July 20, 1999: Rods Update - Jose Escamilla | OBEs - Dr. Albert Taylor
The second half features Albert Taylor, a former NASA aeronautical engineer and author of Soul Traveler, discussing out-of-body experiences and their connection to consciousness survival after death. Taylor describes his interrupted sleep technique for inducing OBEs and shares how his experiences fundamentally changed his worldview. On the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, he and Art discuss why America abandoned deep space exploration and the political and financial forces that have kept humanity in low Earth orbit.
Taylor asserts that soul travel reveals dimensions beyond the physical, including encounters with deceased relatives and non-human entities. He and Art debate whether humanity's pursuit of technology is a distraction from spiritual development or a necessary stage of evolution that must be transcended.
Key Moments
Why we never went back to the moon: Albert Taylor, a NASA aeronautical engineer of two decades, opens the Apollo 11 30th anniversary by explaining that public apathy, financial crunches, and lost vision - not the technology - stalled the post-Apollo lunar return.
Edgar Mitchell's surrealistic moonwalk recollections: Art presses Taylor on the popular suspicion that we never went back to the moon because of what was found, then describes Edgar Mitchell becoming vague and calling his own moonwalk memories 'surrealistic.'
Buzz Aldrin's gray alien picture in Hawaii: Art relays a firsthand TV-reporter account that Buzz Aldrin closed a Hawaii presentation by unveiling a picture of a typical gray alien and telling the audience, 'They are out there.'
NIDS poll: 8 in 10 think the government would hide ET: Art cites a Bigelow-funded NIDS survey finding that eight out of ten Americans believe the government would hide proof of extraterrestrial life - a result hardly any survey produces outside post-war presidential approval.
Engineer's spiritual leap into night paralysis OBEs: Taylor describes how, while training astronauts at Johnson Space Center, recurring night paralysis episodes - up to three a night - drove him as a hardware engineer to keep a diary and ultimately write Soul Traveler.