Cryonics group ‘ruined dream of return to life by cremating body’

A SON is suing a cryonics organisation for the return of his father’s frozen head – claiming it destroyed his parent’s dream of a return to life by cremating the rest of his body.

Kurt Pilgeram, 57, is also seeking $1million (£788,000) in damages from Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Mr Pilgeram says his father, Laurence, a molecular biologist, paid $120,000 to Alcor to preserve his body in the hope that one day new technology could bring him back to life.

However, Alcor insists that as a scientist, Mr Pilgeram’s father was well aware it was likely that only his head would be preserved.

Alcor, a non-profit organisation, uses cryonics, an experimental procedure using ultra-cold temperatures, to preserve its patients’ bodies.

Mr Pilgeram said that when his father died in 2015, at the age of 90, the Arizona-based organisation sent his ashes to his home in Dutton, Montana.

“They chopped his head off, burned his body, put it in a box and sent it to my house,” Mr Pilgeram told local newspaper the Great Falls Tribune. “Mutilation is basically what they did.”

Alcor is still storing Mr Pilgeram senior’s head, frozen in liquid nitrogen.

James Arrowood, a lawyer for Alcor, told The Daily Telegraph: “The twist in this case is that Laurence Pilgeram was one of the early scientists making his career out of the science of cryonics.

“I think a lot of people don’t know there’s actually a logical basis for just saving the head. In this particular case, Laurence Pilgeram was absolutely aware of that.”

Despite his father’s belief in futuristic science, Mr Pilgeram is sceptical about the experimental procedure’s potential.

“They’re selling pie in the sky,” he told the Great Falls Tribune. “It’s not based in science. It’s based in science fiction more than anything else.”

Both Mr Pilgeram and Alcor are claiming breach of contract in a court in Santa Barbara, California.