1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000 by Investigates. 2 00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:10,940 Throughout history, there have been inexplicable phenomena. 3 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:14,240 Paranormal experiences, 4 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:17,280 mythical creatures, 5 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:19,280 events that defy logic. 6 00:00:21,280 --> 00:00:25,280 Now, SciFi Channel has assembled a team of investigators, 7 00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:28,140 four individuals with different expertise, 8 00:00:28,140 --> 00:00:30,140 and very different perspectives. 9 00:00:30,140 --> 00:00:31,140 Not at all. 10 00:00:31,140 --> 00:00:32,140 He doesn't believe anything. 11 00:00:32,140 --> 00:00:34,140 It's not that I don't believe anything. 12 00:00:34,140 --> 00:00:38,140 Together, they will search for the truth behind mysteries old and new. 13 00:00:40,140 --> 00:00:42,140 We're doing science out of this. 14 00:00:42,140 --> 00:00:44,140 Archaeologist Bill Dolman. 15 00:00:46,140 --> 00:00:49,140 How come there's no tangible evidence? 16 00:00:49,140 --> 00:00:52,140 Crime scene investigator Deborah DeBritney. 17 00:00:54,140 --> 00:00:57,140 Paranormal investigator Rich Dolan. 18 00:00:59,140 --> 00:01:01,140 I think that there is secret technology. 19 00:01:01,140 --> 00:01:04,140 And skeptic Rob Mariano. 20 00:01:06,140 --> 00:01:08,140 It's finding errors already. 21 00:01:08,140 --> 00:01:11,140 The team behind SciFi Investigates. 22 00:01:17,140 --> 00:01:22,140 Tonight, the team travels to the city that never sleeps, 23 00:01:23,140 --> 00:01:26,140 in search of evidence of life after death. 24 00:01:29,140 --> 00:01:32,140 David and Alaska, are you here? 25 00:01:32,140 --> 00:01:35,140 In places few dare to enter, 26 00:01:36,140 --> 00:01:39,140 they search for restless souls. 27 00:01:39,140 --> 00:01:40,140 What the hell is going on here? 28 00:01:40,140 --> 00:01:45,140 Using the latest technology, they attempt to communicate with the other side. 29 00:01:48,140 --> 00:01:52,140 When the investigators simulate the afterlife experience firsthand, 30 00:01:52,140 --> 00:01:54,140 what will they find? 31 00:01:54,140 --> 00:01:57,140 As their quest for proof intensifies, 32 00:01:57,140 --> 00:02:01,140 their journey to the beyond gets personal. 33 00:02:01,140 --> 00:02:02,140 Oh my god. 34 00:02:03,140 --> 00:02:08,140 Answers to the ultimate question revealed tonight on SciFi Investigates. 35 00:02:18,140 --> 00:02:20,140 I was in New York City during 9-11. 36 00:02:21,140 --> 00:02:25,140 And it was just such a time of death and destruction in New York City. 37 00:02:25,140 --> 00:02:27,140 And it was like the city died for a while. 38 00:02:27,140 --> 00:02:29,140 And it has since risen from the dead. 39 00:02:29,140 --> 00:02:32,140 And it's such a good backdrop to this investigation. 40 00:02:32,140 --> 00:02:35,140 The hardest thing to come up with is going to be objective knowledge. 41 00:02:35,140 --> 00:02:38,140 And I want to sit down with the team and talk about this. 42 00:02:40,140 --> 00:02:44,140 For everybody on this planet, the issue of life after death is probably the most important one. 43 00:02:44,140 --> 00:02:46,140 The ultimate question? 44 00:02:46,140 --> 00:02:49,140 So we've got to figure out what we want to do. 45 00:02:49,140 --> 00:02:56,140 Here, to investigate this phenomenon and to try and come up with some conclusions about it, 46 00:02:56,140 --> 00:03:00,140 that we're at least convinced that we used a good methodology to get there. 47 00:03:00,140 --> 00:03:04,140 One of the things that I would like to do would be to visit the Belasco Theater. 48 00:03:04,140 --> 00:03:07,140 This is a legendary haunted place. 49 00:03:07,140 --> 00:03:09,140 My name is Rich Dolan. 50 00:03:09,140 --> 00:03:13,140 I'm a writer and investigator on UFOs and government cover-ups. 51 00:03:13,140 --> 00:03:17,140 We should try to capture some of that phenomenon from ghosts on either film 52 00:03:17,140 --> 00:03:19,140 or on voice recorder in some way. 53 00:03:19,140 --> 00:03:22,140 I'm Debbie DeBridney and I'm a crime scene technician. 54 00:03:24,140 --> 00:03:26,140 Faith and evidence are two very different things. 55 00:03:26,140 --> 00:03:32,140 I really think it's hard for us as humans to obtain concrete proof that life after death exists. 56 00:03:32,140 --> 00:03:38,140 What I'd like to do is I'd like to talk to a doctor, someone that specializes in the field 57 00:03:38,140 --> 00:03:46,140 with brain activity and see if it's actually possible to separate consciousness from the body. 58 00:03:46,140 --> 00:03:51,140 As a skeptic, it doesn't make sense that I believe in life after death, but I do. 59 00:03:53,140 --> 00:04:00,140 As far as evidence to support life after death, you know, a lot of why I believe it is just based on faith. 60 00:04:00,140 --> 00:04:03,140 I'm Rob Mariano and I'm the skeptic. 61 00:04:03,140 --> 00:04:09,140 Every culture in the world, with no exceptions as far as I as an anthropologist know, 62 00:04:09,140 --> 00:04:12,140 has a concept of life after death. 63 00:04:12,140 --> 00:04:16,140 My name is Bill Dolman and I'm an archaeologist and an anthropologist. 64 00:04:16,140 --> 00:04:19,140 After meeting as a team, we decided that for this mission, 65 00:04:19,140 --> 00:04:23,140 we're going to test some of the established techniques for finding signs of the afterlife, 66 00:04:23,140 --> 00:04:27,140 like spirit photography and electronic voice phenomena. 67 00:04:28,140 --> 00:04:32,140 We're going to investigate the idea that consciousness can live outside the body 68 00:04:32,140 --> 00:04:34,140 and put it to the test ourselves. 69 00:04:34,140 --> 00:04:37,140 And we're also going to go on a ghost hunting expedition. 70 00:04:43,140 --> 00:04:50,140 You know, Rich came up with an idea at the round table discussion that we should investigate the Belasco Theater, 71 00:04:50,140 --> 00:04:54,140 which is supposedly haunted by its founder, David Belasco. 72 00:04:54,140 --> 00:05:00,140 We managed to get permission to do the first ever paranormal investigation there, which was really a coup. 73 00:05:00,140 --> 00:05:02,140 So that was our first stop. 74 00:05:05,140 --> 00:05:06,140 Hit the lights! 75 00:05:06,140 --> 00:05:07,140 Hit the lights! 76 00:05:10,140 --> 00:05:11,140 Oh, God. 77 00:05:14,140 --> 00:05:15,140 How you doing? 78 00:05:15,140 --> 00:05:20,140 Before we got to work, I had a Broadway historian by the name of John Kenrick talk to us. 79 00:05:20,140 --> 00:05:26,140 This theater's history centers around one man, which is very unusual in any American theater. 80 00:05:26,140 --> 00:05:34,140 This man, David Belasco, he was called the Bishop of Broadway because he wore a clerical collar. 81 00:05:34,140 --> 00:05:36,140 He wasn't a priest of any kind. 82 00:05:36,140 --> 00:05:41,140 He was Jewish by descent, but he just knew that collar made him stand out in a crowd. 83 00:05:41,140 --> 00:05:46,140 Where here has the ghost of David Belasco been seen? 84 00:05:46,140 --> 00:05:48,140 Literally all over the building. 85 00:05:48,140 --> 00:05:54,140 He's been cited here on stage, in the backstage dressing room areas, in the storage areas below, 86 00:05:54,140 --> 00:05:58,140 and of course, up in the remnants of his apartment. 87 00:05:58,140 --> 00:06:02,140 But it certainly has been cited here in the house, in particular by actors. 88 00:06:03,140 --> 00:06:06,140 I saw David Belasco. I'm absolutely certain it was him. 89 00:06:06,140 --> 00:06:07,140 Hello. 90 00:06:07,140 --> 00:06:08,140 Hi, Melissa. 91 00:06:08,140 --> 00:06:09,140 I am. 92 00:06:09,140 --> 00:06:10,140 Hi, Dan. 93 00:06:10,140 --> 00:06:13,140 Melissa Ericko is a huge Broadway star and a successful film actress. 94 00:06:13,140 --> 00:06:16,140 I was really intrigued that she had seen Belasco's ghost. 95 00:06:16,140 --> 00:06:21,140 It was out here, in the hallway, is where I sort of would prepare for a lot of scenes, 96 00:06:21,140 --> 00:06:26,140 and I turned around and I saw a man from the back walk into that mirror with a black coat. 97 00:06:26,140 --> 00:06:27,140 This mirror. 98 00:06:27,140 --> 00:06:28,140 That mirror. 99 00:06:28,140 --> 00:06:31,140 He was known actually to dress like a priest, and I didn't know that at the time. 100 00:06:31,140 --> 00:06:36,140 That sounds consistent with what people see when they encounter an apparition, 101 00:06:36,140 --> 00:06:39,140 but it's still hard to believe unless you see it with your own eyes. 102 00:06:41,140 --> 00:06:47,140 I was standing here, preparing to go on, and I was going through the Latin Remedemus de 103 00:06:47,140 --> 00:06:50,140 Adorables Nortres y Nonos en Dicos Intentas. 104 00:06:50,140 --> 00:06:53,140 We interviewed an actor by the name of Stephen Henderson. 105 00:06:53,140 --> 00:06:59,140 I hear a voice behind me say, excuse me, and I assume that they want to get past, 106 00:06:59,140 --> 00:07:00,140 and I'm blocking their way. 107 00:07:00,140 --> 00:07:04,140 Of course, I suppose if you're talking to an eyewitness who is an actor, you also have 108 00:07:04,140 --> 00:07:09,140 to ask the question, well, could this guy be better than the average person at fooling me? 109 00:07:09,140 --> 00:07:10,140 At that moment, that's... 110 00:07:10,140 --> 00:07:11,140 It looked like a person to you at that point. 111 00:07:11,140 --> 00:07:15,140 It was not your typical ghostly, ephemeral looking thing that you could partly see through. 112 00:07:15,140 --> 00:07:18,140 This was a three-dimensional person with shadows that made sense. 113 00:07:18,140 --> 00:07:25,140 And because we were in the dark here, the main thing I saw was the black suit, the clerical, 114 00:07:25,140 --> 00:07:30,140 tight collar, and salt and pepper hair. 115 00:07:30,140 --> 00:07:34,140 I really couldn't see any reason why he would just make up a story like this. 116 00:07:37,140 --> 00:07:42,140 We met with the guys from Paranormal NYC, and they brought a whole load of instruments for us to look at. 117 00:07:42,140 --> 00:07:48,140 EVP recorders, temperature monitors, electromagnetic field monitors. 118 00:07:48,140 --> 00:07:51,140 We sort of got an introduction to these instruments. 119 00:07:51,140 --> 00:07:54,140 How would they be useful to us in locating ghosts in the Bellasco Theater? 120 00:07:55,140 --> 00:07:58,140 Debbie had an electromagnetic field meter. 121 00:07:58,140 --> 00:08:03,140 I had a thermal couple thermometer, just a highly sensitive thermometer with a digital readout. 122 00:08:03,140 --> 00:08:06,140 Debbie and Bill fanned out into the main part of the theater. 123 00:08:06,140 --> 00:08:13,140 While Rob and I went upstairs to David Bellasco's former apartment, that has been deserted for decades, 124 00:08:13,140 --> 00:08:14,140 and it's very eerie. 125 00:08:14,140 --> 00:08:17,140 Hey guys, this is going to be nice and creepy. 126 00:08:17,140 --> 00:08:21,140 I kind of got stuck with the dowsing rods because Rob didn't want to use them. 127 00:08:22,140 --> 00:08:29,140 I grabbed the thermal camera because I figured if there was any piece of equipment out there that would show an accurate reading, this would do it. 128 00:08:39,140 --> 00:08:47,140 If you can detect temperature changes, you might argue in theory that's a sign of something unusual, something in the spiritual realm. 129 00:08:47,140 --> 00:08:50,140 What's my temperature? Can you read it? 130 00:08:50,140 --> 00:08:52,140 Oh yeah, yeah, hot man. 131 00:08:52,140 --> 00:08:55,140 Oh look, you can see yourselves in the mirror. 132 00:08:56,140 --> 00:08:59,140 That's kind of weird. How does that happen? 133 00:08:59,140 --> 00:09:02,140 Alright, I'm going on into this little creepy room. 134 00:09:03,140 --> 00:09:05,140 David Bellasco, where you here? 135 00:09:08,140 --> 00:09:17,140 Any other people who are inhabiting this area, if you're here, let us know. 136 00:09:18,140 --> 00:09:20,140 Come on, David. 137 00:09:25,140 --> 00:09:27,140 Son of a bitch. 138 00:09:27,140 --> 00:09:28,140 You got something, Bill? 139 00:09:28,140 --> 00:09:30,140 What the hell is going on here? 140 00:09:32,140 --> 00:09:38,140 Coming up, will the team uncover David Bellasco's spirit in the dark corners of the theater? 141 00:09:38,140 --> 00:09:39,140 Did you feel something cold? 142 00:09:39,140 --> 00:09:40,140 You feel that cold? 143 00:09:40,140 --> 00:09:44,140 And later, the investigation gets personal. 144 00:09:44,140 --> 00:09:47,140 God, I'd say, you know, where'd you go? 145 00:10:01,140 --> 00:10:04,140 This is reportedly one of the most haunted places in all of New York City. 146 00:10:05,140 --> 00:10:06,140 Oh, that's creepy. 147 00:10:06,140 --> 00:10:11,140 It's very well known for one particular ghost that of David Bellasco, the founder of the theater. 148 00:10:12,140 --> 00:10:17,140 So I'm going out there in the theater and I have these instruments and I'm looking at it and I'm like, come on, just spike. 149 00:10:19,140 --> 00:10:20,140 What the heck is going on? 150 00:10:22,140 --> 00:10:24,140 Right here, it went like down to 61. 151 00:10:25,140 --> 00:10:30,140 When Bill called me over, he actually had a severe drop in temperature on his thermometer that he was holding. 152 00:10:30,140 --> 00:10:35,140 Up on the mezzanine twice, I got wildly fluctuating readings on the thermometer. 153 00:10:36,140 --> 00:10:37,140 It just like dipped here. 154 00:10:38,140 --> 00:10:40,140 I mean, it went down to 61 at one point. 155 00:10:40,140 --> 00:10:42,140 It just suddenly went haywire up here. 156 00:10:43,140 --> 00:10:44,140 That's the only way I could describe it. 157 00:10:45,140 --> 00:10:46,140 Damn, it's doing something. 158 00:10:46,140 --> 00:10:49,140 Look, I'm getting creeped out here, Debbie. 159 00:10:49,140 --> 00:10:53,140 I had no idea what was causing the drop in temperature on my thermometer. 160 00:10:54,140 --> 00:10:59,140 The only explanation I could think of was that maybe there was an air conditioner vent that was pointed in our direction. 161 00:10:59,140 --> 00:11:01,140 So we decided to do a test. 162 00:11:01,140 --> 00:11:03,140 There's not even any air flowing through this. 163 00:11:03,140 --> 00:11:05,140 No, it's completely off. 164 00:11:05,140 --> 00:11:06,140 So we ruled out this. 165 00:11:07,140 --> 00:11:11,140 So we have an unexplained temperature change with no EMF reading zone. 166 00:11:16,140 --> 00:11:18,140 I'm going to go upstairs, Rich. 167 00:11:18,140 --> 00:11:19,140 Okay. 168 00:11:22,140 --> 00:11:24,140 It's getting warmer up here. 169 00:11:24,140 --> 00:11:25,140 Don't they say heat rises? 170 00:11:27,140 --> 00:11:30,140 Bolasco has been seen throughout this theater. 171 00:11:32,140 --> 00:11:33,140 It kind of fits. 172 00:11:33,140 --> 00:11:35,140 This is his creation. 173 00:11:37,140 --> 00:11:41,140 He probably knew every square foot of this theater like the back of his hand. 174 00:11:42,140 --> 00:11:44,140 David Bolasco, are you here? 175 00:11:46,140 --> 00:11:51,140 I had a little dowsing moment where, up on a kind of a catwalk, the dowsing rods came apart. 176 00:11:54,140 --> 00:12:01,140 The theory behind dowsing is that when you walk past a spot where there's some kind of paranormal activity, the copper rods will react. 177 00:12:02,140 --> 00:12:04,140 Let me move forward again. 178 00:12:04,140 --> 00:12:06,140 I'm keeping pretty steady here. 179 00:12:06,140 --> 00:12:09,140 I'm even closing my eyes. 180 00:12:11,140 --> 00:12:14,140 When I was walking across this plank, I actually did. 181 00:12:14,140 --> 00:12:17,140 It seemed like they were moving on me. 182 00:12:17,140 --> 00:12:20,140 I was really trying not to have a move. 183 00:12:20,140 --> 00:12:22,140 I'm getting consistent results here. 184 00:12:31,140 --> 00:12:33,140 And it happened more than once. 185 00:12:33,140 --> 00:12:43,140 Whether it was just an actual, authentic indication where you found something or where your hand was just moving in a way that you couldn't detect, I can't know. 186 00:12:46,140 --> 00:12:48,140 Hello, Mr. Bolasco. 187 00:12:48,140 --> 00:12:52,140 Bill wasn't too keen on going down to the basement, so I had to be the brave one. 188 00:12:52,140 --> 00:12:56,140 I finally convinced him to go down there, and it was creepy. 189 00:12:56,140 --> 00:12:58,140 There it goes. 190 00:12:58,140 --> 00:13:04,140 66, 63, 56, 67, 49, 44, 52, 54, 49. 191 00:13:04,140 --> 00:13:10,140 In a doorway into sort of a side of the basement, it went crazy again. 192 00:13:10,140 --> 00:13:18,140 47, 44, 48, 46, 68, 75, 76, and it's stable. 193 00:13:18,140 --> 00:13:20,140 Did you feel something cold? 194 00:13:20,140 --> 00:13:21,140 Did you feel that cool? 195 00:13:21,140 --> 00:13:24,140 I think I did, but this thing supposedly doesn't lie, right? 196 00:13:26,140 --> 00:13:29,140 We're clearly something weird is going on down here. 197 00:13:29,140 --> 00:13:31,140 Let's get out of here. 198 00:13:31,140 --> 00:13:32,140 Let's go. 199 00:13:32,140 --> 00:13:34,140 So now you're creeped out just like me, huh? 200 00:13:34,140 --> 00:13:36,140 Little creeped out. 201 00:13:36,140 --> 00:13:40,140 We came back to Rich and Robb to present them with what we had to come up with. 202 00:13:40,140 --> 00:13:45,140 But I had two instances of anomalies when I was up there. 203 00:13:45,140 --> 00:13:50,140 So right away, Bill and Debbie stopped telling me how they had temperature readings going out of control. 204 00:13:50,140 --> 00:13:54,140 And as they're telling me the story, I picked up the thermometer that they were using. 205 00:13:54,140 --> 00:13:56,140 Robbs got it in its hand. 206 00:13:56,140 --> 00:13:58,140 They went and got another identical unit. 207 00:13:58,140 --> 00:14:01,140 Robb's things started jumping around again. 208 00:14:01,140 --> 00:14:06,140 Temperature goes up and down between 40 degrees and 70 degrees. 209 00:14:06,140 --> 00:14:08,140 I was a little freaked out at first. 210 00:14:08,140 --> 00:14:10,140 I mean, that's a natural reaction. 211 00:14:10,140 --> 00:14:14,140 But after watching it for a few minutes and then putting another thermometer next to it, 212 00:14:14,140 --> 00:14:19,140 and then a third, we found out it was just malfunctioning. 213 00:14:19,140 --> 00:14:21,140 They had a faulty thermometer. 214 00:14:25,140 --> 00:14:32,140 Next, the team simulates a near-death experience looking for clues. 215 00:14:32,140 --> 00:14:34,140 I know what it's like to be stuck in a coffin. 216 00:14:34,140 --> 00:14:39,140 And later, is there a visitor from beyond popping up in these snapshots? 217 00:14:39,140 --> 00:14:40,140 Well, quick, here we go. 218 00:14:40,140 --> 00:14:46,140 I tell you, I've never seen anything like it, and I have no idea how to explain it. 219 00:14:54,140 --> 00:14:58,140 For the next part of our investigation, we want to explore whether there's any scientific 220 00:14:58,140 --> 00:15:05,140 or psychological explanations for near-death experiences or for so-called communications with the dead. 221 00:15:05,140 --> 00:15:08,140 Rob and Bill are meeting with an expert on the physiology of the brain 222 00:15:08,140 --> 00:15:14,140 to find out if there is any basis for the idea that consciousness survives after the brain dies. 223 00:15:14,140 --> 00:15:19,140 Debbie and I are going to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors to meet with Diane Archangel. 224 00:15:19,140 --> 00:15:22,140 She's a researcher and well-respected author. 225 00:15:22,140 --> 00:15:24,140 Rich Jones, I find best of gates. Nice to meet you. 226 00:15:24,140 --> 00:15:26,140 She was clinically dead and came back. 227 00:15:26,140 --> 00:15:30,140 Now she's an expert on something called afterlife encounters. 228 00:15:30,140 --> 00:15:34,140 The doctors don't know why, but I simply stopped breathing after my hysterectomy. 229 00:15:34,140 --> 00:15:37,140 During my near-death experience, I saw God. 230 00:15:37,140 --> 00:15:40,140 Now, is this something that you could see and you remember what it looked like? 231 00:15:40,140 --> 00:15:43,140 I could. I could see it. It's like they put me on a big wheel. 232 00:15:43,140 --> 00:15:49,140 It was the wheel of time. It is the wheel revolved so did my life. 233 00:15:49,140 --> 00:15:53,140 And took it from birth all the way until that very moment of death. 234 00:15:53,140 --> 00:15:56,140 I knew for certain that I had taken my last breath. 235 00:15:56,140 --> 00:15:59,140 You were this close to going over. 236 00:15:59,140 --> 00:16:03,140 So what are your views on what is beyond? 237 00:16:03,140 --> 00:16:06,140 I know without a doubt consciousness survives death. 238 00:16:06,140 --> 00:16:12,140 But from years and years of research, I have over 11,000 documented accounts of afterlife encounters. 239 00:16:12,140 --> 00:16:18,140 Without physical evidence, this may not amount to proof of any sort. 240 00:16:18,140 --> 00:16:22,140 But of course you have to remember we're dealing with life beyond death. 241 00:16:22,140 --> 00:16:27,140 Diane uses a unique method of increasing the chances of having an afterlife encounter. 242 00:16:27,140 --> 00:16:30,140 It's based on the ancient Greek oracles. 243 00:16:30,140 --> 00:16:35,140 Places where those seeking a connection would go to focus their energies. 244 00:16:35,140 --> 00:16:39,140 And for our investigation, she actually wanted us to build one. 245 00:16:42,140 --> 00:16:45,140 We had the wood. This goes right up here. 246 00:16:45,140 --> 00:16:48,140 We had the velvet. 247 00:16:50,140 --> 00:16:56,140 An oracle is a really dark, small space, like a little room or a little closet. 248 00:16:56,140 --> 00:16:58,140 So why does it need to be a mirror in the oracle? 249 00:16:58,140 --> 00:17:04,140 We don't know why exactly, but it seems like apparitions come to a reflective surface. 250 00:17:05,140 --> 00:17:12,140 When I was putting it together, I kept wondering, will I really have an experience inside here? 251 00:17:12,140 --> 00:17:15,140 Well, this looks kind of done. It's dark in there. 252 00:17:15,140 --> 00:17:17,140 It's not pretty, but it's done. 253 00:17:17,140 --> 00:17:19,140 It is. I'll put the finishing touches. 254 00:17:19,140 --> 00:17:27,140 Diane told us that our chances of having a successful experience in the oracle would be better if we entered it in a heightened state of perception. 255 00:17:28,140 --> 00:17:35,140 She recommended that we go to a flotation tank to explore an altered state of consciousness and then come back. 256 00:17:38,140 --> 00:17:43,140 Bill and I want to know if there's any science behind the concept of consciousness surviving death. 257 00:17:43,140 --> 00:17:46,140 So we arranged to meet with Dr. Dan Kolek. 258 00:17:46,140 --> 00:17:53,140 He's a co-director of the Brain Behavior Center in New York and a professor of cognitive science at Rutgers University. 259 00:17:53,140 --> 00:17:58,140 So the real question is, can the consciousness be separated from the body? 260 00:17:58,140 --> 00:18:06,140 What I want to show you today, what you believe about the body and about matter and about physical reality is a cartoon. 261 00:18:06,140 --> 00:18:08,140 It was quite an explanation. 262 00:18:08,140 --> 00:18:10,140 He drew some diagrams on the board. 263 00:18:10,140 --> 00:18:13,140 Aha! Alright. He kept going around in circles. 264 00:18:13,140 --> 00:18:18,140 Where do dreams take place? Inside, the head, or outside the head? 265 00:18:18,140 --> 00:18:20,140 Doc, you're starting to lose me a little bit. 266 00:18:20,140 --> 00:18:25,140 But I don't understand Dr. Kolek's answer to what happens to us when we die. 267 00:18:25,140 --> 00:18:33,140 But he implied that somehow your brain waves are how you continue to exist. 268 00:18:33,140 --> 00:18:38,140 If you've ever seen a body dying and you see what's going with the brain waves, they go from this phase. 269 00:18:38,140 --> 00:18:42,140 They go down and down and down at that theta level. 270 00:18:42,140 --> 00:18:45,140 These waves are emanating out. 271 00:18:46,140 --> 00:18:49,140 So in a way, that's life after death. 272 00:18:49,140 --> 00:18:54,140 Maybe ghosts are those brain waves kind of emanating through the atmosphere. 273 00:18:54,140 --> 00:18:56,140 Yes! 274 00:18:56,140 --> 00:18:59,140 Dr. Kolek's explanation was pretty hard to grasp. 275 00:18:59,140 --> 00:19:04,140 He suggested we try something called lucid dreaming to help us understand. 276 00:19:04,140 --> 00:19:07,140 A lucid dream is a dream in which you realize that you're dreaming. 277 00:19:07,140 --> 00:19:13,140 In the dream, we want the mind to be lucid, to be aware that it's in a dream. 278 00:19:13,140 --> 00:19:15,140 But we also want it to keep dreaming. 279 00:19:15,140 --> 00:19:21,140 If this is all true, if there's a mind that's directing all this stuff and the reality is really secondary, 280 00:19:21,140 --> 00:19:25,140 then lucid dreaming is the way to get to that portal. 281 00:19:25,140 --> 00:19:31,140 If we want to understand death, we can't understand it if we're going to stay at the level of ordinary consciousness. 282 00:19:31,140 --> 00:19:34,140 We've got to get to the level of lucidity or beyond. 283 00:19:38,140 --> 00:19:41,140 Dr. Kolek wanted to train Bill and me how to lucid dream. 284 00:19:42,140 --> 00:19:43,140 Look at your hands. 285 00:19:43,140 --> 00:19:47,140 So he took us to a cemetery, a place where you're very aware of death. 286 00:19:47,140 --> 00:19:49,140 Look at your feet. 287 00:19:49,140 --> 00:19:54,140 And he put us through a series of exercises designed to help us achieve a lucid dream. 288 00:19:54,140 --> 00:19:56,140 So how do you keep from waking up? 289 00:19:56,140 --> 00:20:03,140 Here's how. As you walk and as you begin to, oh, oh, wait, I'm, oh, this is a dream. 290 00:20:03,140 --> 00:20:06,140 Kolek also taught us a concept called spinning. 291 00:20:06,140 --> 00:20:10,140 The idea is that when you're having a lucid dream and you want to leave your body, 292 00:20:10,140 --> 00:20:13,140 you do it by spinning around your focus. 293 00:20:13,140 --> 00:20:16,140 Kind of like you're looking down on yourself from a bird's eye view. 294 00:20:16,140 --> 00:20:18,140 Yes, because that's pretty freaky. 295 00:20:18,140 --> 00:20:21,140 I mean, if you can do a pirouette like that, that's great, you know? 296 00:20:21,140 --> 00:20:24,140 I'm not doing pirouettes in my dream, bro. 297 00:20:27,140 --> 00:20:29,140 After it's night, we're done building the Oracle. 298 00:20:29,140 --> 00:20:33,140 We headed off to see Sam Ziger and experience his floatation tank. 299 00:20:34,140 --> 00:20:38,140 You don't just float. You float in a sensory-deprived environment. 300 00:20:38,140 --> 00:20:41,140 No light, no sound for an hour. 301 00:20:41,140 --> 00:20:44,140 Nice to meet you, Sam and Andrew Rich with Sci-Fi Investigates. 302 00:20:44,140 --> 00:20:49,140 It's meant not just to relax us before we enter the Oracle, but to simulate the state of death, 303 00:20:49,140 --> 00:20:51,140 like in the movie Altered States. 304 00:20:54,140 --> 00:20:59,140 In floating, we are supposed to not only completely relax the body and the mind, 305 00:20:59,140 --> 00:21:05,140 but also evoke a sort of out-of-body experience by separating consciousness from the body. 306 00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:08,140 This feels so weird. 307 00:21:09,140 --> 00:21:12,140 If you can simulate a near-death experience in the tank, 308 00:21:12,140 --> 00:21:16,140 might that make one wonder if the near-death experience itself is a product of the mind, 309 00:21:16,140 --> 00:21:18,140 and only of the mind? 310 00:21:18,140 --> 00:21:24,140 The consciousness itself does not have to be localized within the body 311 00:21:24,140 --> 00:21:30,140 and can be free to explore and to leave the body. 312 00:21:33,140 --> 00:21:35,140 There were times when I couldn't feel my legs. 313 00:21:35,140 --> 00:21:38,140 There were times when I couldn't feel my arms or hands. 314 00:21:38,140 --> 00:21:46,140 Feeling disembodied for even a little while helped me get a little bit of insight into people who've had near-death experiences. 315 00:21:46,140 --> 00:21:48,140 I know what it's like to be stuck in a coffin. 316 00:21:50,140 --> 00:21:52,140 I loved floating. 317 00:21:52,140 --> 00:21:57,140 When I was lying in that tank, it really felt like my body was asleep, but my mind was active. 318 00:21:57,140 --> 00:22:03,140 So I did feel that separation of body and mind, which I think is what we're getting at with this investigation. 319 00:22:06,140 --> 00:22:11,140 Coming up, Rich's personal journey to contact the other side. 320 00:22:13,140 --> 00:22:20,140 Plus, are these sounds actually messages from beyond the grave? 321 00:22:23,140 --> 00:22:26,140 The End 322 00:22:29,140 --> 00:22:32,140 I'm pretty interested in trying to have an afterlife experience, to be honest with you. 323 00:22:32,140 --> 00:22:37,140 I think if this exercise goes well for me, it could shed some light on life after death. 324 00:22:37,140 --> 00:22:40,140 Floating really prepared me to go back to the Oracle. 325 00:22:40,140 --> 00:22:43,140 I was forced to be very still and to not think about my body at all, 326 00:22:43,140 --> 00:22:48,140 but to focus on what was going on in my brain and just letting my mind wander 327 00:22:48,140 --> 00:22:51,140 and think of the things it wanted to think of. 328 00:22:51,140 --> 00:22:53,140 What is your purpose, Debbie? 329 00:22:53,140 --> 00:22:57,140 I think for the purpose of our investigation, we really want to try to get a sign of the afterlife. 330 00:22:57,140 --> 00:23:00,140 I'm going to try to contact a departed loved one. 331 00:23:00,140 --> 00:23:04,140 In this case, it's going to be my grandfather who passed away a few years back. 332 00:23:04,140 --> 00:23:09,140 Losing him a couple years back was a painful and abrupt experience for me, and that's why I wanted to contact him. 333 00:23:09,140 --> 00:23:12,140 And did you bring any kind of a mental, a photograph or anything? 334 00:23:12,140 --> 00:23:16,140 I did. This is a photo of him when he was in the Navy. 335 00:23:16,140 --> 00:23:18,140 World War II era. 336 00:23:18,140 --> 00:23:22,140 If you saw him today and you could talk to him, what would you say? 337 00:23:22,140 --> 00:23:27,140 God, I'd say, you know, where'd you go? You know? 338 00:23:30,140 --> 00:23:32,140 It was just too soon. 339 00:23:32,140 --> 00:23:34,140 We didn't get to say goodbye. 340 00:23:39,140 --> 00:23:43,140 Going into the Oracle, I was really thinking about my grandpa. 341 00:23:43,140 --> 00:23:49,140 I felt more focused on my mission and more focused on my investigation as a result of my emotional experience. 342 00:23:49,140 --> 00:23:52,140 And I'll be back to get you in just a little while. 343 00:23:59,140 --> 00:24:03,140 After training at the cemetery, Bill and I headed to a place called Metro Naps, 344 00:24:03,140 --> 00:24:09,140 especially designed sleep center in the Empire State Building to test this lucid dreaming thing. 345 00:24:09,140 --> 00:24:13,140 The experiment works. We'll have an out-of-body experience, 346 00:24:13,140 --> 00:24:17,140 which would give us some indication of what it feels like when you flatline. 347 00:24:17,140 --> 00:24:18,140 Hey, here we are. 348 00:24:18,140 --> 00:24:19,140 Here we are. 349 00:24:19,140 --> 00:24:23,140 Dr. Evil's going to play mind control, and we're going to sleep in pods. 350 00:24:23,140 --> 00:24:26,140 We're going to sleep in separate pods. 351 00:24:28,140 --> 00:24:30,140 It's a little weird, right? 352 00:24:30,140 --> 00:24:32,140 I don't know. You know, I'm pretty sleepy. 353 00:24:32,140 --> 00:24:34,140 I'm just looking forward to a nap. 354 00:24:34,140 --> 00:24:37,140 If you start to wake up, you've got to spin in the dream. 355 00:24:37,140 --> 00:24:39,140 Announce to the people in your dream that you're dreaming. 356 00:24:39,140 --> 00:24:41,140 They'll argue with you. They'll deny it. 357 00:24:41,140 --> 00:24:44,140 I believe they exist. I believe they're conscious like you are. 358 00:24:44,140 --> 00:24:52,140 I studied psychology in college, and a lot of what Dan Cole did today is just textbook the power of suggestion. 359 00:24:52,140 --> 00:24:57,140 I want to know if it's just a function of the neurological machinery, 360 00:24:57,140 --> 00:25:06,140 or if some part of it is a connection to a separate reality, a separate universe, a separate consciousness, whatever it is. 361 00:25:06,140 --> 00:25:19,140 The life after death structure, the natural explanation is that the personalities of your deceased loved ones still persist somewhere in your brain, and your consciousness animates them. 362 00:25:19,140 --> 00:25:23,140 By hooking us up to electrodes that send a small electrical current to our brains, 363 00:25:23,140 --> 00:25:28,140 Dr. Colex says he can induce a sleep-like and even near-death state. 364 00:25:28,140 --> 00:25:32,140 This is supposed to put me quickly to sleep and ready to dream. 365 00:25:32,140 --> 00:25:43,140 You're each going to have these masks on that are going to be looking for rapid eye movement, which is the beginning of your dream state. 366 00:25:43,140 --> 00:25:48,140 Lucid dreaming is meant to separate the consciousness from the body that some say occurs at death. 367 00:25:48,140 --> 00:25:53,140 In a lucid dream, you can experience what you're seeing as if you were an outsider, 368 00:25:53,140 --> 00:25:57,140 but you can control the scene almost like a puppet master. 369 00:25:57,140 --> 00:26:04,140 Now you're in an alpha state here, which is your normal waking state, and I'm going to set this down. 370 00:26:04,140 --> 00:26:10,140 Before I can even close my eyes, Bill's already snoring. I mean, the nerve of him. 371 00:26:10,140 --> 00:26:19,140 So he dreams. I'm lowering him into a deeper, trance-like state. I can tell with Bill 100% he's lucid. 372 00:26:19,140 --> 00:26:25,140 Dr. Colex said he'd be able to tell when I start dreaming because of red light inside my mask will flash. 373 00:26:25,140 --> 00:26:30,140 This means I've entered rapid eye movement sleep, REM sleep, the dream state. 374 00:26:30,140 --> 00:26:36,140 I don't know how much recall of all the details it'll be, but it should be rich. It should be spectacular. 375 00:26:36,140 --> 00:26:44,140 I was ready and I was tired. But for some reason, I just couldn't fall asleep. 376 00:26:45,140 --> 00:26:47,140 Did you fall asleep? No. 377 00:26:47,140 --> 00:26:49,140 Did you fall asleep? No. 378 00:26:49,140 --> 00:26:54,140 And I told him, you know, I have a problem falling asleep sometime. I pretty much suffer from insomnia. 379 00:26:54,140 --> 00:26:57,140 He pulls out a red light like it's a death ray. 380 00:26:57,140 --> 00:27:00,140 Look at me. Do you see the red light? 381 00:27:03,140 --> 00:27:05,140 Look at me. Don't look away. 382 00:27:08,140 --> 00:27:11,140 I'm not going to insomnia anymore. Would you try the mask? I'll try one more time. 383 00:27:11,140 --> 00:27:16,140 He says, you're cured. Go back to bed. I mean, I don't know what the guy was thinking. 384 00:27:16,140 --> 00:27:21,140 I'm not going to happen. I'm talking like I have an insomnia. Like I can't sleep. 385 00:27:21,140 --> 00:27:27,140 Apparently I fell asleep for well over half an hour, probably as much as 45 minutes. 386 00:27:27,140 --> 00:27:34,140 Started having a couple of sleeping dreams and one of them was I was in a restaurant. 387 00:27:34,140 --> 00:27:39,140 I remember there was a shadowy people behind me. I didn't recognize their faces. 388 00:27:39,140 --> 00:27:45,140 I suddenly thought, I wonder if that's my parent. That was the moment for me to seize the day and... 389 00:27:45,140 --> 00:27:47,140 Spin. 390 00:27:47,140 --> 00:27:49,140 Or run after them. 391 00:27:49,140 --> 00:27:54,140 Well, the only thing I could say is that I was unconscious and I didn't remember to spin or run after them. 392 00:27:54,140 --> 00:27:59,140 Even though I dreamed about my parents, I was disappointed that I didn't succeed in getting to a lucid dream state. 393 00:27:59,140 --> 00:28:06,140 I'm a scientist and the ability to control my dreams could have indicated that consciousness can be separated from the body. 394 00:28:06,140 --> 00:28:10,140 Which might suggest the possibility of life after death. 395 00:28:14,140 --> 00:28:15,140 So how was it? 396 00:28:15,140 --> 00:28:18,140 I've never experienced anything like that before. 397 00:28:18,140 --> 00:28:23,140 The pattern of really tight lines came into focus. 398 00:28:23,140 --> 00:28:27,140 Like really tight, almost like corduroy. 399 00:28:27,140 --> 00:28:32,140 And instantly I thought of a jacket that my actually, my grandfather used to wear all the time. 400 00:28:32,140 --> 00:28:36,140 And actually we buried him in it because it was one of his favorite jackets. 401 00:28:36,140 --> 00:28:40,140 I don't think it was really an after life encounter to tell you the truth. 402 00:28:40,140 --> 00:28:45,140 In a dark and closed space where your senses are deprived, it's very easy for your mind to play tricks on you. 403 00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:47,140 And that was happening for sure. 404 00:28:50,140 --> 00:28:54,140 I had an experience in there. I actually did. 405 00:28:54,140 --> 00:28:57,140 I was really focusing on my grandmother. 406 00:28:57,140 --> 00:28:59,140 Right here, here. 407 00:28:59,140 --> 00:29:03,140 I don't know what else I could describe it. It was a feeling that came over my whole body several times. 408 00:29:03,140 --> 00:29:05,140 It was like a big hug. 409 00:29:07,140 --> 00:29:14,140 I really felt that at that moment that there was a presence in that place with me. 410 00:29:14,140 --> 00:29:16,140 Right here, Uncle. 411 00:29:16,140 --> 00:29:19,140 Of course Rich claims he got a hug in the Oracle. 412 00:29:19,140 --> 00:29:21,140 He has to one up me. 413 00:29:21,140 --> 00:29:24,140 It was exactly like a hug. 414 00:29:24,140 --> 00:29:26,140 And I got it twice. 415 00:29:26,140 --> 00:29:28,140 Oh my God. 416 00:29:28,140 --> 00:29:31,140 Took about 15 seconds and then it was gone. 417 00:29:31,140 --> 00:29:34,140 And I had the biggest smile on my face. 418 00:29:34,140 --> 00:29:37,140 I'm thinking it was, well, I'm thinking it was her. 419 00:29:37,140 --> 00:29:40,140 The man feels like his grandma gave him a couple of hugs. 420 00:29:40,140 --> 00:29:41,140 Thank you. 421 00:29:41,140 --> 00:29:44,140 Is it proof? I don't know. I don't think so. 422 00:29:44,140 --> 00:29:48,140 I think the Oracle did help me personally in my investigation of this topic. 423 00:29:48,140 --> 00:29:53,140 I can't help but come away with a feeling that some kind of contact was made. 424 00:29:56,140 --> 00:30:01,140 Next, are these ghostly images caught on Polaroid proof of the afterlife? 425 00:30:01,140 --> 00:30:03,140 It's creepy. 426 00:30:03,140 --> 00:30:08,140 The team does their own test when Sci-Fi Investigates continues. 427 00:30:15,140 --> 00:30:19,140 Today the team went to the Angel Oran Sand Center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan 428 00:30:19,140 --> 00:30:22,140 to do some more investigation of life after death. 429 00:30:22,140 --> 00:30:24,140 Whoa. 430 00:30:24,140 --> 00:30:26,140 That's awesome. 431 00:30:26,140 --> 00:30:29,140 We're going to be using instrumental transcommunication devices in here 432 00:30:29,140 --> 00:30:32,140 to try to capture sights and sounds from the other side. 433 00:30:36,140 --> 00:30:37,140 There he is. 434 00:30:37,140 --> 00:30:38,140 Hi. 435 00:30:38,140 --> 00:30:39,140 Mark Macy. 436 00:30:39,140 --> 00:30:40,140 Debbie with Sci-Fi Investigates. 437 00:30:40,140 --> 00:30:41,140 Debbie, nice to meet you. 438 00:30:41,140 --> 00:30:43,140 The first person that we met was Mr. Mark Macy, 439 00:30:43,140 --> 00:30:46,140 and he uses a device called a Luminator. 440 00:30:46,140 --> 00:30:48,140 It gives off some kind of rays, 441 00:30:48,140 --> 00:30:53,140 and basically it's supposed to make dead people appear when they take a photograph. 442 00:30:53,140 --> 00:30:58,140 Spirit photography is one of the long-held techniques used to gather evidence of the afterlife, 443 00:30:58,140 --> 00:31:01,140 and Macy is one of the leading experts in the field. 444 00:31:01,140 --> 00:31:05,140 Well, the main thing the Luminator does is creates this field of subtle energy, 445 00:31:05,140 --> 00:31:08,140 and it allows me to be with people in the presence of the Luminator, 446 00:31:08,140 --> 00:31:10,140 and I can take pictures of them, 447 00:31:10,140 --> 00:31:14,140 and sometimes we get not only a person on film, 448 00:31:14,140 --> 00:31:17,140 but also people in spirit posing with the person. 449 00:31:17,140 --> 00:31:20,140 Actually, when I first saw Mark's pictures, I was like taking a back. 450 00:31:20,140 --> 00:31:22,140 And this is Mimi, that's here on the left. 451 00:31:22,140 --> 00:31:29,140 One of them, for example, very clearly seemed to show a woman's deceased husband 452 00:31:29,140 --> 00:31:31,140 on the lower half of her own face. 453 00:31:31,140 --> 00:31:33,140 I've studied that pretty closely. 454 00:31:33,140 --> 00:31:37,140 The face above looks a little bit like Mimi, but it's a male. 455 00:31:37,140 --> 00:31:39,140 The cheeks are different, the lips are different. 456 00:31:39,140 --> 00:31:42,140 It does look a little like her, but the angle is different too, 457 00:31:42,140 --> 00:31:43,140 and the eyes are very different. 458 00:31:43,140 --> 00:31:44,140 Yeah, the eyes are different. 459 00:31:44,140 --> 00:31:48,140 Another photograph showed what certainly looked like John Denver. 460 00:31:48,140 --> 00:31:49,140 Wow. 461 00:31:50,140 --> 00:31:52,140 Looks like a little bit of a scene of a woman's psyche. 462 00:31:52,140 --> 00:31:57,140 There was a definite resemblance, but I mean, I don't think it was John Denver. 463 00:31:58,140 --> 00:31:59,140 Okay, so is this it? 464 00:31:59,140 --> 00:32:01,140 This is the Luminator. 465 00:32:03,140 --> 00:32:10,140 So whatever mechanisms are inside that box is what causes the change in the air, 466 00:32:10,140 --> 00:32:11,140 and draws the spirits of the soul. 467 00:32:11,140 --> 00:32:16,140 You know, any instrument that's able to communicate with the dead in any way, 468 00:32:16,140 --> 00:32:19,140 it kind of makes me more than a little bit suspicious. 469 00:32:19,140 --> 00:32:22,140 Why don't we take some baseline readings of the area around the Luminator 470 00:32:22,140 --> 00:32:23,140 and see what we come up with. 471 00:32:23,140 --> 00:32:28,140 So I'm measuring the surface temperature and also the temperature of the air right around this thing. 472 00:32:28,140 --> 00:32:33,140 I had one of the EMF meters, and it started going off the charts 473 00:32:33,140 --> 00:32:35,140 when I was at the bottom and the top of the Luminator. 474 00:32:35,140 --> 00:32:37,140 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, turn it off. 475 00:32:37,140 --> 00:32:42,140 Well, changing the structure of the air around you certainly creates different vibrations, 476 00:32:42,140 --> 00:32:47,140 and Mark Macy seems to think that doing so invites or helps to invite spirits to our realm 477 00:32:47,140 --> 00:32:49,140 and helps them show up on Polaroid film. 478 00:32:49,140 --> 00:32:53,140 So what we did first was have Mark use his camera with our film. 479 00:32:53,140 --> 00:32:57,140 I need four beach, four Polaroid cameras, and also four digital audio. 480 00:32:57,140 --> 00:32:58,140 Sure. 481 00:32:58,140 --> 00:33:01,140 So that way we'd know any pictures that resulted from our session with the Luminator 482 00:33:01,140 --> 00:33:04,140 were of our own film stock. 483 00:33:05,140 --> 00:33:07,140 I'll take three of them. 484 00:33:07,140 --> 00:33:08,140 Can I look at you? 485 00:33:08,140 --> 00:33:09,140 Yeah, it's fine. 486 00:33:13,140 --> 00:33:18,140 I was observing Mark very closely while he was taking all of the photographs. 487 00:33:18,140 --> 00:33:23,140 I'm pretty confident in saying that Mark did not show any kind of major camera shape at all. 488 00:33:23,140 --> 00:33:25,140 He was pretty steady in fact. 489 00:33:25,140 --> 00:33:27,140 About your glasses? 490 00:33:27,140 --> 00:33:31,140 The benefit of a Polaroid camera is that you're getting the image directly from the camera 491 00:33:31,140 --> 00:33:34,140 in clean view of everyone, and there's no way you can alter it. 492 00:33:34,140 --> 00:33:38,140 In some of the pictures of me, several of them had me very, very sharp and clear, 493 00:33:38,140 --> 00:33:45,140 while others in the same set were very fuzzy and almost showed anomalous images. 494 00:33:45,140 --> 00:33:48,140 I'm just wondering why, how do you explain that? 495 00:33:48,140 --> 00:33:54,140 The pattern we found is that when the cloudier it is, the greater chance there is of getting a spirit face. 496 00:33:54,140 --> 00:33:58,140 It's some sort of incoherence caused by a blending of two dimensions, 497 00:33:58,140 --> 00:34:01,140 I mean the physical and the spiritual dimension. 498 00:34:01,140 --> 00:34:04,140 I have no explanation for that whatsoever. 499 00:34:04,140 --> 00:34:06,140 Mark, is it okay if I take your picture? 500 00:34:06,140 --> 00:34:07,140 Sure. 501 00:34:07,140 --> 00:34:10,140 So after a couple of rounds of Mark taking photos of the team, 502 00:34:10,140 --> 00:34:15,140 we wanted to turn the experiment around and sort of take on the role of Mark. 503 00:34:18,140 --> 00:34:23,140 On one version, we took photographs with a full flash. 504 00:34:23,140 --> 00:34:28,140 In another set, we took photographs using no flash at all, 505 00:34:28,140 --> 00:34:32,140 where the flash was completely covered by electric tape. 506 00:34:33,140 --> 00:34:40,140 What we found is some of the most unusual images that we got were from when we had no flash at all on the camera. 507 00:34:40,140 --> 00:34:42,140 Yeah, this is the best one so far today. 508 00:34:42,140 --> 00:34:44,140 This is the one that Bill took, right? 509 00:34:44,140 --> 00:34:46,140 This is the most interesting one. 510 00:34:46,140 --> 00:34:50,140 You got three definite parts of a face there. 511 00:34:50,140 --> 00:34:54,140 You know, all this time everybody thought Rich was a strange one in the group, 512 00:34:54,140 --> 00:34:59,140 but the only person whose picture turned up abnormally was Debbie's. 513 00:34:59,140 --> 00:35:02,140 Sometimes it's like a blurry where it looks like my face is in motion, 514 00:35:02,140 --> 00:35:07,140 but there's one or two photographs where there's actually a separate whole face. 515 00:35:07,140 --> 00:35:10,140 It doesn't have the same features as me. 516 00:35:12,140 --> 00:35:14,140 Now we were really curious. 517 00:35:14,140 --> 00:35:17,140 If the cameras that the team used were similar to Mark's 518 00:35:17,140 --> 00:35:20,140 and we were still getting those ghostly images, 519 00:35:20,140 --> 00:35:25,140 then we had only one option left to open it up and see if there was anything suspicious inside. 520 00:35:25,140 --> 00:35:27,140 Do we have screwdrivers, anyone? 521 00:35:27,140 --> 00:35:28,140 Yeah, I got one. I'm ready to go. 522 00:35:28,140 --> 00:35:29,140 Alright. 523 00:35:29,140 --> 00:35:32,140 It takes a lot of time and effort to make one of these, I guess. 524 00:35:38,140 --> 00:35:40,140 So we get the cover off and inside. 525 00:35:40,140 --> 00:35:48,140 It's just basically a black box, a couple fans, and a PVC tube with a little aluminum foil. 526 00:35:48,140 --> 00:35:50,140 How much did this cost? 527 00:35:50,140 --> 00:35:51,140 A lot of money? 528 00:35:51,140 --> 00:35:52,140 A lot of money. 529 00:35:52,140 --> 00:35:53,140 Five figures. 530 00:35:53,140 --> 00:35:57,140 Let me know if you get spirit faces without the presence of this thing and I'll know. 531 00:35:57,140 --> 00:36:04,140 A couple of times Mark indicated that what was going on here was beyond the ability of science to explain. 532 00:36:04,140 --> 00:36:09,140 I might have thought of it as ability of contemporary science to explain. 533 00:36:09,140 --> 00:36:13,140 I think that everything can be explained some way scientifically. 534 00:36:13,140 --> 00:36:15,140 The question is whether we've caught up to it or not. 535 00:36:15,140 --> 00:36:18,140 I mean, I took a look at those Polaroid photographs from my own eyes 536 00:36:18,140 --> 00:36:22,140 and bent them and sort of really inspected the film itself. 537 00:36:22,140 --> 00:36:24,140 There's no way they could have been altered. 538 00:36:24,140 --> 00:36:27,140 Whether it's spirits around me, I don't know, but it's different. 539 00:36:27,140 --> 00:36:30,140 And really hard to explain how that could happen. 540 00:36:34,140 --> 00:36:35,140 Coming up... 541 00:36:35,140 --> 00:36:37,140 Grandma, can you hear me? 542 00:36:37,140 --> 00:36:38,140 Are you there? 543 00:36:38,140 --> 00:36:42,140 Rob and Rich try to contact loved ones. 544 00:36:42,140 --> 00:36:45,140 If the spirits out here give us a sign now. 545 00:36:45,140 --> 00:36:49,140 Will they succeed when sci-fi investigates returns? 546 00:36:51,140 --> 00:36:52,140 Whoa, that was something. 547 00:36:55,140 --> 00:36:58,140 The End 548 00:37:02,140 --> 00:37:04,140 While Bill and I studied the Luminator photos, 549 00:37:04,140 --> 00:37:07,140 Rob and Rich went back upstairs to investigate another way 550 00:37:07,140 --> 00:37:10,140 that paranormal researchers are capturing messages from the afterlife. 551 00:37:10,140 --> 00:37:12,140 Nice to meet you both. 552 00:37:12,140 --> 00:37:15,140 We met Tom and Lisa Butler who claimed to have recordings of the dead. 553 00:37:15,140 --> 00:37:19,140 They are the directors of the American Association of EVP 554 00:37:19,140 --> 00:37:22,140 and among the most highly regarded experts in the field. 555 00:37:22,140 --> 00:37:25,140 There were even consultants in the movie, White Noise. 556 00:37:33,140 --> 00:37:36,140 Electronic voice phenomena or EVP are unexpected voices 557 00:37:36,140 --> 00:37:39,140 that occur in any kind of recording medium. 558 00:37:39,140 --> 00:37:41,140 We haven't been able to explain their existence 559 00:37:41,140 --> 00:37:44,140 with any known physical principles. 560 00:37:48,140 --> 00:37:49,140 Got it, keep going. 561 00:37:49,140 --> 00:37:52,140 These are things that just appear. 562 00:37:52,140 --> 00:37:59,140 Now, people who do EVP argue that these voices are often captured voices 563 00:37:59,140 --> 00:38:01,140 from the spirit world. 564 00:38:01,140 --> 00:38:04,140 You don't hear the voice while you're actually recording. 565 00:38:04,140 --> 00:38:05,140 It's on playback. 566 00:38:05,140 --> 00:38:07,140 One of the very fascinating things about this 567 00:38:07,140 --> 00:38:11,140 and why we say, you know, this proves that we survived 568 00:38:11,140 --> 00:38:14,140 is because you recognize the voice of this person, 569 00:38:14,140 --> 00:38:15,140 even though they're dead. 570 00:38:15,140 --> 00:38:19,140 Whoa, that was something. 571 00:38:19,140 --> 00:38:23,140 Rob and I did a couple of blind tests listening to EVP recordings 572 00:38:23,140 --> 00:38:25,140 without knowing what they were supposed to be. 573 00:38:25,140 --> 00:38:27,140 One more time. 574 00:38:27,140 --> 00:38:30,140 I can see you. 575 00:38:30,140 --> 00:38:31,140 I can see you. 576 00:38:31,140 --> 00:38:33,140 I'll get in something completely different. 577 00:38:33,140 --> 00:38:34,140 Play it again. 578 00:38:34,140 --> 00:38:37,140 I can see you, mother. 579 00:38:37,140 --> 00:38:38,140 No, no, one more. 580 00:38:38,140 --> 00:38:42,140 This is one that is generally thought to be saying, 581 00:38:42,140 --> 00:38:46,140 I was seeing the war. 582 00:38:46,140 --> 00:38:48,140 It just sounds like a bunch of squealing and squeaking. 583 00:38:48,140 --> 00:38:51,140 I mean, it clearly isn't human voice. 584 00:38:51,140 --> 00:38:54,140 Do you have any idea how a voice would be formed 585 00:38:54,140 --> 00:38:56,140 without a human voice box? 586 00:38:56,140 --> 00:38:57,140 No. 587 00:38:57,140 --> 00:38:59,140 I feel for sure that it's formed in the electronics. 588 00:38:59,140 --> 00:39:01,140 It's not an acoustical thing in the air. 589 00:39:01,140 --> 00:39:05,140 But what people want are for these to be normal voices. 590 00:39:05,140 --> 00:39:08,140 They're not, you know, they're paranormal voices. 591 00:39:08,140 --> 00:39:10,140 Well, you know, we're here investigating. 592 00:39:10,140 --> 00:39:13,140 We were hoping to try to maybe capture some of these voices ourselves. 593 00:39:13,140 --> 00:39:15,140 You guys want to give that a try? 594 00:39:15,140 --> 00:39:16,140 Sure, let's do that. 595 00:39:16,140 --> 00:39:17,140 Good approach. 596 00:39:17,140 --> 00:39:18,140 We got a quiet area. 597 00:39:18,140 --> 00:39:21,140 We all put a recorder on and we asked questions. 598 00:39:21,140 --> 00:39:24,140 I decided to try to contact my grandmother again 599 00:39:24,140 --> 00:39:27,140 since I had felt her so strongly in the Oracle. 600 00:39:27,140 --> 00:39:32,140 And the idea with EVP is that the spirits travel with you wherever you go. 601 00:39:32,140 --> 00:39:35,140 Grandma, can you hear me? 602 00:39:35,140 --> 00:39:37,140 Are you there? 603 00:39:40,140 --> 00:39:43,140 Grandpa, can you hear me? 604 00:39:43,140 --> 00:39:49,140 Is there anyone out there who's got anything interesting to say? 605 00:39:49,140 --> 00:39:55,140 We gave our recorders to Tom and watched as he loaded the audio files onto his laptop. 606 00:39:55,140 --> 00:40:02,140 He then spent the next few hours trying to isolate any instances of EVP. 607 00:40:02,140 --> 00:40:06,140 So guys, any results from the EVP tests that we did? 608 00:40:06,140 --> 00:40:11,140 Yes, actually we did find some things that we don't think should be there. 609 00:40:11,140 --> 00:40:13,140 Okay, let's listen. 610 00:40:16,140 --> 00:40:19,140 Okay, can you hear Ruth Robinson? 611 00:40:19,140 --> 00:40:20,140 I hear Ruth Robinson. 612 00:40:20,140 --> 00:40:22,140 I can hear her out. 613 00:40:26,140 --> 00:40:29,140 It doesn't sound like enough syllables to get problems. 614 00:40:29,140 --> 00:40:30,140 I don't know. 615 00:40:30,140 --> 00:40:32,140 Maybe my ears, I can't. 616 00:40:32,140 --> 00:40:35,140 I'm trying to be honest and not disrespectful at the same time. 617 00:40:35,140 --> 00:40:37,140 But I just, I don't hear it. 618 00:40:37,140 --> 00:40:42,140 Rob likes to be a skeptic on a lot of things that seem outside the normal realm of belief. 619 00:40:42,140 --> 00:40:43,140 I don't know. 620 00:40:43,140 --> 00:40:45,140 And you know, that's fair. 621 00:40:45,140 --> 00:40:46,140 No, and that's fine. 622 00:40:46,140 --> 00:40:49,140 It's interesting that we, I mean there are patterns in there. 623 00:40:49,140 --> 00:40:51,140 There's definite sounds that... 624 00:40:51,140 --> 00:40:53,140 Should be the flat line. 625 00:40:53,140 --> 00:40:56,140 I mean, as far as I can understand, there shouldn't be any. 626 00:40:56,140 --> 00:41:03,140 I can't easily dismiss the idea that these are indeed recordings of another dimension. 627 00:41:03,140 --> 00:41:04,140 I leave it open. 628 00:41:06,140 --> 00:41:11,140 Well guys, here we are at the end of our investigation of life after death in New York City. 629 00:41:11,140 --> 00:41:14,140 Of all the things that you participated in and that you observed, 630 00:41:14,140 --> 00:41:20,140 was there anything that you found even to be remotely compelling in terms of being actual evidence rather than faith-based? 631 00:41:20,140 --> 00:41:25,140 I was interested in the experiences we had with the illuminator. 632 00:41:25,140 --> 00:41:32,140 But we all understood that the debate of the four of us had the most anomalous features in her photographs. 633 00:41:32,140 --> 00:41:36,140 I think the pictures that we saw were blurry. 634 00:41:36,140 --> 00:41:39,140 Why they only appeared on Debbie's film and not ours. 635 00:41:39,140 --> 00:41:41,140 Some were blurry. Not all were blurry. 636 00:41:41,140 --> 00:41:45,140 What I'm saying is why the blurry ones appeared on Debbie's and not ours. 637 00:41:45,140 --> 00:41:46,140 I can't explain that. 638 00:41:46,140 --> 00:41:50,140 Rich, you were able to get us into the Blasco Theater, which was fun at first, 639 00:41:50,140 --> 00:41:51,140 but I think it turned out as a bust. 640 00:41:51,140 --> 00:41:53,140 How do you guys feel about that? 641 00:41:53,140 --> 00:41:55,140 Yeah, I think I agree. 642 00:41:55,140 --> 00:41:56,140 Let me ask you this, Bill. 643 00:41:56,140 --> 00:42:05,140 Do you feel that the dream that you had made you feel that life after death exists or doesn't exist? 644 00:42:05,140 --> 00:42:08,140 Did you have an out-of-body experience? 645 00:42:08,140 --> 00:42:10,140 I did not have an out-of-body experience. 646 00:42:10,140 --> 00:42:12,140 I never got to the point of doing lucid dreaming. 647 00:42:12,140 --> 00:42:16,140 I'm more than willing to try again because it sounds like a really interesting experience. 648 00:42:16,140 --> 00:42:21,140 You two talked to Diane Archangel, who has had a near-death experience. 649 00:42:21,140 --> 00:42:22,140 What did you get out of that? 650 00:42:22,140 --> 00:42:27,140 She was such a gentle woman, and you can tell that her near-death experience really transformed her life. 651 00:42:27,140 --> 00:42:35,140 And she described it in such a vivid detail that you have to believe that she really did experience exactly what she was saying. 652 00:42:35,140 --> 00:42:37,140 I had an experience inside the Oracle booth. 653 00:42:37,140 --> 00:42:40,140 I realized I can't prove it to any of you, but I know that I had it. 654 00:42:40,140 --> 00:42:43,140 Thank you. 655 00:42:43,140 --> 00:42:45,140 I think what we're saying is there's no... 656 00:42:45,140 --> 00:42:49,140 We don't have proof based on this that this points to an afterlife, per se. 657 00:42:49,140 --> 00:42:53,140 But I think to me it's suggestive, and I'm willing at least not to dismiss it. 658 00:42:53,140 --> 00:42:57,140 We haven't found the answer to it this time, but maybe we will next time.