WEBVTT - Season 06 Episode 29: Mobius Stripped 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:15.400 One Saturday morning in nineteen fifty four in Virginia in 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:20.520 the USA, a twelve year old boy wearing oversized surgical 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.920 scrubs was sat in the corner of an operating theater, 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:29.560 riveted by the scene unfolding before him. In those days, 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.840 as a way to encourage the young into the profession, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.839 physicians were allowed to bring their children into hospital to 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:41.720 watch them work. The boy's father, doctor Abe Schwartz, was 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:46.120 an anesthesiologist and that morning, had been tasked with helping 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.840 to put a teenage girl to sleep for a routine operation. 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.240 His son, Stephan, was given the simple instructions to sit 0:00:55.320 --> 0:01:00.720 behind him, stay quiet, and not touch anything. It might 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.480 seem a strange thing for a twelve year old boy 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.440 to do on a Saturday morning, but Stephen was an 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:12.720 unusual boy with an irreligious and analytical mind fostered by 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:17.840 his atheistic parents. All seemed to be going well when 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.920 all of a sudden, the medical staff became gravely concerned 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:27.480 and began to hurry around the girl. Her heart had stopped. 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.560 Stephan stared widely as they quickly pulled off the girl's 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:38.160 gown and began steadily administering c p R. Despite what 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:43.200 we might see on film and TV, cardio pulmonary resuscitation 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:49.320 is very rarely successful. Thankfully, however, this patient was one 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:53.600 of the lucky ones. Having come round, there was no 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:59.200 chance of completing the operation, and so Stephan's father accompanied 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.960 her as he was wheeled off to an adjoining room 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:07.560 to recover, while Stephen was instructed to go and change. Later, 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:12.079 having disrobed and showered, Stephen was waiting for his father 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.240 in the staff room when Abe came out of the 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:20.359 shower with a strange look on his face. Soon after, 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.679 as Stephen and his father drove into town for their 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:28.480 regular post operation ritual, a get together with Abe's colleagues 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.320 at the local delicatessen, it was clear that something was 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.600 troubling his father. It was only when they were seated 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:41.320 at the delicatessen that Abe finally began to unburden himself. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.560 As Abe explained to his colleagues, shortly after the girl 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.280 had come round, she began to speak to him about 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:01.200 an unusual experience she just had. She claimed that while 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:05.680 she was under sedation, she suddenly found herself floating above 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.800 her body, which she could clearly see stretched out on 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.800 the operating table below her. But when she tried to 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.480 call out to the medical staff, nobody seemed to see 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.440 or hear her. I'm sure what to do. She made 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.040 herself drift out into the hallway, where she then claimed 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.600 to have seen a doctor in a blue and white 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:31.799 shirt with a loosened tie around his neck talking to 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.680 a nurse. The young girl went on to describe the 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:40.720 nurse in great detail, including a very specific hairstyle that 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:46.080 she wore, which the teenager had greatly admired. Then all 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.120 of a sudden, the girl was back in her own body, 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.560 staring at the ceiling and gasping for air as a 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:58.720 team of doctors stared down at her from above. Abe, 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:03.160 not want to believe even such things as near death experiences, 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.400 paused for a moment, a little unsure of what he 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:11.600 was about to say next, while the other doctors listened 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:18.640 with abated breath. Then Abe continued, Having dismissed the whole 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.520 thing as some kind of fever dream, He politely said 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:26.680 goodbye to the girl, then stepped into the hallway and 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:34.000 stopped suddenly in his tracks. There standing before him was 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:38.040 a junior male doctor in a blue and white striped 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.839 shirt with a somewhat disheveled looking tie around his neck, 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.480 while only meters away from him was a female nurse 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:53.680 with a rather elaborate hairstyle, exact in every detail as 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:59.839 the teenage patient had described it incredibly. After hearing the story, 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.800 the other doctors present, many of whom, like Abe were 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:10.960 World War Two veterans, began to relate similar stories. Each 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.359 had had a patient who'd clinically died or been on 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.719 the point of death, only to be revived time and 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.200 time again. Some of the revived patients related how they 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.880 believed they were able to see around them shortly after 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.719 they'd lost bodily consciousness, with each of them saying it 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.919 had felt as though they were very much still present 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:41.240 and aware, as though they had been fully conscious. The 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.839 twelve year old Stephen could only sit silently, soaking it 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:50.400 all in. How could some one be dead, he thought, 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:57.599 yet still be conscious. It didn't make any sense you're 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:11.039 listening to unexplained and Richard McClean smith. The surrounding desert 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.440 was mostly featureless and scorching in the full heat of 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:21.440 mid afternoon. As an Egyptian archeologist and his assistant watched 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.360 on from the shade of some nearby trees. Two men 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:31.120 were wandering seemingly aimlessly back and forth across the dusty terrain, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:36.520 as a camera crew followed close behind. On the ground, 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.799 and all around them, the weathered walls of an ancient 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.479 settlement could be seen jutting up through the sand, the 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:50.599 ruins of the ancient Egyptian port city of Maria. The 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:55.520 city was located around forty kilometers southwest of modern day 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.640 Alexandria on Egypt's north coast, and it's thought to have 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:04.760 last been populated sometime in the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries. 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:11.400 The two men were George McMullen, a middle aged Canadian who, 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.880 with his wavy, graying hair, ordinarily spent his week days 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.400 working at a Chrysler dealership in Canada, and the other 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:27.120 was Stephen Schwartz. Schwartz, who was by then thirty seven, 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.680 had changed little from the twelve year old boy who 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.760 liked nothing more than to accompany his anestatist father to 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.960 work on Saturday mornings. He was still as bright and 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.960 inquisitive as ever, but what he'd been privy to on 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:48.440 that strange Saturday morning two decades before had never left him. 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:53.000 It had also made him determined to one day unlock 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:59.360 the mysteries of human consciousness. In the intervening years, Schwartz 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.520 had graduated high school, served a tour in the US Army, 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:09.440 and graduated from the University of Virginia. Then in nineteen 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.600 seventy one, he began working for the American government as 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.600 a special assistant for Research and Analysis for the Chief 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:22.320 of US Naval Operations, as well as being a consultant 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:27.360 to the oceanographer for the Secretary of Defense. All the while, 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:32.640 his preoccupation with the nature of human consciousness had been growing. 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:38.640 Throughout his college years and subsequent government jobs, Schwartz spent 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:44.360 his spare time devouring parapsychology journals looking for answers, and 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:49.600 became particularly fascinated with the work of apparent psychic Edgar 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:55.240 Case back in nineteen thirty five. Case is believed to 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:59.280 have predicted the coming of World War Two about the 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.800 same time. He is also said to have described what 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:07.440 were then unknown details about an ancient sect of people 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.320 that were later identified as the authors of the Dead 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:18.360 Sea Scrolls. Eleven years before the scrolls were discovered. Cases 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:23.480 work inspired Schwartz to begin his own experiments to test 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:28.240 what he had come to call distant or remote viewing, 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:33.800 an ability he believed allowed some people to detect hidden 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:38.520 or buried objects which they had no prior knowledge of. 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:49.360 For Schwartz's first experiment, he laid out a grid in 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.240 his backyard with rope, and in each grid square he 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:57.920 would bury mason jars containing various objects, such as a 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:02.640 perfume bottle, a vegetable peeler, or a bathroom sponge, to 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:06.880 name a few. Then he would send out a plan 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.680 of the grid to people in different parts of the 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.120 world and asked that they tell him where on the 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.760 grid they sensed there was an object and what it was. 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:22.480 The study was initially double blind, neither the remote viewer 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:27.280 nor the person analyzing the data at any prior information, 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.080 to avoid any possibility of his knowledge of what was 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:37.240 buried influencing what viewers saw. Schwartz later made the study 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:42.000 triple blind, getting someone else entirely to choose the object 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.480 and where to bury it on the grid. Either way, 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:51.160 he found the results were the same over a period 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:55.520 of several years. Schwartz claimed that about twelve percent of 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.800 the people who tried this were reliably able to locate 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:06.000 and describe the hidden objects, perhaps Even more incredibly, Schwartz 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.600 also claimed that the evidence from his experiments suggested that 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.720 people could describe something that had been hidden for two 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.680 thousand years just as easily as a teacup hidden that 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:22.880 afternoon in the next room. Schwartz would go on to 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:28.319 found the Mobious Society, a Los Angeles based private institution 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:34.080 committed to research in the field of human consciousness. As 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:39.280 part of his remote viewing investigations, Schwartz also conducted an 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:45.160 experiment known as Project Deep Quest, explored briefly in Unexplained 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:50.200 Season six, episode sixteen, in which remote viewers were tasked 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.680 with trying to make predictions while more than three hundred 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:59.240 feet under water. This, according to Schwartz, also proved to 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:05.720 be possible. But Schwartz wasn't satisfied. He wanted even more 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:10.160 rigorous tests of remote viewing, and eventually settled on the 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.560 field of archaeology as the perfect discipline with which to 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.520 put it all to the test, an area of study 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.560 frequently beset by the problem of not knowing where to 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:28.199 look for ancient things, but Schwartz new people who seemed 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:33.000 to be able to do just that, and Canadian car 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:38.400 parts sales manager George McMullen was just one such person, 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:44.080 and now here in the Egyptian desert. The pressure was on. 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.679 In what was by far their most ambitious archeological mission 0:12:55.960 --> 0:13:00.080 up to that point. In nineteen seventy nine, Schwartz and 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.680 his Mobia's team set out to find the long lost 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:08.120 remains of key buildings from the ancient city of Alexandria, 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.200 laid out by its namesake Alexander the Great in three 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.680 hundred and thirty one BC. Alexandria was one of the 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:22.960 first planned cities in history. A confluence of Greek culture 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:28.280 and the Ferronic East, it represented the pinnacle of sophisticated 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.680 culture at that time. But how successive versions of the 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:37.800 city were built up century upon century, the location of 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:43.280 many of the original buildings had become obscured. Incredibly, through 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:48.320 the Schwartz led experiments, a team of eleven apparent psychic 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:55.000 seers had supposedly pinpointed the location of legendary sites, including 0:13:55.040 --> 0:14:00.280 the palaces of both Cleopatra and mark Antony, and the 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:06.920 Ferrest Lighthouse, otherwise known as the Fabled Lighthouse of Alexandria, 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:11.680 one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. But 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:16.920 there was a hitch. Stephen Schwartz and his team needed 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:21.840 formal permissions to conduct the searches that would confirm their findings, 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.440 which included several sites now under water in the modern 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:34.040 day harbor of Alexandria. The Egyptian authorities and archeological community 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:40.160 were understandably dubious and demanded proof that Schwartz's unorthodox methods 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:45.840 worked before any permissions could be granted, and so they 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:51.840 set out to convince them. Fine arts photographer Hella Hammet 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:55.960 had no prior knowledge of Alexandria, the region around it, 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:01.280 or its history, but, like George McMullan, she was said 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:08.680 to her repeatedly performed outstandingly well on Schwartz's remote viewing tests. Hammit, 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.120 who believed her apparent skills were the result of simply 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.200 being attuned to that other world that exists, as she 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.240 put it, described her process as looking at a map 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.960 not so much with her eyes, but just to get 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.240 a feeling of it. She would then sense what she 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:33.120 described as a heaviness in certain areas, which suggested to 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:37.280 her that she was on to something, seemingly putting her 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:41.520 photographer's eye to good use. Hammit was also very precise 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:46.440 when outlining the details of buried structures in target locations. 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:52.160 Not long after the Mobius team arrived in Alexandria, Hammit, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:57.120 as one of its supposedly better psychic performers, was selected 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:01.240 by Schwartz as the best person to help provide evidence 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:05.160 to the Egyptian authorities that they should be taken seriously. 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:10.120 A few days of intensive work later, Hammid was certain 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:23.280 she'd identified a lost ancient site of profound significance at 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.720 the behest of Hella. Hammid, Schwartz, and the rest of 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.800 the team squashed into a Pergo sedan and headed off 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.760 to trawl the city's backstreets in search of what Hammid 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:39.200 had spent the last few days repeatedly sketching, described as 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:43.920 a narrowing street or alleyway with high walls on either side. 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.080 For the most part, the team traveled at speeds of 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.520 five to fifteen miles an hour on streets with no 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:57.560 lanes and no signals, and interweaving animal carts, while the 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:02.520 constant blowing of car horns, music blaring from radios, and 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:07.560 overlapping calls to prayer broadcast from the city's many minarets 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:13.080 were a never ending distraction. After hours of searching. With 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.879 nothing substantial to show for their efforts, the hot and 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.760 frazzled team were on the point of giving up when 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.600 late in the afternoon Hammid yelled for them to stop. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.320 Relieved for any excuse to be exiting the stuffy car, 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:34.720 the team swiftly piled out. Although barely visible from the 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:40.119 street through a rusting wrawtie fence. Some fifteen feet below 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.960 was a narrow alleyway just as Hammid had sketched, that 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:50.560 appeared to be an abandoned archeological site. It backed onto 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.040 the El Nabbey Daniel Mosque, just to the south of 0:17:54.119 --> 0:18:01.080 the city's downtown district. Standing opposite, Hamid appeared suddenly to 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.520 be lost in thought, as though she was somehow being 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:10.080 drawn back into the second century BC. She reached for 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.160 a pen and began what was now her ninth supposedly 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:19.840 remotely viewed drawing of the site. Her sketch showed the 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:24.639 semi buried site as if seen from above, which included 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.680 a cupola with three levels, each with arches for bodies 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:33.840 to be placed in. Hammit said it was a large 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:39.160 dungeon or tomb, around twenty to thirty feet below street level. 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.960 The feeling in that moment, she said later, was like 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:48.440 sliding through time and seeing a speeded up view of 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:54.320 the entire tomb's history. The next day, Schwartz was back 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.320 in the same general area with George McMullen, who was 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:03.600 apparently told nothing of the previous day's events. Like Hammid, 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:08.600 McMullen also became consumed in thought the moment he arrived 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:13.320 at the site, McMullan pointed to an area of broken 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.760 marble and rubble, telling Schwartz that it was Greek workmanship. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.360 When Schwartz asked him what he thought it had been originally, 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.840 McMullan replied that it was a tomb, but one without 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:32.720 a body. The next thing he said was electrifying. I've 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.720 never been more sure of anything in my life, said McMullen, 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:44.119 This is Alexander's tomb. The precise location of Alexander the 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:48.760 Great's tomb has never been ascertained, and is considered by 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:53.280 many to be among the most sought after prizes in archeology. 0:19:54.119 --> 0:20:06.800 Had George McMullan just identified it as it transpired, this 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:10.080 wasn't the first time that the area in question had 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:14.280 been pronounced as the location of Alexander the Great's tomb. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.640 Since the mid eighteen hundreds, several scholars had placed it 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:24.000 in roughly the same area. One even claimed to have 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:29.199 discovered not only the tomb but also Alexander's supposed mummy 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:34.359 inside the Al Nabby Daniel Mosque, but permission to excavate 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.080 was never granted, and so it proved the same for 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:43.480 the Mobius team. Even an exploratory excavation inside the mosque, 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.760 one of the oldest in Alexandria, would cause an unacceptable 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:52.520 level of disturbance to public access. Not only that there 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:58.600 was understandably extreme resistance to foreigners touching even a tablespoon 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:03.960 of earth on the same acred site. Professor Fauzi Fakarani, 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:09.400 an Egyptian archeologist in the Department of Classical Civilizations at 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:13.359 the University of Alexandria, who the Mobius team had been 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:18.040 consulting with, told them investigations were not going to be 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:23.160 possible at the site. But while Facarani doubted the existence 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:28.440 of psychic windows into the ancient past, he was enthusiastic 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.359 about the Mobius team's goals and keen to dive with 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:38.720 them in the city's eastern harbor in growing desperation, Schwartz 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:43.439 suggested that Fakarani give him another chance to demonstrate his 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:49.119 team's psychic techniques really did work at an unpopulated site 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:55.920 where excavations would be possible. Thankfully, Facarani agreed, but only 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:00.880 subject to certain conditions. The professor would be the one 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.520 to specify the type of target, which had to be 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:09.640 located near the surface to make excavation easy. He would 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:15.080 also choose the site, and settled eventually on Maria, the 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:21.760 abandoned ancient sister city to Alexandria. Maria had once been 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.359 a freshwater port on the shores of a beautiful lake, 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.720 but the river Nile had shifted its course in the 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:33.119 Middle Ages. The lake dried up and the city died, 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:38.720 leaving formerly teeming commercial districts and pleasure palaces across an 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:45.520 area fifteen miles squared abandoned to wind and sand. Not 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.800 only had none of the Mobius team ever been there, 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.439 but they were given only the crudest of maps and 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:57.880 no other information to go on. Fakarani wanted them to 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:04.920 find a nice, important building with some significant remains, mosaics, frescoes, 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.800 or statues to tell him the depth to walls and 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:12.600 the floor, and describe artifacts that would be found at 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:17.679 the sight and the culture which produced the building. What 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:22.600 Fakarani may have omitted to mention was that Egyptian archeologists 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:27.159 had carried out electronic surveys in the years previously, along 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:31.520 with a few trial excavations, and they'd found nothing of 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:44.000 major significance. George McMullan seemed oblivious to the hot wind 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:47.720 that tugged at his sweat stained shirt as he limped 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:54.440 across Maria's unimposing and mostly buried ruins. Stephen Schwartz had 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:59.480 noticed something about mc mullan from previous remote viewing sight work. 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:04.400 He'd seen that when the apparent psychic was on to something, 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:11.080 that slight limp disappeared. Three hours after they'd begun, As 0:24:11.119 --> 0:24:15.960 the two men climbed yet another low desert hill, Schwartz 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:20.919 realized with a start that his companion's limp had gone. 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:26.800 Neither the hundred degree temperature or the persistent black flies 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:30.399 seemed to be bothering mc mullan any more, as he 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:37.280 suddenly stopped, turned and said, let's get that professor. With that. 0:24:37.840 --> 0:24:41.679 The apparent psychic sunk to his knees and began to 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:45.000 sketch a crude map with his finger in the sand, 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:48.879 which included the outline of a small hump of land 0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:54.439 near by. Walking over that same hump moments later, he 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:57.879 declared that within it was the buried wall of a 0:24:58.000 --> 0:25:03.160 structure of some import, as well as buried fire pits 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:07.120 and more cryptically, a flaw that he said was there 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:13.639 but also wasn't there. Dressed in jeans and a cotton 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:18.159 shirt with her short, dark hair crammed under a sun hat, 0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:23.120 Ella Hammered was tired and crabby. She was feeling unwell 0:25:23.480 --> 0:25:26.520 after a day of sitting around and waiting in the 0:25:26.640 --> 0:25:31.560 hot and dry conditions. After finally being called into action, 0:25:32.080 --> 0:25:35.600 she was unaware of what McMullan claimed to have found. 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:39.880 A schwartz took her to the location that McMullan had 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:46.720 just identified in the apparent grip of intense concentration. Hammid 0:25:46.720 --> 0:25:50.960 honed in immediately on the same exact spot that McMullan 0:25:51.040 --> 0:25:57.040 had found. Hammid then started to breathe heavily and slowly 0:25:57.160 --> 0:26:02.800 began to describe what lay beneath them. The building was 0:26:02.880 --> 0:26:07.920 from the Byzantine era, she said, pinpointing the location of 0:26:07.920 --> 0:26:11.879 its northwest corner wall, as well as some kind of 0:26:12.080 --> 0:26:17.840 freestanding circular pillar or statue which had long since been broken. 0:26:19.400 --> 0:26:23.440 Convinced that only Roman era structures were present at the site, 0:26:24.200 --> 0:26:29.719 Professor Fakarani nonetheless put his excavation team to work the 0:26:29.840 --> 0:26:34.920 very next day, Estimating that the dig would take six weeks. 0:26:35.400 --> 0:26:40.760 He predicted it would end in failure. Six days into 0:26:40.800 --> 0:26:45.399 the dig, however, the excavation team uncovered the top corner 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:49.320 of a wall at the exact same depth that Hammitt 0:26:49.400 --> 0:26:55.400 had predicted. Two days later, the strange broken column structure, 0:26:55.800 --> 0:27:02.800 which she'd also supposedly seen, was found. Detailed inspection showed 0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:06.680 it to be a chimney like oven built by Bedouins 0:27:06.720 --> 0:27:10.880 after the settlement had been largely abandoned, of a type 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:15.919 never seen in the area before. Then the fire pits 0:27:16.040 --> 0:27:21.560 mc mullen had predicted were found. Some symbols were also 0:27:21.680 --> 0:27:25.280 uncovered on some of the walls, revealing that the building 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:38.359 was unequivocally by Zantyne, not Roman after all. It was 0:27:38.400 --> 0:27:42.439 a few days later when the building's chalk sub floor 0:27:42.840 --> 0:27:47.280 was revealed, apparently all that was left after the original 0:27:47.320 --> 0:27:51.800 floor had been removed when the building was abandoned centuries earlier. 0:27:52.800 --> 0:27:58.879 Here the excavation crew found some small, heavy marble objects, 0:27:58.920 --> 0:28:02.680 smooth on one side and rough on the other, which 0:28:02.680 --> 0:28:06.280 appeared to be anchoring elements of a mosaic floor that 0:28:06.400 --> 0:28:10.679 had once been there, evidence, it seemed, for the floor 0:28:10.800 --> 0:28:15.280 that George McMullan described as being there but not there. 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:21.879 With this demonstrable and resounding success, a delighted Stephen and 0:28:22.000 --> 0:28:25.639 his Mobius team were then given permission to explore the 0:28:25.720 --> 0:28:31.119 seabed under Alexandria's Eastern Harbor, the location where the so 0:28:31.240 --> 0:28:37.000 called remote viewers had almost unanimously indicated significant sites from 0:28:37.040 --> 0:28:42.000 the ancient city would be found. The team first attempted 0:28:42.240 --> 0:28:46.160 to use a kind of sonar, but the murky, sediment 0:28:46.280 --> 0:28:50.760 laden waters made it difficult to get clear readings, so 0:28:50.960 --> 0:28:54.920 divers were brought in to do close searches in the 0:28:55.040 --> 0:29:00.920 churning and turbid harbor waters. Working with direction given every 0:29:01.000 --> 0:29:04.360 day by the remote viewers, they began in an area 0:29:04.600 --> 0:29:08.920 where it was predicted that Timonium would be found the 0:29:08.960 --> 0:29:13.960 Grand Palace of mark Antony. There, through the dark waters, 0:29:14.360 --> 0:29:18.360 the divers found a line of fallen pillars along what 0:29:18.440 --> 0:29:21.840 appeared to have been the facade of an imposing building, 0:29:22.960 --> 0:29:27.880 and in an adjacent area where Cleopatra's palace complex had 0:29:27.920 --> 0:29:33.160 supposedly been located, the team found indications of the uppermost 0:29:33.240 --> 0:29:39.640 remains of a large and impressive structure. Unfortunately, however, most 0:29:39.640 --> 0:29:44.840 of the structure lay buried beneath the seabed, preventing further investigation. 0:29:46.400 --> 0:29:51.280 Then came a more conclusive discovery at a third site 0:29:51.400 --> 0:29:55.440 ear marked by the remote viewers. The team's divers discovered 0:29:55.440 --> 0:29:59.880 a series of massive granite blocks. The blocks had obviously 0:30:00.160 --> 0:30:04.040 been cut with great precision and are now believed to 0:30:04.080 --> 0:30:08.560 be ones from which the towering Lighthouse of Alexandria, the 0:30:08.640 --> 0:30:21.520 tallest building known in antiquity, was constructed Euphoric with success, 0:30:22.040 --> 0:30:26.400 Schwartz and the Mobius team said goodbye to Professor Fakhrani, 0:30:26.880 --> 0:30:31.000 along with George McMullen and HeLa Hammad, who both headed home. 0:30:32.240 --> 0:30:35.480 But before they left Egypt, the team had one more 0:30:35.560 --> 0:30:39.080 job to do. They'd been hired by a film company 0:30:39.240 --> 0:30:43.840 to shoot a documentary unrelated to the other Mobius project work. 0:30:45.080 --> 0:30:48.520 The location for the film was the Coptic Monastery of 0:30:48.640 --> 0:30:53.080 Saint Macarius, one of the oldest Christian communities in Egypt, 0:30:53.520 --> 0:30:59.600 found midway between Alexandria and Cairo. As the team drove 0:30:59.640 --> 0:31:03.560 to the monastery, Schwartz gazed out at the desert and 0:31:03.680 --> 0:31:07.080 at the clouds of roadside dust that kicked up from 0:31:07.080 --> 0:31:12.480 behind them, lulled into a meditative reverie, A memory sprang 0:31:12.520 --> 0:31:16.080 into Schwartz's mind from the days before they came across 0:31:16.200 --> 0:31:21.640 the possible tomb site of Alexander the Great. Shortly after 0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:25.880 the team first arrived in Egypt, Stephen and George McMullan 0:31:26.160 --> 0:31:30.680 were traveling from Cairo to Alexandria. When McMullen began to 0:31:30.720 --> 0:31:35.160 speak at length about Alexander the Great. As he described 0:31:35.240 --> 0:31:39.360 his perception of the man, it seemed to Stephen as 0:31:39.360 --> 0:31:44.320 though his words were coming from a direct memory. McMullan 0:31:44.400 --> 0:31:48.960 declared that Alexander was a funny person who, despite being 0:31:49.000 --> 0:31:52.280 a great statesman and leader, could join in with the 0:31:52.480 --> 0:31:57.360 ordinary soldier and get drunk, act silly. He had no 0:31:57.480 --> 0:32:03.120 fear of dying or anything else. He Schwartz wondered how 0:32:03.160 --> 0:32:07.840 this man could have such insights. Although at odds with 0:32:07.960 --> 0:32:13.520 how most academics viewed Alexander, the description almost exactly mirrored 0:32:13.560 --> 0:32:18.040 the views of the British historian Professor Peter Fraser, whom 0:32:18.080 --> 0:32:23.160 Schwartz happened to be in agreement with. Had McMullen simply 0:32:23.200 --> 0:32:27.920 read about Fraser's theories before Schwartz wandered, or was he 0:32:28.040 --> 0:32:33.200 reading his mind or was he somehow simply reporting what 0:32:33.320 --> 0:32:39.800 he perceived when he focused on Alexander. Continuing on their journey, 0:32:40.320 --> 0:32:44.000 McMullan went on to talk about the postmortem care of 0:32:44.080 --> 0:32:47.960 the body after Alexander had died of a fever in 0:32:48.120 --> 0:32:54.000 Babylon in three hundred and twenty three BC. McMullan said 0:32:54.040 --> 0:32:56.960 that it was Persians who'd taken care of the corpse, 0:32:57.760 --> 0:33:01.280 although when preserving it they hadn't used the more thorough 0:33:01.320 --> 0:33:06.680 techniques practiced by the Egyptians. As the body began to decay, 0:33:06.720 --> 0:33:12.800 according to McMullen, die leaching from the clothing underneath Alexander's 0:33:12.840 --> 0:33:16.880 burial armor had stained the corpse a weird sort of 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:23.080 reddish color. He also believed Alexander's body had been removed 0:33:23.120 --> 0:33:27.520 from the tomb in which it had been interred in Alexandria. 0:33:27.880 --> 0:33:31.480