The main purpose of this research is to discover if there is any truth to the concept of an NDE. In theory, an NDE occurs when the flow of blood and oxygen to the human brain stops or slows, which can happen for a variety of reasons, including a near-fatal accident, a heart attack, a catastrophic illness, or an Al Gore global warming lecture. Of course, the concept of being “clinically dead” isn’t always easy to scientifically explain, like the crocoduck. Is it when the heart ceases? Or is it when a person’s EEG flatlines even when tempted with cheese fries?

In addition, the AWARE researchers would like to settle the controversy over whether some of the survivors of these brushes with deathness were also exposed to an out-of-body experience (OBE) or whether they were only divinely delusional (ODD). By interviewing those who claim to have returned from “the other side,” researchers hope to settle the age-old question of whether consciousness disappears with brain inactivity or whether it lives on and on and on and on like angels and souls and Twinkies.

Approximately 15,000 patients will be included in the study. It is likely that of the survivors, only about 150 will report an episode that would qualify as an NDE. Moreover, according to some estimates, only about a quarter of patients with an NDE will report some kind of OBE by regaling the listener with tales of bizarre-sounding experiences. These include remote viewing, falling toward a tunnel of light, and meeting religious figures, which proves one thing: even during death, modern humans remain inveterate multitaskers.

The researchers will test for OBEs by “hiding” randomly generated images in the operating room. These images will be visible only to someone who is having an OBE and looking down from the ceiling—that is, unless the out-of-body self decides to wander down to the hospital cafeteria for some yummy chow. Once the previously deceased patient is resurrected, he or she should be able to describe the hidden image observed while buzzing around the OR—unless the patient unfortunately returns as a reincarnated turtle, which would then require the use of a facilitated-communication expert.

Surprisingly, NDEs aren’t a recent phenomenon. Some ancient texts include incidents in which critically wounded soldiers describe their journey into the afterlife after being revived through CPR (common-prayer resuscitation). Also, a number of extraordinary thinkers have experienced or lent credence to NDEs, such as Plato, Carl Jung, and Eric Estrada of CHiPs. Even atheists aren’t immune to the phenomenon. One atheist became an ex-atheist after returning from his “death,” where he observed “billions and billions of Carl Sagans.”

The modern phenomenon of NDEs, however, actually dates back to the publication of Raymond Moody’s best-selling Life After Life (1975), in which he coins the phrase “near-death experience” after X-ing out the alternative: “psychedelic groove-on” (PGO).

Moody’s interest in NDEs developed while he was in medical school, possibly after he sniffed one too many cadavers. Eventually he interviewed dozens of people who had supposedly died and returned to tell the tale. Because of the unexpected similarity of experiences, Moody eschewed science and concluded that there was more to dying than death. To Moody, the common experiences he recorded proved one thing: this crazy-ass idea could sell him some books! Since then, tens of thousands of personal accounts of NDEs have been “recorded all over the world,” just like religious-image discoveries on everyday food items (e.g., a burnt fish stick).

As stated earlier, not everyone who’s dabbled in death has had a heavenly experience. In various studies, anywhere from 2 percent to ___ percent (fill in the blank) of those who have returned from having “nearly passed” reported NDEs as well as OBEs. Others had neither, while a small minority described the event as “like being stuck in Toledo, Ohio, for six weeks.”

Some of the more common universal experiences recorded by Moody and others include:

Out-of-body experiences (OBEs). This is the most controversial claim that AWARE is trying to settle. According to solid, indisputable anecdotal evidence, it’s clearly possible for one’s consciousness to leave one’s body and fly hither and yon like a magic carpet, which allows the deceased to clearly observe his or her own resuscitation without the use of prescription eyeglasses. This phenomenon might eventually come in handy if the patient observes the surgeon mocking his liver and is then called as an eyewitness to his own medical malpractice lawsuit.

Hearing strange sounds. These have been described variously as a buzzing, a ringing, and a Bob-Dylan-singing-Christmas-carols type of noise.

A feeling of peace. This feeling is often difficult to explain since no such state has existed on our planet for decades.

Encountering other dead beings. Many believe they’ve arrived in heaven because they come across religious figures, deceased relatives and friends, beings of light, strangers, or Jerry Garcia. One person even witnessed Buddha driving a yellow school bus. Strangely, the religious figures that are observed are those of the person’s own religion. For example, during an NDE no Hindu is known to have seen Jesus, no Christian has met face-to-face with Mohammed, and no member of the Jewish faith has run into L. Ron Hubbard.

Looking down a long tunnel of light. Described as akin to coming out of the birth canal, visiting The Screaming Tunnels of Niagara Falls, or “feeling like one bitchin’ migraine.”

Rising rapidly into heaven. So far, no one has reported falling rapidly into the bowels of hell.

A desire to stay deceased. Most “zombies” reluctantly return to life kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, it’s practically impossible to compare notes with those who stuck to their guns and decided not to return, since they’re not talking. Apparently, what happens in the afterlife stays in the afterlife.

A profound transformation. The transformed person no longer has a fear of death, unless he or she is driving in Los Angeles.

To some, there is no doubt that these common experiences are evidence of a world beyond. For others, like skeptics, some kind of physical evidence of these events would be welcome. Would it be asking too much for Jesus’ autograph on a temporary visa?

Many scientists (or killjoys) claim there are plenty of logical and rational theories for what causes an NDE, including chemical changes to parts of the brain, unusual electrical activity in other parts of the brain, intrusion of our normal REM dream sleep into our consciousness, and an innate inability to reason. Some scientists claim to be able to duplicate many of these NDE and OBE events through use of certain drugs, electronic stimulation of the brain, or by reading passages from Deepak Chopra’s latest book, but these tests have yet to be duplicated. At some future date, we might know enough about the brain to fully understand the NDE, but right now it’s clear that you don’t necessarily have to be officially pronounced dead to meet up with the seventy-two virgins in paradise.

One question that puzzles many skeptics is that if the brain has stopped functioning (no neural or EEG activity), then where is this “memory” of the afterlife stored? Good question. To give believers the benefit of the doubt, however, there’s much that scientists don’t understand about the human brain, and it’s possible that since it contains more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, there’s probably hidden storage space aplenty.

Since it’s clear I’m bending over backward to accommodate the believers at this point, I’ll also admit that these various “scientific” theories are quite complicated and make my head spin. If we were to apply Occam’s Razor to this issue, might not the existence of an afterlife and angels and beings of light and souls and religious figures and separate consciousnesses and a life review, as well as the ability to communicate with lights and the possibility of attaining complete knowledge about life and the nature of the universe and so on, ad infinitum, be the simplest explanation after all?

Until this ongoing controversy is resolved once but not likely for all by the AWARE experimenters, it would behoove skeptics, including myself, to keep an open mind on this controversial topic. And even before the results are finally published, maybe we should start thinking about award nominations for this worthy study. I’m thinking an Ig Noble Prize. How about a Pigasus Award? If we’re especially lucky, maybe a Darwin Award.

Then again, if the AWARE experiment totally fails, all is not lost. Why not try an alternative test, such as stretching a nano-fiber mosquito net above the dying patient to trap the consciousness when it tries to escape the body? Catching a consciousness would be awesome evidence, wouldn’t it? It surely beats electronic voice phenomena (EVP) and orbs.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, in the name of science, I’m off to run my own AWARE experiment by way of autoerotic asphyxiation. Will I have an NDE? An OBE? And will I be able to watch my own orgasm (O)? Results TBA.

“Help”

Musick’s narrative, titled “Help,” relates how “Doctor Anderson” was awakened by a knock at the door “just past midnight.” He found on his doorstep a girl of twelve or thirteen who was dressed in a blue coat and carrying a white muff. She implored him to hurry to “the old Hostler place,” where her mother was desperately ill, and then she darted down the road. Anderson picked up his doctor’s bag, quickly saddled his horse, and hurried on his way until “he saw the glow of a lamp in the old Hostler house.”

Finding a bedridden woman inside, the physician put wood on the dying fire and set to work to treat her fever. When she had rallied, he told her how fortunate she was that her daughter had fetched him. “But I have no daughter,” the woman whispered. “My daughter has been dead for three years.” Anderson described to her how the girl had been dressed; the woman admitted that her daughter had had such clothing and indicated where the items were hanging.

Thereupon, relates the narrative’s final paragraph, “Doctor Anderson strode over to the closet, opened the door, and took out a blue coat and white muff. His hands trembled when he felt the coat and muff and found them still warm and damp from perspiration.”

How do we explain such an event? Well, first we remember to apply an old skeptic’s dictum: before attempting to explain something, make sure it really happened.

Another Version

As it turns out, a book by Billy Graham contains a remarkably similar story (1975, 2–3), wherein the implication is that the little girl in the tale is not a ghost but rather an angel:

Dr. S.W. Mitchell, a celebrated Philadelphia neurologist, had gone to bed after an exceptionally tiring day. Suddenly he was awakened by someone knocking on his door. Opening it he found a little girl, poorly dressed and deeply upset. She told him her mother was very sick and asked him if he would please come with her. It was a bitterly cold, snowy night, but though he was bone tired, Dr. Mitchell dressed and followed the girl. . . .

As Reader’s Digest reports the story, he found the mother desperately ill with pneumonia. After arranging for medical care, he complimented the sick woman on the intelligence and persistence of her little daughter. The woman looked at him strangely and said, “My daughter died a month ago.” She added, “Her shoes and coat are in the clothes closet there.” Dr. Mitchell, amazed and perplexed, went to the closet and opened the door. There hung the very coat worn by the little girl who had brought him to tend her mother. It was warm and dry and could not possibly have been out in the wintry night. . . .

Could the doctor have been called in the hour of desperate need by an angel who appeared as this woman’s young daughter? Was this the work of God’s angels on behalf of the sick woman?

Graham provides no documentation beyond the vague reference to Reader’s Digest, which in any event is hardly a scholarly source. In fact, I soon discovered that the tale is an old one, circulated in various forms with conflicting details. For example, as “The Girl in the Snow,” it appears in Margaret Ronan’s anthology of Strange Unsolved Mysteries. While Graham’s version is of implied recent vintage, that by Ronan is set on a “December day in 1880.” Whereas Graham states that the doctor was “awakened by someone knocking on his door,” Ronan tells us “the doorbell downstairs was ringing violently.” Absent from the Graham version is the suggestion that the little girl was a ghost, not an angel; for example, Ronan says the child looked “almost wraithlike in the whirling snow,” and that “at times she seemed to vanish into the storm. . . .” In Graham’s account, the doctor is credited with simply “arranging for medical care,” while Ronan insists Mitchell “set about at once to do what he could for her” and “by morning he felt that at last she was out of danger.” Although both versions preserve the essential element that the woman’s little girl had died a month before, Graham’s version quotes the mother as saying, “Her shoes and coat are in the clothes closet there,” while Ronan’s has her stating, “All I have left to remember her by are those clothes hanging on that peg over there.” Indeed the latter account does not describe a coat and shoes but states: “Hanging from the peg was the thin dress he had seen the child wearing, and the ragged shawl” (Ronan 1974, 99–101).

S. Weir Mitchell

Variant Tales

There are many other versions—or “variants” as folklorists say—of the proliferating tale. Of the five others I discovered, all feature the physician S. Weir Mitchell, but only two suggest the time period. Unlike the Graham (1975) and Ronan (1974) versions, which have the garments in a “clothes closet” and hanging from a peg, respectively, four of the other five variant tales say the clothes are in a “cupboard”; one has them in a “shabby chiffonier” (Edwards 1961, 52). There are differences in the clothes: Colby (1959) lists a “little dress” and “tattered shawl”; Edwards (1961) a “heavy dress,” “hightop shoes,” and “gray shawl” with a “blue glass pin”; Hurwood (1967) “all the clothes the child had worn when he saw her earlier”; Tyler (1970) that exact same wording; and Strange Stories (1976) “her shoes and [folded] shawl.”

No doubt there are still other versions of the story. Variants are a “defining characteristic of folklore,” according to distinguished folklorist Jan H. Brunvand (1978, 7), since oral transmission naturally produces differing versions of the same story. In this case, however, Brunvand notes that many of the variants are explained by writers copying others (Tyler from Hurwood, for instance) but adding details and making other changes for literary purposes (Brunvand 2000, 132). In any case, Brunvand (1981, 21) observes that when there is no certain original, the multiple versions of a tale provide “good evidence against credibility.” But was there an identifiable original of the Mitchell story?

Brunvand (2000, 123–36) followed up on the tale (with some assistance from me). Eventually he turned up a couple of versions that supposedly came from Mitchell himself. One was published in 1950 by R.W.G. Vail, then-director of the New York Historical Society:

One day in February, 1949, Dr. Philip Cook of Worcester, Mass., while on a visit to New York City, told me this story which he had heard the famous doctor and writer S. Weir Mitchell tell at a medical meeting years ago. (Dr. Mitchell died in 1914).

“I was sitting in my office late one night when I heard a knock and, going to the door, found a little girl crying, who asked me to go at once to her home to visit a very sick patient. I told her that I was practically retired and never made evening calls, but she seemed to be in such great distress that I agreed to make the call and so wrote down the name and address she gave me. So I got my bag, hat, and coat and returned to the door, but the little girl was gone. However, I had the address and so went on and made the call. When I got there, a woman came to the door in tears. I asked if there was a patient needing attention. She said that there had been—her little daughter—but that she had just died. She then invited me in. I saw the patient lying dead in her bed, and it was the little girl who had called at my office.”

Brunvand (2000, 123–36) also turned up an interesting letter from the Mitchell papers. Dated November 2, 1909, it had been written to Mitchell by physician Noel Smith of Dover, New Hampshire. It read:

S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.

My dear Doctor:—

Please pardon my intrusion upon your valuable time, but—as I should like the truthfulness, or otherwise, of what follows established, I have taken the liberty of addressing you.

A travelling man, a stranger, accosted me a few days since at one of our principal hotels, knowing that I was a physician, asking me if I believe in the supernatural, communications with the spirits of departed friends, etc.—I assured him that I had never experienced any personal observations or manifestations that would lead me to any such belief. He then related to me the following story, vouching for its authenticity.—He was a member of some organization, I think, in N.Y., and they had lectures now and then upon various topics. One evening it was announced that prominent men were present who would in turn relate their most wonderful experiences. You was [sic] the first called upon, and you stated that you could tell your most wonderful personal experience in a few words. You went on to say that you were engaged in writing late one evening in your library when somebody knocked three times upon the library door. This was thought to be very strange, as electric bells were in use. Upon opening the door, a little girl, about 12 years of age stood there, having a red cloak for an outer garment. She asked if you were Dr. Mitchell, and wished you to go at once to visit her mother professionally, as she was very ill. You informed her that you had given up general practice, but that Dr. Bennett lived diagonally across the street, and that you would direct her to his door, which you did. In a few moments the raps upon your door were repeated, and you found the girl there a second time. She could not obtain Dr. Bennett’s services, and urged you to accompany her home; and you did so. She conducted you to a poor section of the city and up a rickety flight of stairs into a tenement house. She ushered you into a room where her mother lay ill upon a bed. You prescribed for the sick lady, giving her some general directions for future guide, and assured her that it was only at the very urgent and persistent efforts of her daughter that you were prevailed upon to come to her. The woman said that that was strange: that she had no daughter—that her only daughter had just died and her body reposed in a casket in the adjoining room. You then looked into this room & viewed the remains of a girl about 12 years of age, while hanging upon the wall was a red cloak.

I am curious to know, doctor, whether you ever had any such experience, or any approach thereto. Hence these words. Let me say right here that Mrs. Smith & myself enjoyed very much the reading together the “Red City” when running in the Century Magazine.

Thanking you in advance for your reply to this inquiry. I am

Yours Sincerely

Noel Smith

The Revelation

Mitchell wrote the following at the top of Smith’s letter in his own handwriting: “One of many about an early [illegible] ghosttale of [mine?]”—a seemingly tacit admission that the ghost narrative was pure fiction.

Indeed, Mitchell must surely be alluding to this very matter when, in his novel Characteristics ([1891] 1909, 208–209), the protagonist, North, observes:

It is dangerous to tell a ghost-story nowadays. . . . A friend of mine once told one in print out of his wicked head, just for the fun of it. It was about a little dead child who rang up a doctor one night, and took him to see her dying mother. Since then he has been the prey of collectors of such marvels. Psychical societies write to him; anxious believers and disbelievers in the supernatural assail him with letters. He has written some fifty to lay this ghost. How could he predict a day when he would be taken seriously?

So there we have it: Mitchell’s oblique confession that he had simply conjured up a ghost tale, filled it with literary verisimilitude (semblance of truth), and sent it forth. Later, as Brunvand (2000, 129) notes, Mitchell was “chagrined to find the public believing that he was presenting the story as the literal truth.” Mitchell—like the Fox Sisters whose phony spirit communications spawned the modern spiritualist movement (Nickell 2007, 39)—discovered that the genie could not be put back into the bottle.

References

Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1978. The Study of American Folklore. New York: W.W. Norton.

———. 1981. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W.W. Norton.

———. 2000. The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story! Chicago: University of Illinois.

Colby, C.B. 1959. Strangely Enough (abridged). New York: Scholastic Book Services.

Edwards, Frank. 1961. Strange People. New York: Signet.

Graham, Billy. 1975. Angels: God’s Secret Agents. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.

Hurwood, Bernhardt J. 1967. Strange Talents. New York: Ace Books.

Mitchell, S. Weir. (1891) 1909. Characteristics. New York: Century.

Musick, Ruth Ann. 1965. The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.

Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.

———. 2007. Adventures in Paranormal Investigation. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky.

Ronan, Margaret. 1974. Strange Unsolved Mysteries. New York: Scholastic Book Services.

Strange Stories, Amazing Facts. 1976. Pleasantville, New York: The Reader’s Digest Association.

Tyler, Steven. 1970. ESP and Psychic Power. New York: Tower Publications.

The End of Discovery. By Russell Stannard. Oxford University Press, New York, 2010. ISBN: 978-0199585243. 224 pp. Hardcover, $24.95.

In 1844, the idea that we would ever be able to discover what distant stars are made of was so unthinkable that philosopher Auguste Comte cited it as an archetypal example of an unsolvable question. He was wrong. A mere three years after Comte’s death, scientists figured out how to read a star’s light spectrum to determine its chemical composition: each dark line in the spectrum represents light that was absorbed by a particular kind of atom or molecule.

It’s easy to look like a fool to future generations when one makes predictions, especially predictions about what will “never” happen. But even if we can’t speak with 100 percent certainty, are there any questions that at least seem to have a higher-than-usual chance of remaining unsolved forever? Particle physicist Russell Stannard thinks so. In The End of Discovery, he lists the scientific questions he fears may prove unanswerable and explains why each made the list. The questions are mostly from physics and cosmology, and they include some of the most fundamental issues about the nature of the universe. What happened before the big bang? Is there other intelligent life in the universe? What is space? Why are the laws of physics the way they are?

It’s not always clear why all of the book’s “potentially unsolvable” questions deserve that label any more than other problems that once baffled scientists. Take Stannard’s example of dark matter. Scientists believe it exists, despite never having observed it directly, because they have discovered gravitational forces that can’t be explained by the observable matter in the universe. It’s true that, as Stannard explains, we don’t yet have any idea what dark matter actually is. But there also don’t seem to be any obvious obstacles in the way of us solving that problem. So it’s not clear why we should consider ourselves to be in a more hopeless situation with respect to dark matter than earlier scientists were with respect to, say, the nature of light.

But for many of the questions Stannard raises, there are real obstacles to finding a solution. These fall roughly into one of two categories: obstacles to getting the evidence we need and obstacles to understanding the evidence we have. The former is a particular problem for investigations of the early universe, which is clouded by a “radiation fog” because its conditions were too hot for atoms to form. And some of the leading theories explaining quantum mechanics posit the existence of other, inaccessible universes. What hope do we have of testing those theories empirically?

Even if the evidence is “out there” and could be gathered in principle, it may be impossible to gather it in practice. Every time physicists have succeeded in smashing particles together at a significantly higher energy level—for example, by building bigger particle colliders—we have reaped new discoveries. But there are practical limits to the size of collider we can build, and some of our most promising theories may not be testable within those limits. For example, our equations predict that gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the weak and strong nuclear forces would all converge to the same strength at an energy level of approximately 10¹⁵ billion electron volts, revealing themselves as manifestations of a single force. Yet even the largest particle collider ever built, the Large Hadron Collider, can’t reach much higher than 10⁴ billion electron volts. That’s no guarantee that we won’t hit upon an alternate technological strategy someday, but neither can we assume that every technological challenge will be surmountable just because we want it to be. As Stannard rhetorically asks, “Why should all the indispensible experimental data for formulating a final complete theory happen to match what we humans are able to achieve in practical and economic terms?”

But our own brains may prove our biggest handicap in the quest for scientific understanding. As the biologist J.B.S. Haldane said, the universe might be “not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” If a monkey can’t be made to understand calculus, isn’t it plausible that there might be features of the universe, or mathematics necessary to understand those features, that are as far beyond our ken as calculus is beyond a monkey’s? We’re not at that point yet, but even today the math involved in string theory is a challenge for even the brightest scientists.

Technology could amend the situation to some degree, though Stannard doesn’t discuss that possibility in the book. Computers have already enabled us to perform calculations that are many orders of magnitude too complicated for us to do by hand. And artificial intelligence algorithms can pick up on patterns that are too subtle for a human brain to detect, involving interactions between hundreds or thousands of different variables. There’s even a recent example of a computer algorithm uncovering a law of motion.

However, while technology may be able to help us calculate answers, it’s unlikely to be able to help us understand them. Our brains didn’t evolve to help us understand quantum mechanics; they evolved to help our ancestors survive in the environment in which they happened to live. So, because it was useful to our ancestors, we developed an intuitive grasp of the physics of our day-to-day lives, such as the fact that a dropped object falls to the ground and that solid objects can’t pass through each other. But those generalities are true only for beings of roughly our size that inhabit worlds roughly like ours. If we had evolved in a much smaller world, perhaps we would be able to perceive that solid objects are mostly made up of empty space; if we had evolved to move much faster, perhaps we would have an intuitive grasp of the relativistic effects that warp time and space at high speeds. As it is, those scientific discoveries are hard to wrap our minds around.

And many of the scientific mysteries in The End of Discovery suffer from this problem. Even if we are able to figure out what is the case, we can’t understand how it can be the case. What does it mean for time to “begin” at the big bang? How is it possible for something to be both a wave and a particle simultaneously? Our concepts start to break down when we venture too far from the world we’re used to. One response to this conceptual impasse is to take an instrumentalist approach to science, focusing simply on finding theories that make accurate empirical predictions without trying to interpret them in a way that makes sense to us. This approach, which many physicists take with quantum mechanics, is summed up in the slogan “Shut up and calculate!” Unsatisfying, perhaps, but for some problems we may not have other options.

Stannard reassures us that he’s not anti-science and would be delighted if it turns out that all of these scientific mysteries are solvable after all. Nevertheless, there is something odd about his stated motivations for writing The End of Discovery: “[This book] is to be seen as a call to exercise a measure of humility,” he says in the introduction. “The claim is made that science is the only route to knowledge, and that ultimately it will bring us a complete understanding of everything.” Wait a minute—it’s one thing to say that science may not be able to give us all the knowledge we want about the universe, but it’s another thing altogether to suggest that there are other routes to that knowledge. Stannard doesn’t elaborate on what those other routes are, and it wouldn’t be fair to put words in his mouth. But it’s at the very least an unfortunate choice of phrasing, because it echoes a common but fallacious argument for theism: science doesn’t have answers for everything, therefore we need religion to give us answers.

Stannard also undercuts his pro-science protestations when he explains that in addition to promoting an appreciation for science’s achievements, his book is also intended to “engender an even greater sense of awe when faced with the mystery of existence.” Romanticizing the unknown has been a human tendency throughout our history, but it isn’t exactly a helpful one if we want to reduce the size of that unknown. Stannard may be right that there are mysteries about our universe that we’ll never solve. But whatever mysteries we do manage to solve, it won’t be thanks to us remaining in awe of them.