Exploring the ‘Haunted’ Premiere of Destination Truth Season 3

After two seasons of traveling the world and exploring supernatural oddities, host Josh Gates and his Destination Truth crew continue their quest to uncover the reality behind more unexplained mysteries. In the September 9 SyFy premiere of Destination Truth called "Haunted Forest/Alux", Gates and company begin their explorations in the Hoia Baciu Forest in rural Romania since there have been a slew of mysterious paranormal sightings by villagers for over five decades, with some claiming to have seen everything from ghostly apparitions to a photograph of something that looks like a flying saucer. As in previous seasons of Destination Truth, the crew sets out ready to take on another challenge. However, the biggest obstacle is the trip to actually get there, as Josh and his Destination Truth crew first need to contend with a rickety plane that appears to be on its last wings and falling apart (and it actually does in mid-air when part of the roof rips off mid-flight) before a lengthy trip on ATVs through the forest to get to the specified location. Once there the crew breaks off into pairs before nightfall in order to set a camera perimeter where they’ll monitor movement and wait for signs of paranormal activity.

The expedition is ripe with the appearance of strange lights on night vision and bizarre images that turn up on infrared scanners. All of that and a shocking airborne launch of one of the crewmembers into midair with no one else around and you have a regular outing with Josh and another unexplained phenomenon that the locals can only reply with the warning of, "Don’t go in there", in reference to anyone bold enough to venture into the Hoia Baciu forest.

Next, the Destination Truth explorers head to Yucatan, Mexico where they hunt for the Alux, a creature that resembles big foot but much smaller, and supposedly only about four feet in height. Delving deeper into the mystery, Josh speaks with a couple that alleges they lost their young son and believe the Alux took him a year earlier. Deep into the forest they venture as Josh and crewmember Jael go cave diving only to discover human remains that would could only have been left in the underwater cave over thousands of years ago in order to have been in that remote of a location.

In order to make contact with the Alux, the Destination Truth team meets up with a Shaman who conducts a spiritual ceremony to safeguard Josh and company from potential harm from a mystery that dates as far back as the Mayan civilization. Giant spiders, poisonous snakes and hidden caves are all in store for the crew as they navigate the treacherous terrain before they stumble upon bones in a cave near a dilapidated Mayan temple and collect samples for evidence and possible DNA testing.

Overall, Destination Truth continues in the same captivating format as previous seasons, as Josh Gates and his band of brave explorers dig deeper into the myths and legends surrounding local cultures. Are any of the legendary creatures or supernatural entities real? That would be up to you and your own individual analysis as Josh Gates seeks to find evidence to support the certainty of the mysterious and unexplained, which definitely gives Destination Truth fans something to look forward to as Season 3 kicks off with a cool haunted forest, Bigfoot type cave banger!

“Transylvania. For those intrigued by things that go ‘bump in the night’ Romania’s most folkloric region will certainly peak your interest. The name conjures up images of spooky gothic castles and legends of blood sucking counts, but there is a lesser-known attraction to add to your goose bump list.

The Hoia-Baciu Forest (HBF), located a few kilometers outside of the city Cluj Napoca, is rumored to be a hot bed for unexplained activity and supernatural anomalies.

Dubbed the “Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania,” this forest first gained international attention in 1968, when biologist Alexandru Sift captured a photo of a disc-shaped UFO. Since then, UFOs, apparitions, abnormalities on photos, nocturnal lights and other unusual things are regularly reported in this area.

Ghost hunters, paranormal investigators, parapsychologists and, more recently, tourists, have taken an interest.

Paranormal tourism isn’t a new thing. Places like Roswell New Mexico, Peru’s Nazca lines and England’s Crop Circles, have drawn millions of tourists who “want to believe.”

Dr. Adrian Patrut, a chemistry professor at the local Romanian university, claims that, though there are many places around the world with unexplained phenomena, “the Hoia-Baciu Forest is one of the best due to the intensity, variety and complexity of its manifestations.”

President of the Romanian Society of Parapsychology, Adrian has been studying occurrences in the forest since the early 70’s, from unexplained splotches of light and luminescent orbs hovering in the sky. Patrut claims there are dangerous biological effects when you spend too much time in the HBF. Anxiety, insomnia, excessive thirst, nausea, vomiting and headaches are among the symptoms.

With that kind of build-up, I had to check it out for myself.

A twenty-minute drive outside of the city finds us on the fringes of the forest. Adrian and I climb up a steep grassy plain to get to the tree line. Once there, we get out our ‘ghost hunting’ tools: compass, a still camera, a video camera with infra-red sensors and a Geiger counter to measure sudden rises in radiation.

We head out into the forest in the hopes of seeing something strange.

The scene looks like something out of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Spikey branches reach out like bony fingers; trees are gnarled and spooky. Adrian claims that these trees were normal a few years ago. Now they are warped, “a clear sign of an apparition.”

Supernatural or not, there’s something truly creepy about prowling an abandoned forest at night. A few hours of hunting left us with a bunch of mosquito bites but, sadly, no orbs or UFO sightings.

“We don’t know what these apparitions are,” says Adrian, “but we know what they are not. We believe they’re not spirits, phantoms or extra terrestrials. They don’t arrive from parallel worlds or from another time. They transcend the laws of normal physics. They are beyond what we know and can imagine,” concludes Adrian.

For those keen to try their own paranormal pilgrimages, forget the Roswell and Crop Circle tourist traps. Grab your ghost hunting gear, reach out to Adrian Patrut and test your beliefs in Transylvania. “

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