place, to the point where the show has an opening disclaimer about it.

Context Series / InSearchOf