FIRST INVESTIGATION: ALIEN SIGHTINGS IN CHILEAbout 67% believe in aliens and one in four believe that they have visited our planet. For all that believe, there a skeptics saying, "Why haven't we found any alien corpses?" According to recent reports in Chile, they have. Not long ago an alien mummy was exhumed deep from within the Chilean desert. Even though the remains looked a bit suspicious to Josh, there have been numerous reports by local Indians that claim to have had close encounters of the third kind. They have claimed to have seen tiny living creatures living in the mine shafts along with mysterious lights and UFO's. Looking for aliens is a first for Josh and his team, but with all the sightings, they just couldn't resist investigating. They flew 12 hours to Lima Peru, where in the remote desert in Northern Chile is where the most recent sightings have been. After getting their rental car, they made plans to travel thousands of miles south of Lima to some old abandoned mines where the sightings took place. From Lima they drove 26 hours south to Chile along the remote Pan American highway. After going through several tolls, they pulled over in a small town where Josh decided to get a haircut. In the morning they stopped in De Nasca, which is famous in alien culture. Josh and some of the crew took a plane for an aerial view of the land. From above they could see complex shapes and patterns carved in the desert's face. They were etched a few thousand years before human aviation and meant to be seen from above by those of another world. After witnessing these remarkable symbols, Josh still wasn't convinced he was in the presence of alien beings. Then they drove another 2,000 miles and finally reached Chile. Their first stop was at a place called Stargate, a stone monument erected in the middle of the desert which some claim is a portal to another dimension. Daniel Mamani's family helped build the Stargate monument and has personally seen these aliens. He claims that they are built some what like people but are very small. He tells Josh that the lots of paranormal activity were near the mines and the locals believe that the aliens were causing it. They next head off to a small town to have someone help them to locate the mines. They met up with Alejandro, a UFO researcher, who tracked the recent sightings near the abandoned mine. He tells Josh to talk to the Aymara Indians because they can guide him to the mines. After several miles in the baking sun they met up with Montano Biza, an Aymara tribal leader. He has personally witnessed the strange occurrences such as a strange light, larger than a star, hovering over the landscape, and then disappearing. He believes they are extra terrestrials and was able to outline the exact location of the mines for Josh and his team.INVESTIGATION: Getting to the mine just before the setting sun they noticed that to climb down into a large hole. Josh and Evan got on their climbing gear and headed down first. Once everyone got down safely, they set up base camp on the landing they descended on. While some of the team stayed at base camp, Josh and the rest checked out the tunnels. The smell below started to become unusual and then Evan's foot fell into a soft spot causing a hole. Josh notices a burlap material and inside the hole they saw bones. A very foul odor was coming from the hole where more bones had been found. The skeletal remains looked humanoid but the feet looked like hooves. It looked like it was buried there on purpose and had its head removed. They bag the bones so Jael and Rex can take them back to base camp. On the way back to base camp with the evidence, Jael and Rex see something. After asking is anybody with us, a rock was thrown at them. Josh continues on with Evan and Mike where they cross a small wooden manmade bridge. Josh feels a breeze coming and sees a light and chases it down. They follow the breeze to an opening, left the tunnels and headed over to a ridge line. They see a bright light across the canyon just above the rim. They try to focus on it while it was moving around and appeared to be pulsating. Mike picks up a weird noise coming out of the parabolic dish even without it being plugged in. It sounded mechanical; maybe even an alien type sound. They spent 12 hours underground for this investigation and had lots of activity. Unable to take the remains they found back to Los Angeles for research, Josh had to photograph them.
RESULTS: He took the photos first to the Natural History Museum of LA to Dr. Jim Dines a mammologist. Josh shows him the pictures and asked what he thought it was. He says that the feet are proportioned wrong for any kind of human or primate and was completely stumped on what it could be. Josh decides to take his findings to another expert, Mike Dee, retired curator from the Los Angeles zoo. He notices that the two feet are hoof like and definitely doesn't think it is a bird. He also saw no evidence of any type of feathers and was also puzzled by the remains. Josh was amazed that he could not get any positive identification of the remains from either of the two experts. The species that Josh and his team uncovered deep in the Chilean mines is still a mystery. Also, after replaying their recordings of the strange lights that they saw, they remain a mystery too.
SECOND INVESTIGATION: VAN LAKE, TURKEY, MASSIVE SCALY MONSTERWhen both CNN and the associated press made headlines of a large lake monster, Josh and his team had to investigate these reports. For centuries many have talked about the Van Lake monster but it wasn't until recently that a man’s video taped a large creature swimming around in the lake. Since then, hundreds of people have also reported seeing this mysterious animal. Van Lake is found in far Eastern Turkey in a remote region near the border of Iran. It is nearly 1,500 square miles and is nearly the size of Rhode Island. Most of the sightings are reported just off the lake's southern coast. Eyewitness say that this creature measures about 40 feet long, with dark scaly skin, long spiny back, and a muscular tail has a devastating whip against any person or vessels that goes near it. It also has a horse like head with razor sharp teeth and a massive jaw. The team flies nearly 17,000 miles to Istanbul, Turkey which took 17 hours. After such a long flight they emerge into the city of Istanbul which is an exotic mix of East and West and is the dividing line between Europe and Asia. After haggling over the price of a carpet, Josh left the market and met up with a local journalist, Gerguim Cuench. He was the one that obtained the original footage of the creature that later became international news. He tells Josh that it has been a part of Turkish history that this monster exists. He goes on to tell him that many believe that the monster exists but there was never any proof. Next the team heads out from Istanbul on a flight to the city of Van which borders the lake. The team was beyond tired and acting a bit goofy at this point so they hop in another DT special rag-tag vehicle to the Pearls of the East or the shores of Van. People have been inhabiting these shores for over 7,000 years where places of it's ancient ruins can still be seen. Because the story of the monster was so huge in this town, the local government formed its own team to search for it and even erect a statue of the monster. He talks with the Mayor, Nazmi Sezer, who tells him that there is definitely a creature in the lake and divers have seen eggs that the creature had laid. He also tells Josh that the creature can be found near the fresh water of Akhtamar Island. After getting Mike to shave off his beard and keeping his mustache, they got back on the trail of searching for the monster. Before investigating they spoke with a couple of local boat captains who shared their stories about the creature. Afterwards the team splits up to survey the area. Josh and Mike headed up in a helicopter, Jael and Rex kept watch on the Southern bank and Bicha and Sharra stayed north.INVESTIGATION: Sharra spots some dark shadowy figures along the surface. Shortly afterwards Jael and Rex see it as well. They tell Josh that is black and coming out of the water, and then going back down. Josh flies over the area but whatever it was had already disappeared. After returning from the flight, Josh and the team head out to Akhtamar Island in a boat. They land on the rocky coast and set up base camp. Evan and Josh head out first into the extremely cold water of Lake Van to get a look at the underwater area. The visibility was about 3 feet tops and the water was very cold and salty. They decided to search topside where the creature is known to surface at night. Josh and Jael head up to the highest point on the island to get a better look of the lake. They come across some ruins of an ancient church where they see drawings of a large monster eating people and found graves as well. They head back to base camp where Josh and Rex head out to do a sweep of the lake in a boat. Jael and Bisha do a sweep of the coastline. While out in the boat, it starts to rain and snow while the temperature drops to freezing. Base camp was experiencing lots of rain and their tarp filling up with water. It collapses spilling water on some of the equipment. The equipment was fine and they were able to fix the tarp. Meanwhile back on the shore, Jael hears noises and a very loud splashing and a moaning sound. They see something moving in the water so Josh submerges the underwater camera. Something hit the zodiac boat Josh was in and they saw something swimming by the camera. Then they see something big surface which makes a loud splash. They kept pursuing whatever was making the sounds and kept surfacing, but didn't find anything. After fixing the base camp's tarps, Josh went out in the zodiac boat again with Jael. Quickly they see ripples in the water, and then get a long shape on the thermal imaging camera. Then they hear a noise and then see a large shadow near their boat. Daylight was coming so they headed back to shore. They investigated from the coast the rest of the time then headed back to LA to analyze their findings. The thermal did show something about 20 feet in the water and on the underwater cameras there wasn't a clear enough image to tell what it was. Because the lake if fairly sparse, logic would dictate that something large would not be able to survive in that lake. Because they did experience something, Josh took the original footage to a marine biologist, Dr. Scott Cooper to get his opinion of what it was. Because you couldn't see in front of the object, he was skeptical that something could have been towed. In the clip of the object still in the water, he commented on the breathing being continuous bubbles as if there was an air hose or something causing it. Josh asked if they were looking at something biological and he told him that the skin looks leathery but the rest doesn't look credible to him. He felt that they were looking at a hoax. Josh then show him the footage of theirs from the helicopter showing the dark black objects bobbing at the surface. He tells Josh that it is unlikely for a huge creature to exist in this very salty lake and there is only one species of fish in the whole lake. His conclusion is that it was either a school of fish or methane sediments that bubble to the surface and appear to be a very large object. Because of the hundreds of sightings, there is the possibility that something could be hiding deep in the murky waters of Van Lake.
~Julie~
