Best-selling author and New York Times journalist Leslie Kean helped catapult the credibility of the UFO topic with her book “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record,” and the co-writing the landmark 2017 New York Times Pentagon UFO program article, but now the afterlife is at the forefront with the “Surviving Death” Netflix documentary series based upon her book of the same name.
“What’s great abut getting ‘Surviving Death’ to Netflix is the number of people it will reach - Netflix streams in over 190 countries,” Kean said. “This means that vast numbers of people will be exposed to the question of whether consciousness survives death, and will think about whether the mind is really limited to the physical brain. The series is different from my book in that it is character-driven, telling stories of people on personal journeys grappling with these questions while dealing with grief and hoping to be in contact with their departed loved ones. It asks questions without providing answers. It’s not as research-driven as my book, and covers less ground, but also adds material that is not in my book and has a different emphasis.”
Director Ricki Stern tackles the topic of where do we go after we die through the six-episode series that starts streaming Jan. 6 on Netflix. The series will feature interviews with mediums, paranormal experts, scientists, psychiatrists and near-death experiencers all based upon, and inspired by the research of Kean’s “Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife.” The cases presented in the show will be unexplained, but compelling enough to interest those skeptical of the general idea of life after death.
“The reincarnation cases in the series come from my book, and we visit the two young boys who had numerous, specific past-life memories documented and verified,” Kean said. “They are now mature young men. We see how their lives have been impacted by what happened to them, but a lot of the material in the series - such as three NDE cases - is not in my book. I don’t know about the skeptics, but I have always thought that the cases of these young children with past-life memories were particularly hard to explain. One little boy had 55 accurate memories. The series does not provide the detail and thorough analysis for these cases that is in my book. I think the series and the book compliment each other - the series brings this material to life and takes us to some special places which are usually closed to outsiders. It shows us what all of this means to regular people.”
By MIKE DAMANTE
If you are a fan of the cases presented in “Surviving Death” Mike Damante’s latest book “Punk rock and UFOs: Stranger Than Fiction” features exclusive interviews with Leslie Kean, Tom DeLonge, Peter Levenda, Kevin Day, Sean Cahill, and the producers of “Unidentified.” Order now.