Scottsdale cryonics facility, the home of Ted Williams' head, hopes frozen dead people will live again (2024)

Inside a Scottsdale office building are the heads and bodies of168people who have been "cryonically preserved" withthe hope that deathwill not be permanent.

One of the most famous occupantsatthe Alcor Life Extension Foundation is baseball legendTed Williams, whose head and body are storedseparately insidelarge cylindrical stainless-steeltanks at the foundation's offices.

Alcor, which began in California in 1972, has operated in Arizona since 1994. The nonprofit company'sofficehouses 168 "patients" and 90pets (cats,dogs,one turtle and one chinchilla),who have died but are being preserved at subzero temperaturesin a waythat may allow them to be revived and one day live again, Alcor officials say.

Alcorconsiders its patients as not dead, but ratherina suspended,in-between state.

The companyhas 1,250 still-living "members"who have made the legal arrangements and paid up to $200,000 apiece to reserve a spot in one of Alcor's thermos-like tanks when they die. Each tankis stocked with liquid nitrogen to keep bodies at a temperature of minus 320degrees Fahrenheit and can hold five heads and four whole bodies.

So far, cryonics has proven far more popular with men than women. About 75 percent ofAlcor members and patients are male.

'This is still an experimental process'

Alcor is not a big organization. About eight members die per year, but there have been years when none has died. One of the reasons for its low membership is thatAlcor does virtually no marketing. They don't want to mislead the public into thinking that they have a guaranteed ticket to the future after they die, officials said.

"It's an engineering problem, how to make it happen," Alcor co-founder Linda Chamberlain said."We want people to understand that this is still an experimental process. We don't want anyone to come into this, make arrangements and think this is like going to the hospital and having open-heart surgery, that their chances are just as good. It's not there yet."

When "members" die,they becomepatients who maychoose to remain anonymous. Those non-confidential patientswho have waivedanonymitymay have their photo and name up on the wall insideAlcor's offices, where patientsare regarded as people company officials willeventually encounteragain.

The photos are a daily reminder to Alcor employees of "why we're here" and "who we're working for," Chamberlain said.

Besides Ted Williams, patients include Dick Clair Jones, who was a writer for CBS-TV's "TheCarol Burnett Show" and a co-creator of the NBC-TV situation comedy "The Facts of Life";American scientist Marvin Minsky, who co-founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's artificial intelligence laboratory; and Chinese science fiction writer Du Hong.

Though Alcor prefers that patients die inScottsdale, theydeploy a team anywhere in the world when one of their members dies. The team includes two physicians, a medical response director and Alcor CEO Max More.

They bring with them a folding ice bath and other equipment to the places where members die, and will contract to use an operating room if needed to infuse patients with a chilled organ transplant solution and cryoprotective chemicals.

Bioethics expert: 'It is just not doable'

Not surprisingly, many are skeptical of Alcor's mission. While human embryos can be successfully frozen for in vitro fertilization, there's a big difference between freezing a cluster of cells and a human being, critics say.

"The whole thing is too science fiction-y. I still believe no one will be able to do what they wish, which is to bring back the dead," said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University."It is just not doable."

In the event cryonicsdoeswork, Caplan questionswhetheranyone wouldreally want to come back to life400 or 500 years from now. He compared it to having a person from the 16th century suddenly dropping into 2019.

"I fear you would become mentally deranged by it all," he said.

TheMaryland-based Society for Cryobiologysays storinga preserved body, head or brain on the chance that afuture generation may restore it to life"is an act of speculation or hope, not science."

Chamberlain keeps an open mind. While it's easy to be dismissive,no one can say for certain what will be possible in the future, she said.And it'sa gamble she and other cryonics devotees arewilling to take.

Case in point: Alcor recently received an anonymousdonation of $5 million from one of its members to do more research into cryonics and reanimation.

Uproar over Ted Williams' frozen head

Some Alcor patients are classified as "neuro,"which means they've donated their heads only, and thatcomes at a cost of $80,000. Others choose the whole body, at themore expensive price of $200,000. Many members pay by taking out a life insurance policy in the amount of the Alcor fee.

Half of the money paid goes into the preservation process and half intoa patient trust to cover the costs of long-term storage and revival.

Prices for cryopreserving a pet can vary by size, and how much of the pet is frozen.The pet option is available only to Alcor members. A price list for pets ranges from $2,500 to$30,000.

Williams, the longtime Boston Red Soxsuperstar who died in 2002, is what's known as a "neuro with whole body," so his head was removed from his body and cryopreserved,but both parts are at Alcor.

Alcor no longer offers a "neuro with whole body" option, as it is considered outdated, Chamberlain said. At one time the company offered the option of preserving the body and head separately because technology was not as adeptat cryoprotecting the brain, she explained.

"He was a confidential member," Chamberlain said of Williams. "But there was so much newspaper coverage that it doesn't do us any good to deny it."

Williams' cryopreservation attracted extensivemedia attention after a former Alcor employee wrote a tell-all book, saying Williams'head had been mistreatedin the Alcor lab.Alcor has consistently denied the allegations.

The Ted Williamsstory alsoincludeda well-publicized family fight, with one of Williams' daughters opposed to the idea of her father's cryopreservation.

RELATED: Man suing Alcor for $1M – and the return of his dad's frozen head

Chamberlain says Alcor strongly prefers that members sign up when they are still aliveand not leave it up to their next-of-kinbecause those are the situations that can and do put Alcor in legal fights.Alcor has been sued by relatives of its membersbefore.

"We usually say no to last-minute cases," Chamberlain said. "Right or wrong, you end up spending money in court. We try to avoid that."

The reason so many patientspreserve onlytheir head is because in the future, scientific advances mayallow for a new body to be generated using a person's DNA, said Chamberlain, a cheerful woman whose email sign-off reads, "Boundless Life."

Since most patientsdied with old, sick bodies, the idea of getting a new one is popular— 110 of the patients are "neuro"only and have just their heads preserved; the restchose to have their whole body preserved.

Technologically, "neuro" is the superior option, Chamberlain said, and it's also cheaper, butsome people have emotional issues about separating their heads from their bodies.

"Anybody who is over the age of 40 has a certain amount of blockages in their arteries and vessels, and those blockages will prevent us from introducing our cryoprotective chemicals," she explained. "Their cryoprotection will be minimized because of that."

Alcor has no outside regulation

Alcor is exempt from a 2017Arizonalaw that regulatesthe body-donation industry but has yet to be enforced.

Judith Stapley, executive director of the Arizona State Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers,said that since Alcor is handling dead people, "there should be some outside entity regulating it and making sure all protocols are in place to protect the public."

Alcor's regulation is "all internal,"Chamberlain said.

While Alcor is concerned that "fly by night" organizations could be attracted to opening their own cryonics facilities, Chamberlain said it's important that any regulation is done by the correct authority. Oversight by the state's funeral board would not be appropriate, she said.

"We don't necessarilywant to be controlled by some organization that doesn't know what we're doing and would be inappropriately managing us," she said.

The nonprofit does not turn away bodiesif they have infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.

"We suit up in (protective) bunny suits," Chamberlain said."In the 1980s, when the AIDS crisis was at its peak, we had many AIDS patients. We just used the very best protection that we could to protect ourselves from being infected."

Cryonics plan: Freeze, wait, reanimate

Many Alcor membersspecify the age they'd like to be when they come back to life, and 25 is probably the most popular, said Chamberlain, whose husband, mother and father-in-law are all cryopreserved at Alcor.

"It's all about these guys, the patients," Chamberlainsaid, looking at photos of her family members on the office walls. "This is who we are working for. We're not just selling Frisbees or something. ... We have family members and friends who are in our patient care bay. So it is not just a business."

Chamberlainfounded the company with her NASA engineer husband, Fred Chamberlain. The company always has been nonprofit so that their mission andprocedures would not be dictatedby shareholders, she said.

The Chamberlains first bondedover cryonics after reading a 1964 bookby American academic Robert Ettingertitled"The Prospect of Immortality."

Ettinger is considered the "father of cryonics," Chamberlain said. He laid out the basicidea of cryonics— freeze, wait and reanimate.Ettinger'sidea was ifa body couldbe cooled to a low enough temperature to stop the dying process, the bodycould be held there until the technology is developed to bring that person back to life.

The "freezing" technique is now more sophisticated than in the past. Cryoprotective chemicals prevent crystals from forming and allow liquids in the body to form a glass-like substance, Chamberlain said. The whole process from death to freezing tank can take a week or longer.

"Looking at the progress of medical technology just over the last 50 years it's more of a question of when than if," Chamberlain said."It's been a part of my life for the past 47 years. I can't really imagine not doing this for myself and my family. ... I enjoy life and I don't want it to end."

Reach the reporter at Stephanie.Innes@gannett.com or at 602-444-8369. Follow her on Twitter @stephanieinnes

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