In September 2006 Baylor University released a survey which mentioned that a “surprising level” of belief in the paranormal by Americans. ReligionLink commented on this and said that, “According to a 2005 askyourguide Poll, about 75 percent of Americans hold some form of belief in the paranormal – extrasensory perception, ghosts, telepathy, clairvoyance, astrology, communicating with the dead, witches, reincarnation or channeling.”

This interest in the paranormal has been a part of popular culture for quite some time, and therefore it is not surprising to see it expressed in a variety of ways, including television programming. One of the first came on the heels of the surfacing interest in the paranormal as a result of the counterculture in the late 1960s, a time involving what scholars like Robert Elwood have described as one of “shifting religious imagination” and in which science fiction and fantasy became the stuff of new mythologies. The interest in the paranormal following the 1960s created the conditions through which a particular television show kicked off paranormal television that continues today. It was the documentary-style program, In Search Of…, that ran from 1976 to 1982, hosted by Leonard Nimoy. The series was the brainchild of Alan Landsburg who was also responsible for a 1973 television program narrated by Rod Serling titled In Search of Ancient Astronauts, which explored the controversial theories of Erich von Däniken. (This program was just one of many documentaries on the paranormal and UFOs hosted by Serling. Another example is UFOs: It Has Begun.) The success of In Search of Ancient Astronauts led to the development of In Search of… as a half-hour weekly television program that examined a number of phenomenon, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, psychic activity, lost civilizations, and much more.

Although this program is probably largely forgotten by viewers other than those like myself with a sense of nostalgia, and perhaps also an interest in the paranormal and cryptozoology, In Search of… may be seen as the precursor which opened the way for similar programming over the ensuing decades and into today. One contemporary example that follows an In Search of… documentary-style template, is the History Channel’s Monster Quest. Narrated by Stacy Keach, as the title indicates, this program focuses on cryptozoology, and examines eyewitness reports of strange creatures around the world as described on the program’s website which includes a MonsterPedia.

Beyond this, much of the contemporary paranormal television offerings follow a “reality TV” style rather than the documentary. Examples of this kind of contemporary programming include the Travel Channel’s Most Haunted and Ghost Adventures, the Sci-Fi (now Syfy) Channel’s Ghost Hunters, and programs like the History Channel’s UFO Hunters.

The increasing embrace of technology and rationality that came with modernity may have made it more difficult to embrace traditional forms of religious belief, but it has not eradicated the human desire for mystery and transcendence. Paranormal television provides fodder for the imagination in this regard, and In Search of… helped pave the way for numerous television programs to follow.