Not particularly. I’m an adult and I don’t really feel the need to justify any of my actions to anyone other than myself. I’ve come across a couple people that don’t understand why I choose to do these things, but for the most part people get why I do it and many times tell me stories of similar things they have done in the past, often in their childhood. I get way more people asking to come along or saying that they wish they could but are unable to because of the risks involved. I don’t really think I would have much interest in having any sort of relationship with anyone that is so caught up with rules and regulations that they can’t fathom why I might do this, so it’s mostly irrelevant. My friends/family/lovers vary in their level of understanding/support/interest, but none are completely opposed to it or lack understanding of why it is appealing.
Is there any place that is “sacred ground” to you? Or is it all fair game for exploring?
There are plenty of places I won’t go, it’s all dependent on the risk/reward ratio. There are tons of things I would love to see, but are quite unlikely I ever will. I would love to see the inside of an active nuclear power plant, NASA facilities, and many other similarly high security locations but those sorts of places are virtually impossible to see without permission. I basically stay away from any place that is a guaranteed arrest or that I feel are beyond my physical capabilities.
So you were born and raised in Miami, FL. How often did you visit Walt Disney World when you lived in Florida? Was it a rare treat, or did you visit often enough for the novelty to wear off? Do you have fond memories of family experiences there, or was it more of an annoyance to have to keep going back?
I went a few times with my folks growing up, but we didn’t go too much. It was fun at the time, although I didn’t particularly enjoy standing around in lines all day and I was always curious about behind the scenes stuff.
What was your first Urban Exploring experience at Walt Disney World? How long had you been doing this before you tried it at WDW?
It was probably exploring the Utilidor system a few yeas ago, a few months before I did the swim to Discovery Island. I had been dating a girl that worked there in the past and she taught me some of the Disney jargon and explained some of the rules about employee conduct/appearance. I also looked at a few maps online of the system and had a rough idea of where entrances should be. I dressed and cut my hair to meet Disney regulations, bought a ticket to the park and headed for an entrance determined to get in. I failed at the first entrance because I ran into a group of executives (including Michael Eisner!) coming out from the Utilidors and I got spooked. I bailed on that entrance and eventually found my way down after talking to a cast member outside of a ride and convincing them I was a new employee that was a little lost. Once I was down I spent quite a bit of time looking around, seeing the costuming areas, locker rooms (including the unisex one connecting them), computers that run the rides, the waste disposal system, and even had lunch in the employee cafeteria. It was a pretty good time and I even managed to sneak a few photos from my pocket.
I’d probably been exploring for a good 5 years at that point, so I was pretty confident in my abilities to blend in and talk my way out of trouble.
So let’s get into the Discovery Island exploration. Had you been there as a child? If not, how did you find out about it?
Nope, I never actually went there while it was open. I heard about it from some local Orlando explorers that had read about it.
It seems like there was a primary, aborted attempt to reach the island. Explain why that first attempt failed, and what drove you to take the time to plan a comeback instead of just giving up?
Well, it basically came down to bad intel. The locals that had scouted it out before we came up had told us that there was “infrequent” traffic on the lake and that it was only about 150ft to the island from the nearest land. We snuck an inflatable boat, pump, and 200ft of clothesline into the campground and planned on paddling across and then pulling the boat back to the other side using the clothesline so we could ferry multiple people across. When we got there it turned out it was more like 300ft to the island at least and there were 2 ferries that crossed directly in the water between us and the island every 5-10 minutes. It was pretty much impossible to do the way we had planned and it was far too cold to swim when we were there. I vowed to come back and figure out a way to do it in the future.
How much planning went into this second attempt? Was there a “mission statement” of sorts? In other words, did you know in advance what you wanted to accomplish, and how exactly you would go about accomplishing it? Was there a specific “money shot” you felt you needed to get, or was it more of a “this is how we’ll get over there, and once we’re there we’ll see what happens” sort of thing?
There was a fair bit of planning in terms of getting to the island, but none really for once we got there. We had no idea what we would find when we got there, so we left that in the air. We bought waterproof bags and tested swimming an equivalent distance with them in a lake behind my friend’s house in FL. We took towels, changes of clothes, snacks, water, and camera gear to explore. We planned on giving ourselves a few hours on the island and set a hard “turn around” time where we would start heading back regardless of if we’d seen the entire island or not.
Did you know about the gators and the “killer amoeba”[Naegleria fowleri, which gets into your brain via your nose and is almost always fatal] when you decided to swim across the lake?
Not really. We had talked about the possibility of gators, but we just figured that since it was a “Disney” lake they wouldn’t allow there to be gators that could come up on shore and potentially hurt guests.
Describe to me what was going through your mind as you’re swimming across Bay Lake in the middle of the night? This is the scariest part of the tale for most people, because it taps into some primordial fear about swimming in the dark, especially in the ocean or in a lake….
It was pretty intense but what was in the lake itself was the least of our worries. We were mostly concerned with getting caught by the occasional lake patrols and landing in a good spot on the island. Most of the swim was spent looking back towards fort wilderness and the area where we knew lake patrol docked their boats. We tried to swim as quietly and quickly as we could.
Path Shane swam from River Country to Discovery Island
Once you hit land, you basically had no idea what was there, right? I mean, there could be polar bears like in “Lost”! Were you jumping at every little noise? Was it stressful being there, or was the total abandonment and desolation peaceful in some way?
Yeah, we had absolutely no clue what we were going to run into. We were definitely tense pretty much the entire time we were there. We were most definitely NOT alone on that island, there must have been thousands of birds nesting on the island and they all made their presence known. There were a lot of crashes and movement going on in the woods around us and everything was incredibly overgrown. We also were trying to use as little lights as possible to avoid being seen from the land so we really had no idea what was in the woods around us. We did take some video footage while there, I’m sure at some point I’ll get it digitized and share it on my site for people to be able to have a better idea of what it was like on that island.
WTF was with the snakes in the jars and Coke bottles?! Any theories about that?
Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they were snakes that were found on the island that someone kept to try and identify?
And you had a run-in with vultures?!
Yeah, they were relatively young and hadn’t grown feathers in. They were in a collapsed building and were not terribly happy to see us. They made a lot of hissing noises and charged at us a few times trying to scare us off. We took a few photos and a bit of video and left their little area.
You’ve explored many corporate ruins; how does Discovery Island compare to the rest of them, and what does leaving a theme park to rot instead of cleaning it up a
nd/or bulldozing it say about Disney as a company?
Discovery Island is a pretty unique thing in that it is totally abandoned and is reverting to a natural state. Most of the other theme park related things I’ve seen are behind the scenes areas or are only temporarily closed. I don’t think it really makes a lot of sense to bulldoze the island, from what I saw there weren’t a ton of buildings to begin with, just a lot of wilderness. I think letting the island revert to nature is a pretty obvious choice if they don’t have a viable business plan for revamping it.
Any official kick-back from Disney? I know you waited until the statute of limitations ran out to post about the story, but there was talk of them banning you from the parks for life….
I haven’t heard anything from Disney in any official way, but I also haven’t tried going to any of their parks. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I were banned from the parks for life. If anything, it would make for a good story to tell.
Your series of nudes are absolutely stunning. Have you done any WDW nudes?
Thank you, unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to shoot any nudes at WDW. I’m not really sure Discovery Island would work for my series, but I’m open to the possibility if I found a location that was good enough for it.
What’s next for you? Any upcoming Urban Exploration projects on the horizons that you can talk about?
I’ve got a few things in the works, but I really don’t like talking about that sort of stuff before I do it for obvious reasons. This year I’ve also been focusing more on having some gallery shows and establishing a bit of a presence in the art world.
Thanks, Shane! Be sure to visit Shane’s website at http://shaneperez.blogspot.com, where you’ll find all of the photos from that evening, along with an incredible gallery of nude photographs taken in a variety of abandoned industrial locations.
INTERVIEW WITH HOOT GIBSON
Next up is Hoot Gibson, of the recently infamous Hoot and Chief duo. These two seemingly came out of nowhere in 2010 and shocked the WDW fan community with their blog at http://mesaverdetimes.blogspot.com, which features extraordinary stories of off-limits explorations of Horizons, the much-loved EPCOT ride that was torn down in late 1999 to make way for the much-maligned Mission: Space.
I remember first finding out about Hoot and Chief when someone sent me a link of a static video taken from inside one of the sets from Horizons. Inside meaning, not from the Omnimover vehicle, but from a video camera that was obviously set on a tripod, filming from a perspective that riders would not be able to see from their vehicles. I assumed it was unearthed raw footage from a Disney-shot promo video, which was cool enough. But soon afterwards Hoot and Chief unleashed a ton of incredible behind-the-scenes videos, photos, and audio clips on their blog, and slowly but surely revealed the mind blowing story behind what I (and many others) believe to be a historically significant documentation of a now-extinct attraction.
Hoot Gibson, molesting an Animatronic on the set of Horizons
Their often heart-pounding blog entries detailed paranoid and over-planned escapes from the Omnimovers, discoveries of hilarious props hidden by Cast Members in the sets (notably a giant black dildo in the Mesa Verde fridge), the secrets behind some of the best special effects in the ride, and cat-and-mouse chases between them and security guards through backstage areas. But most of all, the blog entries show an over-abiding love of an attraction that they knew was close to death, a thought which in their mind demanded action, risks be damned.
Hoot, introduce yourself and tell me a bit about your background and how you met Chief.
I grew up on the west coast of Florida so trips to WDW were frequent. I loved the place as much as any other kid but in 1976 the magnitude of it all finally hit me. I remember realizing that Walt Disney was a real man, he had talented men and women working for him, and REAL people created this amazing place. I wanted to be part of it.
When I graduated High School I packed my stuff and went to work at the Magic Kingdom. I applied to be a custodian because it seemed like the kind of job that would allow me the most freedom for exploration. I was right. Custodians are looked down upon by every other cast member and that's no secret. Most of them weren't very smart.....and I hate to say it.........but some were borderline retarded.
The incredible upside to the job became clear one night when I was on my way to explore the Jungle Cruise. I was making my way across the maintenance dock and POW a security guy came out of nowhere.
He asked me what I was doing back there and I said, "My Lead told me to come down here and empty a trash can but I can't find it." Security guy said, "Well that one looks like shit so empty that one." He left and I went on to sit on some Audio Animatronic elephants and photograph them inside and out.
Working at the park was far from what I thought it would be. The people there were mean and overall disenchanted with the place. I had imagined a place where I would work with the other fans of Walt Disney but it was far from that. My focus became more on gathering information and less on making a career. One crowded day on Main Street, a new guy showed up.
Chief walked onto the scene with his white uniform on and a book about Walt Disney under his arm. I said, "What are you? Some kind of Disney Freak?" He said, "Yep." I said, "Me, too." It was an electric moment for sure. We talked all day and come to find out we were on exactly the same page. That night we snuck into Jungle Cruise. The next night... the entire park. It started an amazing string of planned adventures that seemed to never end.
Chief, posing with the Animatronic dive team in Horizons
We eventually got fired from the Magic Kingdom. We didn't fit in so insubordination led to our predicted demise. I went to art school in 1987 and Chief joined me second year. We found that crazy shit happened wherever we went but the Magic Kingdom was still our focus.
On a basic level, what was it that drove you to explore these rides beyond the bounds of a normal guest? Most people are happy sitting in the ride, experiencing what they’re meant to experience. Why did you need more?
We had to KNOW more. When we were custodians we asked about art and maintenance jobs and how we might work our way up to something like that. We were only met by smart assed answers from mean people.
I have a point to make about that. Chief and I didn't like being told we couldn't do something. Especially from those in charge of the place that we had dreamed about our entire lives. It put a sour taste in our mouths and gave us one hell of an inspiration to do whatever we pleased to get the info we wanted.
As a follow-up to that, this really is sort of an ultra-geek activity. You could have been hanging out at bars, picking up chicks, or playing sports, or whatever guys do in their spare time. What did your “normal” friends and family think about this? What did girls think about it?
We didn't really talk about our adventures with other people. I guess we thought that other people wouldn't care. Chicks thought we were stupid so we didn't bring it up. We had girlfriends but they never came along or cared about what we were doing unless they wanted to lay a guilt trip on us. I remember dumping a girl because she didn't know that there were two separate tracks to Mr Toads Wild Ride! I couldn't have that :)
Hoot floats in Zero-G with the Space Station family in Horizons
It seems as if the Horizons exploration was very detailed and thorough, almost like a military operation. Describe the thought process that led up to it.
What makes the Horizons exploration special to us is that we had pretty much retired from our WDW exploits by then. Chief went off to the military, our third partner, who I can't name, got into a high speed chase with Disney security and was banned from property, and I fell in line and tried to make something of myself.
The closing of Horizons rekindled a deep feeling in me and Chief. It was an amazing piece of art that couldn't just slip away like some attractions before it. We decided to use the skills we had honed to preserve it all the best knew how. We did.
What made Horizo
ns so special? Is there anything like it at WDW now?
There's nothing there like it now. I only go to the parks if I get in free and even then I don't even enjoy it.
Why did you decide, after so many years, to start telling the world about all of this through the Mesa Verde Times blog? It seems like you guys just came out of nowhere! For us Horizons fans it was akin to a Beatles fan finding out there were 4 unreleased Beatles studio albums hidden in a vault somewhere!
Hehe. My greatest fear is that I'll die and my pics and stuff will end up at the county landfill. I was flipping through my Horizons pics and for some reason I decided to blog about them. I didn't think anyone would care and neither did Chief. It became a way for the two of us to relive the adventure and we were happy as hell to find out that other Horizons fans are out there.
What has been the reaction to the stories you’ve published on the blogs? Have you been officially contacted by anyone at Disney with legal threats? Or has anyone in the company actually said they appreciate what you did? What about fan reaction?
The Dark Side of Disney Page 13