Josh Gates has been just about everywhere as a Discovery Channel explorer extraordinaire. From the Mayan settlement of El Mirador to the high seas and the infamous Dyatlov Pass in Siberia, he’s always gone off the beaten path to find something incredible about the world and give viewers at home a sense of adventure on a planet we otherwise believe we know well. Sometimes, the discoveries he makes can be downright historic. That’s certainly the case with the upcoming two-part season premiere of his globetrotting hit series Expedition Unknown. Alongside his all-encompassing recent sit-down for Collider’s Behind-the-Scenes series, we’re excited to preview the upcoming two-part Season 17 premiere, “Hunt for the Hellships,” in which he showcases his work with The Hellships Memorial Foundation to document the recently discovered wreck of the Hōfuku Maru.
During World War II, the Hōfuku Maru was an infamous Japanese “Hellship” that acted as a massive prison transport for POWs. They earned their name from the people trapped aboard for their brutal conditions, acting more as floating concentration camps for anyone captured by the Japanese military during combat. The Hellships Memorial Foundation, founded by U.S. Naval Officer Randy Anderson with ongoing assistance from researchers Tim Beckensall and John Duresky, has been working hard to document their existence precisely because they remain one of the lesser-known realities of war in the 1940s, with over 130 requisitioned cargo ships and passenger liners being converted for this purpose. It’s since been confirmed that over 125,000 Allied prisoners had been transferred between labor camps on one of these Hellships, with more than 20,000 perishing along the journey.
Aside from the inhumane conditions on board, what made the Hellships so notorious is how Japan would deploy them within their military convoys, making them targets for Allied forces unaware that their own comrades were on board. Such was the fate of the Hōfuku Maru. The freighter was attacked on September 21, 1944, and sunk after being struck by an Allied torpedo, dooming the up to 1,000 British and Dutch prisoners still trapped on board. Their faces and names have since been mostly forgotten, and the ship itself had long been lost to time, but thanks to the Hellships Memorial Foundation, recently uncovered documents have more precisely pinpointed the location the Hōfuku Maru went down. That’s where Gates came in, alongside underwater imaging specialist Evan Kovacs and maritime archaeologist Dr. Calvin Mires of Marine Imaging Technologies, LLC, for an adventure to finally locate this wartime relic and bring its secrets to light, which viewers will get to see in Expedition Unknown Season 17.
Collider Exclusive · Universe Personality Quiz Which Iconic Universe Do You Belong in the Most? Star Wars · Lord of the Rings · Harry Potter · Game of Thrones · Star Trek
Five legendary universes. Five completely different visions of what the world could be — or already was. One of them is the world your instincts, your values, and your particular way of existing were built for. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🚀Star Wars
💍Lord of the Rings
🧙Harry Potter
👑Game of Thrones
🖖Star Trek
01
What gives your life its deepest sense of meaning? Every universe is built around a different answer to this question.
02
Which kind of world do you most want to inhabit? The environment shapes who you become. Choose carefully.
03
How do you prefer your conflicts resolved? The shape of a world’s conflicts tells you everything about its soul.
04
Who do you want beside you when things get difficult? Your ideal companions reveal the world you were made for.
05
What is your relationship with power? How you seek, wield, or resist power is the map of who you are.
06
How does your universe treat good and evil? A world’s moral architecture tells you more about it than any map.
07
What role would you naturally fall into? Every universe has archetypes. Which one fits you without trying?
08
What do you ultimately believe about the future? The answer to this is the clearest window into which universe already lives inside you.
Your Universe Has Been Chosen You Belong In…
Your answers point to the iconic universe your values, your instincts, and your particular way of seeing the world were built for. This is where you would find your people — and your purpose.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
You believe in the cause — in the idea that freedom is worth fighting for even when the odds are impossible and the empire is vast.
You are drawn to the moral clarity of a universe where hope itself is a form of resistance.
You’d find your people in the Rebellion — a ragtag coalition of true believers held together by conviction more than resources.
Star Wars is fundamentally a story about ordinary people choosing to matter in an extraordinary conflict — and that is exactly your kind of story.
The Force may or may not be with you. But the will to use it for something larger than yourself certainly is.
Middle-earth
Lord of the Rings
You understand, in the deepest part of yourself, that the journey matters as much as the destination — and that the world’s beauty is worth protecting even at great cost.
Middle-earth is a world of ancient wonder, deep friendship, and a darkness that only retreats when enough small acts of courage accumulate.
You would thrive here because you value the fellowship more than the glory — the road more than the arrival.
Tolkien’s universe rewards patience, loyalty, and the willingness to carry something heavy across a very long distance.
Those are not burdens to you. They are simply how you move through the world.
The Wizarding World
Harry Potter
You believe that love, loyalty, and doing what’s right are not naive sentiments — they are the most powerful forces in any world, magical or otherwise.
The Wizarding World is a place of wonder hidden in plain sight, where learning is transformative and the bonds you form at school follow you into every battle.
You would flourish here because you take both the magic and the friendships seriously — and you understand that one without the other is incomplete.
Harry Potter’s universe ultimately rewards those who choose to stand for something even when standing is terrifying.
That choice — made quietly, without guarantee — is something you understand completely.
Westeros · The Known World
Game of Thrones
You see the world clearly — its power structures, its hypocrisies, its brutal arithmetic — and you are not paralysed by that clarity. You use it.
Westeros is a world that rewards intelligence, adaptability, and the willingness to understand that every alliance is also a negotiation.
You would survive here — possibly thrive here — because you don’t confuse the world as it is with the world as you’d like it to be.
Game of Thrones is a story about what happens when the idealists and the realists collide. You are sharp enough to know which one lasts longer.
Winter always comes. You are already prepared.
The United Federation of Planets
Star Trek
You believe the future is worth building — that curiosity, cooperation, and the expansion of understanding are not just ideals but the most practical path forward for any civilisation.
Star Trek is a universe where the questions matter as much as the answers, and where encountering something utterly alien is cause for wonder rather than fear.
You would belong here because you are fundamentally optimistic about what intelligence and decency can achieve — while being honest about how hard that achievement is.
The Federation is the universe’s most ambitious thought experiment: what if we actually got better?
You don’t just hope that’s possible. You think it’s the only thing worth working toward.
‘Expedition Unknown’ Season 17 Showcases a Harrowing Discovery of Human Suffering
Locating and identifying the Hōfuku Maru, even after the newly discovered documents, was an adventure worthy of Expedition Unknown. First confirming an unknown wreck in their search radius with sonar, the team then began deepwater dives for imaging and compared what they found to the Hellship’s blueprints. What they found was nothing short of impressive and harrowing, seeing how exactly the torpedo fired at the ship broke it into two pieces, but, more chillingly, finding human remains among the debris; presumably the lost POWs. Not only will viewers get to see this process documented in the Season 17 premiere, but the two-parter will also dive into the still ongoing work of the US Military’s DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) to retrieve remains from the wreck of the Ōryoku Maru, another Hellship sunk in Subic Bay, Philippines.
While Gates has explored myth and lost histories alike, he believes the work shown in “Hunt for the Hellships” is among the most important ever featured in Expedition Unknown for so many reasons. The Hellships Memorial Foundation’s efforts not only give a better window into the atrocities of the Second Great War, but also ensure these Hellship wreckage sites are properly honored and preserved as maritime gravesites and used for education and remembrance.
“The story of the Hellships is a chapter in the history of WWII that demands to be brought to light. The research and dives that led to this groundbreaking discovery can hopefully offer closure to the families of more than a thousand servicemen who made the ultimate sacrifice. It’s a privilege to work alongside the Hellships Memorial Foundation to honor their memories; they are lost no more.”
Such a historic discovery is an extension of the impact Expedition Unknown has had since premiering on the Travel Channel back in 2015. The ultimate goal for Gates is not just to educate and investigate, but to inspire others to follow in his footsteps and go on an adventure of their own, whether that means joining efforts like the Hellships Memorial Foundation or something more simple. In our Collider BTS interview conducted by Maggie Lovitt, he said the greatest feeling, whether because of Expedition Unknown, one of its spin-offs, or Destination Truth, was hearing how it has inspired audiences young and old to interact more with their world. Whether it’s kids digging in their backyard or viewers who went into field sciences, he’s heartened by the sheer number of people who have taken up his call for adventure and may one day make the next great discovery, like that of the Hōfuku Maru, themselves.
“People come up to me and really express in a heartfelt way that this show, Destination Truth, was a big part of their child. When I was a kid, that was like Unsolved Mysteries and In Search of… with Leonard Nimoy, those were watershed shows for me. So when I meet these folks, a lot of whom now have kids of their own who are watching Expedition Unknown, and, first of all, when any parent brings a kid to hear me talk and that kid is wearing an adventure hat or the parents tell me the kid is out in the backyard metal detecting and digging up stuff, it is the greatest thing in the world. If any kid watches this show and it makes them want to go explore, that’s like the greatest compliment of all time. Also, I’ve now met a lot of people who went into archaeology and anthropology and different types of field science because of the show! I am so kind of gobsmacked and my heart is so warmed by the fact that the show has had that kind of impact and that Expedition Unknown is now having that kind of impact and I think a lot of that has to do with the power of an adventure.”
Expedition Unknown Season 17 premieres Wednesday, June 24 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the Discovery Channel. Keep an eye out for our exclusive behind-the-scenes video with Gates exploring the legacy and history of his time adventuring on-screen.
