By Ben Wheeler
FASCINATING footage from the 1960s has resurfaced this week, shedding light on the formative years of cryopreservation, which could potentially see thousands of humans return from the dead in the future.
The short film shows the early work of the Cryonic Society in Phoenix, Arizona as their team of scientists’ piece together ground-breaking equipment to be used in the preservation process.
A reluctant looking model is also seen giving a demonstration of how one man has already been frozen as she is bizarrely placed in a long cylinder and wrapped head-to-toe in tin foil.
“The possibility of life after death is explored in Phoenix, Arizona by the Cryonic Society,” tells the narrator.
“They believe that cryobiology, the freezing of biological matter, is the answer. They propose freezing bodies in cold storage capsules, scientists are mostly sceptical.
“A model demonstrates how one person, a California man who died of cancer, has already been frozen.
“A freezing liquid replaces the blood supply, and the subject is wrapped in aluminium foil and placed in a capsule at 220 degrees below zero centigrade.”
According to the Cryonics Institute in the United States, the concept of Cryonics was introduced in 1962 by the Founder of the Cryonics Institute, Robert Ettinger, in his landmark book, The Prospect of Immortality.
Explaining the process of Cryonics, this Institute go on to state that “Cryonics involves cooling a recently deceased person to liquid nitrogen temperatures in order to keep the body preserved indefinitely.”
Whilst it is hoped that resuscitation and restoration to full health may be possible in the future, cryopreservation of humans is not reversible with present technology, with cryonicists hoping that medical advances will someday allow cryopreserved people to be revived.
Attitudes of mainstream scientists have not changed much in over fifty years since the video was broadcast, with many in the profession remaining sceptical about the practice.
Despite this, as of 2014 there were around 250 bodies cryopreserved in the United States with a further 1,500 people having made arrangements for cryopreservation after their legal death, the only point at which cryonics procedures can begin.
One person of note who is cryopreserved is former professional baseball player, Ted Williams, who spent his entire career playing for the Boston Red Sox in Major League Baseball. Williams’ body was frozen after a died of cardiac arrest in 2002.
It has also been falsely rumoured that Walt Disney is cryopreserved when he was in fact cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in California.
