John B. Alexander, Ph.D., a retired senior Army officer with decades of experience exploring unusual phenomena, joined George Knapp in the first half to discuss events that seem to challenge the revered "laws of science," including issues of life after death, mind over matter, UFOs, remote viewing, telepathic communications and more. A contactee named Chris Bledsoe was spontaneously cured of Crohn's disease, which he suffered from for 12 years, and believes he was healed by his ET contacts. What Alexander found especially significant was when he was visiting him, Bledsoe said "Oh, I think they're here," and just 10 seconds later, a bright unexplained light suddenly appeared in the sky and then zipped off to the north.
"There have been reports of interactions between humans and sentient non-human entities," Alexander noted, "throughout recorded history." Rather than being entirely discreet phenomena, he's theorized that a lot of the strange events he's looked into may be interconnected in some way, and "we should broaden our scope of research rather than narrow it." Weighing in on the new Tom DeLonge venture set up to investigate UFOs and their technology, Alexander remarked that "the team they put together is superb," but for now it's not a revelation of new information, but instead presented as an investment opportunity for the public.
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In the latter half, PhD astrophysicist, science writer, and author, Ethan Siegel spoke about "Treknology" - iconic inventions from the complete history of the Star Trek universe, and how close we are to achieving them in the real world today (view related images). Interestingly, the "communicator" device featured in the original 1960s series actually inspired the development of Motorola's first flip phone, he reported. Regarding the transporter depicted on the show, Siegel commented that such technology is being worked on in the early stages with inanimate objects, but if it could function with humans it might raise ethical questions, such as is the transported person, a copy, rather than the original person?
The universal translator is closer to reality than most people realize, he said, citing Google's latest work in the field, particularly with their new phones. Developments in VR are advancing, and while not yet approaching the experiences seen in Star Trek's holodeck, Siegel has been impressed with the use of infrasound to create the sense of touch on the skin, such as with falling raindrops. The Tricorder medical device is also on its way to becoming a reality, he added-- Qualcomm recently ran a Tricorder X-prize contest to see if teams could create a handheld device that could diagnose over a dozen different medical conditions, and two of the teams were successful.