6.6 /10 1 Votes
7.1/10 TV Original language(s) English No. of episodes 36 | 6.3/10 IMDb Country of origin United States No. of seasons 2 First episode date 15 July 2010 Language English | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Starring Ben HansenJael de Pardo Executive producer(s) John BrenkusMickey Stern Similar Haunted Highway, Ghost Hunters, Destination Truth, Paranormal Witness, Ghost Hunters International | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files is a paranormal investigation series produced by Base Productions that began airing July 15, 2010, on SyFy. The show follows a team of investigators, led by former FBI agent Ben Hansen, who review various photographs and viral videos (mainly from the internet) of alleged paranormal activity. If a particular piece of evidence is deemed intriguing enough to warrant further investigation, they set out to recreate and explain the sighting.
Contents
Beginning episode #207 in the first half of season two, the show began to feature a "You Decide" segment in the middle of the program where a video is shown of something strange and then asks the viewing audience if they think the footage is fact or faked. After a commercial break the truth behind the video is revealed.
As of December 2016, Syfy has not announced another season of Fact or Faked.
As of fall 2014, reruns of Fact or Faked can be found on Syfy's sister channel Chiller. As of October 2016, episodes of "Fact or Faked" can be found on Destination America listed as new but are in fact reruns .
Reviews
The show has been described as "Destination Truth mixed with MythBusters". A Variety magazine review says – "Now we know what Fox Mulder would have done after leaving "The X-Files" unit: Get his own reality-TV show!" Will Wade of Common Sense Media said the squad seemed like it was selected for the skill set rather than their readiness for TV.
Criticism
Skeptical researchers such as Karen Stollznow of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) have criticized the investigating competence of the Fact or Faked team, such as the Civil War cemetery ghost case from episode 6 in particular. The examined footage involves an alleged orb and mist captured on a few frames of video, and when the FoF team unsuccessfully recreate it, they conclude it to be paranormal. Stollznow claimed that by slowing the video down frame-by-frame, something that the FoF team did not do (at least on camera), the orb and mist are supposedly revealed to be a spider on a web.
In 2010, the JREF also published a story stating that the producers of FoF attempted to get a group to alter a "paranormal video" they shot in order for it to be considered for the show. The group, the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, are paranormal claims investigators who filmed a planchette of an ouija board moving around on its own. The video was deliberately faked using a hidden string and released to the internet as a demonstration of how such tricks can be done. FoF producers who saw the video contacted the group and asked that they re-shoot the video and make the pointer move more dramatically before they would make an offer to feature the video on the show.