Investigator and author David Paulides has focused his attention on the growing number of cases of people who have mysteriously vanished. In the first half, he discussed his new work on unexplained incidents in Montana. He studied some 68 cases that stretched back as far as 1896. One of the most recent he looked at took place in 2014, when a 38-year-old hunter named Aaron Hedges disappeared in the Crazy Mountains. He radioed his hunting companions that he would be back at a certain time but never returned. When a search crew began to look for him a few days later, they located his boots and water equipment surrounded by 18 inches of snow and concluded he couldn't have gone far from that location without shoes in that climate. Nine months later, Hedges skull and his backpack, loaded pistol, and other items were found around seven miles away from the initial discovery. It was inexplicable, Paulides noted, that Hedges could have traversed that distance (equivalent to around 15 trail miles) in that weather without his boots, and also that he never fired his gun to draw attention to his location.
He detailed the case of Bishop William Faber, who disappeared from Glacier National Park in the summer of 1934. An experienced hiker, the 74-year-old went out for a short early evening hike before dinner but never returned. A search took place, but rangers didn't recover his body until about a week later. Faber was discovered "in one of the most unusual situations I've heard," Paulides remarked. He was found in a creek about three hours from the hotel where he'd been staying, with his body pinned between two boulders. His head and shoulders were above the water and dry, which meant he hadn't fallen into the creek. Paulides also talked about the cases of Ida May Curtis, Dr. Frederick Lumley, and Patrick Whalen, as well as shared safety tips for hikers, such as carrying a personal locator beacon, an emergency blanket, flashlight, mirror, whistle, and fire starter.
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Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the UVA School of Medicine, Dr. Bruce Greyson is a co-founder and President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, and editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. In the latter half, he spoke about his nearly five decades of research into near-death experiences (NDEs). "Almost every experiencer that I've talked to has said they are no longer afraid of dying after their near-death experience," he remarked. And, he added, the experiencers also found they could enjoy their lives more without the fear of death. NDE reports from around the globe and across time share many specific similarities, he marveled.
During the NDE, people often report seeing an unusual kind of light. It's not a static light, he explained, but "a living being that radiates light," as well as oneness and peace that "makes them feel enveloped and cared for." During the NDE, Greyson said people typically encounter deceased loved ones. Interestingly, there have been cases where the experiencer didn't know that the loved one had died, and isn't able to confirm this until after they've returned from the NDE. Another aspect that commonly occurs during an NDE is an "empathetic life review" where the individual sees a review of their life not only from their own perspective but of those they interacted with. According to Greyson, NDEs are not that rare, occurring to about 5% of the population, and those that have them show no signs of mental illness.
News segment guests: Capt. Kelly Sweeney, Dr. Peter Breggin