Michael Siemsen's Blog - Posts Tagged "matt-turner-series"
The Story Behind the Story
The Story Behind THE DIG Story
Many have asked where the story of The Dig came from, and while it is rare for me to have an actual answer to the origin-of-story question, there is an interesting one in this case. When I was around 13, my older brother and I were watching TV (most likely “Cops,” “Quantum Leap,” or “American Gladiators”) and during a commercial break, one of those local news teasers came on. They always included something local, something sportsy, and something human interesty. The reporter(s) shared the local story, then something about the Dodgers or Lakers, I’m guessing, and then … “Scientists are mystified by a recent find at a dinosaur dig site: a piece of woven metal fabric was discovered that is raising serious questions … news at eleven.”
My brother and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Aliens? Time travelers? What could it be? We stayed on that channel for three hours waiting for the news to come on, and when it did, we waited through the national news segment, the local stuff, the weather, sports, past the room full of adorable kittens up for adoption at a local pet store, and then the anchors smiled and bid us goodnight. No archaeology story. No dinosaur bones. No woven metal fabric.
There was no Google at the time for us to quickly track down this story. Maybe they ran out of time? Could it have been a hoax that the producers discovered at some point between the 8:00pm teaser and 11:00pm broadcast? Or better yet, and probably far more likely, it was a cover-up. Someone from a secret government organization saw that they were going to air the biggest top secret hush-hush exposé the world has never seen, and they put a stop to that! Network executives were called and threatened, their own dark secrets used for leverage.
In case the newspeople had just run out of time, we watched the evening news on the same channel the next night. Nothing, of course.
Over the years, my brain went back to that mysterious teaser and blurb, thoroughly frustrated that I never got any resolution. It was left hanging, so enticing, just out of reach … But in the end, it’s clearly best that I never did. Whatever the real answer, it would surely have been a disappointment. Left in suspense with a question—a prompt—I got to make up my own explanation, and a character with the ability to answer it irrefutably. Matt Turner can tell you all about your little woven metal fabric.
Many have asked where the story of The Dig came from, and while it is rare for me to have an actual answer to the origin-of-story question, there is an interesting one in this case. When I was around 13, my older brother and I were watching TV (most likely “Cops,” “Quantum Leap,” or “American Gladiators”) and during a commercial break, one of those local news teasers came on. They always included something local, something sportsy, and something human interesty. The reporter(s) shared the local story, then something about the Dodgers or Lakers, I’m guessing, and then … “Scientists are mystified by a recent find at a dinosaur dig site: a piece of woven metal fabric was discovered that is raising serious questions … news at eleven.”
My brother and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Aliens? Time travelers? What could it be? We stayed on that channel for three hours waiting for the news to come on, and when it did, we waited through the national news segment, the local stuff, the weather, sports, past the room full of adorable kittens up for adoption at a local pet store, and then the anchors smiled and bid us goodnight. No archaeology story. No dinosaur bones. No woven metal fabric.
There was no Google at the time for us to quickly track down this story. Maybe they ran out of time? Could it have been a hoax that the producers discovered at some point between the 8:00pm teaser and 11:00pm broadcast? Or better yet, and probably far more likely, it was a cover-up. Someone from a secret government organization saw that they were going to air the biggest top secret hush-hush exposé the world has never seen, and they put a stop to that! Network executives were called and threatened, their own dark secrets used for leverage.
In case the newspeople had just run out of time, we watched the evening news on the same channel the next night. Nothing, of course.
Over the years, my brain went back to that mysterious teaser and blurb, thoroughly frustrated that I never got any resolution. It was left hanging, so enticing, just out of reach … But in the end, it’s clearly best that I never did. Whatever the real answer, it would surely have been a disappointment. Left in suspense with a question—a prompt—I got to make up my own explanation, and a character with the ability to answer it irrefutably. Matt Turner can tell you all about your little woven metal fabric.
