What Would You Ask These 9 Travel Channel Paranormal Stars?

Nine Travel Channel paranormal stars. Four shows appearing during Travel Channel’s Ghostober programming. What would you ask the stars of these shows?

Well, technically it’s eight Travel Channel paranormal stars and one drummer from a rock band. However, it might help if you knew who they were and which shows they’re on, right? (Or, in the case of the drummer, which Shock Docs special he’s a featured guest on.)

It also might help if you knew about their shows, in case you’re not familiar with their premises, and have a little refresher about the stars themselves too. Maybe you’ll learn something you didn’t know or be reminded about something you’d forgotten and it will spark a question.

If so, please use the Check-In space below to leave a comment. I may get to talk with some, or if I’m lucky all, of these stars sometime this month for the podcast. If I get a chance to ask your question, I will!

The Travel Channel Paranormal Stars and Their 4 Shows

1. Ghost Nation: Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango
2. Destination Fear: Dakota Laden, Chelsea Laden, Tanner Wiseman
3. The Holzer Files: Dave Schrader, Cindy Kaza, Shane Pittman
4. Amityville Horror House Shock Doc: Rikki Rocket, drummer from the rock group, Poison

Show Details

Listed in order by season or special premiere date.

Ghost Nation

Premieres Saturday, October 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT

Jason Hawes, Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango are back for more adventures to the other side in all-new episodes of Ghost Nation. The locations have bigger mysteries, are more chilling and have never been investigated on television. And they are calling in an old friend for some help, paranormal investigator Shari DeBenedetti. With the help of their local contacts, they embed themselves in the community, conducting multi-day investigations in an effort to track down the true source of hauntings and restore peace to the living. They’ll do whatever it takes to entice the ghost into telling its story and stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the paranormal phenomena. Revelers can celebrate Halloween night with the ultimate series crossover, joining forces with old friends Amy Bruni and Adam Berry from Kindred Spirits. The ghost hunting teams reunite for the first time in nearly a decade (they starred together on SYFY’s Ghost Hunters) to explore frightening activity inside an illustrious Newport, Rhode Island, mansion in Ghost Nation: Reunion in Hell, a special two-hour episode premiering Saturday, October 31 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Destination Fear

Premieres Saturday, October 24 at 10 p.m. ET/PT

Buckle up for more fright-fueled episodes of Destination Fear, a haunted road trip turned terrifying sleepover. Brother and sister duo, Dakota Laden and Chelsea Laden, and best friend Tanner Wiseman, along with camera operator Alex Schroeder, confront their fears, as they pile into their RV and hit the road on a nail-biting cross-country journey to pursue paranormal evidence, spending the night inside America’s most haunted abandoned buildings. Lured by the unknown and with a greater understanding of fear, the crew explores a whole new set of abandoned locations with grim histories. This time the destinations remain a surprise, not just to Chelsea and Tanner, but to Dakota as well. In the premiere episode, Dakota leads Chelsea, Tanner and Alex to Saratoga County Homestead Hospital, a decaying sanitarium in upstate New York, where some patient corpses were unclaimed due to a flu pandemic. Screams and darting shadows play mind games with the team as they struggle to pin the activity on the living or the dead.

Amityville Horror House (Two-Hour Shock Docs Special)

Premieres Monday, October 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT

In 1977, the book, The Amityville Horror, was published and caused a sensation. The subsequent 1979 film adaptation was a surprise box office hit. Today, it is the quintessential American horror story based on true events: a  family moves into their dream house in an all-American town and experiences the most terrifying demonic haunting imaginable. Demon possession, demon attacks, a portal to hell…it was a situation so dire, even the church couldn’t help them. Through archival footage and re-creations, our film presents the harrowing true story of Ronald DeFeo, who murdered his entire family in the Amityville house, and the 28 days the Lutz family lived there. A rare, archival interview with George Lutz, describing the final, terrifying night in the Amityville house, is revealed for the first time.

The Holzer Files

Premieres Thursday, October 29 at 11 p.m. ET/PT

After a groundbreaking freshman run, The Holzer Files returns with all-new investigations from the trail of John Wilkes Booth in Maryland to a serial killer in Ohio. Led by investigator Dave Schrader, psychic medium Cindy Kaza and equipment technician Shane Pittman, The Holzer Files investigates terrifying true hauntings from the recently discovered case files of America’s first ghost hunter, Dr. Hans Holzer. Recognized as the “father of the paranormal,” Holzer’s legendary four-decade exploration into disturbing hauntings like the Amityville Horror house helped spawn legions of supernatural enthusiasts, more than 120 books and even inspired Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis to write Ghostbusters. Now, with the help of Holzer’s daughter, Alexandra Holzer, Travel Channel exclusively reopens Holzer’s most captivating case files, digging into thousands of documents, letters, photographs and chilling audio and visual recordings dating back to the 1950s. (13 one-hour episodes)

Travel Channel Paranormal Stars: Backgrounds

Listed in alphabetical order by last name.

Steve Gonsalves

Steve Gonsalves, a former police officer, has been a public speaker and educator about paranormal phenomena for more than 18 years. The paranormal pioneer helped pave the way for a worldwide paranormal explosion as a main cast member of the hit television series Ghost Hunters, which included the spin-offs Ghost Hunters Live and Ghost Hunters Academy. Gonsalves started his work in paranormal studies at a very young age and is well-educated in the field, having investigated over 1,000 reportedly haunted locations. He had the privilege of working closely with famed investigator and paranormal pioneer Dr. William G. Roll (Poltergeist) at the Rhine Research Center. Along with his multiple appearances on a variety of paranormal series, Gonsalves executive produced the horror short The Captured Bird, alongside famed writer and director Guillermo Del Toro. He has also been a featured guest on numerous television shows and radio programs, including The View, Fox and Friends, Steve Harvey, Larry King Live and Katie featuring Katie Couric. Aside from his work on camera, Gonsalves has been developing and producing content for television, has an untitled book project in the works and has executive produced and directed a feature-length documentary, The House in Between.

Cindy Kaza

Cindy Kaza is a psychic medium who had her first memorable encounter with a spirit when she was just 10 years old. She dismissed this chilling experience as just a dream until her early 20s, when she realized she was continually having psychically spiritual experiences. Since this “awakening,” Kaza has been searching for the truth about her gifts and testing the limits of her multi-faceted abilities, including “automatic writing,” in which she allows the dead to communicate directly through her via free-form writing. Kaza has trained at England’s renowned Arthur Findlay School of Intuitive Sciences and now travels across America providing people startling evidence and messages from the dead.

Chelsea Laden

Chelsea Laden is currently an optometry student at Illinois College of Optometry. She was a Division I NCAA ice hockey starting goaltender for a top-five nationally ranked team (Quinnipiac University ‘15). Upon graduating, she was the first goalie to sign in the inaugural season of the National Women’s Hockey League. In addition to playing in the NWHL, Chelsea also was part of the USA Women’s National Hockey Program. Chelsea has always been intrigued by, and excited to explore, abandoned and haunted locations. She loves the rush of being scared but also likes learning the history of the places she visits. Chelsea will always push herself to her limits but signing up for this experiment is one of the greatest challenges she has faced, both emotionally and physically.

Dakota Laden

Dakota Laden was born in Burnsville, Minnesota, and started making amateur movies at the age of 7, with a home video camera his older sister Chelsea sold him! At age 12, he began sharing his videos on YouTube – which was primarily made up of comedy shorts and a few music, prank and experimental videos sprinkled in. It wasn’t until high school that Dakota realized that exploring scary and haunted locations was his true passion, and he began looking for exciting and scary new places to explore and film. In 2011, he made five YouTube videos to copy the style of his favorite TV show at the time, “Ghost Adventures,” which earned him an actual guest appearance on the show after he caught the eye of star Zak Bagans. In 2015, he made his paranormal documentary, “Trail to Terror,” with his sister Chelsea and best friend Tanner. Because of his interest in the paranormal and exceptional camera work, Dakota was invited by Bagans to become a part of the “Ghost Adventures” crew, which honed his paranormal investigating skills. Dakota’s YouTube channel currently contains 250 videos, with a combined 8 million views and 65,000 subscribers.

Shane Pittman

Shane Pittman is an equipment technician who has had profound unexplained paranormal experiences since childhood. Pittman became determined to learn as much as he could by researching every possible technological method, in the hopes of finding the truth about his otherworldly encounters. Pittman strives to use his passion for modern technology to advance the field of paranormal study, attempting to scientifically validate paranormal experiences using the latest techniques available. Pittman is also the lead investigator for theFusion Paranormal team and was host of “The Fusion Project” podcast.

Dave Schrader

Dave Schrader is an experienced paranormal investigator and radio host. He became fascinated with the unexplained at an early age, reading books by parapsychology pioneers like Hans Holzer. He has traveled the world in search of the truth behind some of the most terrifying claims of the supernatural. Dedicated listeners from across the globe have been tuning into Schrader nightly via his popular radio programs like “Darkness Radio” and “Midnight in the Desert,” where he deep dives into the strange, fringe and bizarre realms of the paranormal. He is also the co-author of the book The Other Side and has been featured on several hit paranormal television series, including Ghost Adventures, Paranormal Challenge and Paranormal State. Schrader prides himself on being one of the last people to interview Hans Holzer before his death and is determined to honor Holzer’s legendary legacy.

Dave Tango

Dave Tango, better known as “Tango,” is one of the world’s leading paranormal authorities. He is best known as an investigator and tech manager on the hit shows Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters Academy. Tango’s origins in the paranormal can be traced back to the stories his father (an Elizabeth, New Jersey, police officer) told him of his unexplained encounters while on the force. As a child, Tango was always intrigued by mysteries and the unknown, which led him to pursue magic as a serious hobby, and it remains an integral part of what makes Tango tick. He attributes this background to his knack for problem solving, and his ability to distinguish between what is real and what’s simply an illusion. Trained by the best in the paranormal field, Tango’s ghost-hunting philosophy is to never be afraid to try new techniques and always experiment in the field. His trademark genuineness and sometimes strange curiosity are what fans most undoubtedly love about him. Aside from being the quirky one at his paranormal day job, Dave has been a fan of stranger things since long before it was cool, from ‘80s synth to video games.

Tanner Wiseman

Tanner Wiseman grew up with a passion for filming, comedy, and Minnesota football. As a teenager, he created videos on YouTube with Dakota, and it was during this time he realized that his lifelong dream was to become a filmmaker and storyteller. Tanner attended Augsburg University in Minneapolis where he earned a degree in marketing and management while playing college football. Growing up, Tanner was intrigued by scary stories and abandoned locations, and would plan weekend trips with his friends to visit and explore haunted locations. Never one to turn away from danger, he jumped on the opportunity to once again join his childhood friends, Dakota and Chelsea, on this latest haunted trail, eager to face scarier stories and more terrifying haunts.

Check-In

Are you a fan of any of these shows or these Travel Channel paranormal stars? Did you see anything about any of the shows or the stars that you didn’t know before? Did it spark any questions you’d like to ask them?

Or maybe you have questions about the paranormal activity during the pandemic and have questions about their thoughts on it?

Whatever it is, if you have any questions, you know I’ll ask them if I get the chance.