15 Weird Facts About Expedition Unknown (2015–Present) You Never Knew

You think you know everything about Josh Gates and his globe trotting adventures on Expedition Unknown? Think again.
Behind the cameras of Discovery Channel’s hit Mystery Hunting series lies a treasure trove of shocking accidents, near-death experiences, controversial scandals, and bizarre behind-the-scenes secrets that would make even the most seasoned explorers jaw-drop. From life-threatening boat capsizes in the Amazon to rejecting a doomed Titanic submarine over safety fears, Gates has lived through experiences far stranger than any legend he’s investigated. Here are the 15 weird facts you didn’t know about Expedition Unknown. Fact one, Josh Gates nearly died in multiple filming accidents. Josh Gates has built his career on putting himself in dangerous situations for the sake of adventure television. But what most viewers don’t realize is just how many times the expedition unknown host has genuinely feared for his life while the cameras were rolling. The most serious incident occurred in 2014 during the filming of an episode in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest when Gates and his crew were traveling by boat along a treacherous river system.
Without warning, their vessel suddenly capsized, throwing Gates into the rushing water where the strong current immediately swept him away from the overturned boat. Local guides who were accompanying the production crew managed to rescue Gates from the river, but the damage was already done. He was rushed to a hospital in Lima, Peru, where doctors treated him for multiple serious injuries, including a broken collar bone, a severe concussion, and numerous cuts and bruises across his body. Gates spent several days recovering in the hospital before he was cleared to return home. And the incident forced the show’s producers to implement much stricter safety protocols for future expeditions.
But the Amazon accident wasn’t an isolated incident in Gates’s dangerous career. During the filming of season 4, Gates and two crew members fell seriously ill after spending days underground in Ecuador’s Taios caves, where they had to eat meals in complete darkness surrounded by bats, spiders, and other insects. The contaminated food mixed with bat droppings and other unsanitary conditions left Gates requiring medical treatment for what he described as a nasty virus. In another close call while filming in Guatemala, Gates was interviewing an archaeologist on the steps of an ancient pyramid when his cameraman suddenly shouted, “Snake!” a deadly pit viper was slithering directly toward them. And considering they were a two-day hike from the nearest hospital, Gates later admitted the cameraman probably saved his life.
Fact two, he rejected the doomed Titanic submarine over safety concerns. In what would prove to be one of the most precient decisions of his career, Josh Gates walked away from what he called a huge opportunity to film the wreckage of the Titanic aboard Ocean Gates Titan submersible more than 2 years before the vessel would make international headlines for all the wrong reasons. In May of 2021, Gates and his Expedition Unknown crew traveled to Ocean Gates headquarters in Everett, Washington to conduct a test dive with company CEO Stockton Rush at the helm with plans to potentially film an episode featuring a descent to the famous shipwreck. The test dive took place in Puet Sound and was supposed to be a routine evaluation, but according to Gates, things went wrong almost immediately. Even though the submersible only went a few feet underwater and was accompanied by a safety diver, Rush lost control of the vessel’s computer systems and struggled to provide clear answers when Gates and his crew asked technical questions about what was happening. Gates later described Rush as seeming like a car salesman who had rehearsed answers for everything above water, but underwater, he appeared completely unaware of how poorly the dive had gone from the production team’s perspective. After the troubling test experience, Gates made the difficult decision to contact the president of Discovery Channel and cancel the planned Titanic expedition despite the significant money and planning that had already been invested in the project. On social media, Gates later wrote that Titan did not perform well on my dive and that he walked away from a huge opportunity to film Titanic due to my safety concerns. He also cryptically warned that there’s more to the history and design of Titan that has not been made public, much of it concerning. His instincts proved tragically correct when the Titan submersible imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreckage in June of 2023, killing all five people aboard, including Rush himself. Fact three, his Yeti footprint is on display at Disney World. Long before Josh Gates was hunting mysteries on Expedition Unknown, he made one of his most famous discoveries while hosting a different show called Destination Truth on the Sci-Fi Channel. And that discovery now sits permanently on display at one of Disney World’s most popular attractions.
In November of 2007, Gates and his crew were filming an episode in Nepal, searching the remote valleys near Mount Everest for evidence of the legendary Yeti, also known as the abominable snowman. During their expedition, they discovered what appeared to be three mysterious footprints near a river in the Himalayas, including one complete print that measured about 13 in long and two partial prints. Gates and his team carefully made plaster casts of these unusual tracks, which experts later determined could not be easily explained as belonging to any known animal in the region. The footprints generated international media attention and were featured prominently on Destination Truth. But what happened to them afterward is even more surprising. In 2008, Gates personally traveled to Walt Disney World in Florida to meet with Joe RH, who was the executive designer of Walt Disney Imagineering at the time.
Gates presented Road with the actual plaster cast of the mysterious yeti footprint he had discovered in the Himalayas. and Disney decided to put it on permanent display as part of their Expedition Everest attraction at Animal Kingdom. The roller coaster, which features a 25- foot tall animatronic Yeti and takes guests on a high-speed journey through a Himalayan themed mountain, now houses Gates’s real footprint cast in its queue area. What makes this particularly unusual is that the vast majority of artifacts and props displayed throughout Disney’s attractions are carefully crafted replicas. But Gates’s Yeti footprint is one of the few genuine artifacts that guests can actually see. The cast remains on display today, more than 15 years after its discovery, serving as a unique bridge between Gates’s television career and one of Disney’s most thrilling attractions. Fact four. He got food poisoning from bat droppings in Ecuador. One of the most disgusting and dangerous situations Josh Gates ever found himself in happened during the filming of season 4 of Expedition Unknown when he and two crew members became seriously ill after spending several days underground in one of the world’s most treacherous cave systems.
Gates was investigating the Taios caves in the Ecuadorian Amazon, a legendary natural network of caverns that had previously been explored by a team that included military personnel, a film crew, and even NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong, making it one of the most significant cave expeditions in modern history. The production team descended hundreds of feet underground and had to live and work in complete darkness for days on end while filming their investigation of what some people call the Metal Library, a supposed collection of ancient artifacts hidden deep within the cave system. The challenging conditions meant that Gates and his crew had to eat their meals in the same dark enclosed spaces where they were working, surrounded by thousands of bats, spiders, and other insects that called the caves home. What they didn’t realize at the time was that their food was becoming contaminated by bat droppings and other unsanitary materials that were constantly falling from the cave ceiling and walls. After emerging from the caves and returning to civilization, Gates and two members of his production crew fell seriously ill and required medical treatment for what Gates described as a particularly nasty virus. The contamination from eating uncovered food in a room filled with bat waste had given them a severe case of food poisoning that took days to recover from. Despite the miserable experience and his promise that he would never ever go back to that cave, Gates later said he couldn’t wait for viewers to see what they had actually discovered inside the dangerous underground chambers. The episode became one of the most memorable and challenging shoots in the show’s history, proving that sometimes the biggest dangers aren’t the mysteries themselves, but the extreme conditions required to investigate them. Fact five, Christopher Lloyd became his most unlikely co-star. In one of the most unexpected celebrity partnerships in television history, Josh Gates teamed up with Christopher Lloyd, the beloved actor who played Doc Brown in the Back to the Future movies, for a four-part Discovery Plus special that had nothing to do with ancient mysteries or legendary creatures. The collaboration came about in 2021 when Gates and the Expedition Unknown production team created a unique spin-off series called Expedition Back to the Future, where Gates and Lloyd embarked on a cross-country road trip to hunt down the original Delorean time machines that were used during the filming of the classic science fiction trilogy. The unusual partnership was born out of a charitable mission to help Michael J.
Fox, who played Marty McFly in the original films and has been battling Parkinson’s disease for decades. The goal was to locate one of the six remaining screen used Delorean cars from the movies and donate it to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research where it could be auctioned off to raise money for medical research.
Gates, who described himself as a huge fan of the Back to the Future franchise, saw this as an opportunity to use the Delorean as both a vehicle for adventure and a way to celebrate the beloved film series. Throughout their journey, which took them from Los Angeles to Orlando and included stops in Houston and New York, Gates and Lloyd visited Delorean experts, collectors, and super fans while also reuniting with other cast members from the original films. The series featured appearances by Michael J. Fox himself along with Lee Thompson, Donald Full, James Tolken, Harry Waters Jr., and screenwriter Bob Gail, who helped create the original story. The chemistry between the adventurous television host and the eccentric actor proved surprisingly entertaining with Lloyd embracing his role as Gates’s co-investigator while channeling some of the same energy that made Doc Brown such an iconic character on the big screen.
Fact six, his wife announced her pregnancy while he was filming. One of the most emotionally powerful moments in Expedition Unknown history happened completely by accident when Josh Gates received life-changing personal news while filming in a remote location, and the cameras captured every second of his genuine reaction. Gates was in the middle of shooting an episode about the secrets of Christopher Columbus, when he received an unexpected satellite phone call from his wife, Hi Natavich, who had been working as a researcher on his previous show, Destination Truth, before they got married in September of 2014.
The couple had been married for just over a year when Gates embarked on this particular filming expedition, and Hi had deliberately timed her call to coincide with when she knew he would be available to talk via satellite communication. What Gates didn’t know was that his wife had carefully planned this moment to share the biggest news of their relationship. During the phone call, with the production cameras still rolling and Gates completely unaware of what was coming, Hi told him that she was pregnant with their first child. The moment was so unexpected and emotionally overwhelming that Gates became visibly emotional on camera, creating one of the most genuine and heartfelt scenes in the show’s history. The raw authenticity of his reaction, combined with the remote location and the technical challenge of maintaining a clear satellite phone connection, made for compelling television that viewers still remember years later. The timing of the announcement meant that Gates had to continue filming the Columbus episode while processing the incredible news that he was going to become a father. Hi and Josh welcomed their first child, Owen Indiana Gates, in February of 2016, and the middle name was chosen specifically to honor one of Gates’s greatest adventure heroes, Indiana Jones. The couple later had a daughter named Isla Amelia Gates, with her middle name paying tribute to another of Gates’s explorer icons, Amelia Heheart.
The satellite phone pregnancy announcement became such a beloved moment among fans that it’s often cited as one of the most memorable personal moments ever captured during the filming of the series. Fact seven, the show films 65 plus hours for every 45minute episode. The massive scope of filming required to create each episode of Expedition Unknown becomes clear when you look at the incredible ratio between the amount of footage shot and what actually makes it to television.
According to production insiders, the show typically schedules between 6 and seven full days of filming for every single episode, with each day involving approximately 10 hours of active shooting, which means that roughly 65 hours of raw footage gets condensed down into a 42 to 45minut television episode once commercials are removed. This enormous filming to airtime ratio of approximately 1 and a half hours of footage for every minute of finished television doesn’t even include the extensive pre-production work, post-prouction editing, sound mixing, and color correction that happens after the cameras stop rolling. A production crew member who worked on an underwater episode revealed that the team brought more camera equipment than most technical diving expeditions would carry. Because documenting every angle and capturing backup footage is essential when filming in remote locations where re-shooting isn’t possible. The extensive filming schedule is necessary because of the unpredictable nature of the show’s investigations, where Gates and his crew never know what they might discover or what obstacles they’ll encounter in remote locations around the world.
Unlike scripted television shows where scenes can be carefully planned and controlled, Expedition Unknown requires the production team to capture enough material to tell a complete story regardless of whether their original theories pan out or their planned discoveries actually happen. The editing process becomes particularly challenging because the production team has to create a coherent narrative from dozens of hours of footage that might include everything from successful discoveries to complete dead ends, unexpected weather delays, equipment failures, and the kind of genuine surprises that make for compelling television. Josh Gates once joked that viewers should see the ratio for a full-blown action movie, suggesting that Expedition Unknown’s filming process is actually relatively efficient compared to big budget Hollywood productions, but the sheer volume of material still represents a massive logistical undertaking for each episode. Fact eight, crew members often get no credit despite finding discoveries behind the scenes of Expedition Unknown. There’s an uncomfortable reality about how the television industry sometimes fails to properly credit the researchers and experts who make the show’s most significant discoveries possible. And one particularly glaring example involves a researcher named Tyler Stalter who did crucial work that never received proper recognition. Stalter was the person who originally came up with the entire concept for a season 12 episode that focused on searching for a lost experimental aircraft called the XP5y that had crashed off the coast of San Diego during World War I. Not only did Stalter conceptualize the episode and pitch the idea to the Expedition Unknown production team, but he also conducted the extensive historical research needed to locate and identify the specific wreck target that Gates and his diving team would eventually explore. During filming, Stalter spent considerable time and effort tracking down the exact coordinates and historical details that made the episode possible, essentially serving as the foundation for what would become one of the show’s most technically challenging underwater investigations. However, when the filming schedule was moved around due to production logistics, Stalter was unable to participate in the actual shoot because of work commitments that conflicted with the new dates. Despite his central role in creating the episode concept and finding the target that drove the entire investigation, Stalter received no on-screen credit when the episode finally aired on Discovery Channel. Even though the production team filmed multiple scenes that were supposed to mention his contributions and give him proper acknowledgement for his research work, those segments were ultimately cut from the final edit. This situation highlights a broader issue within television production where the behind-the-scenes researchers, local experts, and technical specialists who make these kinds of expeditions possible often don’t receive the recognition they deserve for their contributions. A crew member who worked on the episode later expressed disappointment about the situation, noting that Stalter’s work was essential to the success of the investigation, but that television editing and production decisions sometimes result in important contributors being left out of the final product. Fact nine, he was almost bitten by a deadly snake in Guatemala. One of Josh Gates’s closest calls with death happened in the most unexpected way during what should have been a routine interview segment. While filming an episode about ancient pyramids in the jungles of Guatemala, Gates was conducting an on camera interview with a local archaeologist on the stone steps of an ancient Mayan pyramid, discussing the historical significance of the ruins and the mysteries surrounding the civilization that built them thousands of years ago.
When the conversation was suddenly interrupted by a shout that probably saved his life, without any warning, Gates’s cameraman, Evan, noticed movement in his peripheral vision and immediately yelled, “Snake!” at the top of his lungs, causing both Gates and the archaeologist to jump up from where they had been sitting on the pyramid steps.
What they saw was a highly venomous pit viper slithering directly toward them across the ancient stone surface.
Apparently attracted by their body heat or simply following its natural hunting patterns through the jungle ruins. Pit vipers are among the most dangerous snakes in Central America with venom that can cause severe tissue damage, blood clotting problems, and potentially death if medical treatment isn’t available quickly enough. The snake was close enough to Gates that if Evan hadn’t spotted it when he did, it could have easily struck before anyone realized the danger. The situation was made even more frightening by their remote location deep in the Guatemalan jungle, where they were approximately a 2-day hike away from the nearest hospital or medical facility that would have the antivenenom needed to treat a pit viper bite. After the incident, Gates admitted that the experience was one of his most terrifying moments while filming, and he later said that he owed his cameraman a case of expensive scotch for potentially saving his life with his quick observation and warning. The snake encounter became one of those behindthe-scenes stories that the crew would talk about for years afterward, serving as a reminder that sometimes the most dangerous moments on Expedition Unknown have nothing to do with the mysteries they’re investigating. Fact 10. The show moved networks due to a corporate shakeup. What many viewers don’t realize is that Expedition Unknown underwent a major behind-the-scenes transition in 2018 that had nothing to do with ratings or creative decisions, but instead was the result of a massive corporate restructuring that affected multiple television networks and their programming lineups. The show had originally premiered on Travel Channel in January of 2015 and had successfully aired four complete seasons on that network, building a loyal audience and establishing itself as one of Travel Channel’s most popular adventure programs. However, at the start of what would become the fifth season in 2018, Expedition Unknown suddenly moved from Travel Channel to Discovery Channel, leaving many fans confused about why their favorite show had switched networks mid-run. The transition wasn’t due to any problems with the show’s performance or conflicts between Josh Gates and the Travel Channel executives, but rather was part of a larger corporate strategy involving the parent companies that owned both networks.
Discovery Communications, which owned Discovery Channel, also had significant business relationships and ownership stakes that affected programming decisions across multiple networks in their portfolio. The move was essentially a strategic shuffle designed to better align certain types of content with specific network brands. with Discovery Channel wanting to strengthen its adventure and exploration programming block by bringing over successful shows from other networks within the same corporate family. For viewers, the network change meant that new episodes of Expedition Unknown would now air on Discovery Channel instead of Travel Channel, though reruns of earlier seasons continued to appear on both networks for a period of time. The transition was handled smoothly from a production standpoint with Josh Gates and his crew continuing their work without any major changes to the shows format, budget, or creative direction.
Discovery Channel became the permanent home for Expedition Unknown, and the show has continued to thrive on its new network, eventually spawning multiple spin-off series, including Expedition X and Josh Gates Tonight, proving that the corporate move ultimately benefited both the show and its audience. Fact 11.
Gates has a secret Boston Bruins tattoo.
Long before Josh Gates became famous for exploring the world’s greatest mysteries, he had a completely different kind of adventure on reality television that resulted in him getting a permanent reminder of his Massachusetts roots in the most unusual location possible. In 2002, more than a decade before Expedition Unknown would premiere, Gates was a contestant on a littleknown ESPN reality show called Beg, Borrow, and Deal, which challenged participants to travel across the country with no money and rely on the kindness of strangers to reach their destinations. The show was essentially a cross-country race where contestants had to use their charm, creativity, and negotiation skills to convince people to help them with transportation, food, and lodging as they made their way from one coast to the other. During his time on the show, Gates found himself in a situation where he needed to prove his dedication to something meaningful to him. And as someone who was born and raised in Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts, he decided to show his loyalty to his home state’s beloved hockey team, the Boston Bruins. The challenge or dare that Gates accepted during the filming of Beg, Borrow, and Deal required him to get a tattoo of the Boston Bruins logo. But instead of choosing a visible location like his arm or shoulder, Gates opted for the most hidden spot possible by having the team’s emblem permanently inked on the bottom of his foot. This unusual placement means that the tattoo is completely invisible unless Gates is barefoot and deliberately shows the sole of his foot to someone, making it one of the best kept secrets about the popular television host. The bottom of the foot location was probably chosen because it would be the least likely to interfere with Gates’s future career prospects since tattoos were still somewhat controversial in professional settings during the early 2000s. The Boston Bruins tattoo remains on Gates’s foot to this day, serving as a hidden reminder of both his Massachusetts heritage and his early days in reality television long before he became known for investigating ancient mysteries and legendary creatures around the world.
Fact 12. Co 19 created an accidental talk show spin-off. The global pandemic that shut down television production around the world in early 2020 inadvertently led to the creation of one of Josh Gates’s most unexpected shows.
proving that sometimes the best ideas come from desperate circumstances and creative problem solving. When CO 19 lockdowns forced the Expedition Unknown production team to halt filming in April of 2020, Discovery Channel suddenly found themselves with a major scheduling gap where the end of season 8 was supposed to air, leaving them scrambling to find replacement programming that could be produced safely during quarantine restrictions. Rather than simply running reruns or pulling content from their archives, Discovery Channel approached Gates with an unusual request to create some kind of programming that could be filmed entirely from his home while maintaining social distancing guidelines. The result was Josh Gates Tonight, a talk show format that initially seemed like it would be a temporary stop gap measure to fill airtime until normal production could resume, but it quickly evolved into something much more substantial and entertaining than anyone had originally anticipated. The early episodes of Josh Gates Tonight were filmed entirely in Gates’s personal residence with him conducting video conference interviews with celebrity guests, travel experts, and people who had previously appeared on Expedition Unknown. The format also included field segments shot by remote crews, comedy bits, cocktail recipes, and behindthe-scenes footage from Gates’s various adventures around the world. What started as emergency filler programming proved to be surprisingly popular with viewers who were stuck at home during lockdown and craving both entertainment and a sense of connection to the wider world. The success of the improvised talk show led Discovery Channel to officially classify Josh Gates Tonight as its own separate series rather than just a temporary extension of Expedition Unknown. The show eventually moved production from Gates’s home to a proper studio called Expedition Headquarters, starting with episode 14 of the first season. And it continued for multiple seasons through 2022, featuring guests like Matthew McConna, John Cle, Dennis Quaid, and many other celebrities who appreciated the show’s relaxed, conversational atmosphere. Fact 13. He names his children after his adventure heroes. Josh Gates’s passion for exploration and legendary adventurers runs so deep that he chose to honor his greatest heroes by incorporating their names into his own children’s identities, creating a permanent family connection to the figures who inspired his career in adventure television. Gates and his ex-wife, Hal Natavich, deliberately selected middle names for both of their children that pay tribute to two of the most iconic explorers and adventure figures in history, turning their family names into a celebration of the adventurous spirit that defines Gates’s professional life. Their first child, Owen Indiana Gates, was born in February of 2016.
and his middle name, Indiana, was chosen specifically to honor Indiana Jones, the fictional archaeologist and adventurer created by filmmaker Steven Spielberg and brought to life by actor Harrison Ford in the beloved movie franchise that began in 1981. Indiana Jones represents the perfect combination of academic scholarship and daredevil adventure that mirrors Gates own approach to exploration. Since the character is both a legitimate archaeologist and someone who isn’t afraid to take dangerous risks in pursuit of historical discoveries, the couple’s second child, Isa Amelia Gates, was born in 2018. And her middle name, Amelia, was chosen to honor Amelia Heheart, the pioneering American aviator who became one of the most famous female explorers in history before her mysterious disappearance over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
Hehheart’s story of courage, determination, and her ultimate vanishing during an around the world flight attempt has fascinated Gates for years, and he has actually featured her disappearance as a subject on Expedition Unknown multiple times, investigating various theories about what happened to her plane. The naming choices reveal just how deeply Gates’s personal identity is intertwined with the world of exploration and adventure, and they demonstrate that his commitment to honoring legendary figures extends beyond his television work into his most personal family decisions. Both children now carry the names of heroes who embody the spirit of discovery and courage that Gates tries to bring to every episode of his shows. Fact 14. The series has multiple secret after shows. Most fans of Expedition Unknown have no idea that there’s an entire companion series running alongside the main show that provides extended coverage, behindthe-scenes content, and additional details that don’t make it into the regular episodes. After the Hunt is a lesserknown aftershow series that has been quietly produced to give viewers deeper insight into the investigations and discoveries featured on Expedition Unknown, but it flies under the radar because it doesn’t receive the same marketing attention or promotional push as the main series. The aftershow format allows the production team to include material that gets cut from the main episodes due to time constraints such as extended interviews with local experts, additional footage from excavation sites, more detailed explanations of historical context, and candid moments between Josh Gates and his crew that reveal the personal side of their adventures. After the hunt also provides opportunities to revisit previous investigations with new information or updates that have emerged since the original episodes aired, giving fans a chance to learn about developments in ongoing mysteries. Season six of After the Hunt specifically focused on providing aftershow content for season 8 of Expedition Unknown, creating a parallel viewing experience where dedicated fans could get approximately twice as much content from each investigation by watching both the main episode and its corresponding after show segment. The format has proven particularly valuable for complex investigations that involve multiple locations or historical periods where the main episode can only scratch the surface of the research and exploration that actually took place. The existence of After the Hunt demonstrates how much additional material the Expedition Unknown production team captures during their filming that never makes it to television and it serves as a way to maximize the value of their extensive research and fieldwork. While casual viewers might be satisfied with the main episodes, hardcore fans who want to dive deeper into the mysteries and learn more about the investigation process can access this additional layer of content that provides a more complete picture of each adventure. Fact 15. Gates produces paranormal shows despite being skeptical. One of the most surprising contradictions in Josh Gates television career is that he serves as an executive producer for multiple paranormal investigation shows through his production company Pingpong Productions.
Even though he maintains a notably skeptical and scientific approach to supernatural claims when hosting his own series, Gates produces Ghost Nation, which features former Ghost Hunters team members Jason Haw, Steve Gonalves, and Dave Tango as they investigate allegedly haunted locations, as well as Expedition X, a spin-off series that focuses exclusively on paranormal subjects and crypted investigations with hosts Phil Torres and Jessica Chobot. The business arrangement creates an interesting dynamic where Gates is financially and creatively invested in shows that take a much more credulous approach to ghost hunting and supernatural phenomena than he does on Expedition Unknown, where he typically applies archaeological methods and historical research to debunk legends rather than validate them. While Expedition X and Ghost Nation present paranormal evidence with less skepticism and more dramatic flare, Gates himself rarely encounters situations on Expedition Unknown, where he accepts supernatural explanations for the mysteries he investigates. Gates has been involved with paranormal television programming since his early career, having hosted multiple live Ghost Hunters specials and served as a guest investigator on several episodes of that long-running series. His connection to the Ghost Hunters franchise, eventually led to his role as producer of Ghost Nation, which features three of the most popular personalities from the original show. Meanwhile, Expedition X was created as a direct spin-off of Expedition Unknown, but focuses entirely on cases involving alleged paranormal activity, cryptozoolology, and unexplained phenomena. The arrangement allows Gates to maintain his reputation as a more scientifically minded investigator on his flagship show while still capitalizing on the popularity of paranormal programming through his production company. This business strategy demonstrates how television personalities can simultaneously serve different audience segments with varying levels of skepticism about supernatural topics, essentially allowing Gates to have his cake and eat it too when it comes to the profitable but controversial world of paranormal entertainment.