All language subtitles for The.UnXplained.S07E16.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

SHATNER:
Legendary seers

who can predict the future

with incredible accuracy.

Psychic spies with the ability
to see inside enemy territory.

And clairvoyants
that gain supernatural powers

from the dead.

Throughout history,

a number of people
have been described

as possessing
a so-called sixth sense.

Whether it's called
clairvoyance,

ESP, or second sight,

these individuals seem
to have the ability

to predict the future,

communicate with the dead,

and, at times, perform
incredible physical feats.

But is this intuitive awareness

outside the normal
human perception a real thing?

And if so,

does a sixth sense
exist in all of us,

just waiting to be unlocked?

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

For thousands of years,

people have been fascinated
with and fearful of

unique individuals who possess
the power of prophesy.

Great seers like Nostradamus,

Grigori Rasputin,

and Edgar Cayce
have been revered

for their seemingly supernatural
abilities to predict the future.

Could this so-called sixth sense
simply be incredible intuition?

Or is it something scientific
we have yet to understand?

JOHN KRUTH:
When we study psychic phenomena,

when we study mediumship,

when we study things
like precognition--

knowing information
about the future--

when we study telepathy--

getting information mind to mind
from another person--

or clairvoyance--
getting information

about objects or things that
are hidden from a distance--

all of those would've been
considered magic oh so long ago.

And, today, we still study
these same things,

but we don't call them
magic anymore.

We look at them as science.

I don't think there's anything
wrong with being skeptical.

And by being skeptical, I mean
the true meaning of skeptical,

which is that it's like,
"Well, I'm not sure.

Show me the evidence."

Now, the reality is,

when you look at the research
that's been done

in the last 150 years,

the questions that still remain

is, really, why is it
that certain individuals

seem to have
exceptional abilities,

whereas the rest of us,
myself included,

sort of minimal abilities?

SHATNER:
Indian Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi

-(gunshot)
-is assassinated

in a surprise attack
outside her home.

(clamoring)

The country is thrown
into confusion and grief.

But, incredibly,

this tragic event was foretold

in surprising detail
15 years earlier

by a legendary psychic
known as Baba Vanga.

VIKTORIA VITANOVA:
It was in 1969 when Vanga said

that, um, Indira Gandhi
would be killed by her dress.

"Her dress is going
to kill her," she said.

And what happened was that,

before a meeting,
she put a dress

which didn't allow
for a bulletproof vest

to be put under.

And then she was shot dead
by her security guards.

So this is a really strong,

strong example
of-of a prediction

attributed to her
which really happened.

SHATNER:
While skeptics say Baba Vanga's
eerily accurate prediction

was nothing more than
an extraordinary coincidence,

it's believed
that Baba Vanga also predicted

the September 11th
terrorist attacks

on the World Trade Center
in New York...

...and the election

of the first
African American president

of the United States,

and, quite famously, a disaster

involving a Russian nuclear
submarine known as the Kursk.

VITANOVA:
In 1981,

Baba Vanga said that,

um, a big tragedy will happen
around the turn of the century,

in August 1999 or 2000.

Vanga is known to have said,

"At the turn of the new century,

"Kursk will be underwater

and the whole world
will cry over it."

So these were her words.

And the whole world
was shocked when,

at the turn of the century,
indeed,

in August 2000,

the whole submarine sank
to the bottom of the ocean,

350 feet down,

with the whole crew dying.

SHATNER:
How did Baba Vanga predict

such a specific and tragic event
with such accuracy?

Many believe the answer
can be traced back

to the 1920s,

when she was 12 years old,

and a traumatic event
unlocked her remarkable powers.

JOHN HOGUE:
Baba Vanga was from

the town, the village
of Strumica.

And at the time,

Macedonia was part
of the Ottoman Empire,

just before World War I.

It's very simple.
It's very small.

And Baba Vanga
was a normal child,

an average child, in a way,

with brown eyes.

But the life-changing incident

that made Baba Vanga who she was

was a day where she was walking
on a country road.

And she was caught up
by a tornado...

(girl screaming)

...that literally carried her up
in the air

and threw her
into an adjacent field.

For dozens of hours,

people in the village
were trying to find her.

And when they finally found her,

they found her
absolutely terrified

and sobbing in the field.

The strangest thing was
it was almost as if a lot

of rock and dirt had been
stuffed under her eyelids.

KRUTH:
Over a few days,
the eyes became infected,

and she became blind.

As her physical senses
started to deteriorate,

she realized other senses
were starting to grow.

She started to be able to see

what was going to happen
in the future.

TEA KRULOS:
She slowly began to develop
psychic abilities

that replaced her sight.

And it took a while
for these to develop.

But by World War II,

she was able
to have psychic visions

and see what was happening
during the war.

After that, people
who were very concerned

about their loved ones
who had passed on

would come to her to see

if she was able
to communicate with the dead.

And they gave her
the nickname Baba Vanga,

which means, like,
"a wise grandmother."

SHATNER:
As Baba Vanga's popularity grew,

she also attracted the attention
of the scientific community.

In the late 1960s,

Bulgarian scientist
Georgi Lozanov

studied Baba Vanga at
the Institute of Suggestology,

which is part of the Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences,

with quite a lofty goal.

Can science unlock the secrets
behind the sixth sense?

They made experiments
with Baba Vanga

from February to October 1967.

Lozanov thought
that clairvoyance happens

because some people,

very few people,

are capable of receiving signals
from the environment

which cannot be registered.

They cannot be seen.

So he tried to use
the most modern technology

and equipment
they were able to get

to try and register and pinpoint

those stimuli, those signals
he was supposing exist.

They were measuring
her brain activity

while she was making
predictions.

Unfortunately,
they were not able to register

what they were searching for.

So they also interviewed
people visiting her

to ask them whether
what she said really came true.

It was a long-term project,

and 70% of people answered
those questions with, "Yes,

Baba Vanga really could say
what will happen to my life."

SHATNER:
In 1996, Baba Vanga passed away

at the age of 84,

leaving behind predictions
for the coming decades

that include deadly plagues,

terrible wars,

and even
extraterrestrial visitations.

And while we wait to see

if her future prophesies
prove accurate,

researchers continue
to study people who possess

the sixth sense.

(siren wailing)

SHATNER:
Six days after the shocking
murder of actress Sharon Tate

and four others in her home...

...Tate's husband,
film director Roman Polanski,

arrives to tour
the scene of the crime

with a rather unusual
investigator,

a psychic detective
named Peter Hurkos.

Hurkos was allowed
to go to the scene

of the Sharon Tate murders,

and he picked up
some interesting details

that were not known at the time.

He said that there were
three murderers.

And he said that he saw a vision
of someone in this house

who had taken some bad LSD

and visualized the devil.

And that's interesting
because Tex Watson,

who was one of the killers,

when he came into the house,
he said,

"I'm the devil, and I'm here
to do the devil's business."

JACKSON:
When Hurkos got there,

he kept getting
the name "Charlie."

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,
over and over and over again.

And he was able
to describe this man

who was this force
of destruction

and wiry and dark,

who was manipulating others.

It's very interesting,

because that's exactly who
was behind these murders.

SHATNER:
Charlie, of course,
turned out to be

the notorious cult leader
Charles Manson,

who was convicted
of first-degree murder

and sentenced to life in prison.

What ability
did Peter Hurkos possess

that allowed him
to envision the mastermind

behind this heinous crime?

KRULOS:
In 1941,

Peter Hurkos was doing a job

painting a house,

and he fell off his ladder,

falling about 40 feet.

And he had a brain injury
and slipped into a coma.

So, when he awoke
out of the coma,

he discovered
that he had psychic abilities.

And he discovered this
almost immediately,

because he could sense things
about the other patients

in the same hospital room
as him.

SHATNER:
Is a traumatic injury the key
to unlocking a sixth sense?

While that may be the case
for some seers,

there are others who,
like author Laura Lynne Jackson,

believe they were born
with these remarkable gifts.

So, I'm a psychic and a medium.

And being psychic means
that I can read energy.

It was before I even had
language

that I would feel
and read energy around me.

I'll see pictures.
I'll see images.

I'll see things that are symbols
for me to understand.

And then, being a medium means

that I'm able to connect
with the consciousness

of someone who's no longer
in a physical body.

Sometimes it can be in the voice
of a loved one who's crossed.

Sometimes it just arrives
as a thought without much sound,

where you just suddenly know
something

in every ounce of your being,

but there's no logical way
you could know it.

It took me a very long time
to fully embrace my abilities.

And part of that journey for me

was getting tested
in every way possible.

This'll be interesting for me,
too, because my readings

for people usually go
60 to 90 minutes.

And so usually the first
15 minutes of a reading,

I'm just aligning my energy
with the sitter's energy.

I'm doing an aura reading.
I'm seeing what they're like.

It's almost like tuning in
to that frequency,

and then it really starts.

So I don't know
how this is gonna go.

We're gonna have to see.

SHATNER:
In 2013, Laura participated

in a fascinating experiment
under the supervision

of psychologist
Dr. Jeffrey Tarrant.

TARRANT:
I'm gonna turn it over,
look at it, and say go.

-Okay.
-All right. Go.

Yellow.

-Red.
-Go.

SHATNER:
The goal was to analyze
Laura's brain waves

-Green. Red.
-to see what's really
happening inside her head

when she taps into
her intuitive abilities.

TARRANT:
What we did was

we took a 19-channel EEG cap--

kind of looks like a swimming
cap with sensors built into it.

What it allows us to do
is then compare her brain

in different states.

So what we're looking at
in these images

are a comparison of Laura
Lynne Jackson's brain activity,

comparing a conversation
to a psychic reading.

And, really, what you notice is

this dramatic increase
of activity

in the back right quadrant.

Here you see it starts to turn
a little more white, which is

an even greater increase.

And so this is showing
this strong increase,

especially in these
very fast brain waves,

during a psychic reading.

Looking at the data,

this clearly suggests
that, for her,

a psychic reading
and a regular conversation

are distinct states
of consciousness.

They're different,

and they don't look
the same in the brain.

So, for me,
the question becomes...

why?

This, to me,
is the mystery right now.

At one point,
you had three in a row.

JACKSON:
Okay.

Dr. Tarrant's
brain scan experiment

revealed a lot
of very interesting information.

When he looked at my brain
in resting state

to just get baseline,

he asked me if I had ever had
traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Tarrant shared with me that
my brain looked very similar

to people who have had
traumatic brain injury.

And yet I've had
no traumatic brain injury.

It didn't really make sense
to me.

So I think
the question really is

is there a possible
physiological component

to being able to access
this sixth sense

or these other abilities?

And I think that there is.

TARRANT: Some people have
these abilities unlocked

after some sort
of neurological incident

or a traumatic brain injury.

But then other folks,

they're just born
with these abilities.

I think what this suggests
is that,

whether it's through an injury
or whether it's through

some sort of practice
of altered states or meditation,

somehow, we have
to shift the brain

out of its normal functioning.

But there's still, actually,
a lot that we need to understand

in terms of how it is possible
to unlock our sixth sense.

It's exciting to think

that if we can find
the key to unlock our minds,

we might all possess
extrasensory powers.

In fact, recently declassified
files reveal

that both the United States
and Russia

spent decades trying to identify

and train people suspected
of having psychic abilities.

Not just to discover
their true potential

but also to weaponize them.

SHATNER:
The Arctic Ocean, 1958.

The United States Navy's
first nuclear-powered submarine,

the USS Nautilus,

dives deep below the waves,

outside of radio contact.

A sailor inside the submarine
holds up a series of cards

that have various shapes
printed on them.

Meanwhile, thousands
of miles away in Maryland,

a psychic tries to visualize the
cards the sailor is presenting

using only the power
of the mind.

AUERBACH:
With the sub
under the Arctic ice cap,

they did several runs
of completely shuffled cards.

I believe it was 160 guesses.

112 turned out to be correct

when everything was compared
after the sub came up.

That's a 70% hit rate.

The Soviets heard about this.

They did a check, apparently,
with some sources who said,

"Yes, that's what happened"

and decided to start spending--

turned out to be--
billions of dollars

to investigate
the possibility of telepathy,

as well as other
psychic phenomena.

SHATNER:
While the U.S. Navy denied these
psychic tests were taking place,

the rumors alone inspired
the Soviet Union

to invest in programs
with the goal of developing

psychic weapons.

KRUTH:
The Soviets started

to recruit special people

to help them with their studies.

They recruited one woman
named Nina Kulagina.

Nina Kulagina was from Ukraine,

and she was a housewife

who said that she could control
different objects

without touching them.

AUERBACH: She was mainly able
to ostensibly move

objects with psychokinesis.

Mind over matter.

At one point, they had her try
to use her psychokinesis

to try to stop
the heart of a frog.

And it did.

At least,
that was what was reported.

SHATNER:
Is it possible to turn
someone's sixth sense

into a deadly weapon?

While it's a matter of debate,

we do know
that this Soviet program

would trigger a top secret
psychic arms race.

KRUTH:
American intelligence

realized, "Oh, my goodness,

"they're getting ahead of us.

We need to start
our own psychic spying program."

They wanted to see if they could
have people who were psychics

get information
about the Soviet Union

where their satellites
could not get information.

This was a form of clairvoyance,

the ability to see objects
or events from a distance

called remote viewing.

SHATNER:
According to declassified
documents from 1972 to 1995,

the CIA, Army,
and Defense Intelligence Agency

engaged in a joint effort to
recruit and train remote viewers

as psychic spies
for the American government.

This top secret program
was called Project Stargate.

DEAN RADIN:
The Stargate program

ran from 1972 to 1995.

During that period,
there were 20 people on staff.

There were nine consultants
and two visiting scientists.

I was one
of the visiting scientists,

and I was there
for the calendar year 1985.

It took me about nine months
to get all of the clearances,

'cause it ended up having
to be a top secret clearance.

If an agency came
and asked, you know,

"Could you look
into this thing?,"

whatever it happened to be,

these remote viewers
would do their best

to describe what it is.

The CIA and the FBI
and a bunch of other agencies,

they came back again
and again and again.

There's something
like 450 missions

that these remote viewers
were asked to do.

So somebody somewhere
found it to be useful.

SHATNER:
In an unassuming building

in Fort Meade, Maryland,

Project Stargate's
military unit performed

hundreds
of remote viewing missions.

And one of these psychic spies

was a gifted Army officer
named David Morehouse.

MOREHOUSE:
In 1986, I was recruited

to become a member of what, at
the time, was called Sun Streak.

Now everyone knows it
as Project Stargate.

In a remote viewing session,

you're gonna be over
in the viewing room.

What you're doing is calling
together all of your senses

to go to a target
that is unbeknownst to you

to determine, you know,
what the temperature might be,

what the sounds are
that you're hearing,

what the visual representations
of things are

that you are perceiving.

Now you're developing
an overall picture of it

and then putting a summary
together and turning it in.

Three targets a day,

90 minutes each, working it.

SHATNER:
Remote viewers used
their psychic abilities

to search for lost spy planes,

peer inside top secret
military facilities,

and even targeted
wanted criminals

for the United States
government.

But just how successful
were they?

Pan Am Flight 103 bound
for the United States

mysteriously explodes in midair

over the town
of Lockerbie, Scotland,

killing all 259 people on board

and 11 on the ground.

And while a traditional
investigation is launched,

Morehouse and a team
of psychic spies

at U.S. Army base Fort Meade
begin their own analysis

of the shocking event.

MOREHOUSE:
Pan Am Flight 103 blew up

over Lockerbie, Scotland.

We, of course, didn't know this.

We were assembled,

uh, and we did our work.

We identified it
as an explosion.

We were even able to identify
where the explosion came--

below the passenger level,

in front of the leading edge
of the right wing.

We were the first to identify
the explosive device

being hidden inside
of a boom box.

What the remote viewing team did

was provide
essential information

to at least determine,
uh, in part,

what happened
on that fateful night.

SHATNER:
Project Stargate was
officially shut down in 1995.

But considering the project's
longevity and reported success,

you have to wonder,
is it possible

that the United States
government

still uses psychic spies today?

MOREHOUSE:
Do I believe

that the Central
Intelligence Agency

is still utilizing
remote viewing,

buried it somewhere deeper,
darker, more protected

in some other
intelligence agency,

whether it's the NSA,

Directorate of Science
and Technology,

or some other agency
as they're evolving?

Yes. Of course they are.

If the United States government

is in fact still trying
to weaponize psychics,

it's no wonder why the program
would be kept secret.

In any case,
some experts believe

an even better use
of a person's sixth sense

is not to launch attacks

but to prevent them

by looking into the future.

SHATNER:
Nestled along the blue
waters of Lake Michigan,

all is calm in this
quaint Milwaukee suburb

until 7:32 p.m.,

when a peaceful
autumn evening is interrupted

by a massive
explosion of dynamite.

(alarm bell ringing)

KRULOS:
There was an explosion

at the Shorewood Village Hall.

It exploded and shattered
all the windows

and left a huge hole
in the building.

Then, less than 24 hours later,

two branches of
the First National Bank

had explosions
about a half hour apart.

So, by now, the city
is in panic because

it appears there's
a mad bomber on the loose.

Four days after
the explosions at the banks,

two different
police stations are bombed

within about ten minutes
of each other.

These dynamite bombs
caused serious damage.

Nobody could quite understand

why this was happening.

Were these anarchists?
Were these communists?

Were these people
just trying to sow terror?

No one knew the cause.

SHATNER:
From October 26 to
November 3, 1935,

this series of bombings
would become known as

the Seven Nights of Terror.

And while these shocking attacks

caught the townspeople
off-guard,

they were no surprise
to a local psychic named

Arthur Price Roberts,
who predicted the event

and its location just one day

before the first explosion.

Arthur Price Roberts,
throughout his life,

was known by many names.

Some called him Doc Roberts,

Professor Roberts,

but his very favorite
thing to be called

was psychic detective.

The story that gets
the most attention

is the story
of the mysterious bombings.

In fact, the reason that
we even know of his prediction

is because he gave it
at a live psychic show.

He talks about police buildings,

government buildings,
banks being bombed,

and people who are at that show

start contacting
Shorewood Police saying,

"There's going to be a series
of bombings in Milwaukee."

And the police
instantly dismissed that.

And then,

just a day later,

the Shorewood Village Hall
is dynamited.

KRULOS:
So, now the police
turn to Roberts

and Roberts informed police

that there's going to be
one more explosion,

and he said that

it would happen south
of the Menomonee River.

And that's exactly
what happened.

The two bombers who had been
responsible for this

had been making the bombs
in a little shed

pretty close to the river...

(explosion)

...and they accidentally
blew themselves up,

along with their entire
supply of dynamite.

And this explosion was so big

that they could hear it
for about eight miles away.

And that was it.

The Seven Nights of Terror
were over.

SHATNER:
To this day, the motive
behind the dynamite bombings

carried out by
20-year-old Hugh Rutkowski

and 16-year-old
Paul Chovanec remains unknown.

But how was Doc Roberts
able to predict these bombings

with such uncanny accuracy?

Many believe it was
because he possessed

a rare psychic ability
known as precognition.

KRUTH:
In precognition,

what we're talking about
is someone getting information

that they could not project
from the current circumstances.

Things that
they could never know.

Now, this is very different
from someone who is able

to look at the current world
and make predictions

on what's going to happen next.

We're talking about
someone who's able to know

an unpredictable event,

something that no way
they could know.

With Roberts, he was
accurately able to do this.

As a psychic,

he was able to perform

precognitive feats
quite regularly.

Roberts actually predicted
his own death in 1940.

He said to friends, "I will
be dying on January 2nd, 1940."

And he did.

What I love about precognition
and studying precognition

in the human mind
is that it allows us

hope that if we could know about

something in the future,
we can prepare,

which is incredibly
important for our well-being.

Like, for instance,
if a particular crime happens,

and so if you can predict

the "what" and the "when,"

how can you manage that?

I think it opens up
a lot of questions about

does the crime actually
have to almost happen,

but then you stop it
just before it does?

If they're wrong and someone
is thought to be a criminal

and they're not,
what happens then?

There's all sorts of
ethical problems with this.

SHATNER:
The widespread prediction
and eradication of crime

does have some glaring issues.

And how would you even
find such a large workforce

as psychics to accomplish
such a lofty goal?

Well, some believe the answer
may be found in Argentina.

Because, in 2024, Argentina's
security forces announced plans

to predict and prevent
future crimes not with psychics

but with
artificial intelligence.

Some people believe that you
can use artificial intelligence

to predict what crimes
are going to occur.

And if you are

looking at patterns of
what happened in the past,

with artificial intelligence,
you are maybe able

to project what's going
to occur in the future.

HOROWTIZ:
The very premise of AI
is not just that it gathers

and weighs information,

but it devises
new ways, new methods,

of gleaning information.

If AI lives up to
its potential as a public tool,

it would be foolish of us
to conclude that it couldn't

be used as
an instrument of foresight.

There's no telling
where that wheel stops turning.

Might there be a future
where we can predict

and even stop crimes
before they happen?

Wouldn't that be wonderful?

But there's another
remarkable ability

of a much different kind

that some associate
with a sixth sense.

It involves

communicating with the dead.

SHATNER:
This peaceful, quaint community

is often referred to as the
psychic capital of the world.

In 1894, George Colby,
a medium who could

commune with
the spirits of the dead,

established the Cassadaga
Spiritualist Camp here.

And today, his legacy lives on

with residents of the camp like
spiritual medium and teacher

Reverend Louis Gates.

GATES:
The Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp

is the biggest spiritualist camp

in the southeastern part
of the United States.

It's a place
for mediums to gather.

People live here

to do their work
and to teach and instruct,

but also, the camp
is here to allow people to come

and to get readings and
to connect to their loved ones

and people that have passed
over into the spirit world.

Camps were actually
formed back in the day

when there was no place
for spiritualists to meet.

And spiritualism
really majorly took off

because when we have wars,
Civil War,

World War I, II,
all the wars we've had,

when people
have lost loved ones,

people want to hear
from their loved ones.

But it has always been
a form of communication.

Shamans, part of the tribe,

had that communication
with spirit.

It's always had some
kind of connection with death.

SHATNER:
While holy men have
communicated with the dead

since antiquity,

spiritualism
is a religious movement

and belief system
that began in the mid-1800s.

Through séances
and human conduits

to the spirit realm
known as mediums,

spiritualists believe
we can communicate with the dead

and receive messages and
guidance from beyond the veil.

JACK HUNTER:
Spiritualism

started in New York state

in a town called
Hydesville in 1848.

And it started off, really,
in the house of the Fox family.

There were three sisters
in the house--

Kate, Margaretta and Leah.

And they started to hear noises,

strange bangs in their house.

And they soon realized
that they could

communicate with these noises.

They would do one knock for yes
and two knocks for no.

And they were able to determine

that it was
the spirit of a peddler

who'd been murdered
a few years earlier.

And later on they found human
remains down in the cellar.

It became a big news story.

HOROWITZ:
The Fox sisters
announced that they had

worked out a code to communicate

with intelligences
from the other world.

People descended on the cabin
to investigate the girls.

Clergy, lawyers,
newspaper reporters, scientists,

and many came away
proclaiming them authentic.

Americans were ready to believe
and they embraced the claims.

So, the movement
of spiritualism began.

SHATNER:
It's been estimated
that by the late 1800s,

the American
Spiritualism movement

had upwards
of six million followers.

But could there
be another reason

spiritualism became so popular,

besides our longing to speak
with the dearly departed?

Well, some believe
that it could be a path

to unlock mysterious powers.

HUNTER:
There are different
kinds of mediums.

Probably the most
common forms that we're

familiar with are called
clairvoyant mediums.

They go into a trance,

and then different spirits

will start to communicate
through their bodies.

And then physical mediumship
is where the medium

is causing objects
to levitate or move.

Their physical body
might change in different ways.

You might see
their faces transform.

They might become larger
or smaller and things like that.

SHATNER:
Can some mediums
really gain otherworldly

physical powers
from the spirit world?

Perhaps the answer lies with one
legendary séance from the 1800s.

Members of London's
intellectual elite

gather to participate
in a séance

led by famed Scottish
medium Daniel Dunglas Home.

It is during this séance

that he earns the nickname

the Flying Psychic.

And he earns it by somehow
levitating above the table,

hovering above it
and then somehow

physically flying
out of the window

of the séance room
and in through another window.

No one knows how he did it.

There were no wires.

There was no one in the room
that was working with him.

It was just
the people at the séance

and Home conducting
this amazing feat

that we are still talking about
and still puzzling about today.

HUNTER:
After the fact,
people have sort of

raised doubts about what
took place on that night.

But the fact that there were
so many witnesses in the room,

that they were supposedly
respectable members of society

observing these events
from different angles,

and they were adamant
that what they'd seen

was a real phenomenon.

GATES:
He had a gift that
not everybody else has.

But there are mediums
that have gifts,

that have a connection
to gifts from the spirit world.

I do believe that people
can unlock a sixth sense

by meditating, by breathing,

by working at it,

to open up their mind
to other realms,

other places to come
in contact with spirit.

If you keep working
at the same thing,

day after day after day,

the energy will get stronger.

SHATNER:
From 2011 to 2015,

a government agency known as

the Intelligence Advanced
Research Projects Activity

conducts a series
of competitions

designed to answer
a fascinating question.

How effective are
regular, everyday people

at predicting the future?

These contests are known
as forecasting tournaments.

MOSSBRIDGE:
Forecasting tournaments
are competitions

where people try
to predict a future event,

something that's
of global importance.

Like, will this country
withdraw its troops from this

other country
by such and such a date?

Will the yen go up
by two points on Thursday?

Really detailed questions
that are very hard to predict.

And these are
just ordinary people.

They could be someone who works
at home raising their kids.

These aren't
special PhDs or anything.

But when they're
grouped together,

they become this kind
of superforecasting unit

that together,
can predict future events

much better than
even intelligence officials

with classified information.

SHATNER:
It was reported that,
when grouped together,

future predictions
made by ordinary people

outperformed intelligence
analysts who had access

to classified data by about 30%.

And the question becomes why?

TARRANT:
When we look at the work
of superforecasters,

there's this debate about
whether what they're doing

is just kind of listening
to their intuition

versus maybe some sort of

precognition, the ability
to know things in the future.

Our mind-body is
picking up on something

before it materializes.

This is probably
an evolutionary adaptation

that we've developed.

We all have intuitive abilities,

but many times, we don't listen.

We're not aware
of it on a conscious level,

but we have a feeling.

So, in terms
of the superforecasters,

maybe they're
really good at listening.

SHATNER:
Can the sixth sense
really come down

to highly attuned intuition,
something that everyone has?

And if so, is it possible
not to entertain

one very exciting possibility?

Through practice,
can anyone develop

these mysterious
powers of the mind?

People are very curious
about unlocking a sixth sense.

People ask me, you know,

you're a neuroscientist,
what do I do to my brain

to make it so that I could
have these capacities?

I actually think it's
part of how the brain works,

so it's not really unlocking
something that's locked away.

It's more like using
what's already there,

but taking it seriously.

You're already
getting in the information,

not judging it,

not blocking it,

not assuming it's wrong,

but testing it out.

So, for example, if I meditate,

am I more aware of my thoughts

that seem
to come out of the blue

that might help me
with a problem I'm working on?

It's more like attending
to what's already there.

It's intriguing to consider

that the ability
to predict the future

may be a skill that
can be taught to all of us.

Whether it's seeing events
before they happen,

communicating with
the spirit world

or reading
someone else's thoughts,

the human mind seems
to be capable of feats

that defy our understanding.

Are these abilities
a freak combination

of luck and intuition?

Or could they be evidence
of an elusive sixth sense

locked away
within the human mind?

It's an intriguing mystery that,

for the moment, remains

unexplained.

CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY
A+E NETWORKS