Destination Greene

The Travel Channel’s Destination Fear features paranormal explorer Dakota Laden, his sister Chelsea Laden, and best friend Tanner Wiseman as they travel on a cross-country road trip to visit some of the most haunted location in America. This year, one of their stops was right in here in Greene County, Pennsylvania at the Greene County Historical Society Museum.

After hosting Paranormal Quest, a documentarian-style ghost hunting group based in West Virginia, in November, Matthew Cumberledge, the executive director at the museum, was contacted by Ryan Zacherl, Paranormal Quest’s director, the following month and given a heads up, “You’ll probably be hearing from the Travel Channel. I had a chance to talk to them and they might be interesting in filming an episode of Destination Fear at your place.” Matt finished the phone call, logged into his email, and there it was – an email from a producer for Destination Fear. “I quickly responded to him and told him we’d definitely be interested in having [them] come out here!”

Over the next couple months, Matt talked with the producers frequently, revealing the history and background of the museum. Matt shared the museum’s floor plans and discussed logistics with the producers to create a plan on when, where, and how they would film. The crew arrived and filmed at the location from February 26 into March 1. 

“I expected the process to be difficult, but it really was a lot of fun,” Matt shares. “The production crew and producers were insanely nice people. They treated us like royalty.” Their thoughtfulness extended even further: “They really respected the building. It was like Grand Central Station while they were here filming, but when they left it was spotlessly clean. They were wonderful, wonderful people to work with.”

During filming, Matt stayed at the museum to be available for the crew, if needed. He lodged in the log cabin near the main building and stayed cozy with a nice fire and horror movies, the perfect way to spend the evening next door to a paranormal investigation. He was interviewed for the show, as was the museum’s events coordinator, Sam Gandy. Sam was interviewed down in “the dungeon” (basement) and Matt was interviewed in the west wing – one of the most haunted areas of the museum. “It was the easiest interview process imaginable,” Matt says. “They gave me a few prompts but guided me to just talk. It was fantastic.” 

Matt’s hope is that the show will generate a lot of traffic for the museum and the county, and “not just on the paranormal side, but the historical. The bulk of what we talked about was history, and I think they are going to do a great job presenting that.” 

Paranormal investigations at the museum have already seen an increase, thanks to Paranormal Quest’s televised investigation last year. Matt foresees that “after this episode airs, they’ll skyrocket.” The museum’s central location to multiple paranormal sites, like the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, the West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville, Gettysburg, Point Pleasant’s Mothman, and Flatwoods’ monster makes it the perfect destination if you’re on a paranormal travel trip.  

Matt ad the museum staff have plans to attract more shows to the museum in hopes of increasing national recognition of Greene County and the museum. An exact airing date for the Destination Fear episode has not been officially announced, but the tentative timeline is early June. Once a date has been announced, the museum is considering a viewing party or event. 

Matt adds, “The night that they were here actually filming the episode, there was a lot of screaming so I think some stuff probably happened!”