Original subtitles

[Zachary Quinto] Death--

one of the only certainties

of our human experience.

Throughout history fears about the great unknown

of the afterlife have terrified mankind.

From ancient cave drawings

about being reunited with the gods,

to Medieval manuscripts

depicting the dark reaches of hell,

the question of mortality and what happens after death

is something that haunts us all.

But is there any way to truly understand

what happens when we die?

And what can we learn from the Texas man

who actually touched death

and lived to tell about it?

I was on a kayaking trip with a good buddy of mine

and got sucked into a pipe underneath the bridge.

I was under water for four or five minutes

till I lost consciousness.

I went to this place--

I felt connected to many, many billions of souls.

I would say yeah, I was dead.

[Quinto] If accounts like are true,

then what really happens when we die?

Will we live on in some other place or dimension?

And is it possible to find evidence

of life after death?

My search begins now.

My Name is Zachary Quinto.

As an actor, I've played many supernatural characters

that blurred the line between science and fiction.

I'm drawn to the unknown, the otherworldly,

and those experiences so beyond belief,

they call everything into question.

I'm exploring some of the most enduring mysteries

that continue to haunt mankind in search of the truth...

wherever it leads me.

Death is the inescapable end we all meet.

For centuries, mankind's quest to understand this phenomenon

has led us to wonder and fear

the potential for an afterlife

that lies just beyond our world,

from the ancient Egyptians Book of the Dead,

thought to contain a guide to the afterlife,

to the Greeks, who believed that the fate of the dead

was a shadowy half life in Hades.

Our worldwide fascination with life after death

has been depicted in movies likeThe Sixth Sense

andWhat Dreams May Come,

as well as TV shows likeThe Walking Dead.

In more recent times,

technological breakthroughs

have given way to the possibility

of escaping death

with advancements in anti-aging drugs

and even cryogenics,

leaving many to wonder

if one day we may actually be able to bring ourselves

back to life.

So where do we go when we die,

what will we experience,

and is it possible

to come back from the dead?

Today I'm meeting with Pat Johnson...

How are you?Nice to meet you.

...a Texas business owner who cheated death

during a horrifying kayaking incident in 2010.

So tell me a little bit about your story.

[Johnson] Well, it was September 10th, 2010.

I was on a kayaking trip.

Were you with somebody?

Yeah, I was with my friend Bobby.

That particular day the river was up a couple of feet.

because we'd had a flood a few days earlier.

As we were coming up on the bridge,

I hit one of the blocks...

and the current turned my kayak sideways

and I slid out of the kayak.

I was just jerked under the water.

I knew I was getting sucked into a hole.

I would reach up and feel these bumps on the tops of my hands

and I recognized immediately

that I was in a corrugated pipe.

Since the water was so high,

there was no air gap.

What kind of things were going through your head?

Just thinking about how to survive.

That's it. There's no tomorrow.

Physically you also must be incredibly strained.

Right?Yes.

I'd been under water for a long time.

I don't know how much longer I can hold my breath.

So I pushed myself forward. I made it about two feet.

And at that point,

it just felt like a bubble came over me.

I mean, I was just enveloped

in this almost like an egg shell.

And just as soon as I felt that,

just immediately it was like turning off a light switch,

I lost consciousness.

I felt like I was in this hallway,

like 75 yards long.

At the end of this hallway there was this blue stained glass,

and there was this hole in the glass

and there was this bright, bright white light

coming through the hole.

I wanted to get to the light. I was drawn to the light.

As I got closer to the light,

there were people walking back and forth

in front of the light

I wanted to see who they were,

but all I could see was the silhouettes.

I was almost close enough to tell who the people were.

The next thing I know...

I'd regained consciousness.

I was pushed down in the pipe.

And my friend Bobby

was able to catch up to my body

and resuscitate me.Wow.

I told him, I said, "Man, Bobby,

you're gonna think this is weird--

I know you're gonna think this is weird,

but I'm really glad this happened to me."

I knew in that moment that my life would never be the same.

Did you feel, when you were in that place,

like this is what death is?

It's hard to say

You know, it's different.

It's different over there.

It's unexplainable.Right.

But I'm-- definitely confirmed

my belief in the afterlife.Uh-huh.

[Quinto] He transcended something.

I mean, he's been through something

that 99% of the rest of the planet will never understand

until the movement when they come back anymore.

Whether or not there's something

beyond that light at the end of the tunnel, I don't know,

but I'm interested to see what we find out.

Pat is certainly not the first person

to have such a vivid and terrifying brush with the afterlife.

The earliest known description of a near-death experience

was recounted by Plato in his Myth of Er,

which was written circa 400 B.C.

And each year over 200,000 Americans

report similar near-death visions

of bright lights, tunnels,

and a powerful feeling

of being transported to another world.

But if these transcendent visions are true,

then what really happens

when we die?

Will we live on in this place

that Pat and so many have described,

and could there be a way for us to get answers

to these questions directly

from the other side?

To find out,

I'm meeting with a man

who claims to have tangible proof

of direct communication with the deceased,

including his own daughter--

renowned paranormal expert and inventor Gary Galka.

Going back 13, 14 years ago,

I actually lost my daughter. She was 17 years old.

What was her name?

Melissa. Melissa.

Before his teenage daughter's tragic death

from a car accident in 2004,

Gary was an engineer with no interest in the spirit world.

The day we came back from the hospital,

we smelled her scent, her perfume.

We no sooner got into the house,

and the doorbell started ringing.

From there it evolved to the TV changing channels.

There was one evening,

my wife and I were going to bed.

We heard music just swirling within our room.

We're walking incrementally, just following the sound

and went down the hallway,

and then the stereo came on.

Nothing like this had happened before

your daughter passed?Not at all, ever. Ever.

If you don't have experiences,

and then all of a sudden, suddenly,

these weird things start happening,

Now, you're given a choice. Do you ignore it or do you become a believer?

[Quinto] Melissa's death

and the bizarre incidents that followed

inspired Gary to invent a line

of paranormal investigation equipment in her honor,

including the Mel Meter, a dual sensor

that tracks both temperature and electromagnetic fields

to detect signs of paranormal activity.

He felt compelled to create these products

because he couldn't ignore the signs

that Melissa was reaching out from the great beyond.

I wanna believe in this stuff so much,

and when I meet people like Gary,

who do believe,

I feel closer to it,

but I am much more interested in proof.

How did you start to really identify these energies as her?

I actually have evidence

that shows her entering into my consciousness

while I'm dreaming,

and you can see the actual energy ball

going into my forehead.

You're gonna see it with your eyes.

[Quinto] After her death in 2004,

Gary set up a home video experiment

to prove that his daughter was communicating with him

from beyond the grave.

And did you feel something in that room?Oh, absolutely.

Am I about to see evidence

that life after death is possible?

Is this an infrared camera?

[Galka] This is just a security camera.

I felt something in the room.

So what I did was I asked her to come

and give me a kiss on the forehead.

And here's what happens.

[Quinto] Whoa.

Did you see that?Yes.

That was the most remarkable feeling ever.

Wow.

What you're about to see

you've never seen before.

So basically I'm going to go in, and I'm gonna call angels.

I'm gonna talk to Melissa,

I'm gonna go into my meditative state.

You see the room is normal, right? Mm-hmm.

There's nothing there.

So what I'm doing is, I'm connecting with her.

Watch.

See that?Yeah.

Now watch what happens.

That's all energy, Zach.

[Quinto] I mean, it looks like it's snowing.

It looks like it's snowing.

It's basically a portal.

That's so crazy.

Is that something?

The videos were completely inexplicable.

Those are all souls. Those are all individual souls.

And I've never seen anything like that before.

I was unsure

how he was able to capture

that energy on just a regular home security camera.

However, this isn't Gary's only proof

of spectral encounters with his daughter.

He used his professional talent as an engineer

to create a device that he claims allows him

to actually speak with her.

This device right here-- this is a digital record

that deals with electronic voice phenomena.

And EVPs are basically sounds

that can't really be distinguished with our senses.

[Quinto] His EVP device purports to capture

sound waves that are inaudible to the human ear

and after processing,

converts them to files that we can hear.

I've been able to capture some pretty remarkable things.

[Quinto] Though many people have challenged the validity

of these ghost recorders,

I'm anxious to see for myself

what new proof Gary can offer.

Is there an example that you can let me hear

of something that you've captured from your daughter?Yeah. Sure.

I want you to listen very carefully.

[Quinto] Coming up, I attempt to make contact with the oth[woman's voice mutters][Gary] Hello.

[woman's voice mutters]

[distorted voice] That's great."That's great."

[rewinding] That's great.

Okay, that's her voice.

...That's great.

Okay, now, what-- what-- This part right here, Zach.

Uh-huh.I want you to try real hard to hear that.

You tell me what she's saying.

[replays recording]

"Tell them that's great."

"Tell Mommy...""Tell Mommy..."

"Tell Mommy that's great."

Let me hear it again.

Tell Mommy that's great.

"Tell Mommy it's great."Yeah. Wow.

So the news that I was sharing with her--

I had that running and, um, she was just giving me her opinion on it.

She thought it was great news, and she says, "Tell Mommy that's great."

It was that simple.

I mean, yeah, that's kind of...

So I have communication with my daughter.

Isn't that amazing?That is amazing.

That certainly sounded like she was saying, "Tell Mommy that's great."

And-- And-- And so I want to believe it,

but I'm still left with a healthy skepticism,

and I think that's just who I am.

Gary has agreed to put his EVP technology to the test

with an experiment to communicate

with spirits rumored to be in this very hotel.

The Omni Parker House

is considered by paranormal experts

to be one of the most haunted hotels in America.

Built in 1855

hundreds of workers and guests

have reported ghostly sights, sounds, and smells

that hearken back to the people who have walked these halls.

You're gonna hold it till it initializes.Mm-hm.

And then you're not gonna move your fingers, your hands at all...

Just hold it....because it has dual microphones.

Okay. Okay.Very sensitive.

[Quinto] I wanna know if Gary's technology

could actually give us a direct line of communication

to the deceased in this strange location.

And if so, what secrets could they reveal about the afterlife?

You ask some questions,

and we'll see what kind of results we get.

Okay.You up for that?

I absolutely am. Let's do it.

I'm a little skeptical,

but we're about to put Gary's device to the test

so I can see for myself.

Light's blinking. You're good.

Okay. Good to go.

I'm going to be asking the spirits questions

and hope the EVP device records a response.

What is my name?

What day is it?

When did you die?

Do you live in the hotel?

We won't know the results for a few weeks

while Gary processes the recordings

through his EVP software.

[Galka] I'll review these in more detail.Yeah. That would be great.

If you find anything,

I would certainly love to hear that.

Beyond making contacted with the dead,

I'm interested to learn what it's actually like to die

and if there's anything in that experience

that can teach us more about the possibility

of life after death.

Could the visions experienced by Pat Johnson...

There were people walking back and forth in front of the light.

All I could see was a silhouette.

[Quinto] ...and so many others throughout history

tell us more about what lies beyond the great void?

I'm meeting with one of the world's leading experts

on death and dying,

Dr. Jeffrey Long.

An oncologist by trade,

Dr. Long has interviewed over 4,000 people

who have had near-death experiences,

and he's compiled the most comprehensive report

on the subject in the U.S.

[Dr. Long] They're unconscious.

They're at the brink of death, literally.

Suddenly there's an unearthly, often described as mystical, light,

not like any light that we know on this earth.

It is amazing, the common threads that occur

no matter where on the earth

or whatever age you are

or what your prior beliefs are.

The two most common words used for people

that have near-death experiences

are peace and love.

It seems to make no difference

whether you're, say, a Muslim in Egypt

or a Hindu in India

or a Christian in the United States.

Wherever you are on the planet,

By the scores, people have shared a profound sense

of an all-encompassing love, connection, peace

far beyond what they knew on earth.

Wow. So then my question is,

from your vantage point,

what is happening after death?

That is a great question, Zach.

My take, based on that huge amount of research

and that investigation now coming up on close to 20 years,

I believe that we are much more than our physical body.

We have that consciousness.

Some people have called it a soul...

that can exist separately from our physical body

when we die.

That's based in real near-death experience observations.

That's medically inexplicable.

Uh-huh. You know, this journey for me has been

particularly interesting.

I've experienced death from a young age.

I lost a parent when I was really young,

and so I feel like death has always had a place in my life

that I wished it hadn't on some deep level,

but I have an appreciation for it as well.

[Dr. Long] What we don't know about death, dying and what lies beyond

far exceeds what we do know.

All of us are on a journey of discovery

No two are the same.

It's a wonderful experience that awaits us all.

[Quinto] Dr. Long comes from a medical background.

He comes from a world that is designed to look for proof,

to look for data,

and yet he's saying

that we could cross over into some realm beyond.

It just makes me wonder.

If death is as wonderful as Dr. Long describes,

why are so many of us afraid of it?

There are people that say, "I'm not done yet."

Yeah.They want to somehow avoid death.

I can certainly understand the desire

of some people to really hang on to that earthly life.

They value it, they love it,

and maybe they can extend it

beyond the boundaries

of what we're aware of today

as being scientifically possible.

[Quinto] But is there a viable option

for people who aren't ready to cross over,

those who want a second chance at life?

This is a container that has actual h [Quinto] Death-- All of us will

but no one can say for sure

what, if anything,

lies beyond.

Despite the harrowing near-death tails

of people like Pat Johnson...

There was this bright, bright white light.

...and so many others like him throughout history,

we still have yet to find definitive proof

about what happens when we die.

However, recent advances in the controversial field of cryonics

may ultimately give us the power

to control that destiny ourselves.

Cryonics is the freezing of human corpses

at extremely low temperatures

with the promise of being able to revive or reanimate them

at a later date.

The idea of cryopreserving humans

sprang from the pages of science fiction in the 1960s

with rumors about Walt Dy

and even Hitler's brain being cryogenically frozen.

In the 21st century, Michael Jackson made headlines

when he declared his interest in being frozen.

And the late baseball legend Ted Williams

actually went through with the procedure

upon his death in 2002.

How does this work?

Is it possible we could freeze ourselves after death

and one day have new life?

To get some answers, I'm going to Arizona

to visit the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Alcor is one of the leaders in cryonics,

with 156 clients who have been cryogenically preserved,

and over a thousand members

who have signed up for the procedure upon their deaths.

Welcome to Alcor's Patient Care Bay.

So nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.

Max More is one of the world's leading experts

in the field of cryonics.

You have been a pioneer of this technology for 30 years.

Yeah. But, actually, I started thinking about life extension

when I was about 16 or 17.

Even then, it occurred to me that aging and death is a problem,

and is a problem we should try and fix.

What's the cost for something like this?

For a whole-body patient, is a minimum of $200,000.

For brain only, $80,000.

So it's a state of hibernation? Not dead but not alive?

Right.How does it work?

Yeah, it's hard for people to get their heads around it,

because they're not dead if by "dead,"

you mean irretrievably gone forever.

There is the potential that we can revive them in the future.

So they're just kind of in between, a twilight state, if you like.

But capturing someone

during that in-between state

is a complex process.

To do this successfully,

the body is prepared for the freeze

as soon as the patient dies.

As soon as the doctor give us the go, the legal death,

we begin the process by moving the patient into the ice bath.

We have to give medications to protect the patient's cells,

and so we need circulation

to distribute those drugs around the body,

so we use this device.

It has the side effect that even though the person's been declared dead,

they could still come to some level of awareness.

The next stop is the surgery room,

where doctors perform a very delicate and potentially dangerous procedure

that transforms the client's internal organs

into a glass-like state.

We're gonna connect the patient's vascular system

to a pump to remove as much blood as we can,

and we're gonna gradually pump in a cryoprotectant,

a medical-grade antifreeze, if you like.

So, what we do then, really, we're not freezing people.

We're actually vitrifying.

From the Latin, meaning glass.

But then we have to slow down a bit

because if you keep going down very fast,

they'll actually fracture into different pieces.

[Quinto] As delicate as the process is to prepare the patient's body...

the brain tissue is the most important thing to preserve.

The brain is where the personality and memories are stored.

Because of this, many clients choose only to preserve their brain.

Their hope is that in the future,

it can be implanted into a new body,

and the two will be revived together.

Is it just the brain, or it's the whole head?

[More] The brain's what we're interested in.

But it's actually quite hard to extract it from the skull,

so we leave it in the skull as a kind of protective mechanism.

For those clients who choose to just preserve their brains,

the next part of the process

involves removing the patient's head

from their body.

We place the head upside down in the ring here.

We'll do a separation a couple of vertebrae down.

The brain is then dehydrated until it shrinks to half its normal size.

What's the blue around it?

That's empty space from the contraction of the brain.

The brain is actually shrunk--

Mm-hmm....inside the skull.

It really is shocking to me.

You're desanguinated,

you have medical-grade antifreeze in you.

I mean, you may be just a head.

Like, I-- It's just like, "Uhh"...

The whole thing is really difficult for me to wrap my mind around.

Once the body or just the head and brain is fully prepared,

it is ready to go into the tanks.

Each ten-foot-high steel tank

contains four whole-body patients in protective pods.

In the very center column,

there is a chamber that holds up to five severed heads.

So is there a way for us to see what these tanks look like on the inside?

We can actually take a look down in the top and give you an idea.

I'll be bringing my technical genius, Steve Graber.

Great.

So, minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit in there.

[Graber] That's right. You do not want to fall in.

You want to take a look? Here you go. Thank you.

I'm about to get a close-up view of the chamber

that holds decapitated and cryogenically preserved heads

waiting to be reanimated.

[Quinto] This is a container that has actual human heads in it.

So crazy.

So this is a container that would house human heads,

the brain-only patients.That's right.

And how many heads would fit in this column?

Um, you can fit up to five,

but normally we'll just do four.

This one is empty at the moment.

Are there actual bodies in here, though?

There are.There are.

So there are full-body patients in here.

That's right.

And then this is waiting for the next donors to come and...

That's right.You're building it out.

That's amazing.

I don't think I would ever cryogenically preserve myself.

I definitely feel like when I'm done, I'm done.

You know, all these 156 people and the 1,150 people who are waiting to come here

are people that say, like, "I'm not giving up.

I believe that there will be life again in the future."

People that undertake this path for themselves obviously loved life, right?

Yes, our members do tend to be a bit more adventurous and optimistic.

They're willing to say, "The future could be very different,

it could be very weird, but that's better than being dead."

[Quinto] While cryonics may rest on a hope of reanimation,

it is only one small part

of mankind's perpetual quest to defy death

and escape the afterlife altogether.

Throughout history, explorers have gone to extraordinary lengths,

risking life and limb,

in search of the Fountain of Youth.

Ancient voyagers like Ponce de León

ventured into distant, unknown territories,

chasing the promise of immortality.

And today science may be far closer to the fountain of youth

than we realize.

At Harvard Medical School,

Dr. David Sinclair and his team

are developing a groundbreaking pill

that could stop and even reverse aging.

Tell me a little bit about what you're doing here.

You're doing research into actually anti-aging, right?

Yes. It's actually much harder to cure cancer

than to cure aging...Huh.

...it turns out.Right.

And we're now making little pills

that you could take after the age of 45, 50,

that would prevent you from getting many of the diseases of old age.

[Quinto] Dr. Sinclair and his team

believe they have isolated the cells that control how we age,

and they are conducting a variety of experiments

in an effort to extend life as long as possible,

and perhaps one day forever.

Currently they're trying to modify these cells in mice

with the eventual goal of controlling the aging process altogether.

[Dr. Sinclair] All right, come this way.

And the results of their most recent experiment

might surprise you.

So these mice are all siblings from the same litter.

They're the same age.

[Quinto] When this litter of mice were young,

scientists introduced a hormone into the test mouse's diet.

This turned on a crucial gene

that instructs the mouse's cells to age.

So you take a young mouse, and then you age it rapidly?

About twice as fast as normal.

What we're looking at there is cellular amnesia.

The cells in that mouse are forgetting what type of cells they are.

You'll see they have wrinkled skin, they have arthritis, cataracts.

[man] It's gray. It's losing hair.[Quinto] Right.

It's got a little bit of curvature of the spine.

It's lost weight.

Internally, their organs look old.

And even down to the cellular level, they look old.

Whereas these guys are the same age.

They're genetically identical

except for the one gene that we've modified to cut the DNA.

And these guys are nice and healthy and shiny and plump.

[Quinto] Wow. That's amazing.

I mean, it's so obvious. This one is younger-looking and shinier.

Yeah, this was one of those Hail Mary experiments

that actually worked once in a career.Wow.

It's easy to forget that they're brother and sister, isn't it?

So now the question is, can you teach those cells in that animal,

and in our bodies, to be young again?

We believe you can.

And that would truly be the fountain of youth.

We wouldn't get diseases of old age.Wow.

He's talking about people living to be 125, 135 years old,

and still feeling capable of engaging in physical activity

the way someone in their 40s or 50s might be able to.

That just changes the game altogether for humanity.

Does death then become less of a specter?

That world is coming.

If you look at what the world looks like a century from now,

there may be a time when living for hundreds of years is normal,

where you can expect to meet your distant descendants...

Right.and teach them everything

that went on last century and the previous century.

It is hard to wrap your mind around it.

I think it's dangerous to think that just because we live to 130 years old

that that life is gonna be any easier.

I don't know.

But certainly, it seems like we're gonna find out one way or another.

As promising as these advancements seem, some experts warn

that we may be risking more than we realize

when we try to extend life on earth

and avoid what comes next.

We might wonder whether we should try to live longer

even if we can.

If we can live forever,

there's a worry that a lot of human projects

might lose their meaning--

things like the pyramid.

The pyramid was built

because people wanted to continue to live longer.

Or Mozart's Requiem was written because there was death.

Right? And so, a lot of human achievements

might not exist if death wasn't inevitable.

[Quinto] For now,

death remains one of the most terrifying mysteries and motivators

of our human existence.

And while we can't live to be 130 years old just yet,

could a part of our physical bodies provide life

even when we die?

I'm about to find out.

I'm on a journey to understand what happens after we die,

but right now I wanna know

if we pass on to an afterlife,

what happens to our physical body?

Throughout history many cultures

have sought strange ways

to preserve the human body after death.

From the ancient Egyptians, who invented mummification

to prepare their bodies for the next life...

to the Soviets, whose uses of advanced embalming techniques

has allowed the remains

of their former dictator Vladimir Lenin

to lie on display since 1924.

But today modern technology not only allows us to preserve the physical body

but also to utilize it in unprecedented and often controversial ways

To find out how our bodies

may be able to provide life even after our death,

I'm visiting a state-of-the-art facility

in Phoenix, Arizona

that specializes in repurposing human bodies.

John Cover is the chief operation officer

of Research for Life,

a body donor organization.

So tell me just a little bit about what you do here.

[Cover] Primarily we're a tissue bank.

So what we'll do is, we'll intake the donors here,

and then we'll hold the different tissues

until they're needed by researchers.

For instance, if a neurosurgeon wants to practice removing an incurable brain tumor,

they're not gonna want the entire body.

So we're gonna go ahead and remove the tissues needed for each specialty.

There's your life after death.

The life of these dead bodies continues.

It goes on and gets spread out all over the world.

And that's pretty incredible.

While many view body donation as a noble final act by the deceased,

some others still have grave concerns about abuse and profiteering.

And in some cultures body donation is forbidden entirely.

In other countries, it is absolutely a no-no.Right.

For instance, in Muslim communities,

where you have to bury the body before sunset,

within 24 hours.Right. Uh-huh.

Some cultures, um, it's a matter of shame.Mm-hmm.

With so much controversy surrounding this field,

I want to find out if body donation

is truly a helpful way

to provide life to others,

or a morbid practice.

So this is the way to our laboratory.

Uh-huh.

Come on in.

So that is our removal service, one of them.

They will pick up the donors at the place of death

and bring them to our facility.

We were just standing there talking, and a body rolled through,

and that's when it kind of got real, in the sense of like,

oh, like, death waits for no one.

So, generally, how long after a person passes does the body arrive here?

Usually hours.

We try to get to our donors within hours, if we can,

to make the best use of the donor.Right.

So we'll gown up.Okay.

That way, you're protected when we go into this environment.

Yeah.

For corpses like this,

the next stop is the operating table

where they're divided into segments and sorted.

These are part of bodies that have already been processed.

[Cover] Correct.

And ultimately taken to the donor cooler,

which is where John is taking me.

So in terms of protecting ourselves, is it just a matter of the biohazard

of being around dead tissue?

Any time you're around human tissue,

you always assume that it'll transmit infection.

There's no such thing as safe human tissue.

So that goes like this?Correct.

This is our donor cooler. Let me know when you're ready to go.

[Quinto] Ready.

So this is where the donors first come in.

They will enter in here,

and then we will store them until such a time as we can get them assessed

and verify that they are suitable

for medical research and education.

This particular room can hold about 30 donors.

All donors are put into body bags

to make sure that they don't contaminate another donor,

in case we do find that they have an infectious disease.

Being in that cooler with dozens of recently deceased bodies around me

was definitely the weirdest.

It was like going to a morgue.

That experience got progressively more intense,

like nothing I've ever seen before.

[Cover] This is a working surgical suite.

But I want to know how exactly are these bodies being used

for medical research?

[Quinto] What's this?

[Cover] These are eyes--Wow.

...that we have recovered for anatomical study.

Yeah, they look creepy.

And this is a human brain

that is made available to a neurological institute.

They're going to practice surgical approaches.

So these guys are looking for new, innovative techniques

for incurable brain tumors,

strokes, uh, hemorrhages.

This donor is gonna help future donors that way.

Research for life was really a powerful experience.

There are hundreds if not thousands of people

benefitting from the work that's being done,

and I think that's a pretty noble thing

for the person who decides to donate their body to science.

And has this given you any deeper insight into what happens when we die?

Yes, as a Christian, I believe in an afterlife,

but I also believe that I have an obligation.

The death precedes what I do.

What I do is I try to give life,

a renewed life, a renewed sense of purpose for that donor and their family.

Right.

Why there are real ways

for our physical bodies to have a purpose

even after we pass on...

I still wonder if perhaps there is life

on the other side.

I'm ready to face this question head on

and find out the results of my experiment

in the Boston hotel with Gary Galka...

[Galka] You ask some questions.

What day is it? When did you die?

And we'll see what kind of results we get.

Okay.

...and whether it can deliver proof

about what happens when we die.

Hey, Gary, how are you? Hey, Zach.

So I understand that you have some discoveries

from our time together at the Omni Hotel.

Yeah, I do. I wanted you to listen to those yourself.

I'm gonna listen to them and see what I can hear.

[Quinto on recording] When did you die?

[electronic whoosh]

Let me hear it again.

When did you die?

What day is it?

[distorted speech]

What day is it?

It was Wednesday that we were there, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it was Wednesday.So crazy.

Wow.

I heard things that certainly sounded otherworldly.

That was weird and kind of unexpected.

The clearest thing I heard was the answer to "What day is it?"

That's considered a classic EVP.

A majority of the people would agree

that that would be the answer.Yeah.

Gary really went a long way

to helping me understand how this is possible.

But I didn't find it conclusive.

There's nothing completely definitive here

that makes me say like, "That is a spirit."

I don't know what that is.

I would certainly be curious to find out more about it.

At least it opened up your mind

to other opportunities

and other thought processes

that you're not accustomed to.

You agree to that right?Yeah.

I don't wanna dismiss what Gary is telling me

in terms of his relationship with his daughter,

but that is his experience of it.

I still think that there are a lot of unanswered questions,

and it's quite possible that I won't know

until that moment when I leave this world myself.

Death remains the ultimate destination

on our long journey through life

and one of the only certainties that we all must face.

As we marvel at the mysteries

of the great unknown

that await us beyond the grave,

stories of bright lights, spirits,

and the potential for an afterlife

continue to inspire and haunt our imaginations.

I, for one,

remain hopeful that a part of us

has the real potential to live on,

whether on this planet

or in some distant, unimaginable place.

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