Destination America has found itself with a hit over the past year with its series Mountain Monsters, a fairly standard entry in the “guys in the woods look for legendary monsters” sub-genre of reality programming. It’s likely that show will be back, but in the meantime, the network is trying out a couple of other new series in that vein, and, believe or not, they seem even a bit more out there than Mountain Monsters.
Coming up first, on Aug. 22, is Monsters Underground (pictured above), a six-part series following Bill Brock and his team — a military survivalist, a trained biologist, a reclusive hunter-tracker and a pro fighter — who are intent on proving the existence of monsters living beneath the earth’s surface. The team investigates underground caves, caverns and mines for legendary creatures. At least the location is a bit different than the typical forest/wilderness setting of shows like Mountain Monsters or Finding Bigfoot, and should add a little bit of a creepier ambiance.
Monsters Underground kicks off with back-to-back episodes on Aug. 22. At 10pm ET is the “Volcano Cavern Olitiau” episode, which finds the guys in the maze of Volcano Caverns in Flagstaff, Ariz. There, it is rumored that a giant, reptilian bat creature known as the Olitiau, or “cave demon,” has made its home.
At 10:30pm ET on Aug. 22, the “Graveyard Gulch Mapinguari” episode has the guys entering an isolated cave. They believe that a descendant of the giant prehistoric sloth, known as the Mapinguari, may live.
Other Monsters Underground episodes will include the Rake (The Grand Canyon – Peach Springs, Ariz.), the Aswang (Apache Death Cave – Two Guns, Ariz.), the Subterralien (Shadow Mine – Calaveras County, Calif.), and the Draco (Cross Creek Cavern – Angels Camp, Calif.).
Destination America will be getting away from monsters with another new series, called Ghost Asylum (pictured just above) premiering Sept. 7 at 10pm ET. Similar to shows like Ghost Hunters, this series follows a group called the Tennessee Wraith Chasers, led by founder Chris Smith, whose differentiating feature seems to be that they almost exclusively investigate reported hauntings in asylums, sanitariums and mental hospitals.
In the premiere episode of Ghost Asylum, the Wraith Chasers travel to Old War Memorial Hospital in Scottsville, Kentucky. Locals believe that a doctor lost his mind while in residence at the hospital and, after his death, his spirit returned for a permanent shift in the exam rooms he loved so much.
A week later, Sept. 14 at 9pm ET, Destination America debuts another ghostly series: Amish Haunting. The series brings to life ghost stories from within the Amish community, with narrators from that community guiding the way.
“You need to get a monster soon or I am gone,” a frustrated reader once commented to one of our features on Mountain Monsters. Our guess is that frustration in not seeing a monster (or, now, a ghost) will continue in these series. But shows like this seem to be more about the creepy ambiance and chill factor as opposed to hard evidence (honestly, if someone did find a monster below the earth, I think we’d have heard about it before this series aired).
Monsters Underground premieres Aug. 22 at 10pm ET on Destination America.
Ghost Asylum premieres Sept. 7 at 10pm ET on Destination America.
Amish Haunting premieres Sept. 14 at 9pm ET on Destination America.
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Monsters Underground and Ghost Asylum photos courtesy of Destination America