MONSTERS THAT AREN'T THERE - OR ARE THEY?

Byline: DAVID KRONKE TV Critic

``Monster Hunters'' is a surreal comic series that never quite lets the audience in on the joke or, more specifically, declines to recognize it. Documentarians Sheera and Peter von Puttkamer traverse the globe, exploring spooky local mythologies and those who resolutely believe them, and, though their investigations faithfully fail to dig up anything of substance, the dim possibility of the paranormal is left dangling tantalizingly in the air.

In each of the six cases examined, amateur (and even vaguely professional) investigators root about in the back woods for some mythical monster; each makes a vague and undemonstrable discovery. It's intimated that the respective governments must know more than they're letting on, and the von Puttkamers allow the question to linger that maybe something supernatural really is out there, even though nothing has been proven for decades or even centuries. Call it ``X-Files Lite.''

Tonight's first case study posits a couple of paramedics who moonlight as Mulder wanna-bes searching New Jersey's backwoods for ``The Jersey Devil,'' itself an ``X-Files'' episode. Noting that volunteers in the past have proven a tad unreliable, Mike McLeer offers that if they encounter the beastie, who looks like a low-rent dragon, ``We're not going to go up to it and stab it to death or something like that.''

From there, we jet off to England, looking for giant cats who terrorize farm animals (a recurring beleaguered victim in these studies). ``Something's definitely out there,'' we're told, though all the cameras can produce are sightings of domestic cats.

Puerto Rico's legendary Chupacabra is up next, a creature blamed for attacks on animals from rabbits to bulls. U.S. military presence on the island spawns all manner of genetic testing conspiracy theories. ``I'm a very tactile person,'' says an Aunt Bea type who hunts this animal butcher and just wants to pet it.

A second special, airing June 25, searches for a ``cadborosaurus,'' a sea serpent sighted repeatedly off the coast of British Columbia. A whale dragging a clump of seaweed seems the most likely suspect, but remember, British Columbia has the most lenient marijuana laws on the continent.

Australia's Yowie, a 10-foot-tall ape man, is also sought after; those pursuing it note that ``he's a master of his own habitat'' as the reason for their inability to get a bead on it, rather than, say, its nonexistence.

Finally, Australia's Tasmanian tiger, a hybrid critter that once actually existed, is discussed - if researchers can't find one, they threaten to clone it.

``Monster Hunters'' offers a wealth of fascinating local lore and culture amid its essaying the futile sneaking in the shadows of lovable crackpots. The filmmakers' resolute insistence in taking these misadventures seriously can be variously interpreted as empathy for their subjects or a lack of a sense of humor or simple cynicism. Somehow, though, it doesn't detract from the entertaining spectacle of true believers fumbling, quite literally, in the dark.

MONSTER HUNTERS - Two and one half stars

What: Documentary series about ``cryptozoologists'' seeking evidence of legendary beasts.

Where: The Learning Channel.

When: 9 tonight; 10 p.m. June 25.