Jason Hawes, Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango, the paranormal investigators responsible for igniting the ghost hunting phenomenon, are back for more adventures to the other side. The second season of the hit Travel Channel series, “Ghost Nation,” premieres on Wednesday, April 22 at 8 p.m. ET/PT with a special two-hour episode, and then returns with a fresh batch of weekly one-hour episodes airing at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
This season’s locations have bigger mysteries, are more chilling, and have never been investigated on television. Not only will the team be helping distraught homeowners, they’re also bringing their skills to an abandoned prison complex and a menacing tattoo parlor. And this time, they are calling in an old friend for some help. Paranormal investigator Shari DeBenedetti joins the investigations to keep a close eye on the monitors, reviewing footage on the hunt for all things paranormal.
So how do they get the cases that they investigate? Jason mentions how they get tons of people reaching out to them…
“Well, people reach out to us and they always have, through our different websites and they make contact with us asking us to head out and investigate the locations, or their teams reach out to us all the time and ask for our assistance, helping them out, in certain investigations. So that’s pretty much how those cases come to us and then of course we get an abundance of them. So, we have to sit down, go through which ones seem to jump to the front, and be priority type cases.”
Steve adds the importance of them making sure they are helping out people…
“Yeah, you know, in this second season, we also wanted to maintain sort of our original focus, which is–you know, taking on cases where we are actually helping people–you know not necessarily just running to try to get–you know the best piece of paranormal evidence or you know the next–you know, piece of whatever’s gonna push the field. This was very much so places that we could help, and impact the people and clients directly and the teams that need help around the countries, we wanted to make sure we were still getting cases from the teams, and not just chasing places ourselves.”
And of course a popular question for them is if they are ever afraid while on these investigations. Jason tells us…
“Actually I think you always–not fear, I think excitement of course you might get startled from something but I think you always need to be on guard because you never know what you’re walking into, you never know who’s on the other side of that door and what problems are going on are they paranormal, are they medical? Are they some other issues? So you’re walking in sort of blind sighted with everything happening there. So, you always need to be on guard, when it comes down to ghosts and hauntings and things of that nature, it’s not scary to us, it’s intriguing.”
Steve gives a piece of advice for anyone interested in becoming an investigator…
“Yeah, you know, a good little tip and not that people really wanna jump into certain things, but–you know, for me it–if it–it sort of disobeys basic laws of science and physics, then either I’m misinterpreting it–you know, or I’m making it up–you know and not on purpose to lie, but my brain can do things to me to make me think there are things there, that aren’t there, you know? And that’s a real phenomenon. So, if it disobeys the laws of science or physics, I tend to think either I’m misinterpreting what I’m seeing, or it’s in my head, in some fashion.”
And while we see the fear in the adults being haunted Jason reminds us about how children are also exposed to the paranormal…
“One hundred percent, because children aren’t conditioned, to a child, anything’s possible. And we talk about this all the time, where children are more prone to see thing than adults because again everything’s possible, right, I mean they’re–a big bunny brings them a basket, a big fat guy comes down the chimney, it’s not until we start telling them their invisible friends aren’t real, that we start closing them off or conditioning them to our belief system, but to–I mean, they’re wide open. So, they’re able to see things that adults are totally shut off from.”
And yes they are horror fans, and watch plenty of horror in their downtime. Steve mentions how he’s been watching horror during quarantine…
“Yeah, hand especially given the stressful environment that we’re in, as a horror fan, people are surprised when I’m watching horror movies. But it’s like “Well I would rather be glad I’m not sucked in the cabin from Evil Dead and just be happy that I’m just stuck in my apartment where I have the Internet and TV and no Deadites outside my window.”
Don’t miss “Ghost Nation” premiering April 22nd on Travel Channel!
