65 replies to this topic

[advancedatheist]

http://www.nydailyne...2...=1&page=all

Staff at Arizona cryogenics lab Alcor used Ted Williams' frozen head for batting practice: book

BY Nathaniel Vinton
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, October 2nd 2009, 6:37 AM
Head of Ted Williams was abused by employees at Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., whistleblower says.

'Frozen,' by former Alcor exec Larry Johnson, makes shocking claims about how employees treated Ted Williams' frozen head.

Workers at an Arizona cryonics facility mutilated the frozen head of baseball legend Ted Williams - even using it for a bizarre batting practice, a new tell-all book claims.

In "Frozen," Larry Johnson, a former exec at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., graphically describes how The Splendid Splinter" was beheaded, his head frozen and repeatedly abused.

The book, out Tuesday from Vanguard Press, tells how Williams' corpse became "Alcorian A-1949" at the facility, where bodies are kept suspended in liquid nitrogen in case future generations learn how to revive them.

Johnson writes that in July 2002, shortly after the Red Sox slugger died at age 83, technicians with no medical certification gleefully photographed and used crude equipment to decapitate the majors' last .400 hitter.

Williams' severed head was then frozen, and even used for batting practice by a technician trying to dislodge it from a tuna fish can.

The chief operating officer of Alcor for eight months before becoming a whistleblower in 2003, Johnson wrote his book while in hiding, fearful for his life.

He told the Daily News then he had received death threats and was moving from safehouse to safehouse. Johnson plans to come out of the shadows Tuesday, with his book and an appearance on ABC's "Nightline."

Johnson said he wired himself with an audio recorder for his last three months at Alcor, stole internal records and took gruesome photographs that are reproduced in the book.

The book describes other atrocities at Alcor's facility in Arizona, including the dismembering of live dogs that were injected with chemicals in experiments, and a situation in which human blood and toxic chemicals were dumped into a parking lot sewer drain.

It also also details suspicious circumstances involving the bodies of two people who are frozen in steel cylinders at Alcor: gay rights activist John Dentinger and Dora Kent, an elderly woman whose son, Saul Dent, gave Alcor lots of money.

Nothing in the book is as gruesome as Johnson's descriptions of what happened to Williams' body after it was sent to Alcor at the direction of the Williams' son John Henry Williams, who died of leukemia in 2004.

In 2003, The News reported that Buzz Hamon, the ballplayer's close friend and former director of the Ted Williams Museum in Hernando, Fla., sneaked into Alcor with the help of a mortician friend.

Hamon said he was "appalled" by the conditions there, where Williams' body and more than 50 others were stored in steel tanks alongside cardboard boxes and junk. Hamon died in 2004, reportedly committing suicide.

Johnson writes that holes were drilled in Williams' severed head for the insertion of microphones, then frozen in liquid nitrogen while Alcor employees recorded the sounds of Williams' brain cracking 16 times as temperatures dropped to -321 degrees Fahrenheit.

Johnson writes that the head was balanced on an empty can of Bumble Bee tuna to keep it from sticking to the bottom of its case.

Johnson describes watching as another Alcor employee removed Williams' head from the freezer with a stick, and tried to dislodge the tuna can by swinging at it with a monkey wrench.

The technician, no .406 hitter like the baseball legend, missed the can with several swings of the wrench and smacked Williams' head directly, spraying "tiny pieces of frozen head" around the room.

Johnson accuses the company of joking morbidly about mailing Williams' thawing remains back to his family if his son didn't pay his outstanding debt to the company.

Reprints of invoices show that Alcor president John Lemler charged $120,000 for the honor of "suspending" Teddy Ballgame's body.

A former paramedic, Johnson first blew the whistle on Alcor in a 2003 Sports Illustrated article about Williams' stored body.

He drew criticism at the time for an aborted attempt to sell photos online purportedly showing Williams' corpse.

Johnson said he hopes his book will help fulfill the wishes Williams expressed in his will - that his body be cremated and the ashes "sprinkled at sea off the coast of Florida, where the water is very deep."

nvinton@nydailynews.com

With Bill Madden

[RighteousReason]

Uhh I have mostly everything completed with ALCOR but I have yet to sign the contract. Now I am feeling very concerned about this...


Book: Williams' head abused at facility

http://sports.espn.g...tory?id=4524957

NEW YORK -- The New York Daily News is reporting that Red Sox Hall of Famer Ted Williams' severed head was mistreated at an Arizona cryonics facility, according to details from a new book.

In "Frozen," Larry Johnson, a former executive at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., writes that Williams' head, which had been severed and frozen for storage, was abused at the facility. Johnson claims a technician took baseball-like swings at Williams' frozen head with a monkey wrench.

Williams, the last player to hit over .400 in a season, died in July 2002 at age 83 and had his remains sent to Alcor for cryogenic storage in the hope that future generations would develop the technology to revive him.

According to the Daily News, Johnson wrote the book while in hiding after becoming a whistleblower in 2003. He held the title of chief operating officer of Alcor for eight months, the newspaper said. He is scheduled for a Tuesday appearance on the ABC news show "Nightline."

Johnson told the Daily News he wired himself during his last three months of employment at Alcor and stole internal records. The book also includes photos of severed heads and procedures performed on bodies.

John Henry Williams, Ted Williams' only son, handled his father's business and household affairs beginning in the 1990s after Ted's romantic companion died. John Henry made the decision to have his father's body taken to Alcor for freezing, setting off a battle with his half-sister, who said her father had wanted to be cremated.

The matter was settled in December 2002, when Bobby Jo Williams Ferrell, Ted Williams' oldest daughter, dropped her objections.

John Henry Williams died of leukemia in March 2004 at age 35. His remains also were reportedly delivered to Alcor.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Edited by RighteousReason, 02 October 2009 - 04:03 PM.

[forever freedom]

lol

I think they're serious enough at Alcor not to do this, after all i suppose everyone there believes in cryonics.

I think Larry Johnson is the unethical one here, he's probably spreading lies because he's for some reason disgruntled with Alcor.

[advancedatheist]

Given the social acceptance of Gunther von Hagens's Body Worlds displays, Johnson's alleged revelations (including "photos of severed heads and procedures performed on bodies") might have less shock value than he expected.

[Mind]

How did this guy ever become an "Executive" at Alcor. If he is shocked by vitrified heads and bodies, then he shouldn't have even been there...lol. I wonder if this is part of the reason why Alcor is so resistant to an "elected" Board and continue with a self-perpetuating Board. They don't want skiddish or ignorant outsiders coming in and being "shocked".

[niner]

Johnson claims a technician took baseball-like swings at Williams' frozen head with a monkey wrench.

But did he connect? If he didn't, if he was just screwing around, it means nothing, at least not to a thinking person. Of course, the general public doesn't think. It's all amygdala with them, so this is bad from a "public relations" point of view.

If he did connect... then that's another story.

[advancedatheist]

I've heard two conjectures to explain why Johnson took the job at Alcor in the first place, with the agenda of trying to damage or discredit it:

1. He has a Ted Williams obsession.

2. He holds Scientology beliefs.

Or possibly both.

The index you can view online at Amazon suggests to me that Johnson wrote it straight, but that he might have produced an unintentionally funny parody. He calls Dave Pizer, an Arizona business man I've worked for since 1991, a "cult leader," when anyone who knows Dave can see the absurdity of that claim:

http://www.amazon.co...3155603/#reader

[advancedatheist]

BTW, Johnson's claim that he's had to live in a succession of "safehouses" because of threats to his life (like a protected witness against organized crime) doesn't ring true. Why hasn't he reported these threats to the police instead of publishing a book about them?

[JediMasterLucia]

I've read this too on a dutch website this evening. The users there made stupid replies on this news item :-S
This is really not good for cryonics, I think...

I don't know what to think about this...

[Mind]

The worst I saw was on the Jim Rome show (a provocative sports commentator in the U.S.). He called the people who worked at ALCOR "freaks and ghouls". What is interesting is that he said this even after admitting that he knew nothing about the technology involved, which means he is having the typical reaction anyone has when their belief system (about life and death) is confronted with something new. Sigh, still a lot of intolerance in the world.

[RighteousReason]

Here you can see the headlines from today:

Book claims Ted Williams' frozen head abused FOXSports.com
http://msn.foxsports...zen-head-abused

New book says Ted Williams' frozen head was abused Los Angeles Times
http://latimesblogs....was-abused.html

Ted Williams' frozen head used for batting practice, says new book Chicago Sun-Times
http://blogs.suntime..._head_used.html

Ted Williams' Frozen Head Mistreated in Alcor Cryonics Facility, Says Book
http://www.cbsnews.c...ry5358488.shtml

In "Frozen," Larry Johnson, a former executive at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., writes that Williams' head was abused at the facility. Johnson claims a technician took baseball-like swings at Williams' frozen head with a monkey wrench.

Johnson was the chief operating officer for eight months before becoming a whistleblower in 2003. He said he wired himself with an audio recorder for his last three months at Alcor, and gathered internal records and photographs reproduced in the book.

The paper says the book details other incidents at Alcor, including the dismemberment of live dogs that were injected with chemicals in experiments. It also details suspicious circumstances involving the bodies of others frozen in steel cylinders at Alcor.

I've been trying to get hold of someone at ALCOR but they don't appear to be answering or returning phone calls today. hrm. Is there going to be a criminal investigation? Wouldn't these kind of things be major breaches of contract?

Edited by RighteousReason, 02 October 2009 - 10:07 PM.

[Mind]

If Mr. Johnson is misrepresenting the events surrounding the vitrification of Ted Williams, then ALCOR should be the people threatening to sue.

[RighteousReason]

If Mr. Johnson is misrepresenting the events surrounding the vitrification of Ted Williams, then ALCOR should be the people threatening to sue.

Yeah, I think either way there needs to be a serious investigation.

[RighteousReason]

This seems as good a time as any to ask, what are the real advantages of ALCOR over Cryonics Institute?

[JediMasterLucia]

The worst I saw was on the Jim Rome show (a provocative sports commentator in the U.S.). He called the people who worked at ALCOR "freaks and ghouls". What is interesting is that he said this even after admitting that he knew nothing about the technology involved, which means he is having the typical reaction anyone has when their belief system (about life and death) is confronted with something new. Sigh, still a lot of intolerance in the world.

this is terrible :-S
why don't they do their homework so they know what they're talking about.
Indeed a deep sigh to the intolerance in this world *sigh*

[advancedatheist]

From 2003:

http://www.scribd.co...h-Larry-Johnson

[MissM]

More

Book: Ted Williams' Frozen Head Used For Batting Practice
Posted Oct 02, 2009 12:00PM By JONATHAN BERR (RSS FEED)
Email Print Share
Text SizeAAA
Ted Williams has had a rough afterlife.

First his kids fought over whether his remains should be frozen like a Popsicle for eternity or until they found a cure for all diseases -- whichever came first. Williams, baseball's last .400 hitter, was reduced to a punch line for late-night TV comics. Now, the memory of one of game's greatest hitters is tarnished again.

After he died in 2002, Williams' body was sent to an Arizona cryogenics facility called the Alcor Life Extension Foundation at the direction of his son John Henry Williams. The New York Daily News is reporting that a soon-to-be published book, "Frozen," written by Larry Johnson, a former exec at Alcor in Scottsdale, Arizona, describes how the Boston Red Sox' star was beheaded, his head frozen and repeatedly abused.

In 2003, the elder Williams' friend, Buzz Hamon, sneaked into Alcor with the help of a mortician friend and was appalled to find the slugger's body stored with 50 others alongside cardboard boxes and junk, the newspaper said. Hamon later committed suicide.

The unconscionable way Williams was treated -- an Alcor employee removed Williams' head from the freezer with a stick, and tried to dislodge the tuna can it was balanced on by swinging at it with a monkey wrench -- is just one of the many odd stories detailed in the book by Johnson. He details experiments in which live dogs were mutilated and what he says were suspicious deaths of some of the people held in icy tombs at the facility. I am sure law enforcement officials in Arizona will take note. Johnson is currently in hiding. An Alcor spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

Unfortunately, John Henry Williams isn't around to answer for the horrendous way his father has been treated having died of leukemia a few years ago. His body also is at Alcor, which denies on its Web site that its technology can be used to revive "the truly brain dead." It's explanation of cryogenics raises more even more questions.

"Cryonics is a speculative life support technology that seeks to preserve human life in a state that will be viable and treatable by future medicine," the company Web site says. "It is expected that future medicine will include mature nanotechnology, and the ability to heal at the cellular and molecular levels."
Email Print Share

The worst I saw was on the Jim Rome show (a provocative sports commentator in the U.S.). He called the people who worked at ALCOR "freaks and ghouls". What is interesting is that he said this even after admitting that he knew nothing about the technology involved, which means he is having the typical reaction anyone has when their belief system (about life and death) is confronted with something new. Sigh, still a lot of intolerance in the world.

this is terrible :-S
why don't they do their homework so they know what they're talking about.
Indeed a deep sigh to the intolerance in this world *sigh*

[advancedatheist]

Apparently Larry Johnson has defied a court order by publishing his book:

http://www.scribd.co...efault-Judgment

[kurt9]

I believe Larry Johnson was criminally prosecuted by Alcor for embezzeling something like $100,000 from them.

[DJS]

Apparently Larry Johnson has defied a court order by publishing his book:

http://www.scribd.co...efault-Judgment

This could get interesting...

Hopefully this guy's legal smack down gets as much press coverage as his outlandish allegations.

[Mind]

Apparently Larry Johnson has defied a court order by publishing his book:

http://www.scribd.co...efault-Judgment

This could get interesting...

Hopefully this guy's legal smack down gets as much press coverage as his outlandish allegations.

I doubt it.

However, at least Alcor has a statement on their webiste.

October 2, 2009: The Alcor Life Extension Foundation denies the outrageous allegations against it that have appeared in the media this week. Alcor especially denies mistreating the remains of baseball great Ted Williams. Larry Johnson, the ex Alcor staff member who made these allegations, was not employed at Alcor when Williams was cryopreserved. Johnson's previous attempts to profit from sensational and unfounded allegations against Alcor recently resulted in a court order prohibiting him from making further statements about Alcor. "Alcor is actively pursuing litigation regarding these allegations," says Alcor Executive Director, Jennifer Chapman.

[bgwowk]

I believe Larry Johnson was criminally prosecuted by Alcor for embezzeling something like $100,000 from them.

That was a different guy.

[Harvey Newstrom]

I will confirm here that Alcor did utilize my services to perform a forensics
investigation on Larry Johnson's PC after he left their employ.  I won't get
into any specifics about what Alcor had me look for and what I found.  But I
will try to dispel some unfounded rumors floating around by assuring everyone
that everything I found was completely boring.  There was no evidence of the
horror stories we are hearing now.  There was no evidence of intrigue and
subterfuge.  All these stories seem to have been created after the fact.

I was able to recover all his deleted emails and files.  Mr. Johnson kept
everything until the end, and then deleted everything at one time, which was
trivial to recover.  No sophisticated efforts were made to destroy files and
hide files.  I was able to recreate his complete Internet activity history and
local network activity, including his access history to Alcor networked files.  
They had an anti-virus program that scanned all files and logged a summary, so
I could double-check the count of files I was recreating in the history with
the logged number of files on the disk each week.  There were dozens of system
logs that helped verify the timestamps and lack of any gaps in the recovered
histories.  The internal structure of the Outlook mailbox helped verify that
there were no missing emails that were not recovered.  It was one of the most
straight-forward and complete forensics recoveries I had ever done.

And I found nothing interesting.

None of the day to day emails or reports to or from Mr. Johnson indicated  
problems with Alcor's treatment of patients.  None of the outrageous stories
that appeared afterwards were mentioned beforehand.  There were not even hints
or references to problems or concerns of any kind.  In fact, the reports were
pretty positive about how well everything was going, and how much improvement
was occurring due to Mr. Johnson's leadership.

I was able to read the history of Mr. Johnson's disputes with Alcor
management.  They were concerning his own contractual relationship with Alcor
and his expected future advancement within Alcor.  There were no disputes over
patient care or Alcor's handing or patients.

I was also to recreate the history of Mr. Johnson's search for the attorneys
in the Williams case, and his attempts at making first contact with them.  This
indicates the at Mr. Johnson was not a mole into Alcor or secretly working
against Alcor beforehand.  It also seemed to indicate that he became
disgruntled first, and started looking for problems later.

There did seem to be a concerted effort to systematically go through all the
networked disks and directories looking for files.  But the list of files
accessed did not indicate any pattern or anything important.  If this indeed
was a search for something bad, it doesn't appear that anything was found.

Everything I was able to uncover showed normal operations, no problems, and
just the usual political disagreements that sometimes arise between employer
and employee.  Based on the sheer amount of information and complete lack of
any mention of problems or inappropriate behavior, it did not appear that any
of these concerns existed before Mr. Johnson left Alcor.  All these stories
seem to have been manufactured after the fact.

[advancedatheist]

I believe Larry Johnson was criminally prosecuted by Alcor for embezzeling something like $100,000 from them.

That was a different guy.

Timothy Reeves, in fact:

Ex-Alcor employee held in theft case

[livelong]

Posted here:
http://www.alcor.org/press/index.html

October 2, 2009: The Alcor Life Extension Foundation denies the outrageous allegations against it that have appeared in the media this week. Alcor especially denies mistreating the remains of baseball great Ted Williams. Larry Johnson, the ex Alcor staff member who made these allegations, was not employed at Alcor when Williams was cryopreserved. Johnson's previous attempts to profit from sensational and unfounded allegations against Alcor recently resulted in a court order prohibiting him from making further statements about Alcor. "Alcor is actively pursuing litigation regarding these allegations," says Alcor Executive Director, Jennifer Chapman.

And more here:
http://www.alcor.org...illustrated.htm

Copy of court order here:
http://www.alcor.org...ultJudgment.pdf

[Cryomedic]

This seems as good a time as any to ask, what are the real advantages of ALCOR over Cryonics Institute?

Well the most obvious problem with Alcor is that they have twice hired very bad people to work for them....apperently, they are poor judges of character...they need to have a better hiring process....and they should be looking at getting a PR firm to unscrew them ASAP. other then that more expensive then CI

[kurt9]

This seems as good a time as any to ask, what are the real advantages of ALCOR over Cryonics Institute?

Well the most obvious problem with Alcor is that they have twice hired very bad people to work for them....apperently, they are poor judges of character...they need to have a better hiring process....and they should be looking at getting a PR firm to unscrew them ASAP. other then that more expensive then CI

The cryonics scene has always had its share of nuts and fruitcakes. As long as cryonics is perceived as flakey, it will attract flakey people. As the technology develops and the chances of reanimation become more credible, more higher quality people will be attracted to the industry and these problems should decline.

[lunarsolarpower]

This seems as good a time as any to ask, what are the real advantages of ALCOR over Cryonics Institute?

I'm under the impression that Alcor generally implements new developments in vitrification technology far earlier than CI. They also provide for the standby procedures in every funding package which means the total cost looks a lot higher but for most if not all cases it's an important factor in getting a good suspension.

[opendoor]

If Kurzweil is right, then Ted just had a minor setback sicne his DNA is all there and the AI will swoop in and regenerate what is left.

Not that Kurzweil is right...

[RighteousReason]

This seems as good a time as any to ask, what are the real advantages of ALCOR over Cryonics Institute?

I'm under the impression that Alcor generally implements new developments in vitrification technology far earlier than CI. They also provide for the standby procedures in every funding package which means the total cost looks a lot higher but for most if not all cases it's an important factor in getting a good suspension.

Right, I was under the impression they had better vitrification procedures, and I think that standby is actually very important as it is so difficult to preserve the important brain structure.