Remainder of First Fan Q&A with Josh Gates on Mandogg House Radio

Transcribed by: Andrew & Crystal Roswal 
Interview Conducted and Edited by: Amanda Rosenblatt

AMANDA: Alright next on the show we have, very patiently waiting, Lindsey.  You there, Lindsey?

LINDSEY:  I am.  How are ya'll?

JOSH GATES:  Hi Lindsey.  How ya doing?

L:  I'm doing great.  How about you Josh?

J:  I'm great, thanks.  It's a little hot here in California.  Other than that, I'm doing great.

L:  Well you know, it's surprising cool here in Louisiana.  So I'm shocked.

J:  See?  … The whole world upside down.


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L:  It totally is.  My question is - I’m a member of ITAB Paranormal.  And we like to take groups with other paranormal groups, such as TAPS and Ghost Hunters and PRS with you around the state.  So we've done the paranormal, now we want to expand our experiences. So we ITAB'ers would love to take a field trip with the cast from Destination Truth.  So do you think there is any chance of a proposed zoology field trip happening in the future for your fans?

J:  I would love that, you know.  And that would be terrific.  It would be a question of sort of figuring out the logistics of it.  You know, I mean one of the sort of mechanics of doing a cryptid investigation is obviously your being your out in some sort of large environmental area.  So, I would love to figure out something like that.  It would be a question of a place and a subject and a time.  And if we could work all that out, I'm sure that myself and a bunch of the crew would be really excited about that.

L:  Well that would be awesome.  And if you need any help, I would be willing to do it.  I think we should do something like the Moth Man, West Virginia.  That would be something very fun, you know.

J:  Yeah, the Moth Man is actually,  you know, as I said a couple minutes ago, we're talking about going back out and doing some more episodes and we've spent the last two weeks doing a sort of soft start to our new season, or to the back half of season 3.  And we've been spending those two weeks just doing a lot of research.  And trying to find a great new group of stories.  And the Moth Man is certainly, there's a pin on the board with his name on it.  So, that's one of a number of US stories that we're thinking about.

L:  Well, that's awesome.  But I'm here to tell you that if you do it, you've got 12 ITAB'ers coming.

J:  I love it.  I think that would be terrific.  And if we do it, I'll take you up on it.  You're all down in Louisiana, is that right?

L:  No, we're all over.  We all met on a field trip from with Paranormal State.  And we're literally from one end of the country to the other.  And we get together and ghost hunt and do whatever.  We've already done one to West Virginia with the Moth Man.

J:  Oh.

L:  We'd be more than happy to go do another one.

J:  Great.  Well, I love that idea of that.  So, you know, definitely stay in communication with us through the postings on the site and you know that would be something that we would love to figure out a way to do.  Because we are now starting to do some US episodes. 

 

J (cont.): And that's something we should probably talk about Amanda, is some of the stuff that is coming up in season 3.  And we've never ever done a show in the US before.  And we felt like this was the time to bring Destination Truth home.  And for the first time do a few episodes here.  So you will be seeing two different US investigations in the upcoming season and we hope it's the beginning of, not just new stories in the US.  Because it's in the US, the show changes a little bit.  You know, because we're not out in the forest of Indonesia, so it's a sort of different cultural environment.  So we want to try and find new ways to keep the show fresh and doing something like that might be a really neat idea that we haven't tried yet.  Actually bring other people in and get a large group out there, that'd be a lot of fun.  We would love to think about something like that.

L:  Awesome.  Well I'll keep you posted.  And thanks a lot and good luck on the new season.

J:  Cheers.  Thanks very much, I appreciate it.

L:  Good bye.

J:  Bye.

A:  Thanks Lindsey.  Yeah it's cool to hear you guys did two investigations in the US.  You did it in Alaska and Florida, right?

J:  That's right!  That's right, yeah.  It's something we've talked about since the beginning of Destination Truth and there was a concern from the beginning, once the show came out and started.  There was a concern that we didn't want the show to lose what everybody at the channel and our offices felt like was a really part of the success of the show is this really exotic flavor that it has.  And that we take viewers to places that are really off the beaten path.  And so our initial fear was that we would jeopardize that by shooting in the US. 

J: But both of the episodes that we did this season in the US are really remote and really difficult.  The outer frontier of Alaska is as hard a place that we've probably ever shot in.  So I think that people will, we hope, watch those episodes and realize that there's a lot of adventure right in they're own back yard.  And so, we think they're going to be great.

A:  OK, a couple of quick questions from the chat room.  Someone asked, what happened with the Mongol Rally?

J:  Oh, the Mongol Rally.  This is such a sad story.

A: Awww.

 J: I've wanted to do the Mongol Rally for a couple of years now, since I found out about it.  And the way it works is that you essentially have to get chosen to drive in it by lottery.  And they have a day where they do this lottery.  And it's over the Internet, it's super unreliable and the web site crashes and it's one of those like.  Everyone tries to get one of these 200 slots within, you know, two seconds.  And for a few years in a row, I got smoked.  I just was never able to pull a place in it. 

J: And then last year, when they did the drawing, I got pulled to do it.  And this great friend of mine, Collin MacNaughton, and I were committed to go and do this thing this summer.  And the reality is just that the show just kind of got in the way.  And you know we had to be shooting and we had to be working on the show in post and getting ready for it to air.  So it ultimately just wasn't possible.  And it was a shame, because now I have to go back in that stupid lottery system next year and try to do it again.  But the Mongol Rally has eluded me, but I will attempt to conquer it at some point.

A:  So you probably have more of a chance of winning the Mongol Rally lottery, than winning the actual Mega-Millions lottery. (laughs)

J:  You know, I'm thinking about giving up on the Mega-Millions.  It's not really working out for me.

A:  (laughs) I don't think you can long with that.  So I wouldn't really worry about that.

J:  But yeah, so the Mongol Rally was not meant to be this year.  You know, and the fact that it was the show that got in the way is a pretty good substitute.  So, you know, it's something I'll hopefully be able to do in the future.

A:  Great.  Then a couple more questions, but I want to keep it concise.  Somebody did a song for DT, like a fan song.  And they wanted me to forward that to you.  So I'll send you that email.

J:  Terrific.  I look forward to hearing it, and thanks to whoever composed that.  That's cool.

A:  Yeah, I got a listen to it.  It's pretty good.

J:  Cool.

A:  And what else?  Supposedly there was a big story in the news about a Chupacabra being caught and [the fans] wanted to know if you had heard about that at all.

J:  I did.  It was a couple days ago.  And it certainly popped up on our radar screens.  And then I sort of heard about it and then it sort of faded away.  I'm sure there'll be an update on it soon.  But you know, I mean these are the kind of things that pop up in the news with some frequency.  You remember the Bigfoot body that was found last year or the year before.  And it's one of those things where sometimes, in the case of the Bigfoot thing it was obviously specifically a sort of a hoax and a money grab.  But you know a lot of the times I think people are discovering things and finding things they aren't quite able to identify.  And then the news picks up on it and thinks it might be something unknown.  And that gets everybody excited. 

J: And I think that in a way, the fact that wasn't a big story in the news sort of speaks directly to why we think Destination Truth works.  Because I think people like these kind of stories and people get excited about them and people like having a mystery.  You know, these are the kind of things that people get excited about.  And so whether or not it turns out to be anything, we'll wait and watch.  But in the meantime, I think it certainly speaks to the fact that people have an interest in the unknown.

A:  Great.  I actually had a really good question from the fans.  If I could extend this radio show, would you be able to stay on for another half an hour to take more questions, or do you have to be somewhere else?

J:  No, I'd be happy to take some more questions! I'm getting up in the morning and taking a flight.  So I'm just sort of, I'm trying to pack and get some stuff done, but I'm so appreciative that people are on here and that you put it together.  I'm more than happy to hang out for a couple.

A:  Alright great!  I'm going to extend this show for another half an hour you guys, if I can.  Let's see.  And more comments we have in the chat room right now.  Josh is cute.  Josh is cute.  Josh is really cute.  Then Jess says I can't comment that he's cute, he's my cousin. That’s gross.

J:  (laughs) Where are the people who want to scream and yell at me?

A:  I know, like I need to rally them over and be like, can you chase him down the street while a photographer watches him?  Oh man.  OK, so the show should be extended another half an hour.  But I guess we'll find out.  So let's take a few more questions.  Alright, we have Caroline on the air.  Are you there Caroline?

Caroline:  I'm here.

J:  Hey Caroline.  How are you?

C:  Hi, I'm good.  How are you Josh?

J:  Fine, Thanks.

C:  My question was, how do you choose which stories to go after and who is the one that makes the final decision on what destination you want to go to?

J:  So the way that it works is that we have a production office in Hollywood.  And it's called Ping Pong Productions; they're the company that makes the show.  And the way that a lot of cable television works is that the actual networks don't make the shows.  They buy them from other companies.  And so SyFy doesn't have their own studio where they make shows.  They are a network and they have executives and purchase their shows from other companies that make them. 

J (cont.): So in the case of Destination Truth, Ping Pong has offices in Hollywood and I work there.  And when we're getting ready to do a new cycle of the show, the very first thing we do is go to local news from around the world.  We get on Google, we get on the Internet and start looking at newspapers online.  And we look for stories that are in the news.  Because there is a certain threshold of what works as a Destination Truth story.  It has to be a really interesting story where there's a creature or paranormal phenomenon or a haunting.  But it also has to have some relevance, it has to have people attached to it that say I saw this thing, I experienced this thing. 

J (cont.) : There's lots of great mythology around the world.  But we're not gonna go look for the Cyclops.  Because nobodies seen it for 50,000 years.  So we want to go to places where people are reporting a current experience.  Because that's really the heartbeat of the show, is trying to get to the bottom of things.  So we start with developing stuff on the Internet and the local newspapers around the world.  And that gives us a kind of start point.  And then we start looking at the globe and trying to figure out a route.  And Destination Truth, one the things that you don't really clearly see is the way in which the show is routed.  And it's a very complicated process to route the show to go around the world and hop back with some segments both here and overseas.  So we have to kind of figure out a route that makes sense.  And occasionally we'll have a great story up in Siberia Russia and another great story down in New Zealand.  But sometimes it gets too hard to zigzag, and we try to kind of create straight lines across the planet as we travel.  And so we then kind of look line-of-sight to see are some other places we'd like to go.  Sometimes it's just the location, sometimes we say we've really never been to this country or that country.  And we talk to local fixers or producers from those countries and we try to determine if there is anything going on there.  And work with locals in different places to help develop the stories. 

J (cont.): And once we have a grouping of stories that we think makes the grade, I sit with the Executive Producer of the show and I present a lot of the research and we hammer it out together.  We have a great partnership, him and I.  And then we go up to, march on up to SyFy and take a big meetings with the executives there and we lay out our hopes for the season.  And then they'll chime in with concerns that they have.  And they'll let us know if they want to redirect certain things or if there are stories that don't hold any interest to them.  And then we go back to the drawing board and refine it a little bit more.  In a pretty short order we have a final grouping and then we get into trying to poke it and then trying to line up a lot of other things along the way.

C:  Cool.  Well thanks for answering my question.  I have one more.

J:  Sure.

C:  And I forgot what it was.  I'm sorry.

J: (chuckles) It's alright.

C:  Do you, I'm just curious, do you still have that hat from the Australia episode?

J:  Do I still have the hat from the Australia episode?

C:  Yeah, like the Indiana Jones hat

J:  I bought that hat in Australia.  And then at the end of the Australia shoot, we carried on to somewhere else.  And I think I gave the hat to Brad to fly back to the states.  And now I don't know where it is.  That's a good question.  I have a missing hat on my hands.

C:  He couldn't find it?

J:  Yeah, I've got to go find that hat.  Brad stole that hat from me now that I think about it.

C:  And you look really good in that hat!

Josh:  Thank you!  You know I try not to, here's the thing with the hats.  I do like to wear hats, but I get worried about looking to on-the-nose, you know.  Because then it starts to look like I'm playing dress-up, like Indiana Jones dress-up.  I get scared that if I wear stuff like that too much, it starts to look silly.

C:  Oh it didn't look silly.  It looked really good.

J: (chuckles)  Alright, fair enough.  I'll try and recover the hat.

C:  Alright, thank you.

J:  No worries, thank you.

A:  Thank you.  Alright…we have Zach.  Zach?

Z:  What’s up?

J:  Hey Zach, how are ya?

Z:  Hi.  I've got a question for you Josh.  I was just wondering when you travel and stuff, what type of music do you listen to?

J:  Oh, this is gonna lose some fans.  Now we're getting into dangerous territory here.

Z:  Oh.

J:  So everybody on the show carries an iPod.  It's like standard issue at this point.  Everyone goes around the world and we always try and keep them out of the shots and stuff.  But you take these 20 hour plane rides and 10 hour train rides.  Everybody plugs into their iPod to take break and get off into their own little world.  Everybody on the show has different music tastes. 

J (cont.): I am a little bit, hesitantly I'm going to say, I'm kind of a big country music fan.  I know, it's devastating news for many listeners.  Good country though, not the junk, not the sassy pop top 40 country.  I do love country and bluegrass, so I listen to a lot of that.  And I listen to a lot of, you know.  I guess the other stuff is less controversial is I listen to you know classic rock and early rock and roll.  I love the Beatles, I'm a big Beatles guy.  And some 80's stuff, and that's about it.  I don't really get into Hip Hop and things like that.  We have really eclectic music tastes, so we'll often fight if there's a vehicle with an adapter that we can get the music out of the car and we'll sort of take turns and everybody kind of gets a diplomacy of who gets to listen to what and when.  So I feel like I'm at least getting exposed to a lot of different music.

Z:  Alright, that was awesome.  Amanda, I just want to thank you.  This is totally rad, awesome, sweet.  I gotta go now.

J:  Well Zach, thanks for calling in.  I appreciate it.

Z:  Yeah, thank you man.

J:  No worries, have a good one.

Z:  Bye.

A:  Radical dude, see you later.  Alright, that was tubular, awesome.  No Zach, you're cool.  That was awesome.  Alright, next we have or we should have.  Oh no, she hung up.  Don't hang up guys, I'm getting you on as fast as I can.  OK, here we go, we've got Angela.  Are you there Angela?

A:  I am.

J:  Hey Angela, how are you?

A:  Good, how are you doing?

J:  Perfect.

A:  First I have to say, I actually have a new found respect for you.  Bluegrass, country, and the Beatles?

Josh:  I know!

A:  I mean, awesome.

J:  Yeah, I guess maybe I'm winning over fans.

A:  Yeah, absolutely.  Well I have to say that I am a fellow ITAB'er.  So you already have a little following going on here.

J:  Terrific.

A:  OK, my question is.  What is the absolute most fowl, disgusting food you and your crew have ever eaten on your little adventures?

J:  You know, it's funny - the other night I was watching, I try to watch a lot of the travel shows.  That are on other channels and I try to keep abreast of what the world looks like out there for travel television.  And you know a part of that is that I watch Anthony Bourdain is sort of the reigning king of the travel channel.  And a great host, I'm certainly not taking anything away from him.  And I saw an episode where somebody asked him that and he said that the most disgusting thing that eaten with no reservations was this shark meat that is served in Iceland.  That we actually ate on the show that was fowl, no question about it.  But I thought that it was sort of stomach able, which led me to believe that it is sort of.  I guess it just depends on your palette.  The worst thing that I've eaten on the show that made its way onto the air was that Balut egg in the Philippines, which I vomited.  I tried to turn my head away from the camera when I did it.

A:  Oh god.

J:  But I'll try to eat anything, but I couldn't get that one down.  It's on the show, if you've seen the episode, it's an overdeveloped egg and so it has bones and wings and a beak and part of a bird in there.  It's considered an aphrodisiac.  I don't know how that's possible.  But it is really, really, really fowl.  That to me is the one that's taken me down, that came right back up.

A:  Oh, OK.  See I kind of expected to say.  Wasn't there a spider or something in Africa?

J:  You know the thing about all the fried stuff, whether it's fried ants, fried spider, fried cricket.  It doesn't taste like anything.  So if you can kind of mentally win the battle of what you're eating, all those fried foods just taste like oil.  So if you can at least mentally go to a happy place where you're not thinking about it, you might be able to do it.  But the crunchiness and smell and the taste of that egg was just too much for me.

A:  Oh my god.

A (Amanda): I’m gonna barf.

J:  Hit my limit.

A:  I think I just grossed myself out with that question.

A (Amanda):  (laughs) Thank you Angela!

A:  (laughs) Yeah, I know I know.  Go me.  Do you have any plans to go to UNIVCON?

J:  You know, I don't think I'm gonna be able.  Well first of all, when is it again?

A:  Well, I don't know that there.  Cause they're doing an event at the Stanley Hotel this year.

J:  Yeah, I was supposed to go to it last year.  And then it fell apart on their end, they, it just didn't work out for whatever reason.  And then our schedule was so erratic for the show, that I try to kind of only short range commit to stuff.  So I was just talking with Dave Schader, who does the Darkness Radio show, about coming down to the Queen Mary, they're doing a thing down there this week.  I'm just not available for it.  And it's tough.  I'd love to go to some of those things, it's just with our schedule it doesn't seem.  It hasn't historically worked out very well.  Maybe in the future it will.  I'm hoping I'll be able to do a bit more of that stuff.

A:  Well I'm gonna really push for the field trip.

J:  That would be great.  That would really be fun.  I would love that.

A:  Alright, thank you so much.

J:  Yeah, thank you.

A:  It's been a pleasure.

J:  It has been a pleasure.

A:  Bye.

J:  Bye.

A (back to Amanda):  Alright, next I have Zalaya.  And she is supposedly from Jamaica.  Are you there sweetie?

Zalaya:  Yes, yes I'm here.

J:  Hello, how are you?

Z:  Good day, I'm not too bad. Can you hear me okay?

J:  I can hear you just fine.

A:  Do you have a question for Josh?

Z:  Yes, I do have a question.  Let me just, good night everybody.  Me being a Jamaican right, would I be able to get into any of your shows or so?  How do I go about doing that?

J:  First of all, I love your accent. 

Z: Thank you.

J: Second of all, we actually were talking about trying to bring the show to Jamaica.

Z:  Oh really?

J:  Yeah, but we're having a hard time finding.  This is a little.  When you watch the show, sometimes we do multiple stories in countries.  And in order for us to make the Jamaica thing work, we would need to do two different stories there.  Just the way the schedule is lining up right now.  And we haven't really had a lot of luck in finding two stories there that kind of meets the needs of the show.  So I'm trying to come to Jamaica.

Z:  I'm asking what type of stories?

J:  Well you know, it has to be like some sort of recent creature sitting or a really unique haunting thing or paranormal story.  And we've had a hard time finding two of them.  And we can't kind of do two hauntings or two creatures, we need to mix it up a little.  And we're trying and so if we do end up making our way to Jamaica, I'm sure that you'll hear about it, if we make our way down there.  But we're working on it.

Z:  Oh, you're working on it.  OK.  Alright, well I'm just checking because I want to get into some form of acting or a show, because I'm already on the media side of things.

J:  Uh, huh.

Z:  Because I'm out here in Jamaica.  And I'm a publicist and I'm also a writer.

J:  Well, you know if you want to get into acting, then usually the best advice is to just do it.  You know, is to find the opportunities that you can find to act.  If it's in local theatre, or local productions, or small films.  And sort of fill the resume.

Z:  And I've done something locally before you know.  So I wanted just to take another step, you know.

J:  Absolutely.  Now you could take a big step and you could go to a larger island.  I don't really know what the film market is like in Jamaica, or the television market.  But the next step might be to go to a market where there's more of the work happening.  But that's always a difficult leap to make.

Z:  Yes.  Alright, well you continue to do the good work you're doing.

J:  Well, I appreciate that and you as well.  And hopefully we'll cross paths in Jamaica.

Z:  Alright, no problem.  Take care.

J:  Yeah, you too.  Bye bye.

Z:  Thank you guys.

J:  Yeah, bye bye.

A:  Good evening Zalaya.  How about that, calling in from Jamaica?  That's crazy.

J:  Great international program we're doing tonight.

A:  I know, what about that?  Alright I have a couple of other callers that I don't recognize, but I just wanted to take the time to ask the second list of callers to call in.  I can probably get you guys on the air.  We have a couple of questions from the chat room.  Everybody wondered, what is the story with your necklace you wear all the time Josh?

J:  The necklace gets a lot of questions.  And it's not really been addressed.  This may be the first time the necklace has ever really been addressed.  The necklace is magical.  No, it's not magical.

J (cont.): It's a necklace that I've had since I was a kid.  And I wish there was a better story about it.  My mom's British.  When I was a kid we would go to England like once a year.  And I remember sort of remember getting it.  It looked a little different then it was on a different kind of chain.  And I was really young.  And I wanted it, I saw it in a store.  It's such a bad story because I can't really remember where I got it.  Which is helping the mystique of the necklace.  But I bought it and had it as a kid, I always kept it. 

J (cont.): I didn't wear it a lot as a kid, but I always had it.  It was always like in a drawer, it was in my car once I got my driver's license.  And then the chain that it was on broke, and I think that is why I didn't wear it because it was like a silver chain and looked weird.  And then we put it on this sort of hefty, you know string.  And it looked kind of cool and I started wearing it again.  And I started wearing it only when I travelled.  And I would wear it every time I took a trip and I would come home and I would take it off.  And literally, I'm looking at it right now, it's hanging on a hook in my loft.  And I don't wear it until the day we leave to go do a show and then I put in on and I keep it on until the day we get home.  It's like my travel necklace.  That's the only real story to it.  It's just something I've had since I was a kid and I just associate it with travel.

A:  Well, basically like a travel superstition then?

J:  Yeah, exactly!  I think that some how it's like my lucky necklace, I guess.

A:  Very nice.  Yeah, a lot of people were wondering and some people had some theories as to whether it was a microphone or not.  But I figured there was some sort of story around that.

J:  Yeah, it is not.  But it is magical.  Make sure you spread that rumor!

A:  Let's see, what -  Someone else is asking a question.  “Can you ask him if there will ever make a shirt with his phrase we're gonna die on it?”  What - I guess the main question would be, do you have any idea if there will be any retail for Destination Truth?

J:  We've talked about it.  And when I say we've talked about it, I mean every single year I bring it up to the channel.  And we got pretty far down the pipeline this year, talking about doing a little bit of limited merchandising for the show.  And I saw a couple of mockups of different products for the show.  And I don't know if they're going into production or not, I have zero information about it.  I do know that the web site for the show.  Because SyFy rebranded, I can't believe nobody's asked about that yet.  Because SyFy's rebranded and has a whole new look and new feel, the web site has a whole new feel.  But some of the individual show pages are the same ones from the old SciFi.com and they're slowing getting a real makeover, and our site will be one of the first shows to really benefit from that.  So very soon, I would say in the next couple of days, the show should have a whole new web site associated with it.  And maybe merchandising will show up on there, I don't know the answer to that exactly.  But certainly we had a bunch of folks ask that and we'd love to see it in the show.

A:  I think you should have a shirt that says “What was that?” on it. (laughs) Because I think that is essentially your guy's logo.

J:  Absolutely, I'm hoping to copy right that phrase!

A:  I mean, I don't know the odds of you guys copyrighting it, but it could work.

J:  Yes.

A:  Alright, we have Rich from Rancho Cucamonga California.  I just love saying that.  It rolls off the tongue.  Rich, are you there?

Rich:  Yeah, I'm here.

J:  Rich, how are ya?  Is Rancho Cucamonga on fire, or are you not near the fire zone?

R:  I know we can see smoke very well from here.  I actually work in Burbank and I could see it on my way in and my way out.

J:  Yeah, I was hiking up near the Hollywood sign last week and I looked over to Burbank.  And Burbank looked threatened.

R:  Yeah, it sure did.

J:  Yeah, so how you doing?

R:  I'm doing well actually.  You know, just relaxing listening to the show here with Amanda.  But my question mostly is about investigation.  I'd like to know about the sites you investigate.  Does your team thoroughly study them, so that by the time you get to your destination you have an idea of what you may or may not find out there?

J:  Yeah, you know the investigation part of the show is something that is one of the harder parts of the show to balance.  Because we have always felt since we started the show that there is a sort of sense that, wouldn't it be great if we could spend a lot more time here.  And that's a question we get over and over again, is why don't you spend two weeks in these places?  You know it's so hard to get to this part of the Himalayas, why don't you invest more time there?  And the answer, although it's not really a satisfying one, it's just sort of. 

J (cont.): It's the limitations of the fact that even though we're doing real investigations where we're trying to get answers, we're also in the process of making a show.  And there are just real world limitations to that.  And if I have to choose between spending a couple of nights or 1, 2, 3, 4 nights or not going at all, I'll take the limited time to investigate.  So we do the best we can.  One of the things we really like to do is to get as much eye witness local testimony as possible.  You'll see a couple of people in every episode, talking about the creature.  In reality, we probably interview more than a dozen people.  And we film them all, it's just that the time limitations are such that the interviews tend to be a little less interesting than some of the adventure and investigation.  So we try not to dwell on them too much.  We just want to get across the sort of broad strokes.  But we do talk to a lot of people.  We talk to experts, we talk to local authorities, we talk to you know local biologists.  So we really do try and do our homework in country with the people that know the area. 

J (cont.): We have tried in the past filming some pre-interviews before we left with scientists here in the states.  The channel doesn't really like us starting the show off with that, it's kind of a dry note to start the show on.  You know a lot of what we do doesn’t' make it up there and we really do try and investigate these things and get a good base of knowledge about where we're headed.  In terms of the environment and wilderness, we always have a good idea about what's out there.  We don't always have a real contingency plan of what to do if a tiger jumps out.  But we do our best in the time we have to bear down and understand the story.

R:  Well, that's fantastic.

J:  Yeah.

R:  Yeah.  Well that's actually the only question I had.  But it's been a great to listen to you, I enjoy the show.  My wife is the one that actually turned me on to the show.  And it's one of the few reality type shows I watch.  Yeah, thanks.

J:  Well thank you very much for watching it and I should say in general.  But to everybody who's been really great to listen in and call in tonight.  I sort of feel bad that we've been off the air for as long as we have.  We basically have this almost year hiatus between the end of season 2 and the airing of season 3.  And it's just kind of the way it shook out.  And it took a while for SyFy to reactivate us and send us out.  And then we did a longer stint in the field than we normally do.  And then we've had a long time editing.  So it's not because we wanted to hold the show and have it come back in the Fall.  And so we really appreciate everybody that's kind of held on and waited for the show to come back.  And we really hope that next week when it comes back that it's well viewed and that people didn't kind of forget about us.  So thank you for watching, and thank your wife for turning you on to it.

R:  Alright, thanks Josh.  Thank you, Amanda.

J:  Cheers.

R:  Bye.

A:  Yeah, Rich is actually -  I believe you spoke to her last week Josh for the web site, Christiane during the press conference from last week – her husband.

J:  Oh yeah.  I remember that.

A:  Yeah, she filled in for me because I was, you know, at work at Best Buy and I couldn't

J:  You were indisposed.  I heard, yeah.

A:  Yeah, that was fun.  But she did a great job and she was saying oh my god it was so great, now I have bragging rights.

J: (laughs) Well that's great.  Yeah, she did do a great job.

A:  Alright, I have a couple callers.  But I do not recognize you guys.  If I put one of you on the air, please just keep it down to one question so we can get other people on the air.  Caller 802.

Amber:  Hello?

A:  Caller 802?

J:  Hello, how are you?

A:  Hello.

A (Amanda):  Can you hear us?

A:  Yeah.  Hi, this is Amber.

J:  Hi Amber.  How you doing?

A (Amanda):  Hi, Amber.

A:  Good, how are you?

J:  Good.

A:  This is awesome.  I'm a huge fan of the show.

J:  Great, glad to hear it.

A:  I love every single episode.

J:  Love it.

A:  And I was just wondering.  Now that you guys are doing stuff in the US, would you guys ever come to Vermont and check out Champ, our lake monster?

J:  Champ is up on the board.  We have talked about it.  We are feeling like.  I'm sort of giving away some trade secrets tonight.  But we really are feeling like we want to find a way to get into some of these lake monster stories and bring something new to them.  You know we always have, when we go to these lake stories, we have this very sophisticate rig that helps us communicate underwater.  But in a lot of these places you have these really terrific conditions where you cant' see anything.  And we don't obviously have the luxury of flying around with a submersible. 

J (cont.): So we're thinking about how to approach stories like that.  And that's one of the reasons people say, well how come you've never done Loch Ness.  And we sort of feel like, well it's been done to death.  Loch Ness has just been done so many times.  We'd love to do it, but we really feel like if we do it, we want to bring something new to it.  And I think we feel the same way about the Champ story.  Which has not been done as much, in fairness to Champy (chuckles). 

J (cont.): But you know it's the kind of thing where we want to feel like we can bring some new technology to bear on a story like that.  And so we're always looking for new gizmos and new ways to do that.  We actually were just looking this week at some tethered mini-submersibles and trying to figure out whether or not something like that could work for us to give us eyes in deeper places where scuba diving just isn't really practical.  So, I would say stayed tuned.  But that's something in season 4 we may end up.  We may be heading up to Vermont and hopefully have some new toys to play with up there.

A:  That would be awesome.

J:  Yeah.

A:  Well, thank you guys for letting me on here.

J:  Is that where you are?  Are you up in Vermont?

A:  Yeah.

J:  Ah, terrific.

A:  I live in Milton, which is about, you know, a half an hour away from Burlington.

J:  Great.  Great part of the country.

A:  Well, thank you very much.

J:  Yeah.

A (Amanda):  Sorry about that Amber.  I did not have your number down.

A:  Oh, really?

A (Amanda):  Yeah, that's you know, it's been a long day.  That's my alibi, I'm sticking to it.

A:  (laughs) That's OK.  It's been a long day for me to, so I get it.

J:  Well, it's good talking to you Amber.

A (Amanda):  Talk to you soon.

A:  Thank you.

J:  Bye.

A (back to Amanda):  Bye.  Oh goodness, poor Amber.

J:  She made it through.

A:  Yeah, at least we got her on.  It's all good.  Thank you again for extending this a little while.  I know there are a lot of fans that wanted to ask you more questions.

J:  No, of course.  I'm happy to do it!

A:  Alright.  Let's see, caller 508.  Let's see who's calling.  Can you hear me over there?

Stacy:  Hi!

J:  Hello!

S:  Am I really on the air, or am I just talking to myself?

J:  You are not talking to yourself.  You're on the air.

S:  Oh nice!  I am calling from Hawaii actually, so.

J:  Oh, where are you in Hawaii?

A:  Oh wait.  Is this Stacy?

S:  Yes.

A:  Hi, Stacy!

S:  (laughs) Hi, how are you?

J:  Stacy, where are you in Hawaii?

S:  What?  Josh, you rock by the way.

J:  Thank you.

S:  Great show.  Can't wait until next Wednesday.

J:  Great.

S:  And I just have a question and they all took all my questions from my favorite food and all that stuff and the equipment.  So I kind of ran out of questions now.

J:  That's OK.

S:  Alright.  What do you guys do on your off days then?

J:  Well, that's actually a good questions.  Because it's been a struggle on the show to find off days and we've gotten better about it.  We've worked a little too hard, in season 2 especially.  The way we scheduled it out, we always felt like we were on the move and we didn't have.  You know our days off would be days where we would do a 16 hour flight.  And we'd say we're not gonna shoot anything today, but there's nothing very relaxing about tracing an airplane across the Pacific.  So we really tried in season 3, I think with some success, to have some legitimate days off.  And it's important for the crew to be able to go and for all of us to either sit in our room and get some extra sleep or go explore the town that we're in. 

J (cont.): And it's a shame because we only get to do it, we don't necessarily get to do it in every location.  Some locations we just muscle through, and then there's some places where we'll take a day off.  This year we took a day off in Cusco in Peru, which is the gateway up to Machu Picchu .  And the crew had a choice, they could spend the whole day kind of going up to Machu Picchu which really takes a full day to get up to and back to see the ruins.  And about half the crew said absolutely, let's go.  And it was very much like a work day.  You know they were standing in line, getting on trains, and dealing with buses and all that kind of stuff.  And the other half of the crew just, you know, went to sleep.  So I think it depends on the person, it depends on where you're at in the show.  Probably depends if you have food poisoning or not.  But sometimes we go out and we have drinks, sometimes we catch up on emails, sometimes we read a book.  I think it really just depends on the person and where you're at in the world.

S:  So you guys pretty much use up a lot of passports?

J:  Oh yeah.  We just went through a lot of passports and we - actually it's good that you said that, I may need to add a few pages to mine.  But we definitely, we all have different interests.  What island are you on in Hawaii?

S:  Oahu.

J:  Ah, great.  I love Hawaii.  I haven't been there in a while.  I really love it.

S:  Well, I'm a cold weather person.  So this is something.

J:  Yeah.  You prefer the cold weather?

S:  Yes.

A: (laughs)  How is that possible?

J:  You're in the wrong place.

S:  Like I said.  I'm in the military, so I have no choice.

J:  Yeah, well.  But if you're gonna be in the military, being deployed in Oahu is not a bad gig.

S:  Well, yeah.  I guess that's right.  Well thank you Josh.  I mean, thank you Amanda, I didn't really think I'd actually be on the show.

A:  Yeah, no problem.  I mean, that just goes to show you how close the Destination Truth fan movement is.  Because a year ago today, nobody knew each other.  And as soon as I heard Hawaii, I was like that has to be Stacy.

J:  Well that's great.  And thanks for calling in and thanks for your service.  I really appreciate it.

S:  Yes, I can't wait for your show next week.  And hopefully you host the show again for Ghost Hunters.

J:  That's a hot button question right now.  I was just on the phone a few minutes.  Just before we started this, I was on the phone with the company that makes Ghost Hunters, which is called Pilgrim Films.  I was just on the phone with them talking about Halloween.  They're still, the network is still making decisions about what they want to do for Halloween.  So we're all kind of in a holding pattern for that night.

S:  Ah, it should be your turn.  And Ghost Hunters should be able to do your show.

J:  Now you're talkin’!  But I can tell you that you will see some of the Ghost Hunters family on Destination Truth this season.  In the season premier you'll see Jason and Grant.  We actually take our analysis, our evidence for them for analysis.  And then we do have an episode coming up in season 3 where Rob and Dustin from GHI do fly over and participate in one of our investigations.

S:  Oh, that's awesome.

J:  So it will be neat to see the two of them.  We've put them in the middle of the Amazon in Peru.  So you can watch them sweat it out.  As payback for them dragging me to freezing cold Germany to do an episode with them.

S:  Awesome.  That is so awesome.  Well, thank you.  I'm on my way to softball, so I gotta go.

J:  Alright.  Softball, you got things going on, it's a busy night.

S:  It's my Friday, I worked really hard.

J:  Well, you've earned it.  Go and have fun at softball.

S:  OK, thank you.  Thank you again Amanda.  You guys rock.

J:  Bye.

A:  No Problem.

S:  Thanks, bye.

A:  That is insane.  Yeah, that's so weird.  I just heard Hawaii and I was like wait, that's Stacy.  Because there are certain fans, like really active fans.  I have to give a shout out to a lot of the Destination Truth fans who have really just been very proactive.  Aside from what I do, they do a lot of stuff to help, you know, get the show exposure.  So a big thank you to everybody.

J:  Absolutely.

A:  Alright.  Some more questions from the chat room.  Here come the funny ones.  Someone said do you guys ever fake anything, when you feel like you're not going to find anything?  I would think that the answer to that would be no.

J:  That's a great question though.  You know we -  that's a real mandate from on-high.  That we, the channel since we started the show has always felt like we would rather do an episode where you don't find anything, than we do an episode where we start pushing the envelope of what's real.  And so that's something that we don't want to get into.  And we go out there and we give it our best.  And what's great about working in the environments that we work in, is they're typically really dynamic environments.  And whether or not Bigfoot jumps out at us, something else almost always does.  So we're very fortunate that we're able to have these really dynamic investigations where we don't feel like we're not contributing anything for the fans who watch the show to see.

A:  Yeah, I actually wanted to tell you.  I know that it will be very disappointing for everyone on your crew.  But the day you guys found that Yeti footprint, that was actually me.  I had left my shoe somewhere, stepped in the mud.  I am so sorry.  Me and my big feet.

J: (laughs slightly) Yeah, well that's OK.  It made for a good episode.  The Yeti footprint has been a really neat thing on the show.  And we're so excited that it's down in Florida now at Animal Kingdom.

A:  Let's see, what else do we have?  Yeah, I actually visited that exhibit and if anybody wants more DT exclusives or if you want to see the Yeti exhibit or any upcoming number of exclusives for the show, please go to my web site.  It's http://joshuagatesfan.weebly.com  I hope that's right, dear god I hope that's right.  What else do we have in the chat room?  Oh god, I'm sick of Twilight, people!  Are you going to do a show about vampires?

J:  You know the thing about.  We truly talked about doing shows about vampires.  In terms of the Dracula legend and Romania, we actually did kind of a Romanian werewolf episode this season.  But the Dracula story's been done by GHI, and we don't really feel like we can bring something that's kind of different enough to that story.  There are other parts of the world where there are sort of vampiric you know stories.  And we've definitely looked into those and we'd love to do more of them.  It's certainly a hot topic right now.  But in this current order coming up, there's no like sort of dedicated vampire story.

Amanda:  You know I'm actually kind of relieved.  Because I'm so sick of hearing about Twilight.  And we don't really need anymore vampire stuff fanning the flames, so to speak.

J:  It's a hot topic these days.

A:  Definitely.  Well, maybe not for the right reasons.  But it's definitely a hot topic right now.

J:  It is, yes.

Amanda:  Let's see.  [question from chat room] Josh, where did you get your scarf?

J:  I got my scarf from, I think actually that's the green one I wear on the show, is a military scarf.  It's like a standard issue military scarf that I think I bought at a surplus store.  It's not a real fancy one.  And yeah, not a very exciting answer I guess.

A:  Let's see, what else?  A couple of people in the chat room who are in Massachusetts said, Josh can we all go together to get a drink?

J: (chuckles) Yeah, where are they?  Ask them where they are.  Can you chat back with them?

A:  Yeah, definitely.  Yeah.

J:  Where are my Massachusetts people?  If you're here in Massachusetts, call in or chat in.  I want to know where you're at.

A:  Yeah, I know.  Massachusetts people chat in, call in.  We'll make an event or something.  If you're gonna be in this weekend, we might as well.  You know, get a drink out of you.  Where are you, my Massachusetts people?  You see, you bring it up now and now you're gone.  Well what do you want me to do about it?

Josh:  That’s how the cookie crumbles.

A:  Oh my goodness.  Well, whatever.  Let's see, other questions from the chat room.  Come on you guys.  Give me more questions.  There's no way you can't have anymore questions.  Alright, well I guess I have a couple of other questions.  It would be good if I can remember.  Oh wait, no.  There's more questions that were submitted by fans that never called in.  So I guess I might as well ask for them.  Kelly from Michigan asks, Irish folklore explains the existence of fairies, any chance you guys will invest this topic for a future episode?

J:  You know, maybe.  We did the elf episode at the end of season 2.  And we were.  When we pitched it to the channel, they were really split down the middle about it.  All the executives now like to claim that they all supported it.  But half of them sort of said no, this is a bad idea.  This is a bad place to take the show, because it's just so folkloric.  And the thing that we kept saying was, yeah but the people in Iceland really are into this story.  And that's a reason enough to go and explore the story.  Even if it's more of a cultural story, than a creature story, let's go check it out.  And it ended up being actually, I think the highest rated episode in the history of the show.  And so it's clear that.  And we're not sure if that's because it was more light-hearted or if people are just into elves.  But I think that's kind of in some ways an indicator to us that it doesn't always have to be some big scary creature out in the woods.  It can be something a little more light-hearted.  And we're talking about in season 3.5, which we're getting ready to do now, we're looking at a few stories that are kind of along those lines that are a little bit more, you know a little more light-hearted.

A:  Great.  Question from Robby in the Philippines.  Oh boy, here's a hot topic.  How come you guys do all of your searching at night instead of in the day?

J:  It's a great question.  And it's kind of a two part answer.  The first part of the answer is that in most of the cases, most of the sightings happen at night.  People claim that they see a lot of strange creatures that are nocturnal, that are shy, that are out more at night.  And that a lot of animals, in general, are more active at night.  We try to do daytime investigations.  Sometimes on the show you'll see a little mini-daytime investigation.  And then it plays kind of quick, and then we get into the night time investigation.  And we try to actually mix it up. 

J (cont.): The second part of the answer is that the channel really likes us to be out in the dark, because it's scarier.  And so when we have these two investigations, if we have great stuff happening during the day, we definitely use it.  But if we have great stuff happening during the day and great stuff at night, we tend to do the night stuff because it really works for the show.  And that's the part of the show where we kind of want to get a little more serious, a little more down and dirty.  And really kind of put ourselves in harm's way.  And that's a great time of day to do that.  It's sort of saying like, why don't ghost hunters go during the day to investigate these places.  And it's not that ghosts necessarily come out at night more.  Although I'm sure they're just like creature, they are reported more often at night.  It has to do I think with atmosphere.

A:  Great.  Let's see, what other questions?  OK, I actually had a good idea with the whole Massachusetts thing with fans that like to meet up.  I see a lot of people who are either in the music industry or TV.  They have fan meetings.  Like, they meet their fans at either a restaurant or something.  And they just kind of talk with those fans and take pictures and sign autographs.  Would you be willing to do that at some point this weekend, if you have time?

J:  I would love to do it!  I don't think this weekend will be the time for it.  I am going East tomorrow because I'm the best man in my best friend's wedding.  So I am sort of like, I've got best man duties ahead of me.  I've already survived the bachelor party, which we did in Las Vegas.  And now I've got to go and there's, you know the rehearsal dinners and the clam bake and the ceremony.  So I'm only going for a few days and I'm kind of scheduled the whole time that I'm there.  But I am going to try and get back East a few more times before we jet off again.  So I would love to set something like that up.  I think that would be a lot of fun.  I would be really open to that Amanda.  We should just talk about you know finding a time to do it.  And making it happen.

A:  Alright, great.  So you have heard it first.  There will be a sort of meet and greet situation.  And we'll try and let you guys have a lot of advance notice.  So that way if you're coming from afar.  You know, don't fly on a plane obviously.  But yeah, that should be pretty good.

J:  Yeah, that'd be great.

A:  Awesome.  I think you could even conceivably plan something for the West coast too, since you're out there more.  Would you be willing to do that as well?

J:  Oh, for sure.  That would be a lot of fun.  We would be happy to do that.  You know a lot of the crew live out in this area.  And so we would be thrilled to do something like that.

A:  Yeah, definitely.  Definitely would get in touch with the rest of the casting crew to make it a sort of DT affair.

J:  Yeah, that'd be a lot of fun.  And I do try to get down to Comic-Con every year.  I usually do some work for the channel down there.  This year I moderated the Eureka panel for them.  And so I try to get down there and hang out with the SyFy peeps.

A:  Great.  Awesome.

J:  It's and excuse for me to hang out with some of the people on the other shows that I am obsessed with.  You know I get to hang out with the Battlestar [Galactica] people that I like so much.

A:  What were some of the favorite things that you did at the recent Comic-Con that you were at?

J:  Well, SyFy throws this party down at Comic-Con every year.  And it's like their big party of the year.  And it's just, they.  It's the one time of year where SyFy like goes all out and throws this crazy party.  And I go to it, because I'm on the channel.  So, they can't NOT invite me (laughs).  And it's crazy.  There's all these people there that I'm completely aw-struck by.  And it's just like this wacky assembly of people that are really interesting folks working in film and TV. 

J (cont.): Stan Lee was there last year when I was there.  You literally look around the room and oh there's the cast of Heroes.  And there's the cast of Battlestar.  There's Michael Emrick from Lost.  And there's JJ Abrams.  And literally I feel like I should be you know valeting the cars or something.  But I go down there every year because they've been really nice enough to invite me to moderate panels.  I'm kind of friends with Colin on Eureka.  I've gotten to know him a bit over the years.  And so it was great for me to be able to go and participate in supporting their show.  And then I stick around for the party.  Because, who doesn't want to hang out with all those cool people.

A:  Oh, I definitely would.  I was very jealous when I was seeing all the updates from Cray.  Damnit, I want to be at Comic-Con.

J:  You know, Craig Engler is a Twittering machine.  So he's, you know he's been great.  He's been giving fans a really direct line of access to a lot of stuff that goes on at the channel, which I think is really using Twitter for its greatest potential.

A:  Definitely.  And Craig Twitters way too much.  I definitely agree with you on that.

J:  Yeah.  If you're down there and you see him, you just catch him Twittering all the time.

A:  Pretty much.  Yeah, it's like back away from your phone, it's glued to your face.

J:  It's true.

A:  Alright, well I going to let you go because I know you have other stuff.  But just remind the fans when they can watch your show, when they can watch it, and why they should watch it.

J:  Yeah, OK.  Well Destination Truth comes back next Wednesday.  It's the season 3 premier.  And it's Wednesday, September 9th, 10pm on SyFy, 9pm Central and satellite times vary a bit.  And it's a great season.  I've obviously over the last couple months been intimately involved in watching it come together in the edit and getting it ready.  And we think it's a lot of fun. 

J (cont.): We're gonna be going to some places this year that are marquee known places that are exciting.  We're going to be spending a night in King Tut's tomb.  We're going to be doing a great paranormal investigation in the ruins at Chernobyl, which is really a terrible idea.  And it's a great episode.  And the season premier is terrific.  It's a paranormal investigation in Romania.  And we were originally going to put Tut at the top of the order.  And we put in this Romanian episode instead, because it's a really unsettling freaky night out in the woods.  And we think people will really like it and Jason and Grant are gonna be looking at our evidence at the end of the hour.  And we think that will be a great tie-in to the first night of the show.  So we hope that people really dig season 3.  We've worked hard to get these nine episodes ready for everybody.

A:  Alright, great.  Thank you so much Josh.  We all really appreciate it.  I appreciate it.  It is a lot of fun.

J:  Well, thank you so much for setting this up.  And I was happy to stay on and for organizing it and for all the fans that have called in.  And I think the only thing that I would say is that we.  You know we're a newer show than Ghost Hunters and we've had this sporadic kind of airing.  And so, we don't have this sort of benefit of kind of always being on. 

J (cont.) : And it's so important that people tell their friends and remind people that used to watch the show, to let them now that it's back to let them know that it comes on next week.  Because at the end of the day, we really live and die by the viewership of the show.  And that's why we love the Ghost Hunters gang so much.  Because they get such strong viewership in the 9-o'clock hour and we hope that a lot of their fans stick around.  Maybe some of them don't know Destination Truth.  And we hope they stick around to check it out.  So spread the word everybody, high and low.  Tune in next Wednesday night.  And we're promising a great show.

A:  Alright, thank you so much Josh.  And thanks everyone for listening and thanks to the people who called me on the air.  That I should have a cameo, that's awesome.  Yeah, I'm speechless.  But thanks Josh.  And good night everybody, I'll be sure to keep you in the loop.  Watch Destination Truth next week.

J:  Have a great evening.  Bye bye.

Amanda:  You too, bye.  Alright everybody.  It's gonna throw me off the air, so have a great night.  And with that, here's my theme song.

Theme Song:  <Theme Song plays>