Brooklyn based filmmaker, Jonas Elrod, and film producer, Steve Hutensky, discussed the true story of how Elrod suddenly began seeing and hearing angels, demons, and auras all around him, and how his journey for answers led him to physicians, religious teachers, scientists, mystics, spiritual healers and more. "It was like the dam caved," Elrod said, as he detailed the remarkable night when his abilities first manifested. While working on mundane tasks related to a previous film, he said, the temperature in the room dropped and kept getting colder. Following that, a large light appeared on the wall and "spirits and energies and entities started pouring into the room." According to Elrod, this episode lasted for six or seven hours and concluded with the entities telling him to "expose it."

A few months later, Elrod met Hutensky and they began documenting his struggle to not only cope with his newfound abilities but also determine their origin. They explained that Elrod first underwent an MRI as well as a psychiatric evaluation to determine if there was any medical reason for these experiences. After receiving a clean bill of health, the inquiry led to spiritual and metaphysical avenues. One particularly enlightening experience was a visit to a medium in Italy who has developed a way of photographing the entities that Elrod could see. He marveled that "the fact that it showed up on a picture was pretty mind shattering to me." Huntensky noted that the medium explained that these entities are warmer than humans and, in order to manifest themselves, must drain our energy, which is why temperatures appear to drop when ethereal beings are present.

On the nature of his abilities, Elrod opined that "we all have this to some varying degree" and pointed to intuition as a similar type of supernatural skill often taken for granted. The struggle to find out "why me," he said, has ceased and "I'm past that. I definitely feel peace with this process." Ultimately, Hutensky said that all of the experts, whether they were alternative scientists or more esoteric researchers, had a similar message which was to challenge Elrod to embrace his "wake up call." To that end, he observed that there appears to be an ongoing awakening, around the world, in large movements like the Arab Spring or in everyday moments such as when someone loses their job. "All sorts of things can get people on an inner journey," he mused, "and say 'there's more to life and I've got to get off the treadmill and figure something out.'"

Disaster Preparedness

In the first hour, Dr. Geoffrey Simmons talked about disaster preparedness, noting that many facets of being prepared for a disaster are "common sense" concepts, but few people consider them because they presume that "this can't happen to me." Simmons stressed that relying on first responders is foolhardy, because such help likely would not be able to reach them in a timely fashion. He shared a litany of specific preparedness tips, such as having two separate disaster kits: a small one for traveling, should one need to flee, and a larger one for their home in the event that they are stuck there for a lengthy period of time. Being cognizant of the medications one will need, having a plan for housing your pet, and tuning in to an emergency radio station were a few other suggestions that Simmons said could help people endure a disaster.