A clinic with 184 frozen individuals hope to wake up in the future
Scientists, celebrities and even pets are underground at temperatures of 100 degrees below zero, in special capsules.
The Alcor Life Extension Foundation is an American association that has guaranteed more than 100 people to keep them alive after death.
That is, in the event that their heart stops beating, instead of taking them to a funeral home, dressing them in their best clothes and putting them in a coffin for burial or cremation, the facility puts their body at low temperatures.
The objective of the organization is to "preserve life by stopping death", is what they show on their official website. In addition, they offer monthly plans of 55 dollars, to join this project.
How does it work?
The cryonics process consists of freezing the bodies of people so that later, without a specific date, they can be taken out of the containers and go through scientific methods, to recover their lives.
Alcor indicates that this is an experiment, since it is not guaranteed that they return to the natural plane.
Assuming the innovation of the next few years or hundreds of years allows, perhaps the heartbeat will continue. The facility follows a progression of steps to take do cryogenics.
The first stage consists of visiting the individual in his last days of life, to confirm that he can be an important part of the program.
The subject must die of cardiac arrest and the specialists must announce that the person is legally deceased.
When that happens, Alcor's specialists take over responsibility for the body: they deceptively re-route the blood to protect the brain, transport it to Arizona, USA, introduce a substance into the blood, and chill it during the fifth and sixth day after death at 196 degrees Celsius.
In this way the patient will be protected for a hypothetical time of a thousand years and the death system has been adequately stopped.
The body is placed inside a capsule, which does not need power to function, as it is kept at cold temperatures by the infusion of fluid nitrogen.
On the website it can be seen that, for now, no association can restore a cryogenic patient. However, in Alcor they are completely sure that the revival could be conceivable.
Who has chosen to participate?
Linda and Fred Chamberlain are the creators of the center, officially founded in 1972.
Robert Ettinger, the supposed father of cryogenics, was the one who inspired them. Ettinger is frozen in another entity in the United States.
The couple brought together several doctors and specialists in the field to cryogenize the psychologist, James Bedford. Subsequently, his other patients were Linda's mother and Fred's father.
Linda, speaking to some media, has expressed that this is still in an exploratory phase, they don't want anyone to come into the company, make the preparations and think that this is similar to going to the emergency room and undergoing an open-heart medical procedure.
His partner, Fred, passed away in 2021 and is obviously underground in the cellars of Alcor.
In total, 184 people are lifeless inside these capsules. In addition to those mentioned above, there is also the Chinese author, Du Hong; the researcher, Marvin Minsky; and the filmmaker, Dick Clair Jones.
In addition, there are more than 90 pets, including dogs and cats, which were taken to the cellars at the request of their owners, as Linda mentioned in the middle.
The legitimate battle of the living
The prestigious baseball player and central member of the Boston Red Sox group, Ted Williams, passed away in 2002, at the age of 83. He decided that, when he died, he would be cryogenized.
His case sparked a discussion following revelations in Sports Illustrated magazine, which blamed Alcor for having beheaded him, keeping his head in a different briefcase and carrying out numerous DNA tests.
Editorial review found that Williams paid $136,000 to participate in this experiment.
It was learned that he apparently burned his will to opt for cremation before he died. This was reported by his daughter Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell.
The experiment center has not responded to this accusation. This has not been the only problem he has faced, since Kurt Pilgeram sued them seeking compensation of a million dollars in damages for the abuse of his father's body.
Pilgeram, in 2019, assured Az Central media that his father had his head removed, his body burned, put in a box and sent home. Ask people to realize what is happening with this project.
Despite that, there is no law that disavows Alcor's activities. However, there are researchers who criticize their analyses.
Neuroscientist Michael Hendricks published a letter for the 'MIT Technology Review' newspaper, assuring that this procedure is a false science. The people who benefit from this expectation deserve our anger and contempt.
At the moment, around 1,400 people are members of the association, including DJ Steve Aoki, who wish to die, to return to life in a few centuries, when innovation and medication are adequately advanced.