Destination Truth

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.

The sound is deafening and the pressure change so abrupt that I try to brace my arm against the roof to steady myself. Instead, my hand is forcefully bent back by what feels like icicles slicing through my fingers, and I instinctively retract.

Open air. I'm immediately overwhelmed by a terrible realization. The cockpit ceiling is gone.

Our audio engineer, Mike, has the common sense to kick the pilot's door shut from his first-row seat behind me, closing off the wind tunnel coursing through the interior of the plane and sealing me into the roofless cockpit.

Moments ago I was actually bored, fiddling with a camcorder to get a close-up of the plane's antiquated controls and weathered gauges, the altimeter needle quivering from the vibration of the plane's beleaguered engine. The pilot, a stout Russian in a thick wool sweater, was languidly operating the stick. Now I'm craning back to get a view of the tail stabilizer through the gaping maw above me, praying the debris from the roof hasn't clipped it on the way by. I think twice about unbuckling my harness for a better look and instead concentrate on the ground below, which is getting closer by the second.

I probably shouldn't be surprised by any of this, of course. As the host of the Syfy Channel's Destination Truth, I've spent the last four years traveling to far-flung locales following reports of cryptozoological creatures and paranormal phenomena. Since there aren't exactly nonstop commercial

Josh Gates is an explorer, photographer, author, and television personality. His work and travels have taken him to more than seventy-five countries around the world. An avid scuba diver, he has participated in sub-sea archaeological excavations in the Mediterranean, and as a photographer, he's traveled from sweltering African villages to the icy heights of the Himalayas. In addition, he has scaled "the roof of Africa" on Mt. Kilimanjaro, and climbed on Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Americas. He is the host and executive producer of the Discovery Channel series Expedition Unknown and co-executive producer of Syfy Channel series Destination Truth. He is also the bestselling author of Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter.