Captain Kirk’s mysteries of the unıverse
Just like his Star Trek hero, William Shatner is obsessed by the unexplained – now he’s turned his curiosity into a fascinating new series...
Brave, irresistible to females (human and alien) and endlessly curious about the worlds around him,
Star Trek’s Captain James T Kirk first boldly went where no man has gone before more than half a century ago. And William Shatner, who played him, may be 89 now and marooned in quarantine at his LA home, but he’s still just as interested in science and mystery as his legendary TV character was.
While we still haven’t learned how to teleport Star Trek-style from one place to another, William says the strides we’ve made in technology are as amazing as anything on the show. ‘I have a little computer in my hand and I’m talking to you thousands of miles away. It’s beyond imagination,’ he exclaims as we talk over Zoom.
His curiosity has meant he’s been in a ‘frenzy of creativity’ during isolation. He’s previously released four albums in his muchparodied spoken-word style, and now he’s recorded a fifth, an album of blues songs. He’s also working on what he calls ‘a strange, inexplicable album you’ll have to wait to hear more about. It’s going to be really different’.
It’s his love of a mystery that made him leap at the chance to host Sky History’s new eight-part series
The UnXplained, which tackles intriguing conundrums from around the globe. ‘We’re surrounded by mystery,’ he says. ‘There are the big questions like is there life after death? And there are smaller ones like how a man can come out of a coma and play the piano like a concert pianist when he’s never had a lesson in his life.’
The series looks at everything from curses and cults to vampires. ‘One of the things I’m most interested in is precognition – knowing a thing will happen before it does,’ he says. ‘Just before 9/11 people had visions of what was going to happen. There are things we simply don’t understand. This show looks at some of the explanations. The closest I’ve come to knowing something bad was about to happen was when I decided to become an actor,’ he laughs.
One episode deals with mysterious stones, from the Black Stone of Mecca – one of the most revered Muslim artefacts – to the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which was owned for centuries by Indian nobles, many of whom suffered bloody deaths. ‘It would pass from one ruler to another, almost always drenched in blood,’ says William. ‘It’s almost as if the diamond itself demanded mortal sacrifice in order to possess it.’
The Koh-i-Noor was given to Queen Victoria in 1849, but because it is said to curse any man who wears it, only female members of the British royal family have done so, including the Queen Mother in the crown she wore for her husband’s coronation. It is now on display at the Tower of London. ‘Can a diamond be cursed? Can an object be imbued with dark energy?’ muses William. ‘There’s so much we don’t know.’
Even though most of the subjects explored on the show remain unexplained, they still excite him. ‘The fact there’s no explanation is tantalising,’ he says. ‘It would be good to think that one day we’ll understand all these mysteries. Because there is an explanation, we just don’t know it yet.’
CAN AN OBJECT BE CURSED, IMBUED WITH DARK ENERGY?