25th January, 2021
A Las Vegas businessman, Robert Bigelow is spending $1 million to find out if indeed there is life after death.
His Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS) has announced a global essay contest seeking input from scientists, religious scholars, consciousness researchers and anyone else who can provide evidence of an afterlife.
As an incentive, BICS will award $500,000 for the top essay, $300,000 for the second best and $150,000 for third place.
Essays will be judged by five renowned experts. And they must be received by 5 p.m. August 1, 2021.
Winners will be announced November 1, 2021, the Bigelow Institute said.
Bigelow, the founder and owner of Bigelow Aerospace as well as the hotel chain Budget Suites of America, has spent millions of dollars to pursue two enduring mysteries.
As Fox News reported, the first is on whether there is other intelligent life in the universe.
The second study is whether human consciousness continues after physical death.
In the mid-1990s, he created the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a think tank and research program that investigated UFO issues as well as the survival of consciousness.
NIDS was guided by a Science Advisory Board made up of eminent scientists, astronauts, academics, and intelligence officers.