I’m a huge fan of all of Josh Gates’ exploration/mystery/paranormal reality shows like “Destination Truth,” “Expedition Unknown,” and “Legendary Locations.” As I was working on CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, I would often refer to his shows as a shorthand for describing who my main characters are. “They’re the cast members of a paranormal reality show, kind of like Josh Gates’ “Destination Truth,” I would say. When I was watching a marathon of his old “Destination Truth” show (on the SyFy channel originally from 2007 to 2012) recently and spent some of the commercial breaks channel surfing to a couple of other paranormal shows, I was taken by something wonderfully ironic. I almost laughed out loud.
OK, so let me set the scene: “Destination Truth” was oriented much more toward the exploration of supposed paranormal phenomena, whereas his recent programs are about exploration and the examination of legends, historical figures like Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, and Billy the Kid, and historical mysteries like lost treasures. In “Destination Truth,” Gates and his team would specifically investigate claims of hauntings, monsters, alien encounters and such around the world. But the most entertaining aspect of each of each episode would be Gates’ droll, tongue-in-cheek presentation of the old myths and his interview with locals who told of their encounters with otherworldly entities with wide-eyed, stunned solemnity.
Now, mind you, Gates’ winking presentation of these eyewitnesses never came across as condescension or disrespect for the simpleminded yokels who still believe in witchcraft, vampires, and demons in the twenty first century. But it is a lighthearted acknowledgement of how unbelievable this may sound in our rational modern world. “Destination Truth” had a fascinating subtext about old cultural traditions and folk beliefs colliding with a modernizing world. It is interesting to consider the comfort of old belief systems, especially superstitions and mystical belief systems, in a world where science has disproven the existence of the supernatural.
And then it came to my channel surfing where I would run into the rest of the paranormal reality fare like “Paranormal Lockdown” or “Most Haunted Towns” or other Travel Channel shows like “Ghost Adventures” and “The Dead Files.” The straight-faced, humorless discussions of everything supposedly otherworldly on these shows, the recollections of encounters with ghosts and demons by “average Americans,” looks astoundingly like Gates’ interviewees in the back country of Guam recounting their experiences with blood-sucking hellhounds. Except, again, the people on these other shows are Average American Folks! They are the citizenry of perhaps the most technologically and scientifically developed nation on Earth.
And, then again, they are the citizens of a country that has an ever-growing number of people who believe the Earth is flat, that Hollywood is run by devil-worshipping Illuminati cultists if you follow lunatic YouTube channels like A Call for an Uprising, or that a vast conspiracy is faking mass shootings.
We sure are an advanced culture today, aren’t we? And we keep getting smarter and smarter by the day!
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