Full interview with Robert Bigelow about contest

hey well you've uh really turned some heads with this offer um close to a million dollars in prize money is going to get some attention and that's really what you want yeah it is it is yeah um it's a topic that's not necessarily new i mean you could say it's been swished around in a lot of mouths over centuries absolutely thousands of years yeah from the from day one so do you think that you'll do you hope that you'll uncover something a little bit new well um this has been tossed around for for centuries by by mystic sufis religionist philosophers right and yet you're looking for a new approach yes we are first we're trying to stimulate conversation and debate uh in a subject that is to some people a little scary you don't want to contemplate your own death so far nobody has escaped that so it's a pretty serious subject yeah and we want to provide an opportunity for a form for really good quality essays to be written to uh you know that's that's the function of the prize is first second third place and we have 500 000 first place award 300 000 for second place and 150 000 for third but i suspect they're going to be it's going to be very difficult for the judges to determine who's first second and third we we have some very heavy hitters in terms of people who have applied that have terrific backgrounds in this in this field so you've got applicants already oh we do we absolutely do and you're vetting them too aren't you oh yeah carefully yeah yeah so we're not just uh randomly saying okay we're going to throw anybody into the pot here who has something to say but they have no no foundation for for the the depth of the research that's required to say something and and quoting scripture isn't allowed because anybody can do that we're looking for more kinds of commentary from evident evidentiary kind of of approach testimony eyewitness witnesses matter you know we took the western court system as our guide in terms of beyond a reasonable doubt it which doesn't mean 100 percent but that's enough to convict you know a decision and witnesses matter the preponderance of data absolutely absolutely what's the consensus that you're that you've gathered here from a lot of different multiple sources so you're excited about who's signed up so far i am i am we have some very very um talented people who devoted their lives to this subject not because of it from a religious perspective but from a serious intent to do scientific investigations so we're going to invoke scientific practice here theory come up with you know come up with a theory try to prove it you're looking for evidence that's not just circumstantial but um empirical you're looking for a scientific approach yes yes we are uh you know maybe things that are caught on camera right as well as testimony um and and that's you know uh pictures are worth a thousand words right and so it matters how they were taken who took them uh whether was there anything doctored up about about the photography in any kind of way and uh so and of course you know that you you can say what you want about mediums and psychics and so forth but it's uh my experience that there are a few that are absolutely legitimate they are they are uh real in terms of their abilities and um again the preponderance of data over the years tells you there's something there it does it absolutely does it does and there's so much of something there there's so much uh smoke there's got to be some fire and i don't mean health fire and damnation fire yeah yeah but everything there is there is something there because there's too much going on and there has been for many many centuries let me ask you is there any part of your personal loss that has prompted you to launch into this project it just i i would say i have a renewed interest because of my wife's passing but i was very interested in this in the 80s in the late 80s and back at that time i was also investigating the ufo topic and both of these i i like the the phenomena aspect of of the challenge the paranormal yeah those are the two holy grails and i think i think what happens to you after you you die is the first holy grail and the second one is are we alone right so um are you not satisfied that the data you've seen the empirical evidence the evidence the pictures video you're not convinced that's enough in your mind to show that there is life after oh i don't need convincing okay i am already totally convinced i i have so many things including personal experiences and and a lot of reading of a lot of literature talking to an awful lot of people um that i don't need personally i don't need convincing okay that isn't what this is all about it's not me and i get i get correspondences from people that are friends or they don't even know and say and the correspondence the correspondences say i have all the answers for you all the all the all the answers to all the questions that you're seeking i have the answers and i'm laughing to myself a little bit because i'm thinking i'm saying in some ways you don't even know what the questions are you know you're looking at this from a conventional standpoint and the questions are far beyond that yeah you're looking for an a more open mind uh we're looking at a spectrum from like as you said agnostics to atheists to die hard rigid right religionists and you're asking let's take a whole new look at this again wait a minute let's let's open this up for well in there and there's this is this is kind of thin ice territory because there are people that get offended if you start to question the religious teachings they have and maybe that says there is nothing beyond this okay okay okay that's a certain quantity of folks and that's in that category and then others that say well i know exactly what it is it's an eternal purgatory or hellfire and damnation or you're going to be floating around playing a harp forever and that's it yeah and no the problem my my uh background and experience that isn't it that isn't all there is what if it turns out that there's that our capability of measuring or proving such a thing is not possible to be measured or it's not capable we're not capable of doing that with what we have now or what we know now that it's beyond even our understanding as we know it yeah absolutely and it could be worse than that it could be that there's a limit as to what we're intended to be able to know yes you know and uh and the et subject is is similar in that regard too but it could be in this consciousness survival that yeah there are limits maybe as to what even is capable uh not only in this kind of time frame but maybe for centuries uh we know nobody knows because i think there's a certain part of life that engages the mystery and doesn't want to be solved would you agree i suppose so i suppose so you know there is there is some comfort in knowing but sometimes maybe it's a little scary if uh you were you'd be better off uh not that ignorance is bliss but there's a cousin to that in saying that uh maybe there are features that you're more comfortable uh not knowing i'm just guessing yeah well i've always kind of embraced the fact that if there's mystery then there's uh still a chance for things to happen within that possibility yes um and that leaves open he's an open book that's right upon which things can be written you know um so you're not going to judge these yourself oh no will you have any part of that no okay no absolutely not myself and staff we have hands off it's up to our five judges who are terrific folks terrific backgrounds and so we're not going to be suggesting anything it's up to them yeah you know to make the decisions and so that's was that tough choosing those five people it was we gave a lot of thought to who they should be and we interviewed a number of of uh prospective judges uh beyond the five that were selected and we're very happy with the five i would think leslie would be a great prospect for producing the document you're looking for i mean she seems very erudite well she is ex except she decided to be a judge okay there you go so we were thrilled to be able to have her as a judge yeah she is very capable of producing a tremendous essay if she wanted to oh yeah i think she she would have done well um have you ever read the book proof of heaven by evan alexander yes neurologist yes fascinating book yes it is um is that fallen under the purview of what you're looking for here there are a lot of permutations of um of what the other side is about and of course our contest is does it even exist so there's two levels here right this does the other side even exist as our contest and like i said that threatens certain kinds of religious upbringing and all of that but for for me the more interesting question is what is the other side all about and that's a very broad amount of info there's a tremendous amount of information on that question and from a lot of different sources so i am personally still very much a student of uh trying to investigate you know like a journalist would be you know like you and uh so i i it's fun being a student of this kind of stuff it absolutely really is it really is so you said please no quoting of scripture what about the use of the bible as a historical document say in in this well you have to um that's that's i'm i'm guessing that the the judges are going to be pretty demanding as to making sure that it's not allegory and and if you're trying to to create and relate a a certain story that comes from the bible how thoroughly is it substantiated and so i think that i think that's really interesting territory that can have problems it can be problematic to do that and i'm i don't know there probably will be some some applicants who are submitting their essays that get into to that area i don't know how sympathetic the judges are going to be to that i think they may be looking for more something that's more tangible that that they can actually you can you can define you can get your your hands around it and say this absolutely positively happened we know this and here's why all you know and that's why we can say the other side does exist are the judges directed by this set of rules too or have you given them a separate paradigm to work with no we have we have the rules as pertaining to who should be considered as as a qualified applicant and so the judges are are are going to be handed a a body criteria essays that have already they've been called down to the best of the best and that have that and that produce what we think is the best case to the to the jury to the judges but they have they have their marching orders of what criteria they use to judge these documents um we're looking for a consensus uh three out of the five judges okay to agree on first second and third place and we haven't uh dictated uh much to them at all in fact i don't think we've dictated anything except saying here's here's the rules for the applicant to apply and here's and then okay judges here's a whole bunch of essays and you have three months to digest them to read them to talk about them and look at the efficacy of the each of these essays as to who should who should win uh i'm gonna i'm gonna quote you here from a previous interview uh that i've read about you and and one of your statements was what if it does matter how you live your life now yeah yeah yeah yeah um you know that could fit into a karmic paradigm or any sort of religion where you're responsible for your actions now and um that would affect the afterlife and apparently you know in my limited research and understanding so far there seems to be a karmic effect that um what you can do for others matters sort of what goes around comes around or yeah i would say so you do good you receive good you give you receive those yeah you know i'm going to do a bad job with this but but the most advanced theories of physics now show that the observer has an effect on the actual experiment right that an experiment that goes without observation has comes with a different outcome than the experiment that's observed true so you're actually if you're watching it you're affecting the experiment itself there's something paranormal about that don't you think well yeah so you get into the effects of consciousness and the effects of thought so consciousness is a force because again on if you're observing subatomic particles right uh then they coalesce into a particular point you know and calculate the speed and so forth and when they're unobserved they're not they're they're everywhere look like a cloud so consciousness is a force and if you're you know you've heard of micro macro pk and and people who have demonstrated that have done so on film in bell jars they've been able to levitate things and so forth so that's that's uh from consciousness effect so it's outside the five senses that we're familiar with it's outside of all physics too there are no explanations for these kinds of things so our physics is very very incomplete hugely incomplete thought is is a a more of a creator kind of thing so um and and so that so those are two very maybe universal forces and i'm always suspicious of theorists and physicists who claim to understand how the or how the universe was was uh evolved and how it began feel that way about archaeologists they think they've got it set in stone and every time they discover something new they have to rearrange their and if you don't know what 95 percent of all energy is in the universe dark energy energy right and you're telling me the big bang is it that's the answer right you'll excuse me if i'm skeptical yeah you know um i was going to ask you too um if you believe the human mind even has the capacity to uh to understand some of these concepts that were redesigned without having that capability or were we designed you know all those things seem to come to bear on this issue you know if there is a greater god or if there is a if there is a greater force in the universe a higher power whatever you want to call it did they give us the ability to actually discern these things were we meant to discern them well is there an intersection between human spirituality the growth of human spirituality and our technological achievements and there isn't it's not even close the human spirituality of evolution is practically flat lined the 20 the 20th century was the most dynamic uh killing century in the history of mankind in terms of number of people you know that that died because of wars and so forth so you the evidence isn't huge that spirituality is climbing yet our technology technological achievement is vertical and it's segmented because it's jumping it's going so fast it's jumping so now if those two lines never intersect is that a good or a bad thing so that you're handing you have technological capabilities that without the spiritual maturity to handle you know so if you were on another planet would you want to really have human beings uh you know be at your planet on your doorstep it's like scientific advancements outpacing our ability to to pass laws that can regulate them kind of the same thing um so will bics or bix i guess as you call it will it depend on the results of this or does it have a future goal or a future at all without without this well bix is a research organization first we hope to stimulate research and stimulate uh interest in survival of human consciousness and um and so we're taking it kind of one step at a time this this contest is going to occupy most all of this year yeah to conclude it and judge it and then we're hoping that the contestants are going to be on your show to you can interview them and they can explain how they came up with their essays and everything so you know

Channel: KTNV Channel 13 Las Vegas

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Id: YnR_ExG4Nrk

Length: 18min 26sec (1106 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021