You’ve seen his face on local TV and heard his voice on local radio around the DMV. Tony Harris now hosts “The Proof Is Out There” on the History Channel on Fridays.
Listen to our full conversation on my Beyond the Fame podcast.
WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews ‘The Proof Is Out There’ (Part 1)
You’ve seen his face on local TV and heard his voice on local radio around the DMV.
Tony Harris is now the host “The proof is there” on the History Channel on Fridays.
“It’s very difficult in this business to find a different concept, a twist on a concept that will really attract people,” Harris told WTOP. “The people at History really know their audience. They found another way into this space of anomalies, UFOs and UAPs and we got a successful show. I’m taking part in the trip and it’s been a great trip so far.”
The series is now in its second season after launching on February 5, 2021, where people are asked to submit unexplained videos like “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “Secret Stuff.”
“We are a show that is essentially crowdsourced,” Harris said. “We relied heavily on Bigfoot, Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster to drive the early episodes. … [Now] we have congressional hearings on surveillance, the Department of Defense is involved, military pilots are saying … “This thing on my radar that I’m videotaping, I can’t explain it.”
Instead of just showing the mysterious footage, the show invites experts to analyze it.
“We have a panel of experts,” Harris said. “Theoretical physicists, audio and video forensics, looking at the material and making a decision as to whether it’s real or fake or hoax, because there’s a lot of it. Then the sentence is passed. … I have a pretty wide-brimmed skeptic hat that I wear; we must as journalists.”
Born in Baltimore in 1967, Harris attended UMBC and worked as a disc jockey at WSID-AM in Baltimore, WLPL in Baltimore and WOOK in D.C., but soon felt he wanted to try television.
“I knew this from my earliest days in Baltimore, watching the real heroes of Sue Simmons, who spent time in D.C. and Baltimore before New York; Oprah Winfrey also stopped in Baltimore,” Harris said. “There was a taxi driver who did a show in Baltimore. I said, “Wow, I can’t do what Sue does, I can’t do what Oprah does, but I can do what this guy does!”
After a stint at WJMO radio in Cleveland, he officially moved to WJW-TV in Cleveland before moving to Los Angeles to host “Entertainment Tonight” for several years, as well as the Fox magazine show “The Front Page” with Josh Mankiewicz (“Dateline” NBC”).
After another stint in Cleveland at WKYC, Harris returned home to anchor WBFF’s News at 10 in Baltimore before moving to WGCL-TV in Atlanta. This led to his stint at CNN in 2004, where he co-anchored CNN Saturday Morning, CNN Sunday Morning, CNN Newsroom and American Morning, and in 2011 became host Al Jazeera English.
Most recently, Harris hosted Discovery Channel’s Crime Scene, Investigation Discovery’s Hate in America and History Channel’s The Proof is Out There.
“I’ve had a career that would make me a low first-round draft pick,” he joked.
Speaking of sports, he still loves to see Baltimore teams succeed.
“I was an Oriole kid,” Harris said. “My favorite Oriole of all time was the late great Paul Blair. I’m Bug [Powell]Brooks [Robinson]Frank [Robinson], [Jim] Palmer, [Mike] Cuellar, [Dave] McNally, [Pat] Dobson. … I was Bert Jones, Lydell Mitchell, those Colts teams. After all, I’m a Ravens and Raiders fan. … For God’s sake, pay Lamar [Jackson]!”
When it comes to quarterbacks’ game tape, the evidence is there.
WTOP’s Jason Fraley reviews The Proof Is Out There (Part 2)
Listen to our full conversation on my Beyond the Fame podcast.
