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WILLIAM SHATNER: You know, I've been around for a while.

Met some interesting people, done some crazy things.

So you just might think that there's not much that

can take me by surprise.

You'd be wrong.

The world is full of stories and science and

things that amaze and confound me every single day,

incredible mysteries that keep me awake at night.

Some I can answer. Others just defy logic.

[♪]

NARRATOR: Is there life after death?

In Connecticut, a man visits a Civil War battlefield

where he is suddenly overcome with emotion.

JEFFREY KEENE: To this day I don't understand what

exactly happened.

NARRATOR: Is he the reincarnation

of a dead general?

In Haiti, eighteen years after his death,

a man returns from the grave.

WADE DAVIS: This individual had clearly

been pronounced dead by the doctors.

NARRATOR: Do zombies really exist?

And in a remarkable experiment, scientists in

England conduct a series of groundbreaking séances.

Is it our first genuine proof of the afterlife?

WILLIAM SHATNER: Yeah, it's a weird world.

And I love it.

[♪]

WILLIAM SHATNER: Death. Not exactly pretty,

especially when you consider that one day

all of us could end up looking like this.

But should we simply accept this as our fate

or is there something else that awaits us?

Since the dawn of time, humans have been obsessed

with the idea that there's something more than -

this.

Well, is there?

Do our lives go on, even if we die?

Can we return and communicate with our

loved ones here on earth?

Is there life after life and, perhaps the most

important question of all, can we prove it?

Well just maybe we can.

[♪]

NARRATOR: Jeffrey Keene is a retired firefighter.

In 1990, he decided to visit the site of the

famous battle of Antietam, one of the bloodiest

encounters of the Civil War...

and a place where thousands died in just one day.

JEFFREY KEENE: I was traveling down through

Pennsylvania with my wife, antique hunting,

and I asked my wife if it was okay if we took a little

side trip over to Antietam to see the battlefield.

NARRATOR: But what begins as a fun day out will soon

turn into a nightmare.

JEFFREY KEENE: My wife wasn't very much into

history so she remained in the car and I walked over to

where the battle had taken place at the Sunken Road,

gone about fifty feet when it became very

hard to breathe.

I started crying, I was very angry, I was very sad.

If you take the saddest you've ever been and magnify

that by about a thousand times, that gets close.

I was exhausted.

I couldn't tell exactly what was going on.

I thought I was maybe having a heart attack but

I didn't have any pain.

NARRATOR: Overcome by a wave of violent emotions,

Jeffrey then has a powerful urge to visit the gift shop.

JEFFREY KEENE: I felt compelled to go there.

I threw a magazine on the counter.

I said I want this and it was a Civil War quarterly

magazine on Antietam.

To this day I don't understand what exactly happened.

NARRATOR: For the next eighteen months, Jeffrey's

life returns to normal - until one night when he

attends a Halloween party.

JEFFREY KEENE: It was a really nice party.

They had spent a lot of money on the decorations.

They had hired a, a palm reader.

And I sat down in front of this woman and she took my

hands and I told her the story of what happened at Antietam.

NARRATOR: As Jeff tells his story, the palm reader

suddenly becomes uneasy.

JEFFREY KEENE: And she's sitting there shaking her

head and she dropped my hands a few times.

NARRATOR: And then she drops a bombshell.

She believes Jeffrey was at Antietam in a previous life.

JEFFREY KEENE: She said you died there but you

hung around for a long time.

I said just let me ask you one question.

Are you sure he was dead?

She said he was full of holes.

That's one thing I'll, I'll never forget.

NARRATOR: The bizarre encounter will lead

Jeffrey on a journey in search of the truth.

JEFFREY KEENE: The next day I took my wife to work

and I remembered the magazine that I had to have.

I had it for a year and a half and hadn't read it.

I opened it up to the section on Antietam, where

I'd had the experience and my eyes skimmed down the

page and I see a, a photograph of a general.

NARRATOR: As Jeffrey stares at the photo he is

stunned by what he sees.

JEFFREY KEENE: I look over and this picture says

General John B. Gordon

and when I see the face uh I tell people

I know the face very well.

I shave it every morning.

And unless you're unfeeling, unthinking,

completely drained of any type of emotion,

it's gonna have a bit of an effect on you, even if

it's just awe and wonder.

NARRATOR: Remarkably, Jeffrey is a double for

General John B. Gordon.

But as he reads on, things get even weirder.

JEFFREY KEENE: I read in the story he'd been

wounded five times that day, was shot through the

face and I figured he had probably been killed there.

NARRATOR: John B. Gordon was

a general of the Sixth Alabama Regiment -

a hero who was shot in the bloody battle of Antietam.

Could there be a link between Jeffrey and a

general who had died nearly two hundred years before him?

Suddenly, Jeffrey makes another startling connection.

JEFFREY KEENE: It was on my thirtieth birthday.

At twelve midnight I got such a horrendous pain in my jaw.

It radiated down into my neck.

I know what it feels like to be shot through the face.

That's how bad it hurt.

NARRATOR: Was Jeffrey's mysterious pain somehow

related to General Gordon's injuries?

JEFFREY KEENE: Gordon was thirty years old when he

was shot through the face, same age.

NARRATOR: Could all these remarkable similarities be

explained by coincidence?

Jeffrey believes there is only one answer.

JEFFREY KEENE: I don't need any more proof that

there's reincarnation because of all the things

that happened to me.

We never die. We're continuous.

We always have been, we always will be.

That's how Gordon found me, at Antietam.

WILLIAM SHATNER: What an extraordinary story.

Did a Civil War general who died over a century

ago reincarnate, jump into Jeffrey Keene's body and

continue his life through Jeffrey's eyes?

Are we all in a continuous cycle of birth and rebirth,

simply interchanging bodies as we go?

And if so, this raises yet another question -

do we get to choose?

I mean who was I before I was who I am now?

And who will I be next? Could I be you?

Now that is definitely weird - or what?

NARRATOR: Dr. Cynthia Meyersburg is

a Harvard psychologist.

She believes reincarnation is simply a function of

how we deal with memories.

CYNTHIA MEYERSBURG: Something odd happens and people

go looking, as we all do, to make sense of their lives.

If you have a rich imaginative ability it

becomes very difficult to distinguish between

something that's a record of perception and a record

of imagination.

Did I dream that or did it happen?

Did I hear about that or did I actually experience that?

It can be very difficult.

NARRATOR: Cynthia believes that one way we do this is

by creating false memories.

CYNTHIA MEYERSBURG: False memories are

what they sound like.

They're recollections for either events that didn't

take place or didn't take place in the way in which

they're remembered.

NARRATOR: Are people like Jeffrey just making

their stories up?

If so, why?

CYNTHIA MEYERSBURG: Memory, although it feels

a lot of times like we're watching a film in our

mind's eye, that's not what's really happening.

We're always reconstructing it from

little pieces that we have saved in a sense and we

put it back together.

And our brain fills in for us the missing parts.

NARRATOR: Researchers have been able to study

this phenomenon.

CYNTHIA MEYERSBURG: It's possible to induce false

memories, in a matter of moments.

For instance, if someone sees a doctored photograph

showing him or her as a child in a hot air balloon

people can very quickly form memories for it.

NARRATOR: Can Jeffrey Keene's claim of

reincarnation be dismissed as a series of false memories?

Does it explain what struck him down?

CYNTHIA MEYERSBURG: People come to believe they have

past lives because something weird happens,

something that's outside of the norm in some way

for them, that they need an explanation for.

NARRATOR: Is reincarnation real or simply a product

of our minds?

Do we all have past, present and future lives?

STUART HAMEROFF: We know so little about the nature

of reality that I think it would be very, very

foolish to say that this cannot happen.

NARRATOR: An emotional collapse at a Civil War

battleground leads a man to believe he is the

reincarnation of a dead general.

Is it possible we all have past lives?

Tariq Sattaur is a facilitator at the

Ontario Hypnosis Centre.

He not only believes reincarnation is real, he can

demonstrate it using a process called past life regression.

TARIQ SATTAUR: Past-life regression is a series of

steps that you go through in order to access

memories from previous lifetimes.

It is allowing the conscious mind to be put

aside for a while as you access the subconscious mind.

TARIQ: Begin by just lightly closing your eyes now.

NARRATOR: Tariq is preparing a patient, Karen,

to travel back - not only deep into her own

past but to lives she may have lived before,

and from where he can access her memories.

TARIQ: Imagine if you will above your head is a point

of absolutely pure white light.

TARIQ SATTAUR: It starts by first taking the client

back through age regression and typically

it's about fourteen or fifteen years old and then

to three or four years old.

KAREN: I'm on my mum's lap and I'm getting

all of her attention.

NARRATOR: Karen has now gone back over thirty years.

The next step will take her into what is known as

blue mist, a space in between her current life

and the one she lived before.

TARIQ: Take a deep breath now and go beyond the blue mist,

finding yourself at a still earlier time.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, it appears Karen has now

entered a former life.

KAREN: I'm climbing rocks and there's the forest nearby.

TARIQ: Are you male or female?

KAREN: I'm male. I think I'm hunting.

TARIQ: Okay.

NARRATOR: Tariq believes what Karen is seeing is real.

TARIQ SATTAUR: They're interacting.

They're in the body of that past life.

They can see out of that person's eyes.

It's very, very personal.

NARRATOR: To complete the session, Tariq must

reverse the process and bring Karen back into her

current life and present age.

TARIQ: And one. Eyes open. You're back.

NARRATOR: Did Karen actually visit her former life?

Is past life regression evidence that

reincarnation is real?

Dr. Stuart Hameroff is a scientist.

He believes the only way to find real proof of

reincarnation is by using science.

STUART HAMEROFF: There's a lot of anecdotal evidence

for apparent reincarnation but it's been dismissed

because it seems irrational.

Now we have a theory, a possible explanation,

so I think all this evidence needs to be reevaluated

and considered seriously.

NARRATOR: Hameroff's theory concerns one of the greatest

mysteries of both religion and science - the soul.

STUART HAMEROFF: I think the soul is our

consciousness, the sum total of our memories and

conscious awareness and I think it can exist outside

the body, after life and possibly in reincarnation.

NARRATOR: But even more remarkable is that

Hameroff thinks the soul exists as a series of

information, quantifiable by physics.

STUART HAMEROFF: I think a quantum version of

consciousness can give rise to something like a

quantum soul that can account for a lot of these

anecdotal stories that we've been hearing for, for eons.

NARRATOR: Many scientists believe consciousness

exists with cells in the brain, but Hameroff thinks

it exists on a subatomic level in quantum particles

that can stay connected and survive death.

STUART HAMEROFF: When a patient has a cardiac

arrest and is resuscitated, they often

tell a story of a white light, a tunnel and in

many cases floating above their body looking down on

what's going on.

This could b consciousness as quantum

information dissipating.

When the patient's resuscitated the quantum

information goes back and the patient wakes up and

reports having had a near-death experience

and perhaps even an out-of-body experience.

NARRATOR: It's an incredible theory,

but if our souls do exist in quantum form

how are they reincarnated?

STUART HAMEROFF: It's conceivable that this

quantum information, the quantum soul if you will,

could reenter an embryo, which would be reincarnation.

NARRATOR: Do our souls consist of information

that can travel, even into an embryo?

Have we solved one of the greatest mysteries

in the universe?

STUART HAMEROFF: We know so little about the nature

of reality that I think it would be very, very

foolish to say that this cannot happen.

NARRATOR: Was Jeffrey Keene the reincarnation of

a long-dead general?

Or did false memories convince him it was true?

Does the soul exist independent of our bodies?

Can we visit past lives and if we can, what will we find?

Weird or what?

[♪]

NARRATOR: Scientists in England conduct a series

of groundbreaking experiments.

Did they find the first genuine proof of the afterlife?

WILLIAM SHATNER: Hello? Hello?

I don't know about you but I've always been scared of

things that go bump in the night.

[crash, meow]

Fred!

[meow]

Most of them we can explain but what about

those we can't?

Are we surrounded by spiritual entities,

the remains of those that passed from this life?

Are they what we call ghosts?

And, if they are there, are they friendly?

And can we communicate with them?

[crash, meow]

Fred!

[sigh]

NARRATOR: In 1993, a team of researchers in the town

of Scole, United Kingdom set out to find

indisputable evidence of life after death.

[♪]

Conducting a series of extraordinary séances, they

witnessed paranormal events that would mystify science.

They called it the Scole Experiment.

ROBIN FOY: What we didn't know was that it was going

to become very, very special and work in a

pioneering way to provide proof of life after death.

NARRATOR: Robin Foy led the séances.

He believes the experiment was unique because of

their attempts to make sure it was credible.

ROBIN FOY: It was important for us to show

to the outside world that we'd taken every security

precaution that we could to ensure that the work

was fraud proof.

NARRATOR: To conquer the skeptics, the séances were

held in the supposedly impenetrable cellar of

a suburban house.

ROBIN FOY: The whole place was brick, there were no

trapdoors and the only door into the cellar was

locked internally.

Each one of us would wear luminous armbands so that

everybody who was present could see that no one moved.

We were using a, a table which was actually

fraud proof so that nobody could get under it and do

anything at all.

We were seeking to actually get viable proof

that we live on after we die.

NARRATOR: The Scole Experiment began in

November 1993.

As Robin Foy and his team assembled in their cellar,

they had no idea what might happen.

But it didn't take long to find out.

ROBIN FOY: After a short while, the spirit lights come,

little lights about the size of a pea or

slightly larger, very bright.

And they would sort of perform aerobatics.

Later on there were spirit voices speaking from midair.

We were able to hear on a one-to-one basis all of

the spirit people.

Everybody in that room would be regularly touched

by spirit hands.

NARRATOR: As the experiment continues,

the team is amazed as the paranormal activity

becomes more intense.

ROBIN FOY: All sorts of different things would

materialize in midair and then fall down onto the

table and we would hear the bang as that hit the table.

We may actually have solid spirit personalities

moving around in the room.

We were pushing the bounds of psychic research

further forward than anyone had been able to

produce or witness anywhere in the past.

NARRATOR: Encouraged by the success, Foy decided to

try something extraordinary, something that would

prove they had made contact with the afterlife.

ROBIN FOY: We were doing an experiment with a film

that was still in its plastic container.

We would have this locked into a security box to

ensure that nothing was ever done by us to that film.

NARRATOR: It was a remarkable and ambitious idea.

The team hoped a spirit might somehow implant an

image on the film inside the box.

If so, it could be the proof they were looking for.

When they finally checked the film, they couldn't

believe their eyes.

ROBIN FOY: That was quite amazing.

We had hundreds of photographs that were

produced to show us various aspects of the

spirit world itself.

Some of them were so fantastic they really

would knock your socks off.

NARRATOR: But there was one photograph that was

different from the rest - a haunting image of

what seemed to be a woman's face.

ROBIN FOY: You actually see on this one areas

of this person's face.

NARRATOR: Who is the woman?

And how did her image appear on the film?

Foy believes this chilling incident makes the

Scole Experiment the definitive exploration into

the presence of the afterlife.

ROBIN FOY: The Scole Experiment I think was

very, very important because it went further

than anybody had ever been able to go before in

proving the real existence of life after death.

NARRATOR: Despite his claims, many skeptics

doubted the results.

Did Robin Foy and his team of researchers make

contact with the other side?

Is the Scole experiment proof that there is

life after death?

Or could it have been an elaborate fake?

One way to find out is to try it for ourselves.

MAN: Ahhh!

NARRATOR: A UK research team experiences

a remarkable series of paranormal events during

a series of séances.

Did they find proof of life after death?

Brian Dunning is a scientific journalist.

He believes the events of Scole were nothing more

than an illusion.

BRIAN DUNNING: Here's the problem with séances is

that séances have existed as a magic trick for

two hundred years.

They are an illusionist giving the impression that

spirits are in the room.

ILLUSIONIST: What we are trying to recreate are the

famous Scole Experiments.

NARRATOR: Was the Scole Experiment a magic trick?

To test Dunning's theory, we've set up a fake séance

using a professional illusionist.

To create the conditions at Scole, the participants

are sitting in pitch darkness.

Using night vision cameras, we can see them

but they can see nothing at all.

The session begins with everyone holding hands.

ILLUSIONIST: Give me your hand here and your hand here.

Please do not break the psychic circle at any time

during the séance.

Spirits, are you with us tonight?

NARRATOR: The Scole experiment claimed that

spirit voices seemed to come from midair.

The illusionist will attempt to recreate them

with an assistant using a cardboard tube as a megaphone.

ILLUSIONIST: Speak to us.

VOICE: She will always love you.

WOMAN: Whoa!

NARRATOR: Faking disembodied voices seems simple.

VOICE: Charles.

ILLUSIONIST: Charles, the name Charles.

NARRATOR: But can they convince these

participants they are being physically touched

by spirits as claimed by the people at Scole?

ILLUSIONIST: I'm going to ask my spirit guide Francine,

will you give us a physical manifestation?

I want Francine to come towards the centre of the table.

WOMAN: Whoa.

ILLUSIONIST: Whoa what? What happened?

WOMAN: I think someone touched me.

Ahhh!

ILLUSIONIST: Whoa, whoa, whoa.

NARRATOR: The final trick centers around the claim

that objects materialized out of thin air.

Is this so easy to disprove?

ILLUSIONIST: Leave us now! Leave us!

GROUP: Ahhhh!

NARRATOR: The experiment is over.

Even though his séance was badly faked,

the participants are left visibly shaken.

BRIAN DUNNING: Nobody's laughing.

Everybody took that completely seriously.

That was a very powerful experience for these people.

NARRATOR: Although the participants were fooled,

Brain believes this proves the Scole experiment was a hoax.

BRIAN DUNNING: We saw a few of the things today

that were reported from the Scole Experiments.

We've seen that those can be easily faked.

Do we know that they faked them at Scole?

No, of course not because no controls were applied.

We don't know what actually happened.

But when we see how easy it is to fake it, how can

we know that these could have been real?

WILLIAM SHATNER: Could the greatest experiment into

the existence of the afterlife be just an

illusionist's game?

No doubt magic tricks are easy to perform and many

of the claims made at Scole have been dismissed

out of hand but the biggest mystery of all

still remains unanswered.

Who is this woman and how did her image appear on

a roll of film that was locked inside a box?

Even Houdini would have trouble with that one.

NARRATOR: Peter Sramek is a photography expert.

We asked him to examine images from the Scole experiment

and try to unlock one of its biggest mysteries.

PETER SRAMEK: As I understand it, the uh film

was put into this box and locked away and the

exposure, the effect on the film was supposed to

have happened while the film was locked up in this box.

My first reaction was this is an interesting

manipulation.

I assumed it was something that would have been done

in the dark room.

It looks very similar to the kinds of distortions,

collages, manipulations that people have done in

the darkroom because it's fun to do.

NARRATOR: But there was no darkroom at Scole.

Was this photograph created by the spirit of a woman?

Peter believes the answer to the mystery lies in the

type of film they used.

PETER SRAMEK: With Polaroid you have the

direct development so there's no darkroom involved.

When you process it, you actually put it into a

container that is full of a gelatinous chemical

that gets spread on to the film evenly.

And that, in my mind, is what's happened in these photographs.

All you're seeing are the chemicals, the way that

they've affected the film as it's gone through.

PETER SRAMEK: What is harder to explain are the

actual faces in the images.

They're not light effects, they're not chemical effects.

They actually are, you know, images of faces.

NARRATOR: So how was this haunting image created?

PETER SRAMEK: My explanation for that would

be that the film has been tampered with and the film

has been put through the camera and these faces have

been exposed into it, prior to the supposed experiment.

NARRATOR: Peter believes he has solved the mystery, but

what if the Scole researchers were telling the truth?

PETER SRAMEK: I don't think while the film was

in the box that any of the effects that we're seeing

could have been created unless one believes in

some sort of supernatural explanation.

NARRATOR: Is this a woman from the spirit world?

Did Robin Foy and his research team find proof

of life after death at Scole?

Or was it an ingenious hoax?

Whatever the truth is, this is - weird or what?

[♪]

In Haiti, a man dies after a sudden and

mysterious illness.

Eighteen years later, he returns from the grave.

Could this prove that zombies exist?

WILLIAM SHATNER: When it comes to the mysteries of

the afterlife, perhaps there's nothing weirder

than zombies.

The dictionary describes a zombie like this: the body

of a dead person given the semblance of life but made

mute and will-less by a supernatural force,

usually for some evil purpose.

Sounds like my bank manager, but could it be true?

Could mindless shuffling cannibals actually exist -

outside of Hollywood?

NARRATOR: The tiny nation of Haiti is home to many

mysteries, but none weirder than the tale of

a man named Clairvius Narcisse.

Wade Davis is an explorer and author.

He investigated the case, which began in 1962 when

Narcisse suddenly became violently ill.

WADE DAVIS: I mean the kind of the constellation

of symptoms that he reported were so strange

that you initially thought this had to be coming

from the realm of science fiction.

NARRATOR: Although doctors work feverishly,

it's too late to save the stricken Narcisse.

WADE DAVIS: The death was witnessed by both the

physicians, the nurses and his own family members and

his sister had actually affixed her,

her thumbprint to the death certificate, verifying

that this was her brother, her brother had died.

NARRATOR: Devastated, family members say their

final goodbyes and Clairvius is finally laid to rest.

WADE DAVIS: You could go to his gravesite where the

slab of cement had been placed upon his grave

shortly after his demise.

NARRATOR: It should have been the last anyone heard

of Clairvius Narcisse.

But eighteen years later, something incredible will

happen that ensures no one forgets his name.

NARRATOR: In 1980, Clairvius' sister is going

about daily chores in her family's village.

Suddenly, she sees something beyond comprehension.

Standing before her is her deceased brother.

Clairvius Narcisse has risen ... from the dead.

WADE DAVIS: He claimed that he was buried.

He claimed that he was magically resuscitated by

a sorcerer and then led off to the north of the

country where he'd been working as a sort of

a zombie slave for eighteen years.

NARRATOR: Did Clairvius Narcisse return from the dead -

a zombie?

WADE DAVIS: There was no question that this

individual had clearly been pronounced dead by the doctors.

And then the question became why?

How? What happened to him?

NARRATOR: This incredible story attracts the

attention of a team of scientists who are keen to

examine the case and uncover the truth.

WADE DAVIS: They investigated all these

lines of evidence, analysis of the

fingerprints by forensic experts, the testimony of

the family members and the doctors.

NARRATOR: After months of searching,

the investigators come to a remarkable conclusion.

WADE DAVIS: It really led two very reputable

scientists to go public saying they had found the

first provable instance of a zombie.

NARRATOR: What did the scientists find?

Did Clairvius Narcisse rise from the dead?

Do zombies exist?

Steven Schlozman is a Harvard psychiatrist.

Incredibly, he believes the answer could be yes.

STEVEN SCHLOZMAN: When I started thinking about how

I would explain zombies medically, it was kind of

a lark and then it ended up getting a little creepy.

The typical zombie, in my view, is slow, shambling,

can't figure even the simplest of, of dilemmas out,

wants to eat human flesh.

There is ways you can medically explain the behaviour.

NARRATOR: Remarkably, Schlozman believes just

a few changes in the human brain could turn one of

us into one of them.

It starts with the cerebellum.

STEVEN SCHLOZMAN: This is a sheep brain but imagine

this is a human brain, which looks an

awful lot like this, just, just bigger.

The function of the cerebellum is to help

us maintain balance.

In zombies, we've got to think that there's

something not right with their cerebellum because

zombies are really not balanced well.

There's a number of diseases that could affect

the cerebellum.

In those cases, you have exactly the shambling gait

that you see in the zombie movies.

NARRATOR: The shuffling is one thing, but what

explains a zombie's mindless violence?

STEVEN SCHLOZMAN: The amygdala is the most

primitive part of the brain.

It's the region of brain that has very base emotions.

NARRATOR: Our amygdala is the source of all anger and rage.

But it's kept in check by our frontal lobes,

the most advanced part of our brain.

STEVEN SCHLOZMAN: So we might have an impulse when

somebody cuts us off on the road to yell at them,

to tailgate them, to do something not nice.

The frontal lobe jumps in and stops you from doing that.

When we watch zombie movies, we can guess that

zombie frontal lobes are pretty much gone.

They can't hold back their impulses.

NARRATOR: Could a unique combination of brain

injuries somehow create a zombie?

There's just one problem.

STEVEN SCHLOZMAN: The zombie, by definition,

has to die and be reanimated.

There is no medical basis for something coming back

from the dead, so far.

NARRATOR: But how does Scholzman explain that

Clairvius Narcisse was certified dead, buried,

then returned from the grave?

STEVEN SCHLOZMAN: Maybe he's not telling the

truth, maybe he's undergone some kind of

neurologic insult that prevents him from

remembering what's just happened.

But if we're talking about really rising from the dead,

that doesn't happen.

NARRATOR: A Haitian man dies from a mysterious illness,

then returns from the grave eighteen years later.

Is he proof that zombies exist?

Wade Davis has investigated the case and

has an incredible theory.

He thinks Clairvius Narcisse didn't die at all,

that something made him just seem to be dead.

But who or what could have fooled the doctors?

WADE DAVIS: There are lots of drugs that can kill.

But to find a drug that brings you to the doorway

of death and then brings you back into the realm of

the living would be remarkable indeed.

NARRATOR: In 1982, Davis made a breakthrough.

He discovered that Haitian Voodoo Priests were

rumoured to be using a special poison to turn

people into zombies.

Was this the drug he was looking for?

He decided to visit Haiti and see for himself.

WADE DAVIS: Through a series of negotiations

I was able to get a local priest to make this poison

for me.

I collected all the raw ingredients, which ranged

from, you know, dried toads to dried fish, dried

snakes, plants, human remains.

NARRATOR: Back in the US, Davis takes the poison to

be tested in a lab.

He finds something extraordinary.

It contains a chemical more deadly than cyanide.

WADE DAVIS: Tetrodotoxin acts by physically

blocking nerves but it brings on a state of

apparent death so profound that it has many times

fooled physicians.

NARRATOR: Had the Haitian priests discovered

a drug that could replicate death?

If so, where did they get it?

WADE DAVIS: In Haiti there's this sort of

famous puffer fish which inflates like a big porcupine.

Without doubt, the Haitian sorcerers had identified

a natural product that contained a toxin that

could make someone appear to be dead.

NARRAT: Could this powerful drug produce the

symptoms Narcisse experienced?

WADE DAVIS: He said he was paralyzed.

He could hear himself pronounced dead.

He could sense the sheet pulled over his eyes.

He heard his sister begin to wail but he could not respond.

NARRATOR: Was an innocent man turned into a zombie?

The evidence seems undeniable, except for one thing.

WADE DAVIS: No one knows if Narcisse was

administered the poison.

What we do know is that he was pronounced dead.

WILLIAM SHATNER: All right.

Let's, let's think about this for a second.

We know that a certain set of brain alterations,

diseases or injuries could cause the zombie-like

symptoms you see in the movies, that a mysterious

poison has the power to mimic death, but is there

any real proof that we can return from the dead?

Well let me tell you something.

The living dead are living among us -

and they're in Detroit.

NARRATOR: At a warehouse in Detroit, something

remarkable is happening.

Inside these containers, a hundred and three people

are waiting - to return from the dead.

This is a cryonics centre.

The people entombed here have made an incredible

choice - to have their bodies frozen after death,

with the hope that science will one day bring them

back to life.

NARRATOR: Ben Best is the president of the

Cryonics Institute.

He believes not only can we survive death

but that the people here haven't actually died.

BEN BEST: We do call them patients because we don't

regard them as being dead in an ultimate sense.

I think in practice be regarded as a hospital

because I think that's what we're doing, we're

holding these metabolically challenged patients.

NARRATOR: But can cryogenics work?

It's a remarkable and controversial process.

BEN BEST: Behind me are our cryostats.

They hold liquid nitrogen, which is at

minus 196 degrees Celsius.

Each of these cylindrical units holds six patients.

NARRATOR: Best believes cryogenics has changed our

definition of death.

Only a few decades ago if your heart stopped -

that was it.

BEN BEST: But it's just not the way we see things anymore.

NARRATOR: How do you keep someone who is dead alive?

It begins by pumping oxygen-rich blood

throughout the body.

This keeps cells alive and avoids damage caused

by rigor mortis.

Then, the body must be cooled.

BEN BEST: We don't just drop the patient in

a liquid nitrogen.

NARRATOR: The body temperature is slowly

lowered, first by an ice bath and then in a cooling

chamber where it will reach minus 196 degrees.

Best believes this will preserve these bodies for

hundreds or perhaps thousands of years.

But why?

BEN BEST: It seems to me, if you're preserving all

the material there, that some future technology is

going to be able to figure out a way to get that all

fixed and going again.

It's reasonable to think that nano machines can

restore the person to their original condition.

NARRATOR: Nano machines already exist -

tiny machines smaller than a single cell.

Scientists believe they could soon flow through

our bloodstream, targeting viruses, repairing organs

and destroying disease.

Can cryogenics give us life after death?

Could it even conquer death itself?

Best believes it is our greatest hope for

eternal living.

BEN BEST: It doesn't seem so much more unreasonable

than to speculate that people will someday live on Mars.

NARRATOR: Can we die and wake up a thousand years

later and resume our lives?

And even if we can, would we really want to?

Or do we return as zombies, doomed to

a mindless existence?

Is life after death really life at all?

Weird or what?

[♪]

NARRATOR: So there we have it,

stories of life after death from all over the world.

In Connecticut, a man is overcome with emotion at

a Civil War battlefield.

Is he the reincarnation of a dead general?

In England, scientists conduct a remarkable

paranormal experiment.

Did they find the first proof of the afterlife?

And in Haiti, a man returns from the grave

eighteen years after his death.

Are the living dead walking amongst us?

Do zombies exist?

Are these stories evidence of life after death?

Can we dismiss those who claim they are true?

You decide.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Join me next time for more stories

that will undoubtedly be...

weird or what?

[♪]

[♪]

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