Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter
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Authors: Josh Gates
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DESTINATION
TRUTH
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Copyright © 2011 Universal City Studios Productions, LLLP.
Destination Truth is a registered trademark and copyright of Universal Network Television LLC. Licensed by NBCUniversal Television Consumer Products Group. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition October 2011
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Designed by Jason Snyder
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gates, Josh.
Destination truth / Josh Gates. —1st Gallery Books trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
1. Cryptozoology—Juvenile literature. 2. Monsters—Juvenile literature. 3. Animals—Folklore—Juvenile literature. I. Title.
QL88.3.G38 2012
001.944—dc23
2011025162
ISBN 978-0-7434-9172-3
ISBN 978-1-4391-9042-5 (ebook)
To my father, Lee Gates, and grandfather, Lewis Gates. Real-deal adventurers.
“
One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things
.”
—H
ENRY
M
ILLER
“
The truth is never pure and seldom simple
.”
—O
SCAR
W
ILDE
“
Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory
.”
—I
NDIANA
J
ONES
CONTENTS
Chapter 4:
Underdressed for Success
ADVENTURES IN MONSTER HUNTING AND PROFESSIONAL GHOSTOLOGY
Chapter 5:
“We Found Something!”
Chapter 7:
Mixmaster Belong ’em Jesus
Chapter 8:
Under New Management
Chapter 10:
The Delicate Art of Not Getting Killed
Chapter 11:
Worst. Vacation. Ever.
Chapter 12:
Threes and the Christmas Miracle of Whore—Dice
CASE FILE:
MINI MONSTERS AND JUNGLE DEMONS
Chapter 16:
On the Subject of Ghosts
Chapter 17:
Tourists and Pharaohs
Chapter 19:
Travel Will Save You
Chapter 20:
Something in the Fog
Chapter 21:
What the Monsters Taught Me
Foreword
The following is a scattershot account of my tenure over the last four years as a professional vagabond, international monster hunter, and paranormal Hardy Boy. After careening through nearly one hundred countries investigating some of humanity’s most enduring myths and legends, I have emerged fundamentally changed by the journey (and probably have a few weird diseases to boot).
This book has been written, in large part, on dirty airport floors, in sweltering jungle huts, and by the firelight of chilly mountain lodges. This very sentence is being penned aboard a sailboat off the icy coast of Antarctica. My journals have served as trusted guides and helped me navigate the dense wilderness of memory.
In several places I’ve taken geographical liberties, changed a few names to protect the guilty, needlessly slandered several people, misused the word “nascent,” and in one instance made something up entirely because it sounded very adventurous in my head.
J.
DESTINATION
TRUTH
1: “We Must Go Back”
Cluj, Romania, 2009
Wind is suddenly screaming into the cockpit of this aging Antonov biplane. Charts and a half-assed, handwritten flight plan whip by my face and through the cockpit door into the main cabin. In the rear of the plane our director of photography, Evan, who has been filming out the open door, is suddenly thrust forward toward the edge of open space, only to be yanked to a stop by his four-point harness. Documents eject past him and into oblivion.