Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter (10 page)

We hike back to the tunnel, where a hardworking team of locals has breached a small opening. With daylight fading, Carter and I wedge ourselves into the lightless cavity. We get to our feet, stooping forward under the low ceiling. The air is stale but breathable, and our headlamps illuminate crumbling walls and endless passages. To my dismay, we also find bats. Lots of bats. They whip through the chambers at high speeds and rush past our faces. We walk slowly and deliberately so that their echolocation can guide them around us (the best way to take a bat in the face is to panic and move quickly). Entire branches of the tunnel are collapsed, and we do our best not to think about how stupid an idea this is. Just keep moving. The sides of the tunnel are wet and flake to the touch. “Stay off the walls, Carter. They’re falling apart,” I whisper.

“Shit. Spiders,” he answers.

I look back at Carter’s headlamp beam, which illuminates the stocky legs of a tarantula drawing back into a hole. I scan the floor in front of me and see hundreds of glinting eyes retracting in the darkness.

The tunnel opens up a bit, and we come across railroad tracks originally used to deliver munitions to the guns on the hillside. I’m now adding unexploded ordnance to the list of things in here that could potentially kill us. We discover a few pieces of bone that look human but no signs of anything the size of a flying dinosaur. Once we’ve explored everything we can, we carefully pull back to the entrance. Neil and Eric pull Carter and me out of the hole and into the jungle darkness. The fresh air is a relief, and we sit on the ground for a few moments to catch our breath.

Our investigation continues throughout the night, and a few hours before dawn we, like so many others before us, do see strange lights. A small glowing ball appears low in the sky and streams slowly and steadily above the water. Since planes don’t fly here after dark, it’s not an aircraft, but I’m certainly not willing to concede that it’s a flying dinosaur, either. The event is captured on our infrared cameras and we continue to scan the skies until sunrise, but the light never reappears. While the footage is ultimately inconclusive, it does align with eyewitness testimony, leaving the case open for future investigation.

At dawn, we return to Port Moresby and board a flight bound for home. In the end, it’s hard to define PNG, and perhaps that’s what makes it so special. It is at once a sprawling scrap yard from the Second World War, a treasure trove of unknown biodiversity, and home to tribal cultures that have staved off the modern age. It is dirty and yet pristine, both criminally corrupt and blissfully pure, and brimming with ways to kill you.

On the margins of antique maritime maps, cartographers would often write, “Here be monsters.” It was a way of both warning and luring sailors to places unknown and uncharted. Papua New Guinea is such a destination, even today. Its highlands are barely explored and its jungles are among the wildest on earth. Its monsters come in many forms, from mermaids, iguanodons, and Ropens to crocodiles, spiders, and machete-carrying mercenaries. Some are folkloric and some all too real. Either way, though, the Papuans don’t much care. To them, these are all indelible inhabitants of this mysterious lost world.

Here be monsters. Find them if you dare.

CASE FILE:
LIVING DINOSAURS

NAMES:
Mokèlé-Mbembe, Emela-ntouka, Ninki-Nanka, Ngoubou, Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu, Nguma-monene, Arica Monster, Papuan iguanodon, Burrunjor.

DESCRIPTION:
They are described as large (some in excess of thirty feet), dangerous, and decidedly prehistoric. They make up a category of cryptid that also includes T. rex, velociraptors, and an assortment of other dinosaur-like predators that somehow survived when the universe hit the control-alt-delete buttons on their existence.

LOCATIONS:
These oversized creatures are primarily reported in the swamps of Central Africa. Additional sightings occur in locations as varied as the Australian Outback, the jungles of Papua New Guinea, and Chile’s Atacama Desert.

STATUS:
The nineteenth century prickled with a new awareness of and fascination with the unknown. Some of the most famous explorers of all time wandered the globe during these years. In Latin America: Alexander von Humboldt. U.S.: Lewis and Clark. Africa: Livingstone, I presume. And countless polar expeditions to boot. As a result, public interest in undiscovered lands and tales of faraway monsters was piqued, and the imagination of authors was sparked, creating an entirely new breed of adventure fiction. H. Rider Haggard made a five-shilling bet with his brother that he could write a book half as good as
Treasure Island
and published
King Solomon’s Mines
in 1885 (ah, sibling rivalry). It quickly became a sensation. Once Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs penned
The Lost World
and
The Land That Time Forgot
, respectively, man and dinosaur were forever destined to coexist on the pages of popular fiction.

What this interest truly amounted to, however, was an undeniable fixation with exoticism that further propelled explorers to pursue these creatures. Africa is ground zero in cryptozoologists’ obsessive search for living dinosaurs. In the last one hundred years alone, nearly thirty expeditions have been dispatched to document the giant sauropod Mokele-Mbembe. These investigations, in some of the wildest parts of Africa, have resulted in amazing stories but little in the way of compelling proof. Nothing tops the story from a zoologist claiming he observed the creature for twenty minutes but was so excited he forgot to remove the lens cap from his camera.
Cough, cough. Bullshit.

VERDICT:
In the case of another African monster known as the Emela-ntouka, when local tribesmen were shown photos of rhinos, many identified them as . . . Emela-ntouka. It’s not uncommon. Many of these cryptozoological creatures are simply normal animals that have been magnified by native folklore over generations. The stories have been retold so many times that what we may have here is a simple failure to communicate.

There are places on earth where isolation has resulted in evolutionary diversions; the Galapagos Islands, Madagascar, and Papua New Guinea come
to mind. However, a blue-footed booby is one thing; Grumpy from
Land of the Lost
is quite another. We’re not talking about a little poison dart frog, or an ivory-billed woodpecker here, but colossal, glass-of-water-vibrating, jeep-flipping, lawyer-eating dinosaurs. It would be impossible for these beasts to escape detection. So that’s kind of a problem.

Let’s face it. Everyone loves dinosaurs, and from Barney to Dino, our kids are downright obsessed with them. Their size, their majesty, and their incredible power . . . the only thing about dinosaurs that isn’t awesome is the part where they all went extinct. To me, the case for living dinosaurs is merely mankind desperately wishing it were so. Our planet had previous tenants, and we’d love to meet them. So if you really want to run into a dinosaur, may I recommend the dusty fiction of Doyle, Burroughs, or even Crichton. You’re guaranteed to find exactly what you’re looking for.

8: Under New Management

Hollywood, 2007

Our exploits in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea gave way to a voyage that unfurled across the globe. We traveled on to Thailand, South Africa, Chile, and Argentina, searching for evidence of strange creatures and paranormal phenomena along the way. We tackled twelve individual stories, which were then distilled into six hour-long episodes. The collective experience was a nonstop thrill ride to film and a hard-knock education on how to hunt monsters and make a television show at the same time. This first season has since been released on DVD. Even though it’s a little rough around the edges, as I look back on the journey now, I’m amazed at what we were able to accomplish and how far we’ve come since then.

Though my journals from this inaugural season are brimming with colorful tales of misadventure, it was our travels through Malaysia and Papua New Guinea that stand out for me as the best embodiment of the unscripted and unpredictable nature of
Destination Truth
. After all, we traipsed through some of the planet’s most harrowing environments and let the ensuing adventures dictate our story. It’s supremely difficult to make television this way, to stake a narrative on the idea that interesting things will happen simply because the world is an interesting place. I’m just glad that it worked out and nobody lost a limb.

In Los Angeles, the long process of postproduction results in a unique series in SciFi’s lineup. The show combines the investigative elements that fans of the immensely popular
Ghost Hunters
franchise already love but places those investigations in a totally different context; the final product is a fast-paced mash-up of travel, comedy, myth, and mystery.

A month before we’re scheduled to air, I’m sitting at home watching Kevin Costner’s award-winning performance in
Waterworld
on SciFi. For those who managed to miss this cinematic gem, it’s basically about a guy with gills who drinks his own pee and occasionally clubs Jeanne Tripplehorn with an oar. There are also people on Jet Skis. At any rate, the movie goes to commercial, and I’m suddenly looking at a montage of myself. I do a full-spit take into my ficus plant and then sit bugeyed while a deep-voiced announcer plugs
Destination Truth
. At the end of the commercial, a snappy logo pops up and everything. It’s surreal. Beyond surreal. I even sit through the last act of
Waterworld
to see if it happens again.

The show premieres on June 6, 2007. It’s one of the only SciFi shows ever positioned in the ten o’clock hour that holds on to a large percentage of
Ghost Hunters
’ impressive audience. We’re a hit! In response, the Channel orders more episodes, but unfortunately, Neil declines to produce the show himself. It sounds like there should be a juicy story here, but there really isn’t. Neil and the Channel just can’t reach an agreement. It’s a huge loss to me, since Neil seems like the only person I know who’s crazy enough to pull this series off. His departure also means that we have to re-staff from top to bottom. I part ways with Carter, Eric, and the rest of the first-season team. It’s bittersweet and feels a lot like starting over.

The Channel recommends that I meet with a producer named Brad Kuhlman, who worked with SciFi two years prior on a series called
Master Blasters
and had recently executive-produced
1,000 Places to See Before You Die
for the Travel Channel. He’s the owner of a burgeoning production company called Ping Pong Productions that he runs with his best friend and business partner, Casey Brumels.

Brad and I arrange to meet at a restaurant in Hollywood. I arrive first, get a table, and nervously watch the door. I feel like I’m on a blind date, worried that Carrot Top is about to show up. After all, running around the world searching for monsters is a pretty close-quarters business, and it’s really important to do it with people that you like and respect (or, at the very least, can tolerate). Brad steps in a few minutes later, and I have a hard time sizing him up. On one hand, he valets an obnoxiously huge Lincoln Navigator outside and is sporting hipster sunglasses and trendy sneakers. On the other hand, he seems completely down-to-earth. I sense that he’s just as unsure of what to make of me, and we do our best to not scare each other off in the first few minutes. As it turns out, he’s a great guy. By the time our entrées arrive, we’re chatting like friends. He’s experienced, funny, listens well (a quality I lack, so I always admire it in others), and has a genuine passion for travel.

A few days later, we meet again at a Borders bookstore, this time with Casey. I have no idea why we choose this location. Casey is significantly taller than Brad, with blond hair and a big, goofy smile. He’s also immediately likable. It’s easy to see why they’re friends. Casey seems similarly engaged by the project, and it’s clear that everyone is on board to work together. We sit amidst the paperbacks, spitballing potential locations for the second season and how best to evolve the show.

If there’s one thing of which I’m unconvinced, it’s whether these two understand just how hard
D.T.
is to make. They’re both a bit cavalier about the whole thing at first; more than anything, they seem to think that it’s going to be a lot of fun. Which it is, of course, but mostly in the way a plane crash is fun to reminisce about after you survive it. I do my best to explain the unique challenges of
Destination Truth
and to let them know how exhausting it is to film. I explain that the production is basically nonstop. Every aspect of our travels is filmed, and there’s little time to rest. The accommodations are crappy, the food is worse, and the dangers are real. They grin and nod, unmoved by my gloomy prophecies. Ah, well. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose. They’ll both find out the truth soon enough. I just hope they pack something warm.

9: The Death Worm

Outer Mongolia, 2007

Despite once controlling the largest land empire in history, the great Mongol dynasty that once flourished has long receded, and the Mongolian people have been in something of a rut for the last seven hundred years. But now, finally free from the shackles of Manchurian and Soviet control, the frontier city of Ulaanbaatar is in the midst of an industrial revolution. Home to about a million people, the city cradles half the population of this sprawling country. Cranes and girders stretch up from the crowded, dusty streets. A new culture is emerging that’s modern, stylish, and robust. But the evolution is slow. Infrastructure is lacking, the food is just plain awful, and the nightlife leaves something to be desired. Believe me, this is not the world’s next spring break hot spot. Beyond the bounds of the city, the roads quickly decay and give way to the vast Gobi Desert, where the trappings of the modern world haven’t yet infringed on centuries of traditional existence.