Destination Truth Recap: Haunted Mining Town, the Taniwha

CHILE, LA NORIA AND HUMBERSTONE

La Noria and Humberstone, are reported as being haunted abandoned mining towns in Chile. Both these towns flourished during the 19th century during the mining boom where the conditions were terrible in and the treatment was bordering on slavery. Many workers including young children suffered horrible deaths. Locals near both these towns are claiming that they are haunted. Witnesses reported seeing the dead rise from their graves in the local cemetery at La Noria. Photos taken at Humberstone have revealed ghostly images of dead miners. Allison Scagliotti from Warehouse 13 joined Team Truth on this investigation.

They flew 10 hours to the city of Iquique, Chile, where they met up with Allison. Josh gives her the nickname “Scags” and she joins him in tasting some on the local cuisine. After enjoying a ritual dance with the locals, they find Hernan Baca, a local theater manager, who has experienced some of the activity in both towns many times. He tells Josh that when the sun goes down, the ghost come out of the graves and walk around. Another man tells him that the energy from all that suffered there, are still hanging around. Voices, children playing and other strange sounds could be heard coming from the abandoned towns. To get an idea where the towns’ exact locations are, they take to the skies in gliders. Josh spots the walls of the ruins and marks it with GPS.

They get to the perimeter of La Noria, where the buildings are just in ruins, and set up base camp. Josh, Mike, Evan and Allison checked out the north side of town, while the rest of Team Truth investigated the south side. They find photos, newspaper articles, a child’s shoe and where Josh sees something like a person on the thermal camera. They stumble across the cemetery and find open graves everywhere. They could still see the clothes and hair on the bones, and one appeared to be screaming. Josh calls for Ryder and her team to join them at the cemetery where they do a 30 minute isolation sessions. Allison was a bit hesitant and heard a male voice behind her. Ryder sees someone walking towards her but it wasn’t anyone from Team Truth. Evan noticed that she saw an apparition near an open grave. They left a camera at the cemetery and headed off the investigate Humberstone. There is lots of paranormal activity in this town as well. This town’s buildings are preserved by the government and in much better condition. They take many still photos in the buildings to see if any ghosts show up in them. Bobby, Gabe and Rex find an open pit in one building, so Rex decides to get in it and do an EVP session. He feels chills and hears loud noises above him in the barn. He leaves the hole pretty shaken. Josh, Allison, Ryder, Mike and Evan find the abandoned school. The girls go in one area, while Mike and Josh sit in another class room. Josh is shining the thermal camera all around while Mike experiences seeing a dim light coming from the door across the hall. Josh shines the thermal camera in that direction just in time to catch what looked like someone walking across the door. He jumped up and went after whatever it was. He said it looked like someone was looking in the camera.

In Los Angeles they analyzed the photos which had strange mist show up on many of the pictures, but could say what it was. They checked out the thermal evidence and it looked like someone walked by the window and you can see what looks like an arm. Next they concentrated on the EVP’s. When Rex was in the hole, he caught what sounded like “no” and Josh’s solo EVP session, he caught what sounded like “I am”. What a couple of creepy little towns they ended up being.

ROTORUA, NEW ZEALAND, TANIWHA

Most of the sightings of an aquatic creature, known as the Taniwha, is centered around the town of Rotorua. Deep in the northern section of New Zealand the Taniwha is described as an eel like creature, about 10 feet in length, body milky white, powerful jaw with many sharp teeth and said to protect bodies of water around the north island hiding in dark caves and crevices. The creature is known to swim openly at night, attacking anyone or anything that passes its path.

Team Truth flew 13 hours to Auckland, New Zealand which is one of the largest cities in the country. Again dancing with the locals, they next drove many hours south to arrive at Rotorua. This city is built inside a volcanic caldera, where sulfate smelling ponds and geysers rise amongst the beautiful landscape. Josh met up with a local man to find out more about this elusive creature. He tells Josh that the Taniwha is respected by the older residence but is to be feared. Since there were many sightings along the river, they decided to take a raft to scan it. At one point the rapids got very strong, and Ryder fell out the raft. They were able to quickly retrieve her and press on. They met up with some local experts on the creature, who decided that Josh needed to be tattooed on his face to be accepted by the group. The tribal leader and others also had seen the Taniwha in the water and nearby caves.

At the lake, they acquired two boats to survey the lake and then set up base camp. While getting ready to head out, Vanessa spots something big in the water. Gabe and Josh dove underwater but the vegetation was so thick that is was hard to see anything. Vanessa and Ryder saw something in the water on one of the cameras and called for Josh to check it out. He did see something large go pass him but had trouble identifying it. They decided to take out the two boats to see if anything emerges at the surface. Josh caught something huge on the thermal, so they chased after it. They see it again, turn off the motor and sat waiting for it to surface again. All of a sudden, they were attacked by bugs and hurried to get away. The bugs were everywhere! Meanwhile, Rex and Bobby find the cave that the locals have talked about. Rex and Evan get in the water but the elements surrounding them has the boys getting back in the boat. They head back to base camp and Josh decides to check out the cave. They drop an aqua cam in the water but had no further encounters.

In Los Angeles, Josh took his findings to Mike Schaadt, a marine biologist, to get his expert opinion. From the thermal evidence and video, Mike felt that they caught an eel. In that area, there is a freshwater eel that can grow up to six feet tall and could be mistaken for the Taniwha.