INTERVIEW: This Halloween season, look for paranormal activity with ‘Ghost Nation’
Photo: Ghost Nation stars, from left, Dave Tango, Steve Gonsalves and Jason Hawes. Photo courtesy of Travel Channel / Provided by press site with permission.
Steve Gonsalves, Jason Hawes and Dave Tango have been investigating paranormal activity for years, and their latest adventures are part of Travel Channel’s hit show Ghost Nation. This Halloween season, with the blood moon high in the sky and the floorboards creaking into the night, the guys are heading out for some ghostly adventures and bringing the audience with them.
A new season of Ghost Nation premieres Saturday, Oct. 17 at 9 p.m., and there’s also a Halloween night special that sees the team reuniting with Amy Bruni and Adam Berry from Kindred Spirits.
“We have a Halloween special where we bring in other investigators, and it just so happens to be Amy Bruni and Adam Barry,” Gonsalves said in a recent phone interview. “It was a lot of fun to reunite with them, and that episode is actually called the Reunion from Hell, which you can take by the title that it’s going to be a pretty intense night. And that’s Halloween night, and our opening on Saturday the 17th we actually start in a tattoo shop where they took two buildings that they didn’t know were independently haunted and put them together to create their dream tattoo shop and ended up with a bit of a haunting. We’ve got some new equipment, some handheld sonar, and low-lying fog stimulant that helps us see and track movement.”
The fact that the team is able to put out new episodes is impressive because the COVID-19 pandemic has halted so much production around the world. The guys stayed safe as they headed out on the road, and despite the quarantines, they still found plenty of evidence.
“It’s interesting because we have done a few cases where some of these buildings have been vacant, been empty for quite some time, and it’s almost like whatever was there was wanting to reach out to people,” Tango said about investigating during a pandemic. “There’s some episodes coming up, there’s one in particular, where we find out that there used to be these lavish parties in this mansion, and that’s kind of the way it was there. And now it was vacant for a couple of months because of the pandemic. We come in, and all of sudden all of this activity happens. We even discuss that, the possibility of why that happened so intensely.”
Gonsalves has a few theories about this increased paranormal activity during these historic times. For one, he believes the ghosts may not be used to seeing people wandering around these vacant buildings, so when the human activity kicked up during the filming of the TV show, the paranormal activity followed suit.
“They’ve been used to having nobody, and they feel a bit of peace,” Gonsalves said. “And now there are people tramping around their mansion and their house again, so that might be stirring them up. So either way it seems to have worked to our benefit in terms of the paranormal side of things, but there are some drawbacks naturally and some hurdles we’ve had to overcome in terms of still being able to do the research that we need to do without being able to get access to historical societies to check records.”
To still access the historical anecdotes, Gonsalves, Tango and Hawes have utilized Zoom and conference calls to confirm information. They credit the historians featured on the show for still supplying copious amounts of evidence.
And with this evidence in hand, the cameras rolling and the plan all set, one wonders if there’s still a fear factor this many years into their chosen profession. Can ghost hunters still be afraid of the dark?
“To me, personally, I don’t fear the paranormal,” Gonsalves said. “I’m not afraid of it. It’s startling for sure. You get startled, and then that either translates into excitement or intrigue. You do get scared. We’ll scream and say, ‘What was that?’ But we run toward things not away from things. There is an excitement that comes along with that, but we try to keep our bearings and realize that there’s nothing scary we’re dealing with. This is science. This is natural history. This is in the environment.”
He added: “But I’ll tell you what, there are a few cases where we do think we’ve been dealing with something dark, and we’ve had to get some other people involved that can help these families. As much as we’ve tackled demonic and inhuman cases in the past, we’re very confident in saying that it’s not something that we tackle alone because you do need the assistance of people who come across that type of haunting a lot more than you do. And we did with great results, and you’ll see that in a few of the upcoming episodes on Ghost Nation where we’ve been dealing with some dark things that were really wedging themselves in between a family. With the help of clergy and our protocols, procedures and techniques, we’re able to help the families. That’s really exciting. That’s the darker stuff, and although we don’t come across that as often as some people may think, it’s still something we’ve had to tackle this season coming up.”
Ghost Nation has become a hit show for Travel Channel, and the guys are excited to keep investigating what seems to be an endless number of haunted locations around the United States. Whenever the network comes knocking with the opportunity to record more shows, they are in.
“As long as they’ll have us, I’ll be doing it,” Tango said. “It’s the passion. We love doing this, and Travel Channel network, they are amazing. I love working with them, and it’s been fantastic.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Ghost Nation returns Saturday, Oct. 17 at 9 p.m. on Travel Channel. Click here for more information.
