All language subtitles for The UnXplained S05E02 1080p WEB h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
Sacred practices

that transition the dead

into the afterlife,

special coffins that prevent,

people from being buried alive,

and substances
that can bring the deceased

back from the grave.

For over 100,000 years,
humans have practiced

surprisingly similar methods
for laying the dead to rest.

Graves, tombs, cremations

are all considered
respectful ways to provide

the deceased
with a final resting place.

But, is it possible,
as many people believe,

that some of these practices
can preserve the soul

for eternity?

Or perhaps, even bring
the dead back to life?

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

♪ ♪

SHATNER:
It’s an inescapable truth
of human experience

that we’re all born,
we all live, and then one day

we all eventually die.

For many cultures, the proper
way to honor the deceased

is to provide their body
with a permanent resting place

by using the sacred practice
of burial.

65 million people
die every year.

And depending on where they die,
depending on what they believe,

different cultures,
different religions,

bury people in different ways.

However, all of these burials,

regardless of where they occur,
have a few things in common.

Perhaps the most important is
you don’t mess with the dead.

Whether you believe
in Heaven and Hell or not,

whether you believe in a god
or not, there’s something about

honoring the deceased, that is
common throughout history.

Our earliest burials
are about 100,000 years old.

Probably some of the initial
reasons for burying the dead

weren’t about ritual religion,
but practicality.

We find a lot of early humans
buried in caves,

places where people
were actually living.

So, burying them as a way
to mark territory.

This is where my ancestors
are buried.

JOSEPH LAYCOCK:
A lot of burial traditions
revolve around the idea

that this is not just
decaying flesh.

This is a person. This is
someone whose life mattered.

And this goes all the way back
to the Stone Age,

where basically cave people
have been bound

in the fetal position and buried

with tools that they
would’ve used in life.

So, these traditions are really
as old as humankind.

SHATNER:
Over the course of
tens of thousands of years,

burial practices
started to reflect

the principles
of organized religion.

Ancient cultures
around the world believed

that a proper burial
involved showing respect,

not just for
a dead person’s body,

but also for their soul.

In antiquity,
there were very specific rites

that were used to help
the deceased’s soul

navigate its way
into the afterlife.

For instance, in ancient Egypt,
there was the famous

Book of the Dead,
which is essentially

a set of CliffsNotes

that helps
the deceased’s soul navigate

this series of tests
and gates and booby traps

that are set to try
to keep the soul

from entering
into the afterlife.

The ancient Greeks believed
that the spirit

left the body as a breath
of air.

And it was important
to get the body itself

to the afterlife
as quickly as possible

to reunite with the spirit.

To that end, they were often
buried with a coin in the mouth

as payment to Charon,

the ferryman
over the river Styx,

to aid them on their journey

and help them
locate their spirit.

SHATNER:
Although many ancient
European societies

like the Greeks believed
in burying the dead,

oftentimes, they did not lay out
individual graves with nice,

neat headstones for each body,
like we do today.

KEITH EGGENER:
Historically speaking,
in Europe,

people of all classes
were typically buried in,

uh, mass graves.

It was really only the people
of the highest levels

of the aristocracy,

who would receive
any kind of individual burial

and individual marker
of their death.

However, eventually, as we enter
into the early modern age,

the 1400s-1500s and forward,
increasingly, people

want to be remembered.

Permanent burial for individuals

of even the
non-aristocratic classes

becomes increasingly common,

and we see the rise
of gravestones.

SHATNER:
As individual graves became
more common for the masses

European and American
communities in the 19th century

created new,
elaborate burial places

that were located far away from
churches and residential areas.

They were referred
to as garden cemeteries.

Garden cemeteries are
an interesting development.

They come in, at least
in the American context,

in about the 1830s.

They were a different place,
a place outside of the city.

They have their own necropolis

that we can visit
through big elaborate gates.

EGGENER:
These cemeteries, such as
Mount Auburn in Cambridge,

Laurel Hill in Philadelphia,

Greenwood in Brooklyn,
and many others,

were much larger than
the church burial grounds.

They were also landscaped, um,
in a picturesque fashion,

with winding paths and hills

and all sorts
of varied plantings.

So, you’re not thinking
of the oblivion of the grave,

but rather,
you’re thinking of the departed

as resting peacefully,

surrounded by beautiful flowers
and those who love them.

Death became widely seen
as a gentle sleep.

SHATNER:
Today, it is estimated
that there are 144,000

cemeteries in the United States,

in which over one million people
are buried every single year.

Since the practice of burial
is thousands of years old,

perhaps it’s not surprising
that we have inherited

a number of superstitions about

how this ritual
should be performed.

There is a superstition
of carrying the body

out of the house feet first.

And the idea was that, if you
carry the body out headfirst,

the corpse gets
this backward glance,

and that glance could
maybe invite someone

to come with the deceased
into the afterlife.

Another is
you can’t take the body

in the family car,
you have to hire a hearse.

The hearse can’t stop
on the way to the cemetery,

because if it stops,
the house where it stops

could perhaps get some
of that death energy.

There’s a superstition of having
pallbearers wear gloves.

And this is the same logic
that there could be some sort of

lingering death energy
on the casket,

and, if you have gloves,

that will give you
some protection from it.

All people are driven
to ritualize

the process of death.

So, when we think about
what are these rites and rituals

doing for us,

making sure that certain rules
are observed

gives us some element of control

in a realm that is,
by definition, uncontrollable.

(crowd chanting)

SHATNER:
Billions of people
all over the world believe

that sacred rites and traditions

are the proper way to prepare a
person’s soul for the afterlife.

But on the other hand,
throughout history,

there have also been customs
that were intended,

not to benefit the soul
of the deceased,

but rather to harm it.

These practices are referred to
as deviant burials.

The word "deviant burial"
comes from archaeology.

When archaeologists
look at dead people,

if someone has been buried
in a way

that is different
from everyone else,

that’s known
as a deviant burial.

For example,
in this village in Poland,

archaeologists discovered
about six buried corpses

where there were sickles
that had been placed

over the neck
or over the pelvis

with the logic seeming to be,
if this corpse tries to get up,

it will be cut with iron.

And one possibility
is that these people

did something really bad
while they were alive.

They practiced
black magic or murder.

And the idea is that, if we can
basically mutilate their body,

this will stop them from
entering into the afterlife.

It’s a little unnerving to think
that an improper burial

could actually prevent
someone’s soul

from reaching the afterlife.

But perhaps even more concerning
is a burial that’s gone wrong

because the deceased
was actually buried alive.

SHATNER:
All over the world,

human beings clearly
go to great lengths

to ensure that the dead are
buried in a respectful manner.

But on the other hand,
throughout history,

people also took steps to
determine whether or not someone

was actually ready
to be laid to rest

in order to prevent people
from being

buried alive.

DONNELLY:
The fear of being buried alive
was a fairly common fear

up until 20th century
medical practices meant

fewer people were,
in fact, buried alive.

It was most common
in 18th and 19th century

Europe and America,

mostly due
to the medical practices

and the burial practices
at the time.

This was when medical diagnoses
could get things wrong,

and people were,
in fact, buried alive,

and stories of that
became sensationalized,

and therefore,
the panic would spread.

LAYCOCK:
In the 19th century,
the great fear

of being buried alive

was partly because
this was the age of cholera.

Cholera causes severe diarrhea,

which can deplete all
the electrolytes in your body

and, in extreme cases,
can induce a coma.

So, sometimes
people appear dead,

and they’re actually in this
sort of vegetative state,

and they can come out of it.

But if you bury them,
then you’ve buried them alive,

and that is a terrible death.

SHATNER:
Historically,
the thought of being trapped

in a wooden box, beneath
thousands of pounds of dirt,

with no possibility of escape,
was so widespread,

that this fear
was actually given a name.

It’s called taphophobia.

Taphophobia is the idea
of simply just the fear

of being buried alive.

Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote about

premature burial was terrified
of being buried alive.

Frédéric Chopin, the composer,

wanted to be stabbed
in the heart and bled out

to make sure that he was dead

when doctors believed
that he was.

And even George Washington was
so afraid of being buried alive

that he had written in his will
that his body had to remain

in bed for three days
after they thought he was dead

to make sure
that he didn’t come back.

EGGENER:
It was estimated by the 1890s

that some two percent of people
being buried were buried alive.

Now, this is a gross
exaggeration, no doubt.

But it was believed at the time,

enough so that
organizations like

the London Association for the
Prevention of Premature Burial

was founded in 1896.

And they lobbied parliament
for greater diligence

on the part of doctors
to make sure

that doctors
were verifying death.

SHATNER:
Despite doctors’ best efforts,

it was simply difficult
at the time

to determine whether a person
was alive or dead.

And so, in order
to ease people’s minds,

authorities in Europe were
forced to take drastic measures.

Within this storied city lies
the Vienna Central Cemetery,

the second largest cemetery
in the entire world.

In the heart of the cemetery,
stands a small building

that, today, houses a museum.

But, in the 19th century,
it was referred to

as a Leichenhaus.

The Leichenhaus was
a kind of mortuary where

corpses were kept for a period,
typically about three days,

and watched over by attendants

to make sure that
a person was truly dead

and wouldn’t be buried alive
in a state of coma or catalepsy.

SHATNER: In modern times,
it may sound a little disturbing

to hear that doctors
once stabbed their patients

in order to determine
whether they were alive or dead.

But the truth is
that the hysteria

about being buried alive
was so prevalent

that an entire industry sprang
up to help calm such fears

by producing
bizarre contraptions

that were known as
safety coffins.

LAYCOCK:
If you were afraid
of being buried alive,

the solution
was the safety coffin.

And this began very simply
with a bell

tied to a string that went down
under the earth into the coffin.

And, if you were buried alive,
and you woke up in a coffin,

you could pull that string,
the bell would ring, and

hopefully, somebody would
hear it and come dig you out.

And this tradition
is where we get

the expression
"saved by the bell."

And if you had more money,
safety coffins

could get more elaborate.

They could add air tubes,

they could add windows,
so you would have some lights

inside the-the coffin.

And there were even cases
of people buried

with a key in their pocket,
so they could unlock

the casket from the inside
if-if this happens.

EGGENER:
There were loads
of patents taken up

for these safety coffins.

And they would
include devices like

little flags
that could be raised.

Sometimes
safety coffins included

food or water,
they would have breathing tubes,

they might even
include periscopes.

One of the best-known
ones really

belonged to a doctor named
Timothy Clark from Vermont.

He came up with his own
safety coffin device.

He had a-a set
of stone stairs installed

next to his grave
that could be opened up

by a concrete block
that was sitting beside it.

That way anyone could get down
to rescue him

if he needed to be rescued.

But the real kicker
to the whole thing

was that he had
a glass window installed

directly over his face,
set into the stone.

However, he died in 1893,

and the doctors
did not make a mistake.

He really was dead.

SHATNER:
Safety coffins may seem
like a quaint fad

from a bygone era that has
no relevance in our world today.

But believe it or not,

there have been some
recent cases in which people

appear to have been
mistakenly buried alive.

Being buried alive
is very, very rare, uh,

at least in our own time,

but it does still
occasionally happen.

As recently as 2018,
there was a case in Brazil

where a woman woke up
in her grave and is thought

to have survived
for 11 days there.

TAYLOR:
Being buried alive doesn’t
happen nearly as often

as it used to, but,

if you think about it,
waking up in a coffin

would be probably one
of the most terrifying things

that could ever happen to you.

The thought of being
buried alive is like

something out of a nightmare.

But there’s another scenario
that many might find

just as disturbing.

It’s a method
of preserving the deceased

that takes embalming
to the extreme.

SHATNER:
On the morning after
the bloodiest battle

of the Civil War,
thousands of dead soldiers

lay strewn across
the blood-soaked battlefield.

The Union Army brings
the remains of the deceased

back to their field hospital
at Camp Letterman.

But curiously, there is one
tent in which bodies are

not prepared for burial,
but rather

injected with chemicals
to stop them from decaying,

a process that is known
as embalming.

MONICA TORRES:
The history of modern embalming

began during the Civil War when

surgeons at the time
were able to embalm soldiers to

be able to have them delivered
back to their families.

The process of embalming

requires the embalmer
to arterially

inject a preservative,
such as formaldehyde.

So, the bodies were embalmed and
sent home for their loved ones.

SHATNER: All told,
it is estimated that some

40,000 soldiers were embalmed
during the Civil War.

The practice
became so widespread,

that it caught the attention
of U.S. President

Abraham Lincoln.

TORRES:
President Lincoln
was so impressed

by the embalming process that

he himself chose
and wanted to be embalmed

and was actually embalmed

and taken on a tour across
the United States on a train.

And he is actually
the one who made it

pretty popular here in America,

created a whole
American tradition

that is still
being practiced today.

SHATNER:
Today, experts estimate
that 50% of all corpses

in the United States
undergo some sort of embalming

so that the body can be viewed

during mourning rituals.

And it begs the question,

why do human beings
take these steps to preserve

the remains of the dead?

The fact that we pump the body
full of chemicals

and paint it with makeup and
act like they’re just asleep,

not actually dead
is about processing grief

and creating social,
emotional space

that’s deemed appropriate

for people to have outward
expressions of that grief.

It’s celebrating life.

SHATNER:
Most people are familiar

with commonly used
embalming practices.

But what’s less well-known,
is that there have been

some strange cases
in recent history

in which embalming was used
to preserve the deceased,

not for days or weeks,
but rather

for decades.

At 8:25 p.m., activity
throughout this bustling city

came to an abrupt halt

when government officials
interrupted radio broadcasts

to announce the death of

Argentina’s First Lady,
Eva Perón.

Or, as she was more
affectionately known,

Evita.

SHATNER:
Evita’s casket
drew so many mourners,

that the funeral lasted
for an astonishing 16 days.

But what’s even more remarkable,
is that Evita’s corpse

maintained an uncanny, lifelike
appearance the entire time

because her husband,
President Juan Perón,

had gone
to extraordinary lengths

to keep her beauty intact

by hiring a renowned embalmer

known as Dr. Pedro Ara.

SHATNER:
Evita’s burial monument
was never built because

on September 19th, 1955

Juan Perón was overthrown
in a military coup,

and Argentina’s
new government chose

to hide Evita’s embalmed body
from the public.

The location of Evita’s remains
was a mystery for 16 years,

until it was revealed in 1971
that the Argentinian government

had secretly buried Evita
in Milan, Italy in 1955.

After this discovery,
Evita’s remains were exhumed

and brought to Spain, where
Juan Perón was living in exile.

SHATNER:
Juan Perón eventually
returned to Argentina,

and at long last,
on October 22, 1976,

more than 20 years
after her death,

Evita Perón was finally
laid to rest in a family crypt

at Recoleta Cemetery
in Buenos Aires.

While the saga
of Evita’s embalming

is certainly a bizarre
and unusual tale,

in recent years, a number
of people have undergone

a similarly radical form
of preservation

that is referred to
as extreme embalming.

Extreme embalming
is like it sounds like,

embalming individuals,
but taking it to a place

beyond just having them lay
in repose in a coffin

and actually recreating
the sort of poses

they might have found
themselves in in life.

And this allows
their family members

and loved ones to actually
take photos with them

and act like they’re people
who are still alive.

TAYLOR:
Extreme embalming could be
a lot of different things.

It’s as varied
as the person who died.

They will put them
in a situation

of-of what they loved
during life.

They might be reading a book,
playing music, driving a car.

And when their loved ones come
to see them for the last time,

they remember them
how they were.

Extreme embalming
is trying to preserve

that last moment in time before
that person was gone forever.

The art of extreme embalming
offers the living

a way to hold on to
their deceased loved ones

a while longer.

But is there a way to,
not just preserve the body,

but actually bring
the dead back to life?

Well, according to the practices
of Haitian voodoo,

there may be a way to do it,
but there’s a catch.

It will cost you

your soul.

SHATNER:
In this small village,

Angelina Narcisse
was going about her day,

when she was approached by a man
claiming to be her brother,

Clairvius.

It may sound like
a heartwarming tale of reunion,

but there was just one problem.

Clairvius Narcisse
had been dead and buried

for nearly 20 years.

DONNELLY:
Clairvius was a Haitian man
born in 1922.

In the year 1962,

he went to, uh, a hospital.

His symptoms had been
a severe fever,

fatigue, and he’d been
coughing up blood.

His heart stopped,
and he stopped breathing,

and was declared dead
and buried.

20 years later,
a man claiming to be Clairvius

showed up at his village
and approached his family.

In many respects,
his story did check out.

He bared a physical resemblance
to the deceased.

He went by a nickname
that was only known to him

and his sister when they
were very little kids.

And so, he was able
to relate certain details

of his former life
that seemed to add up.

SHATNER:
But if Clairvius Narcisse
died and was buried,

then how on earth was he alive
and able to track down

his sister
almost 20 years later?

Well, according to Clairvius,
the reason he was not lying dead

in his grave,
was that a voodoo priest

had transformed him
into a zombie.

In Haiti,
a zombie is an individual

who’s had their soul
stolen by sorcery

causing them to be sort of flung
into a perpetual, uh, place

of purgatory through this
incredible transition

of death, rebirth,
and return to the living,

induced by the folk poison
known as a Pudzombie.

It was a plethora
of ingredients,

including various plants

and the toxin from a fish.

It selectively blocks
sodium channels and nerves,

bringing on paralysis
until the moment of death.

And yet, critically,
if you get through that,

you have nothing to worry about.

This fascinating poison

had made people
appear to be dead.

According to Clairvius, um,

he had been paralyzed
by a voodoo priest.

This was a result
of being drugged, um,

and this paste mixture
that he was forced to consume

kept him in this
death-like toper.

Narcisse is buried,

and the priest then dug him up
from his grave

and enslaved him on a sugarcane
plantation for 20 years.

DAVIS:
From the Haitian point of view,
the fate of a zombie is said

to become an indentured servant.

And losing your soul,
losing your identity,

your personal autonomy,

combined to make this
a fate worse than death.

SHATNER:
The story of Clairvius Narcisse
being buried and then revived

as an un-dead zombie
made headlines

around the world.

Numerous experts
investigated the case

in hopes of shedding light
on what exactly took place.

The first question on everyone’s
mind was whether Clairvius

had only appeared to be dead
because he was drugged,

or if there was some truth

to the idea
that he actually died

and was then revived
by the power of voodoo.

What made the case
of Narcisse unique

was one single thing,
he had been pronounced dead

in an American-directed
philanthropic institution,

the Schweitzer Hospital.

And his family members
had witnessed the death

and authenticated it
at the time.

So, all these lines of evidence
led scientists to go public

in the 1980s,

saying they felt
they had found the first

medically verifiable instance
of zombification.

SHATNER:
There are many theories as to
what caused Clairvius Narcisse

to be declared dead and then
seemingly brought back to life.

Ultimately, what happened to him
remains a mystery,

but many Haitians are convinced

that Clairvius did, in fact,
rise from the grave.

And for some,
his story is a reminder

that the distinction
between the living and the dead

may not be as clear-cut
as we commonly think.

Narcisse never doubted
that he’d become a zombie.

In Haiti,
a zombie is a complete pariah

who walks the edge
between life and death

and will do so for
the rest of their existence.

And so, this idea that a person

could be brought back to life

fills all of us with mystery
and trepidation and dread.

Can a combination of fish toxin
and poisonous plants

actually transform the recently
deceased into an undead slave?

(scoffs)
It may sound far-fetched,

but the truth is that,
for centuries,

some people have believed
in the possibility

of what is known as reanimation.

And there are many experts
who claim that, someday soon,

modern medicine
will finally figure out

how to bring back the dead.

SHATNER: Scientists
at the University of Utah

publish a study
in the journal Nature

announcing the results
of an extraordinary experiment.

The team took eye cells
from a deceased person

and then,
using electrical stimulation,

they reanimated the dead cells

and brought them back to life.

Experiments like this highlight
the fact that, uh, death

is not always absolute
when it comes to understanding

what is happening in this field
of the biology of death.

Death is still defined,

per what is known as the Harvard
ad hoc brain death definition,

as irreversible coma.

But will death be irreversible
for the foreseeable future?

Not at all.

SHATNER: It seems that,
after centuries of using

sacred rites to show reverence
for the deceased,

humanity may be on the cusp
of harnessing modern technology

to make death itself
a thing of the past.

While that may seem like a
bizarre possibility to consider,

the truth is that, since
the 19th century, many people

have tried to use science
to reanimate the dead,

rather than perform rituals
to honor them.

One of the first
of these scientists

was an Italian doctor
named Giovanni Aldini.

Giovanni Aldini used a-a battery
to make frog legs twitch

and then moved on to, um, sheep
and pig and cow and ox.

But, naturally, he wanted to see

what it would do
to human tissue.

He managed to acquire a body,
and he hooked up his battery

and was able to make, uh,
the facial muscles contort.

The left eye opened,
and it even took a deep breath.

As it happens,
a friend of Aldini’s

had a daughter by the name
of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin,

who remembered the story
and was inspired by it.

And years later, she would write
the novel Frankenstein

under her married name,
Mary Shelley.

SHATNER:
Published in 1818,
Mary Shelley’s seminal novel

tells the story of
Dr. Victor Frankenstein,

who develops a method
to restore life to dead matter.

He assembles a human
from various body parts,

but, after bringing it to life,
he’s horrified by his creation.

McNEILL:
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

does a very
interesting thing because

we get our first incarnation
of a mad scientist,

someone going too far,

trying to act as a god

in ways that maybe
shouldn’t be done,

and we get
this resulting monster.

SHATNER:
You would think
that the notoriety

of Dr. Frankenstein
and his monstrous creation

would dissuade scientists

from trying to tamper
with corpses,

but in the 1920s and ’30s,

a Soviet scientist named
Sergei Brukhonenko

conducted a series
of grisly experiments

that seemed to ignore
the warnings

of Mary Shelley’s novel.

Sergei Brukhonenko
is maybe most famous for

the process by which dogs,

those are the main
experimental animals,

were drained of blood,

all the blood was taken out,
and they died.

Then, the autojektor
put the oxygenated blood

back into the dog,
and it came back to life.

PASTOR:
Sergei Brukhonenko
set the stage for what

we know as modern-day
heart and lung machines

that we use nowadays,
and which potentially

will use in the future for doing
more ambitious research.

There’s a lot of cutting-edge
research out there

that may have a bit
of a unpalatable feel to many.

We’re talking about
the ability to regrow limbs,

regrow major parts of the heart,
and, of course,

significant parts of the brain,
as a way to reanimate life.

SHATNER:
But if and when humanity
is finally able

to reverse death,
what will be the consequences?

Is it really
a good idea to break

with thousands of years
of tradition,

by not allowing the dead
to rest in peace?

We have entered an era
where the questions

of what science can do
versus what science should do

is especially poignant.

Funerary rites
are explicitly stated

to be about shepherding the soul

from life into death.

But if a body is reanimated,

where does the soul go?

It changes how we understand

the real pragmatics of death.

Is it possible that science
will one day allow us

to create living people out of
dead people’s body parts?

The notion of millions of actual
Frankenstein monsters

roaming the streets is certainly
difficult to fathom.

But, as it turns out,
cemeteries are getting so full,

they’re actually
running out of space,

and this has led to a host
of new and strange methods

for interring the dead.

SHATNER:
The South Korean government
passes a controversial law

declaring that people
can remain buried

for only 60 years.

After 60 years,

their body must be exhumed
and disposed of

in an environmentally friendly
manner.

The idea of so-called
"temporary burials"

may sound shocking,
but the fact is

graveyard space
has been dwindling

all around the world
for decades.

Today, in most countries
in the world

where burial is still practiced,

people are buried
for a-a temporary period.

You, in effect,
lease a grave site,

and then, eventually,
your remains are removed.

This is, in large part,
a response to

the fact that there’s
a lot of people on Earth--

over seven billion now--

and we’re still dying,
as we always have.

Eventually, we run out of land,

and there’s no more space
for burial.

And so, burial is becoming
less and less common.

Cremation has become
more and more popular, uh,

in many parts of the world.

SHATNER:
In the last 65 years,

cremations have risen
in the United States

by over 1,000%.

In fact, since 2015,
more than half of all Americans

who passed away chose to have
their remains cremated.

And many people are
experimenting with new ways

to handle their ashes.

In the past,
when someone was cremated,

you put all of the ashes
in the urn.

And yet, today, there are
all kinds of alternatives.

People want to have
their ashes spread

at all their favorite places.

So, the body is spread out.

LAYCOCK:
More recently,
as far as what people can do

with those cremains,

you can have your ashes
turned into a diamond.

In Korea, there is a company
that turns your cremains

into a jar of pellets
that look a bit like caviar.

There have been people
having their ashes

mixed with concrete
and dumped in the ocean

where they can become
part of a coral reef.

There’s so many things
that you can do with cremains.

One of the strangest things
that I’ve seen

in my career as an embalmer
and mortician

is I did have someone request

that I put their loved one’s

cremated remains into buckshot,

like shells,
and they wanted to be shot.

SHATNER:
Being shot from a gun
certainly makes the notion

of a traditional burial
feel rather mundane.

However, one thing
most experts agree on is that,

in the final analysis,
it ultimately doesn’t matter

how we say farewell
to a person and their remains.

Rather, it’s what we say

that is of far greater
importance.

These are moments
that would happen biologically

without human interference,

but we cluster our rituals
and our beliefs around them.

And following these guidelines

tells us one
very important thing,

this person’s still here.

If they weren’t still here,
if some element of them,

their soul, their spirit
weren’t still here,

we wouldn’t need
to do these things.

So, the fact that we do them

helps remind us that there’s
still something of that person.

So, would you like your body
to be transformed

into a piece of jewelry?

Or planted with a tree?

It may sound unusual,
but then again,

how can we really say
for certain

what is or is not
a proper burial?

There’s no doubt
technology will play a role

in how we are laid
to rest in the future,

or perhaps it’ll be
hard drives and holograms

that will allow us
to live forever.

It’s an interesting notion,
but, for now, it remains

unexplained.

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