Robert Bigelow

Nevada businessman Robert Bigelow, owner and founder of Bigelow Aerospace and the Budget Suites hotel chain, has had a lifelong interest in what he calls the two Holy Grails, that is the twin questions: "Are we alone?" and "Does human consciousness survive physical death?" In the 1990s, he created NIDS, the National Institute for Discovery science, which investigated both topics. As part of that research, he purchased a property in Utah now known as Skinwalker Ranch. That ranch became the central focus of a secretive Pentagon-sponsored program known as AAWSAP, later AATIP. Bigelow has just announced a new venture, BICS, the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies.