frozen lies

Have you heard the latest episode of "This American Life"?  Part of the program was about a man, Bob, who rather accidentally became the president of a cryonics group in the 1960s.  The program looks particularly at a young french girl named Genevieve with a terminal illness, whose father asked that she be cryogenically frozen, which she was.  Cut to a few years later.  The capsule that Genevieve was in had malfunctioned when Bob was out of town, and the liquid nitrogen inside that was keeping her frozen had become hot.  It had been hot for at least a couple of days.

Now here's the crazy part.  Bob says he met with Genevieve's father at the Montreal airport to tell him what had happened.  And he says that her father told him to just put more liquid nitrogen in the capsule and start it up again.  Bob then flew to another airport to meet another man, whose parents had been in the same capsule with Genevieve.  This man also asked that the capsule be started up again.  So Bob put more liquid nitrogen in the capsule, and started it up again.  No big deal, except that the bodies had been sitting in hot liquid nitrogen for a few days.  

But when Genevieve's father and this other man, the son, were interviewed by "This American Life", they both said they never met with Bob in an airport-in fact, he never even contacted them about the failure of the capsule.  When asked about this by "This American Life", Bob is steadfast in his conviction that he met with both of them at different airports, and that both of them asked that the capsule be started again.  From his voice, you can tell that he absolutely believes it.

 I have this absolutely vivid memory that I went to Red Lobster with my dad when I was about six.  I remember the restaurant being somewhat empty, the lighting was dim.  I ate a whole lobster tail.  It was awesome.  But as it turns out, I've never been to Red Lobster in my whole life.  I have been told this over and over, but I just can't reconcile that that was a dream and never actually happened.  All I can say is, at least the outcome of my Red Lobster "memory" wasn't malpractice and a lawsuit.

image from here