Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter

BOOK: Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter
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DESTINATION
TRUTH

 

Gallery Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

 

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

 

GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

 

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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

 

Foreword

Chapter 1:
“We Must Go Back”

Chapter 2:
19,340

Chapter 3:
Meet Neil Mandt

Chapter 4:
Underdressed for Success

ADVENTURES IN MONSTER HUNTING AND PROFESSIONAL GHOSTOLOGY

Chapter 5:
“We Found Something!”

CASE FILE:
BIGFOOT

Chapter 6:
Post

Chapter 7:
Mixmaster Belong ’em Jesus

CASE FILE:
LIVING DINOSAURS

Chapter 8:
Under New Management

Chapter 9:
The Death Worm

CASE FILE:
PHANTOM FELINES

Chapter 10:
The Delicate Art of Not Getting Killed

CASE FILE:
FLYING FIENDS

Chapter 11:
Worst. Vacation. Ever.

Chapter 12:
Threes and the Christmas Miracle of Whore—Dice

Chapter 13:
Yeti

Chapter 14:
The Tourist Empire

CASE FILE:
MINI MONSTERS AND JUNGLE DEMONS

Chapter 15:

Chapter 16:
On the Subject of Ghosts

Chapter 17:
Tourists and Pharaohs

CASE FILE:
MOVIE MONSTERS

Chapter 18:
Amazonia

CASE FILE:
SUPER-SERPENTS

Chapter 19:
Travel Will Save You

Chapter 20:
Something in the Fog

CASE FILE:
MARINE MONSTERS

Chapter 21:
What the Monsters Taught Me

Chapter 22:
Home

Acknowledgments

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.

BOOK: Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter
8.76Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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