Current Date: 17 Apr, 2026
{{entry.title}}

Preserving Bodies in a Deep Freeze Await Revival

There are currently hundreds of deceased people in the U.S., including baseball legend Ted Williams, whose bodies are frozen in liquid nitrogen in hopes that future technology will be able to revive them.

At this facility, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation has cryopreserved the heads and bodies of 224 people in the hopes of being revived at a later time. On their website, the non-profit organization Alcor states that their mission is to “restore good health with medical technology in the future” through the preservation of bodies at temperatures below freezing. Liliana Salgado of Reuters writes that the heads and bodies of approximately 100 preserved pets as well as the so-called “patients” of humanity are crammed into cylindrical tanks filled with liquid nitrogen by the foundation.

Some of the patients had terminal illnesses like cancer or ALS, for which there is currently no treatment. According to Reuters, Max More, a former CEO of Alcor and current ambassador and president emeritus of the foundation, advances in medical science and technology cannot prolong the lives of individuals who are close to death.

“We’re saying give them to us instead of just disposing of the patient,” More says to Reuters. “We’re going to keep them stable, prevent them from getting worse, and keep them in place for however long it takes for technology to catch up so they can recover and live on.”

Peter Wilson reported for the New York Times last year that a number of medical and legal professionals have long been dubious about—or even hostile toward—human cryopreservation. Neuroscientist Clive Coen of King’s College London, England, describes cryonics as “a hopeless aspiration that reveals an appalling ignorance of biology” to Laurie Clarke of the MIT Technology Review.

However, according to Alcor’s website, for those who take part, the cryopreservation procedure starts as soon as a person is pronounced legally dead. Their organs are still viable as of right now. Reacting swiftly, the patient is transferred to an ice bath and their blood is replaced with an organ-preserving solution by a cryonics team that has typically been on standby, waiting for their death for up to a week.

Preserving Bodies in a Deep Freeze Await Revival 1
Alcor’s facility. Photo credit: Alcor

However, according to Alcor’s website, for those who take part, the cryopreservation procedure starts as soon as a person is pronounced legally dead. Their organs are still viable as of right now. Reacting swiftly, the patient is transferred to an ice bath and their blood is replaced with an organ-preserving solution by a cryonics team that has typically been on standby, waiting for their death for up to a week. The team injects cryoprotectants—chemicals that stop ice crystals from forming and damaging organs—into the patient’s circulation as soon as they get to Alcor’s Arizona facility. Alcor uses liquid nitrogen to store the body’s heat after it has been cooled to minus 320.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

The catch is that no cryonics organization is aware of how to restore life to its patients who have been preserved. On its website, Alcor states that a non-profit “confidence revival may be possible.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wBK7cvSJdps%3Fsi%3DivvN2mxiPHSe3ELm

Alcor was established in 1972, and in 1976 it successfully cryopreserved a human being. However, nearly ten years earlier, in 1967, psychologist James H. Bedford, then 73 years old, passed away from kidney cancer, making him the first person to ever be frozen in this manner. According to a 1997 article in The New York Times Magazine, Bedford’s body was placed on ice and processed by “experts from the Cryonics Society of California.” Since then, Bedford’s body has been frozen, and it is currently resting in one of Alcor’s tanks.

According to Reuters, two-year-old Matheryn Naovaratpong, a Thai girl with brain cancer, is the youngest patient at Alcor. She was cryopreserved in 2015.

More tells the publication, “She had multiple brain surgeries, and both of her parents were doctors.” Unfortunately, nothing was successful. They thus got in touch with us.

Among the other patients at the facility are baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams, who passed away in 2002 from complications related to heart disease, and software developer and Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney, who passed away in 2014 from ALS. According to Reuters, the cost of cryopreservation at Alcor for a full body is at least $200,000, and the cost to preserve a single brain is $80,000.

Related Topic You Might Find Interesting:

Cryonics proponents are optimistic despite the lack of evidence supporting the efficacy of human cryopreservation, pointing to scientific advancements that allow for the successful cryopreservation and thawing of sperm, embryo, and stem cells, according to the MIT Technology Review. In 2016, researchers at 21st Century Medicine cryopreserved and thawed a rabbit brain without causing structural damage, Aaron Frank wrote for Vice at the time.

However, Coen tells MIT Technology Review that it is “disingenuous” to suggest that these findings could be applied to human cryonics because the structures of the human brain are too complicated for this to be feasible.

According to Reuters, Arthur Caplan, the director of the medical ethics department at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, has not seen any mainstream medical experts support cryonics.

Caplan tells Reuters, “This idea of freezing ourselves into the future is pretty science-fiction, and it’s naive.” “Those who specialize in studying the distant future or those with a vested interest in having you pay the money to do it are the only groups… getting excited about the possibility.”

Similar Stories
How a Man Fooled Florida with Fake Penguin Tracks for 10 Years

How a Man Fooled Florida with Fake Penguin Tracks for 10 Years

In 1948, Florida’s Clearwater Beach was the stage for one of the longest-running and most peculiar hoaxes in American folklore. Giant three-toed footprints appeared mysteriously in the sand, sparking rumor and fascination about a 15-foot-tall penguin roaming the shores. For a decade, locals and visitors alike speculated and scanned for the elusive creature, never realizing the truth: these tracks were made by a man wearing 30-pound lead shoes designed to imitate an enormous penguin's footprint. This article uncovers the details of this elaborate prank and its lasting legacy in Florida’s cryptic history.

Kim Peek: The Real Rain Man Who Memorized 12,000 Books

Kim Peek: The Real Rain Man Who Memorized 12,000 Books

Kim Peek wasn’t just a man with an extraordinary memory—he was a megasavant whose astonishing ability to recall the contents of over 12,000 books inspired the iconic character Raymond Babbitt in the film Rain Man. Able to read two pages at once, scanning one with each eye, Peek could memorize an entire book in about an hour. Despite his phenomenal talents, he faced developmental challenges and lived a unique life that changed perceptions about human potential and cognitive diversity. This article explores the remarkable story of Kim Peek, his capabilities, and the legacy he left behind.

The story of The chicken that lived for 18 months without a head

The story of The chicken that lived for 18 months without a head

Mike the Headless Chicken was a rooster whose head was accidentally chopped off but miraculously survived. This is due to most of the brain stem being left intact. He was fed using a special tube that delivered food directly into his esophagus. Despite his lack of a head, he lived for 18 months, gaining worldwide fame before ultimately choking on a kernel of corn during one of his tours, in a Motel in Fruita, Colorado.

Mystery SOLVED: blood Rain in India

Mystery SOLVED: blood Rain in India

The dissemination of spores of microalgae has been identified as the origin of the 'Blood Rain' phenomena, according to a new study by Indian and Austrian experts. Since 1896, reports of intermittent red-colored rain in portions of Kerala and Sri Lanka have been coming in. The most recent one occurred in 2013 over Kerala.