All language subtitles for The.UnXplained.Special.Presentation.S01E25.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

SHATNER:
A network of tunnels called
the Empire of the Dead.

A legion of clay warriors

standing guard for eternity.

And ancient rituals
that guide the soul

into the afterlife.

Throughout human history,

cultures around the world
have created numerous ways

of honoring those
who have passed away.

From traditional burials
and cremations

to the art of mummification,

sacred rituals are used
to show reverence

and respect for the dead.

But what happens if these
practices are not followed?

Is it possible that mishandling
the remains of the deceased

can actually curse the living?

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

♪ ♪

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.

ROBERT CARGILL:
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 or religion
but practicality.

We find a lot of early humans
buried in caves--

places where people
were actually living.

So burying them was 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 have 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.

CARGILL:
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.

MARK DONNELLY:
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

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 1400, 1500s and forward,

increasingly,
people want to be remembered.

Permanent burial for individuals

of even
the nonaristocratic 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.

DONNELLY:
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
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.

LAYCOCK:
There is a superstition of

carrying the body out
of the house feetfirst.

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.

(singing)

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.

LAYCOCK:
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.

SHATNER:
It's unsettling to think
that desecrating human remains

could doom a person's soul
in the afterlife.

Which is why, for thousands
of years, people have gone

to great lengths to prevent
such violations from happening.

Like in the case
of a Chinese emperor

whose royal tomb was protected

by thousands of fierce
terra-cotta warriors.

SHATNER:
Here in this rugged,
mountainous region

bordering the Gobi Desert,

two brothers begin digging
a well on their family farm.

But instead of water,
their shovels reveal

a life-sized statue
of a soldier.

When archeologists
later excavate the site,

they unearth thousands
of these sculptures

known as
the terra-cotta warriors,

each with remarkably
realistic facial expressions.

Every now and then,
there's a game-changing moment

in archaeological history.

This is a discovery
of that magnitude

because, as time went on,

it became clear that this
wasn't just a few pots.

It was actually
a vast underground army

of 6,000 soldiers
standing to attention.

SHATNER:
These incredibly
lifelike statues

are actually part of a massive
underground tomb complex

called the Mausoleum
of the First Qin Emperor.

The mausoleum covers an area
of nearly four miles

and contains numerous
underground palaces and chambers

that surround a tomb mound
at the center of the complex.

The tomb mound itself
is quite unassuming.

It is sort of a pyramid-shaped,
but it's made of earth.

And these days,
it's covered with trees,

so it's all very green,

but when it was
originally built,

it would've supported
some large structures,

some large temple structures.

So, the tomb complex is far away

from the place
where they'd discovered

the terra-cotta warriors.

And everyone
doesn't really understand,

initially, how they can be
part of the same thing.

The sheer size of the complex
is unprecedented.

It's an amazing sight.

The scope of this
is hard to describe.

There's chariots.
There's horses.

There's an entire labyrinthine
complex that exists,

and all of it intentionally
kept underground

in what is literally
an underworld.

SHATNER:
This vast tomb complex was built
in the third century BC

to be the final resting place
for Qin Shi Huang,

the first emperor
of a unified China.

Most of the ancient tombs
in China

are statements of who you were.

So, what you get with this tomb
is a huge statement

of how important this man was.

The amazing thing
about his reign

is it only lasted 11 years,

but in that time,
he completely transformed China

by making it one unified whole.

Even the name "China"
seems to derive

from the name of his state, Qin.

So this is a guy
who was unprecedented.

He thought of himself
as the ruler of the known world.

DOMINIC STEAVU:
As soon as he came to power,
he started building

this tomb complex
as a way of transporting

what he had acquired
and what he had accomplished

in the living world
into the afterlife,

into the world of immortals,
and that included

material things, like treasures
and vast, untold riches.

SHATNER:
The pyramid-shaped,
artificial mound at the center

of the complex is 250 feet tall.

Archaeologists believe
that underneath this mound

is a chamber containing
Emperor Qin's tomb.

According to
ancient Chinese writings,

every detail of this chamber

was designed to perfectly mirror
the emperor's kingdom.

There's a very elaborate passage
that vividly describes

how the tomb was designed

from the Records
of the Grand Historian

by Szuma Chien.

The main feature was
a small scale representation

of the Chinese empire
at the time,

and so it had all the waterways
and the rivers and oceans

and geographical features
that were duplicated

on a small scale.

There is this sense
in Chinese society,

going right back to pre-history,
that, when people die,

they kind of switch
to another plane of existence,

and life goes on for them there.

So, the coffin
of the first emperor

sits in the center of a map
of the known world,

and so then, the towns
are these little jewels

and the roads are gold.

And then above him,
you have a ceiling

that has the constellations

in the sky
because the constellations

are supposedly reflected
by the world on the ground.

So, you have heaven and Earth
and the emperor in the middle,

and it's all picked out
in precious metals.

SHATNER:
To date,
the central burial mound

has only been
partially excavated

because archaeologists
believe that,

according to historical records,

it may be too hazardous
to uncover.

STEAVU:
According to
the grand historian,

the tomb itself is highly
contaminated with mercury.

The rivers and oceans
were represented

by flowing mercury.

And this mercury was fed

through a very complex
drainage system

and was mechanically activated

so that it
permanently circulated.

CLEMENTS:
In ancient China,

mercury was also believed to be,

one of the substances

that could help somebody
achieve immortality.

And it just so happens
that, since 1981,

we've known that there are
very high concentrations

of mercury in the soil
around the grave mound.

STEAVU:
Because the soil around the tomb
has high levels of mercury,

archaeologists are reticent
about opening up the tomb.

There's a concern
they could expose

the local populations
to mercury poisoning.

And that it would lead
to a large amount

of the artifacts being damaged
or lost irretrievably.

SHATNER:
Will archaeologists
ever be able to safely open

the tomb of
Emperor Qin Shi Huang?

No one is certain.

But there are those who believe
the emperor's body

was never located
in the tomb's burial chamber

in the first place.

CLEMENTS:
In Chinese history books,
it says that the emperor

was buried at Mount Li,
but it's not clear if that meant

in the mountain or in
a grave mound near the mountain.

And this is important
because, in the Middle Ages,

there was a historian
who suggested that, actually,

the emperor was buried in a
jade mine in a mountain nearby.

So, it's very possible
that the tomb mound itself

is a decoy.
That he's not there at all.

And if they start digging there,

they'll be digging
in the wrong place.

One big hanging question
that we're still left with is,

of course, what else is there?

We've only uncovered
part of this tomb.

So, much of it still
has not been revealed.

And who knows if it
will ever be discovered.

SHATNER:
More than two million people
live and work

in this 41 square mile
metropolis.

And although Paris
is one of the world's

most instantly
recognizable cities,

just below the surface
of the City of Light

lurks a mysterious darkness.

A centuries-old labyrinth
of tunnels that contains

the bones of millions of bodies.

The Paris Catacombs.

JEREMIAH:
When you walk in there,
you will see bones stacked.

They're everywhere.

You'll have thigh bones
stacked up in places.

You'll have skulls stacked
in other places.

It's almost like
a warehouse of human bones.

LACY:
We don't know which bone
goes with which.

Sometimes, they're
just piled up, but sometimes

it's almost a decoration,
where they put them.

In some cases,
they're more architecturally

or artistically placed.

JONATHAN YOUNG:
There are,
lined along the walls,

thousands of skeletons,

some with bits of clothing
hanging off of them.

It's a whole network
of tunnels, really.

There's about a mile of it
that's open to visitors,

and you can see
some of these places.

SHATNER:
Over the main entrance
to the Paris Catacombs,

there is carved a sign,
which, when translated reads,

"Stop! This is the Empire
of the Dead."

According to some estimates,
the Paris Catacombs

hold the bones of more than
six million people.

But why did Parisians
decide to stack

all these bones together
in the first place?

LACY:
In Paris,
you had people being buried

in a traditional sense
in a graveyard,

but those are finite locations.

And they started
running out of space.

So, if that is the case,
after a certain amount of time,

individuals are gonna
get dug back up

to create space for new burials,

and you have to do something
with those bones.

So, they started to
utilize catacombs as a way

to relocate those bones.

THOMPSON:
In the Parisian Catacombs,
very often,

bones have been rearranged,

made into even sculptural
sort of forms.

In many ways,
this conflicts with that,

Christian idea
of keeping the body together.

PAUL KOUDOUNARIS:
The one thing most funeral
practices have in the world

is some kind of respect
for one's ancestor

or some kind of feeling
that this is one last act

of charity that needs
to be completed

for the soul
to move on properly.

On the other hand,
the Paris Catacombs

was not a sacred site.

They were gonna get rid
of the old bones, and they don't

want to have
this problem again.

I would question whether the
Paris Catacombs are respectful

to the dead or not.

SHATNER:
Did the builders
of the Paris Catacombs

desecrate the souls of the dead

by moving their bones
from cemeteries

to the dark tunnels
beneath the city?

There are many
who believe the answer is yes.

And there is
a local legend which says

that moving the bones
of so many deceased people

unleashed a dark
and malevolent force

that still haunts the catacombs.

And it is believed
that if you're there

in the hours of darkness,

after midnight,

that you hear whispers coming

from the spirits
of the skeletons

drawing you deeper and deeper
and deeper into the catacombs,

where you get so lost,
you will never get out.

YOUNG:
The system of tunnels
is really elaborate.

You can get turned around
down there and get lost.

There's a legend
in the city of Paris

that there was a doorman

at a hospital
named Philibert Aspairt,

and he went on an errand
down a staircase.

One rumor is that he was going
to the wine cellar

to get a certain cognac.
We don't know.

But there are various points of
entry into the Paris Catacombs,

and, apparently, he went
down the wrong staircase.

And he got himself in there
and turned around and lost

and never came out

and died in there.

And they didn't find his body
for 11 years.

So they buried him right there
in 1804.

KOUDOUNARIS:
The Paris Catacombs really
were designed to be a spectacle

and a tourist attraction.

You know, they were not designed
to have a sacred function.

You didn't go down in there
and pray.

They designed it to be
a famous macabre site.

And the whole point of it was,
like, you know,

you look in this room
and you cannot tell

a king from a pauper.

You cannot tell
the wise man from the fool.

Death is this great leveler.

Understanding
that aspect of death

is an incentive to live right.

Did the relocation
of millions of human skeletons

into the Paris Catacombs
unleash a sinister curse?

It's a chilling thought.

But perhaps what's
even more bizarre

is the fate
of many Catholic saints

whose bodies
have been miraculously preserved

for all eternity.

♪ ♪

SHATNER: Cologne, Germany.

Near the center
of this ancient city

rise the soaring twin spires
of the Cologne Cathedral.

Every day,
more than 20,000 people flock

through its arched doors

to visit one of Catholicism's
most important sites:

the Tomb of the Three Kings.

Those who pray
at this ancient shrine believe

that they will be
divinely favored,

because it contains the bones
of the three biblical wise men

who visited Jesus
shortly after his birth

and whom the Catholic Church
considers to be saints.

JEREMIAH:
After death,
a lot of the so-called saints

in Catholic Christianity--

their body parts
were distributed.

And the reason for that
was there was this idea

that they were
a source of divine power

that could affect people,

that could affect miracles.

SHATNER:
For the faithful,
being in the presence

of even a tiny portion
of a holy figure's body

is a powerful reminder

of God's promise
of eternal life in heaven.

So, imagine how they must feel

when in the presence of not
merely the body parts of a saint

but the entire body of one,

like in the case of the remains
of St. Bernadette of Lourdes,

which lie perfectly preserved
in a chapel in France

more than a century
after her death.

ELIZABETH HARPER:
St. Bernadette

was born in France in 1844,

and she saw an apparition
of the Virgin Mary 18 times.

And it started when she was 14.

The spring that St. Bernadette
saw the Virgin Mary

is now a point of healing
for many people,

and many people go to Lourdes
just to obtain the water.

JEREMIAH:
St. Bernadette ended up dying
in 1879 of tuberculosis,

and the Church decided

that her claim that she visited
with the Virgin Mary

in Lourdes, France,

was trustworthy
and decided to make her a saint.

And as such,
they had to remove her body

from the current tomb,
identify it

and then relocate it closer
to the church.

And when they were doing that,
they found out

that she was in a perfect state
of preservation.

She looked
as though she was still alive.

SHATNER:
To this day, St. Bernadette
appears as youthful in death

as she did in life.

Could it be possible that
St. Bernadette's lack of decay

is actually the result
of divine intervention?

An incorruptible saint
symbolizes

that God has blessed
that particular saintly person

so that their body that so many
people have loved in life

is still recognizable

and becomes a focus
for devotion.

SHATNER:
Despite the symbolic miracle

such incorruptible bodies
represent for the faithful,

according to many researchers,

there's nothing miraculous
about them.

JEREMIAH: A lot of
the so-called incorruptibles--

they were blatantly mummified.

St. Bernadette was enclosed in
two hermetically sealed caskets.

Once it's exposed to air,
she started to decay.

So they covered her face
and hands with wax.

SHATNER:
To the millions of faithful
who visit the small chapel

where St. Bernadette's body
now lies,

her uncanny appearance remains
proof of the power of faith.

Unlike another
incorruptible mummy,

which many consider
to be evidence

of a much different power:

the power of the state.

More than one million mourners
stand for hours

in below-freezing temperatures

to pay their final respects
to Vladimir Lenin,

the Bolshevik leader who ushered
in the Communist Revolution.

ALEXEI YURCHAK:
When Lenin died in 1924,

he was associated in the minds
of millions of people--

not everyone, but the majority--

with a radical transformation
of human history.

Lenin and the...
especially his family

wanted him to be buried.

But Stalin decided
to create a symbolism

of an utopia that was created.

So, the idea was
to keep him preserved

for future generations.

SHATNER:
According to reports,
Soviet scientists devised

an entirely new method
for creating Lenin's mummy,

one intended to preserve
his body for eternity,

as though he were frozen
in time.

YURCHAK:
It had to be

the exact likeness of Lenin.

It also had to feel like Lenin.

The so-called presence
had to be there.

SHATNER:
Almost a hundred years later,

Lenin's mummy
still remains on display

in his mausoleum
near Red Square in Moscow.

And it appears as though
his body hasn't decayed

in the slightest.

Every few months,
they give him a recharge.

You know, they hydrate him
a little bit.

They put fake eyelashes on him.

As the art
of mummification advances,

so, too, does Lenin's.

He's looking better every year.

STONEHILL:
For many people,

it was more just a mere body
that was being preserved.

It was the spirit of the era.

And Stalin was gone.
Khrushchev was gone.

But Lenin was always there.

SHATNER:
Can preserving
the remains of the dead

actually keep their spirit
alive forever?

Mm, perhaps.

But there are those who believe

that the soul
is not only immortal

but can also be reborn

in a new body.

SHATNER:
Three-year-old Dorothy Eady
takes a traumatic tumble

down the stairs
of her family's home.

Her injuries, while serious,
are not life-threatening,

but they are life-changing.

Because in the years
after her accident,

Dorothy Eady
begins recalling memories

from what she claims
to be a past life.

CHRISTINE SIMMONDS-MOORE:
The story goes
that she fell down the stairs,

had a head trauma and actually
died and then returned to life.

And then, when she
came back to life

after hitting her head,

she had later experiences
where she seemed to know things

about ancient Egypt

that she really
should not have known.

RAMY ROMANY:
Her Dad would take her
to the British Museum,

and when she went there,
she saw images and artifacts

from the New Kingdom of Egypt

and said, "This is home."

And she became obsessed
with ancient Egypt.

McGOWAN:
Dorothy Eady was able

to read some hieroglyphs

from the time that
she was ten years old,

and from the time
that she was a teenager,

she was essentially writing

in a type
of hieroglyphic script.

ROMANY:
Then, as she got older,

she claimed to have
been reincarnated

from a priestess
in ancient Egypt

that was in a relationship

with King Seti I,

the builder
of the Temple of Abydos.

SHATNER:
Dorothy Eady's claims
of a past life

may seem far-fetched,

but the truth is
that many cultures

believe that our souls
are immortal

and can be reborn
again and again,

leaping into new bodies
each time we die.

But could such an incredible
notion actually be possible?

AMIR HUSSAIN:
So, reincarnation,

literally, is this idea
that we may live multiple lives.

We don't just live one life,
we live a life,

we die and we're reborn.

We're reborn back
into a physical body.

For example,
Tibetan Buddhists believe

the Dalai Lama
is a reincarnation

of Avalokiteshvara,
the goddess of compassion.

And when the previous
Dalai Lama dies,

they look for a boy
born with certain signs.

And so, there's a great story

about the modern Dalai Lama,
that, as a young child,

he is brought into
the monastery

and he points
to a bookcase, says,

"My teeth are in there,
my teeth are in there,"

and they open it up and
of course, it's the teeth

of the previous Dalai Lama.

And so, you do have people

who have that sense of awareness

of something that's
happened in the past,

they've lived a past life.

ARIEL BAR TZADOK:
The Kabbalah teaches
that human souls

have a purpose
as ordained by God,

to learn while here on Earth.

And sometimes,
a single lifetime is not enough

to fulfill the mission
and the cause

for which God has ordained
that we be born here on Earth.

And therefore,
souls will come back.

SIMMONDS-MOORE:
A lot of people who have

past-life cases
tend to be connected to trauma,

and I think that was the case
with Dorothy.

It could be something to do
with her own head trauma.

There's been a lot of research
that tries to say

there is a soul
that gets reincarnated,

but I think we can't really know

exactly what's happening

when people are having
these memories.

SHATNER:
In the case of Dorothy Eady,

her accurate recollections
of life in ancient Egypt

were astounding.

At the age of 29,
Dorothy moved to Egypt,

married and gave birth
to a son who she named Sety,

to reflect her connection
with the ancient pharaoh.

She would eventually be called
Omm Sety, or Mother of Sety.

While not formally trained,

Dorothy became
a well-respected colleague

of many of the world's
foremost Egyptologist,

spending 50 years
working as a draftswoman,

writer and unconventional
historian.

After spending time
with Omm Sety,

many experts began to believe
that her incredible stories

might actually be true.

Omm Sety in this lifetime
had extraordinary knowledge

and memory of the workings
of the Abydos Temple,

and the artwork within.

The Temple of Abydos
was the holy of holies

for the Egyptian people.

Omm Sety's arrival in Abydos

was stunning
for everyone involved

because, as an English woman

walking into the temple
for the first time,

she knew exactly
where everything was.

She immediately knew
how to find certain chambers.

She was able to even interpret

some of the hieroglyphs
in the dark.

ROMANY:
The head Egyptologist

took her to a place
in the temple where he knew

she wouldn't know the answers to
because it wasn't published yet.

He himself was the one
that translated

every part of it,
took him months.

But if Omm Sety is truly

a reincarnated priestess
of Egypt, then she would know.

And she knew
every part of that wall.

So, either she was really good

at ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
or she truly was

a reincarnated
ancient Egyptian priestess.

McGOWAN:
Omm Sety became one of the most
important Egyptologists,

one of the most
important translators

of hieroglyphs in the world,

and she didn't have
a formal education.

The story of Dorothy Eady
is arguably

the single most convincing
account of reincarnation

that we have
anywhere in history.

SHATNER:
There are many who believe

that Dorothy Eady's story
proves that

reincarnation is, in fact, real.

But if our souls
are really born again

into new bodies after we die,

why do only some of us recall
memories from our past lives?

SIMMONDS-MOORE:
If you look at
the past-life research,

and you look at the cases that
seem a bit more intriguing,

i.e., they seem to be
providing stronger evidence

for something anomalous
going on,

what we see is that
it's people who died suddenly.

It aligns with the idea
of unfinished business.

ROMANY:
Even though Egyptians
do not believe in reincarnation,

the ones around Omm Sety
would decide to actually believe

that Omm Sety's story--

it's a little bit
too much for coincidence.

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.

EGGENER:
Today, in most countries

in the world where burial
is still practiced,

people are buried
for 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

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.

CARGILL:
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-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 are 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.

It's an inescapable fact
that everything that lives

must also, eventually, die.

And whether or not
you believe in the soul,

the afterlife
or even reincarnation,

the mystery of what happens
to us after death

remains endlessly fascinating.

But of course,
the frustrating truth

is that until our time comes,

the answers
to all of our questions

about what lies
in the great beyond

will continue to be unexplained.

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