Destination Truth's Josh Gates

 
Destination Truth's Josh Gates. Photo copyright of Syfy.

This past St. Patrick's Day, season 4.5 of Syfy's hit adventure reality series Destination Truth premiered with its first-ever LIVE case in Ireland where host Josh Gates  and his team  investigated the ruins of Duckett's Grove Castle in search of the truth behind the legend of the banshee. This four-hour event kicked off six new episodes featuring treks to locales such as Namibia, Cyprus, Panama and Argentina as well as Antarctica, where strange phenomena has manifested itself around abandoned science research stations. Destination Truth airs Tuesdays @ 9:00 p.m. EST/PST.

Prior to the Ireland investigation, Josh spoke with myself along with other journalists about the live event as well as this season's new episodes. The following is an edited version of our Q & A. Enjoy!

What has been your favorite place out of all the different episodes and locales that you’ve ever visited.

JOSH GATES - That’s a tough question. I have a sort of standing bucket list of places that I’d like to go to, and actually one of our new episodes that’s coming up is in Antarctica, which I’ve wanted to go to for a very long time. We were really fortunate to be able to bring the show there and it’s an incredible episode.

There are these amazing ghost stories about these abandoned whaling stations and science facilities down at the bottom of the world, and we actually sailed from the bottom of South America. It’s a one-hour special where we visit Antarctica and investigate these locations, and for me, it exceeded all expectations. It’s this absolutely stunning place that is just sort of hidden from the rest of the world.

So we’re thrilled about the episode. It’s a really exciting and, in some cases, funny one, and you get to see what it takes to try to bring a crew of people across the Drake Passage and over to Antarctica.

What are some interesting things you discovered in researching banshee before you headed over to Ireland?

JG - We experienced some of the same surprises that we experienced when we were investigation the leprechaun story last year, which is that, you know, there’s this really intense connection in Ireland to their folklore. You meet a lot of people who really are invested in these paranormal reports. They believe that these ghosts are there, including the banshee, and they claim to have had these first person experiences that are truly compelling when you listen to them. So, I think that the real challenge for us is to be as respectful as possible of these beliefs. These are stories and legends that really define Irish culture.

So we’re excited to go over there and take these great stories - some of which you’ll be seeing on the night of the live show - from these eyewitnesses, to investigating their claims and seeing if we can put a face to what they’re seeing, hearing and experiencing.

How is Antarctica different from other isolated places you’ve investigated?

JG - One of the things that makes it so impressive is how pristine it is. It's a place that really has benefited from being removed from human contact. You think of Antarctica as being sort of barren, but when you get there you realize that it’s actually this flourishing ecosystem with an unbelievable amount of actual wildlife.

And it’s a desert essentially, as well, a snow covered desert, but it’s just a really unique environment. And I think for me, as a traveler, the other thing that is so impressive about it is the amount of fortitude and bravery that it has taken people to go and explore that place. When you go to these old explorers’ huts and whaling huts, there’s this unbelievable legacy of intrepidity. I mean, these people who risked, and many times, lost their lives trying to explore this extremely hostile environment.

When you’re in a foreign land investigating ghosts, why do you ask questions in English and expect to get a response back in English?

JG - Well, we don’t always expect a response back in English. When we do these investigations we bring along a lot of different recording equipment. We set up both audio recorders and video recorders throughout the place where the sightings have been purported. We then take all that data back and look for anything that sounds like speech or sounds like it might be an EVP.

So there’s not an expectation on our part that the responses are going to be in English, and there have actually been a few instances where we’ve tried to speak in the native language as well. But I think for us, it’s about validating eyewitness claims, so if eyewitnesses are claiming to see and hear what sounds like speech, we’re just seeing if we can see and hear what it is that they’re seeing and hearing.

What goes through your mind when you do one of these live investigations? I mean, is there like a fear that maybe nothing at all is going to happen?

JG - One of the things that we’re really intent on doing with this live show is making it about the investigation. And when we go to investigate these locations we have to boil that down to a very small amount of what actually happened. So for us to be able to show audiences in real time what happens out there is, I think, going to be really interesting. Our investigations are typically exciting and from time-to-time typically funny, too, so it’s going to be an unexpected night, and I think that this is a place that has a pretty interesting reputation for a lot of strange activity. So we’re very hopeful that we’ll be able to showcase some of that.

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about, I guess, the investigation or the setup you do. When you go to a place, does the team spend some time coming up with possible theories that could debunk these sightings? I mean, I assume you probably look at, for example, wildlife in the area and things like that, or do you just kind of go into it and wait to see what happens?

JG - I think what we’ll be doing during the live investigation is talking about the specific reports in and around Duckett’s Grove, which is this sprawling parcel of land with this imposing ruined estate on it, and asking the questions, “Well, could it be this, could it be that?”

Certainly I think that the simplest explanation for peoples' experiences is often the right one, and so we’ll be looking for ways to debunk these claims. But, you know a lot of these claims are very dramatic. They are things that you wouldn’t expect people to mistake for something in the natural environment. We’re also on the lookout for, you know, will these things happen for us? Will we be able to see these things that so many people claim happen there?

Is there actually a visual element to it [the banshee], or is it mostly auditory that you guys are going to be searching for?

JG - The sort of auditory element of the banshee is what’s she’s famous for, right? She has this piercing wail that really defines the banshee. And the sound of the banshee is something that if you walk down the street in Ireland and polled 100 people and asked them about the banshee’s wail, you’d be amazed at how many people will have something to say about it.

There are a number of people who claim that just before a death they have heard this wailing, but there is also a visual element to this ghost. She is reported as sometimes being a young woman, sometimes an old woman, but always with a cloak and sort of long flowing hair. And there have been a lot of visual encounters, specifically at Duckett’s Grove, the place where we’re going. So there are a lot of different reports, both visual and auditory, for us to follow-up on.

What originally inspired you to sort of get into this investigative line of work?

JG - I’m in it for the women and the money. No, that’s not true. I’m a travel nut. My father worked overseas when I was a kid. He was a commercial diver and is retired now. My mom’s British so we would go over to England once a year, and from a really early age I just had this intense desire to go and see what was outside those airplane windows.

So I’ve always wanted to work in travel television in particular, and to be able to go to places and bring stories back for viewers. I came to Destination Truth in sort of a roundabout way. They were looking for someone to helm a show like this and I met with them [The Powers That Be], and I think what they liked is that I am a travel enthusiast and not ,you know, a Big Foot aficionado, right? I don’t rubberstamp the stories, I’m just as apt to say that I think something doesn’t exists, as to say that it does.

They really wanted someone who could stand in place of the viewer and go out there and ask the questions that they might ask, like, “Well, wait a minute, could it be this? Could it be that?” And really try to bring back these cultures, or at least a little sliver of these cultures for our viewers to take in and to learn about some of these places that are not often exposed on TV. Again, I have a real passion for travel and in the eyes of the channel, that made me a good fit for the show.

Obviously your work takes you all around the globe, and with the world changing quite a bit over the past several years, has it affected how you do your job?

JG - You know, in a lot of ways it hasn’t. There are obviously political hotspots around the world that sometimes become off limits for us to film in for obvious reasons. There are some dangerous spots here and there. But I will say that I think one of the things that’s always amazing to me is how no matter what the particular political conflict in the world is, people everywhere we go are almost universally unbelievably hospitable and welcoming. They want to share their stories. They want to work with us. They want to have their history and their culture featured and celebrated.

That’s kind of our secret mission on the show - to get people excited about travel, going to far away exotic places, and soaking in other peoples' culture. I’ve been really amazed that as much as the world has changed, for the most part you go to towns and villages around the world and it hasn’t, right? People are still pretty great everywhere you go.

You guys get to go to these really cool exotic places, and when you talk to the locals, they tell you that the creatures are seen during daytime, but a lot of the time your investigations take place at night. I was wondering why you mostly focus on night expeditions if in some cases the creatures may actually be daytime creatures?

JG - That's a good question. In the instances where the creatures tend to be seen during the day, we do go out during the day and investigate. You have to also remember, though, that what makes it to the screen is not usually the full complement of what we’ve done out there.

Probably part of the answer to your question is that the night investigations are more compelling. I mean, without beating around the bush, it’s certainly more interesting to go look for things at night rather than during the day. A lot of these creatures are purported to come out at night, you know? Most of the eyewitness sightings for these types of creatures and phenomena happen at night, and there are a variety of reasons for that. It could be that the things that people are seeing are nocturnal. It could also be that things are harder to see at night and people mistake things more. But for the most part, if there are a preponderance of daytime sightings we’ll go out and investigate during the day. It’s especially true of our water creatures, where a lot of people see stuff during the day on the water, so we try to do a number of day dives in the area where people have seen things.

Is it sometimes easier trying to collect evidence during the day than at night?

JG - Sure, and, again, in instances where people claim to see things during the day we do investigate during the day. One of the great challenges of this show is trying to boil down these big expeditions to an hour, and the times when we’re able to spend one hour on one topic, we’re able to feature a bit more of that daytime journey. But if we spend a night in a location and investigate there, the day before we set up or the day after, we’ll typically go and sweep the whole area again and look around during daylight.

You’ve done so many investigations, is there one that has la special place in your heart or a little bit more meaning than some of the other ones?

JG - There have been a number of them. I look back very fondly on our investigation of King Tut’s tomb, as well as our trip to Chernobyl. Even though that was a very difficult place to investigate, I'm just so amazed that we were able to achieve our goals of going to those places, you know, negotiating the permissions to spend time there, and actually filming and bringing those experiences back.

There are a few episodes from this coming season that I’m really proud of as well. We were able to visit Namibia in Southwestern Africa, which is a country that is hardly featured on television at all. It’s an amazing place, incredible dunes and deserts. It’s a really barren landscape. And we have a couple of great stories there; a really interesting creature sighting in the northern part of the country, and a very cool paranormal story as well. So for me, I think the more difficult and exotic places always kind of stand out.

Is there any investigations you’ve done that you didn’t feel were completely answered or that you weren’t satisfied with the answer and would like to revisit?

JG - There are a lot of places that we’d like to revisit and we talk about that from time to time. We’ve never revisited an episode yet in the show, having done it for four years, so I think there’s a lot of opportunities for us to go back. There are plenty of episodes that have unanswered questions, you know?

I think a lot of the time we’re able to make determinations at the end of the show that Creature X, you know, or paranormal, you know, Entity X doesn’t exist, because we can explain it away with alternate explanations, or natural things that are happening in the environment. But there are plenty of places where we’re not able to make that determination and we’re left feeling like either we weren’t able to fully realize what the eyewitnesses had seen, or we had seen things ourselves that we weren’t able to fully explain. And I think that’s also part of the fun of the show is that you’re not going to throw a net over these animals at the end of every hour. You’re going to be left sometimes with more questions than you came in with, and that invites us to go back and maybe take a look at some of those stories again.

How do you pick new team members for Destination Truth?

JG - We pick them very carefully. We obviously ask the question of why we have to swap out team members sometimes, and it’s not a very exciting answer. It’s just that the nature of the way we film is that we come home for wide stretches in between the times that we go out, and our crew are people that are in demand on all sorts of projects. So, we have a rotating group of people that come on and off the show. We also try to bring people in who are tailored to each of the expeditions that we’re doing, people who speak different languages and have different regional expertise. But it’s a difficult thing to do because you’re not only hiring someone who you want to be a good investigator, you want them to be good on TV and all those sort of things as well.

You also want them to be someone who you’re going to be able to live in close quarters with for two or three months at a time, and who is going to have a lot of enthusiasm for working in really difficult environments. So we meet people that are recommended to us or that we’re, you know, sort of referred to us and we screen them really carefully. It’s a little family out there and we want everyone who’s in that family to really fit in well and enjoy the experience as much as we do. The type of people who work on DT have this wonderlust and they really want to do these sorts of things and get out in the world in order to turn over some rocks and look in some dark corners. So those are the kind of folks that we’re after.

As noted above, photo copyright of Syfy, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Comments

[Sen]

My friends and I have been watching your videos but "The Gohts of The Great Wall" caught us by surprise. Because before Josh said someone touched my backpack there was something that passed him then it was behind him. The thing that passed you looked like a woman. She was wearing a long puffy jacket. Her face was covered by the camera rod on your back.
When you were disscussing about your experiance to your team, there was something sitting by your left. It had what looked like a skull face and it had a little hair too. It looked like it had black clothing on with a fluffy gray collar.
Hope to hear from you soon.

[PAUL]

THE TOMB----- hi gosh i truly dont know if you all read what we write however i too have stood just were you had,freeky is in no way even a way or word too explain what all goes on there,and its not just there ,the whole area is somewhat screaming with things which we as normal people truly cant explain.Imyself would truly love too see you re-vist the whole area a one hour-made for t v show,with all the trimmings and facts,thruth is thruth and as you very well no,,,its your job too report it,there's no better way too do this you ,,yourself returning back too [the tomb]ie,tuts if others which too knowsend me a email once your all back tere thanks GHOSTSEEKERSCANADATM*