1
00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:15,040
Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with Me, Richard acclaimed Smith, where

2
00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:17,520
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories

3
00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:20,280
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make

4
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,840
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In our last episode, Mobius Stripped,

5
00:00:25,079 --> 00:00:28,440
Speaker 1: we learned about the curious work of Stephen A. Schwartz

6
00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:33,280
Speaker 1: and his fascination with the nature of human consciousness. Over

7
00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:37,400
Speaker 1: decades of work in various fields, Schwartz has become convinced

8
00:00:37,440 --> 00:00:41,640
Speaker 1: that all life is interconnected and that consciousness is not

9
00:00:41,760 --> 00:00:47,840
Speaker 1: a local thing that exists only within ourselves. Instead, according

10
00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:52,400
Speaker 1: to Schwartz, that sense of consciousness that we experience individually

11
00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:56,640
Speaker 1: is in fact part of a much larger universal plane

12
00:00:56,640 --> 00:01:02,440
Speaker 1: of consciousness that we can supposedly access. Schwartz has dedicated

13
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:06,800
Speaker 1: much of his time to researching the possibilities of remote viewing,

14
00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:10,520
Speaker 1: a practice that has been described as the ability to

15
00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:17,600
Speaker 1: acquire information about spatially and temporally remote geographical targets otherwise

16
00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:23,440
Speaker 1: inaccessible by any known sensory means. It is Schwartz's belief

17
00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:27,280
Speaker 1: that it is the existence of a universal consciousness that

18
00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:33,000
Speaker 1: enables people to successfully perform remote viewing by essentially allowing

19
00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:36,480
Speaker 1: their minds to wander through it with the potential to

20
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:42,400
Speaker 1: effectively see things happening anywhere at any time. At first,

21
00:01:42,760 --> 00:01:47,240
Speaker 1: Schwartz directed his attention to the past, asking participants in

22
00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:51,440
Speaker 1: a number of experiments such as the Alexandria Project as

23
00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:54,640
Speaker 1: featured in last week's episode, to see if they could

24
00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:59,280
Speaker 1: use remote viewing to look back in time. Then, in

25
00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:04,640
Speaker 1: nineteen eight, satisfied that this was indeed possible, he had

26
00:02:04,680 --> 00:02:09,720
Speaker 1: an epiphany. If experienced remote viewers could look back in time,

27
00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:14,760
Speaker 1: could they also look into the future, And so he

28
00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:25,560
Speaker 1: decided to try and find out. Throughout the late nineteen

29
00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:30,080
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, Stephen Schwartz occupied a number of roles

30
00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:34,880
Speaker 1: within the American geopolitical community. At some point in the

31
00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:38,880
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the US Secretary of Defense at the time

32
00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:44,160
Speaker 1: and the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology invited

33
00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:47,080
Speaker 1: Schwartz to take part in a committee they were putting

34
00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:53,680
Speaker 1: together under the label Innovation, Technology and the Future. After

35
00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:59,760
Speaker 1: taking part, Schwartz became fascinated with future studies, or strategic foresight,

36
00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:04,399
Speaker 1: as it is also known, the study of potential social

37
00:03:04,520 --> 00:03:10,960
Speaker 1: and technological advancement. Futurists are concerned with predicting future trends,

38
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:15,639
Speaker 1: and often work closely with governments and businesses analyzing relevant

39
00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:19,520
Speaker 1: data to try and make predictions about future local and

40
00:03:19,720 --> 00:03:23,519
Speaker 1: global landscapes. To try and stay ahead of the curve

41
00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:29,880
Speaker 1: with its unwieldy and highly unpredictable subject matter, considering all

42
00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:34,680
Speaker 1: the many variables and unforeseen consequences that might impact what

43
00:03:34,880 --> 00:03:39,440
Speaker 1: happens in the future, most futurists prefer their analysis to

44
00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:45,560
Speaker 1: be based on solid, tangible facts and quantifiably predictive data.

45
00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:50,240
Speaker 1: There certainly little appetite within the future studies community for

46
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:55,240
Speaker 1: trying to apply something so numinous and scientifically nebulous as

47
00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:59,800
Speaker 1: so called remote viewing, to the equation, but Schwartz had

48
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:05,320
Speaker 1: other ideas. In nineteen seventy nine, fresh from the apparent

49
00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:10,400
Speaker 1: successes of his various remote viewing experiments through the Mobius Project,

50
00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:14,600
Speaker 1: he began gathering participants for a new study, which would

51
00:04:14,640 --> 00:04:19,880
Speaker 1: become known as the twenty fifty Project. From nineteen seventy

52
00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:24,080
Speaker 1: nine to nineteen ninety one, over four thousand people would

53
00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:27,200
Speaker 1: take part in it from countries all over the world,

54
00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:34,760
Speaker 1: including Russia, Germany, France, Jamaica, Mexico, Canada, and the United States.

55
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:39,760
Speaker 1: The participants were also drawn from all manner of backgrounds,

56
00:04:39,760 --> 00:04:45,440
Speaker 1: from scientists and engineers to stay at home individuals, government bureaucrats,

57
00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:50,880
Speaker 1: and medical doctors. All were given the same simple instruction

58
00:04:51,760 --> 00:04:55,640
Speaker 1: to enter a meditative state and imagine themselves on the

59
00:04:55,720 --> 00:05:00,159
Speaker 1: same exact day they were undertaking the exercise, but the

60
00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:08,280
Speaker 1: year twenty fifty, and then tell Schwartz what they saw there. Incredibly,

61
00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:14,520
Speaker 1: despite the various professional, cultural, and geographical differences of the participants,

62
00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:19,000
Speaker 1: according to Schwartz, many of their answers were strikingly similar.

63
00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:24,120
Speaker 1: Whether you believe in the legitimacy of Schwartz's methods or not,

64
00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:28,599
Speaker 1: or dispute what it was exactly that led the participants

65
00:05:28,680 --> 00:05:32,240
Speaker 1: to say what they said, there's no denying the results

66
00:05:32,720 --> 00:05:43,200
Speaker 1: certainly make for some startling reading. With the test subject

67
00:05:43,279 --> 00:05:47,000
Speaker 1: placed in a comfortable setting, Stephen would wait for them

68
00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:50,560
Speaker 1: to enter a meditative state and then invite them to

69
00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:55,000
Speaker 1: try and send their mind into the future. Twelve percent

70
00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:59,120
Speaker 1: of those who participated immediately claimed they were unable to

71
00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:02,640
Speaker 1: do so since they no longer existed in the year

72
00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:07,159
Speaker 1: twenty fifty. Those that did would invariably get to a

73
00:06:07,240 --> 00:06:10,200
Speaker 1: point when they claimed to have arrived in the assigned

74
00:06:10,279 --> 00:06:16,719
Speaker 1: temporal location, at which point Stephen would begin his interviews.

75
00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:19,320
Speaker 1: His method was to make sure never to offer a

76
00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:23,840
Speaker 1: leading question that could influence the answer, So rather than

77
00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:27,520
Speaker 1: ask what does your house look like, for example, he

78
00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:31,320
Speaker 1: would instead say something like, stand in front at the

79
00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:34,760
Speaker 1: place where you sleep and tell me what it looks like,

80
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,719
Speaker 1: since it was always the first thing on his mind.

81
00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:43,000
Speaker 1: Stephen would begin by asking the participants if there'd been

82
00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:46,560
Speaker 1: a nuclear war, or if there was any evidence that

83
00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:51,680
Speaker 1: such a thing had taken place. Time after time he

84
00:06:51,760 --> 00:06:57,719
Speaker 1: was staggered by their response. No, they would say, but

85
00:06:57,839 --> 00:07:04,719
Speaker 1: that's not all. The Soviet Union has disappeared. It's hard

86
00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:08,719
Speaker 1: to comprehend to day just how strange that sounded back

87
00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:13,080
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine when Schwartz began conducting the study,

88
00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:16,680
Speaker 1: and at first he couldn't get his head around what

89
00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:21,480
Speaker 1: that meant exactly. When he asked how and in what way,

90
00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:28,880
Speaker 1: the participants responded that it simply no longer existed. Rather

91
00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:32,520
Speaker 1: than making the world a safer place, however, as Schwartz

92
00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:37,120
Speaker 1: had hoped, according to the subjects, the disintegration of the

93
00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:40,840
Speaker 1: Soviet Union had led to a far less stable world.

94
00:07:41,440 --> 00:07:47,120
Speaker 1: Prone to increased incidences of terrorism. Schwartz then asked his

95
00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:50,600
Speaker 1: participants to detail the other major concerns of the day

96
00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:57,360
Speaker 1: with regards to global safety. All unanimously stated that the

97
00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:02,160
Speaker 1: main threats were outbreaks of disease and infection, which would

98
00:08:02,240 --> 00:08:06,760
Speaker 1: lead to numerous epidemics that plagued the globe for many years.

99
00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:12,040
Speaker 1: The first of these would be a blood disease, which

100
00:08:12,080 --> 00:08:15,600
Speaker 1: they described as something that had crossed over from primates

101
00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:21,400
Speaker 1: to humans at the time nineteen seventy nine nineteen eighty

102
00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:27,160
Speaker 1: When the participants first started reporting this, Stephen apparently consulted

103
00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:30,520
Speaker 1: a friend of his, who worked as the deputy director

104
00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:35,680
Speaker 1: of cardiovascular research at the US's National Institute of Health,

105
00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:39,480
Speaker 1: to ask if he knew of any such thing currently

106
00:08:39,520 --> 00:08:44,320
Speaker 1: in circulation in the global population. He knew of nothing

107
00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:49,760
Speaker 1: like it. It was sometime later in the June nineteen

108
00:08:49,800 --> 00:08:53,959
Speaker 1: eighty one edition of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

109
00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:58,319
Speaker 1: published by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

110
00:08:58,920 --> 00:09:03,160
Speaker 1: that five young men in Los Angeles, California, were reportedly

111
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:08,920
Speaker 1: being treated with strange cases of pneumocystis pneumonia. Two would

112
00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:14,680
Speaker 1: die soon after. All were around thirty years old with

113
00:09:14,760 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 1: no previous health complications. The five men are thought to

114
00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:23,360
Speaker 1: be the first reported individuals in America to have been

115
00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:29,880
Speaker 1: infected with HIV, and the apparent revelations kept on coming.

116
00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:41,719
Speaker 1: When Schwartz asked his participants again back no later than

117
00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:45,720
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, but most from nineteen seventy nine and

118
00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:53,760
Speaker 1: the early eighties, how people traveled, the response was again surprising. Overwhelmingly,

119
00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:57,720
Speaker 1: the subjects responded that people didn't travel much at all

120
00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:03,200
Speaker 1: since technology had read did it mostly unnecessary? How so

121
00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:08,360
Speaker 1: Stephen had asked, well, they would reply, there was a

122
00:10:08,400 --> 00:10:12,360
Speaker 1: sort of apparatus you could use to project yourself into

123
00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:17,320
Speaker 1: other spaces, like a kind of virtual reality. You could

124
00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:23,360
Speaker 1: have meetings there or communicate with loved ones. Computers too,

125
00:10:23,679 --> 00:10:27,160
Speaker 1: or at least the peculiar devices they saw that resembled

126
00:10:27,200 --> 00:10:32,640
Speaker 1: computers in their functionality were no longer huge, unwieldy things,

127
00:10:32,679 --> 00:10:36,280
Speaker 1: but small and pocket sized that you could easily carry

128
00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:41,080
Speaker 1: around with you on a daily basis. Concern about the

129
00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:46,160
Speaker 1: climate was a frequent topic of conversation. By twenty fifty,

130
00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:50,800
Speaker 1: many said we no longer burned carbon. As a result,

131
00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:56,760
Speaker 1: all air travel had been significantly reduced cars were not

132
00:10:56,880 --> 00:11:01,280
Speaker 1: so much cars, but devices constructed from a combination of

133
00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:04,560
Speaker 1: a chassis and another device that was some kind of

134
00:11:04,679 --> 00:11:09,720
Speaker 1: box that powered it like a battery. The same device

135
00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:14,599
Speaker 1: was used to power houses and larger buildings too. A

136
00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:19,440
Speaker 1: much changed climate had also apparently left many coastal towns

137
00:11:19,559 --> 00:11:23,600
Speaker 1: under water, and in places where the temperature had become

138
00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:26,560
Speaker 1: too hot to exist in the ways were used to

139
00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:31,119
Speaker 1: large domes had been built to regulate the climate inside,

140
00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:34,800
Speaker 1: much in the manner say as Dubai's More of the

141
00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:41,079
Speaker 1: World project, which was first proposed in twenty sixteen. Many

142
00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:46,760
Speaker 1: also described a world in which pharmacological medicine had almost disappeared,

143
00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:52,920
Speaker 1: since most genetic predispositions such as cystic fibrosis or muscular

144
00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:59,120
Speaker 1: dystrophy had been engineered out before birth. As for governments,

145
00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:03,160
Speaker 1: they still exist, but the processes of power were much

146
00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:08,840
Speaker 1: changed and much more devolved. In the US specifically, although

147
00:12:08,880 --> 00:12:12,600
Speaker 1: a federal government was said to exist, most power was

148
00:12:12,679 --> 00:12:17,840
Speaker 1: exercised by the states or larger bioregions that had vested

149
00:12:17,920 --> 00:12:23,079
Speaker 1: ecological reasons to keep their policies aligned. All in all,

150
00:12:23,559 --> 00:12:27,719
Speaker 1: they said the global population was much smaller, and cities

151
00:12:27,760 --> 00:12:32,280
Speaker 1: had become relatively smaller too, with people choosing instead to

152
00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:36,080
Speaker 1: live in communities or communes with others who shared their

153
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:40,080
Speaker 1: values and interests. This in turn had led to a

154
00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:44,720
Speaker 1: hardening and tribal attitudes, since people tended to travel less

155
00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:48,720
Speaker 1: and mix with other people outside of their chosen spheres

156
00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:55,439
Speaker 1: of interest. Despite the increased polarization and entrenched views, many

157
00:12:55,480 --> 00:13:01,440
Speaker 1: participants nonetheless reported that twenty fifty world in which gender

158
00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:05,400
Speaker 1: imbalances had been largely eradicated, but one in which that

159
00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:08,560
Speaker 1: had also been a complete shift in the way that

160
00:13:08,679 --> 00:13:14,120
Speaker 1: gender was defined. This comprises only a fraction of what

161
00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:18,480
Speaker 1: Stephen Schwartz gleaned from his research. You can find out

162
00:13:18,559 --> 00:13:25,280
Speaker 1: more by searching the twenty fifty Project online. Thank you

163
00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:32,520
Speaker 1: to Diane Hope for suggesting this week's story Unexplained. The

164
00:13:32,559 --> 00:13:36,600
Speaker 1: book and audiobook, featuring stories that have never before been

165
00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:40,520
Speaker 1: featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.

166
00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:46,080
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Waterstones, among

167
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:51,000
Speaker 1: other bookstores. All elements have Unexplained, including the show's music,

168
00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:54,599
Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain Smith. Please subscribe and

169
00:13:54,720 --> 00:13:57,600
Speaker 1: rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel

170
00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:00,120
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas

171
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:03,000
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you

172
00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:05,120
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.

173
00:14:05,559 --> 00:14:09,120
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com

174
00:14:09,240 --> 00:14:14,359
Speaker 1: or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.

175
00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:16,839
Speaker 1: Forward slash Unexplained Podcast