It’s time for more paranormal shenanigans when Sci Fi Channel’s popular reality staple Ghost Hunters returns tonight at 9pm EST for its fourth season, followed at 10pm by the relative newcomer Destination Truth, which launches its second season.

I had the opportunity to sneak a peek at the premieres for both series, and I’m happy to report that fans of each show can look forward to more of the familiar perplexing investigations audiences have grown to expect.

Ghost Hunters begins the night with a visit to Buffalo, New York’s Iron Island Museum. It looks just like a too-big house to me, but the structure is actually a converted church where the dead and departed seem determined to remain. Head investigators Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson arrive on the scene with their trusted TAP team and van-load of equipment for another one of those nighttime stakeout sessions. Afterwards, they give their client a thorough account of their intriguing discoveries, so get ready for some very disconcerting audio material.

Next, so-called truth-seeker Josh Gates does a similar routine with his own team of investigators and equipment, but with a much more exotic flair. They first travel to gorgeous Queensland, Australia — a vacation in itself — in search of Yowie, probably more familiar to many people as the one and only legendary Bigfoot. Just saying the name makes me laugh out loud and think, “Aw c’mon! Get real!” But investigate they do, with earnestness.

Then, Team Gates is off to even more exotic Malaysia to get the inside goods on an abandoned mosque that reportedly houses an evil spirit. How do we know the place is haunted? Well, the spirit has a penchant for doing eerie things like turning lights on, although the building has no electricity.

I admit that would freak me out a bit, too, and if nothing else, I’ll always envy people who get to visit places like Australia and Malaysia during their myth-busting adventures. How do I get a paying job like that?

Ghost Hunters‘ “Iron Island” premieres at 9pm, followed by Destination Truth‘s “Yowie/Haunted Mosque” at 10pm.

Two Choice SCI FI Premieres Tonight

Fans of reality television with a little from the fantastical realm thrown in have two new viewing options tonight when Sci Fi Channel resumes the first season of Ghost Hunters International at 9pm EST and kicks off the third season of Scare Tactics immediately afterwards at 10pm.

Reality-TV Buffs Have Two More Returning Shows to Tune In To

How do we know it’s summertime right now? Because the time slots usually inhabited by scripted shows have been taken over by a slew of reality series, that’s how. Two such programs, Ghost Hunters and Miami Ink, have returned to basic cable in recent weeks, and the Sci Fi Channel and TLC want viewers to know all about them.

Ghost Hunters, which airs Wednesdays at 9pm EST on the Sci Fi Channel, had its third-midseason premiere last week. According to the network, “[i]n October 2004, SCI FI introduced Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson–plumbers by day, Ghost Hunters by night! These self-proclaimed skeptics have managed to expose some of the most frighteningly compelling evidence of paranormal phenomenon ever seen on television.” Judging by the record-breaking ratings that the show earned last Wednesday, the best numbers ever for a season premiere in its three-year history, some 1.6 million viewers agree with the assessment that on Ghost Hunters, “scared has never been so much fun.”