The Third Man Factor

Surviving the Impossible

By: John Geiger

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

The Third Man Factor is an extraordinary account of how people at the very edge of death often sense an unseen presence beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive.

This incorporeal being offers a feeling of hope, protection, and guidance, and leaves the person convinced he or she is not alone. There is a name for this phenomenon: It’s called the Third Man Factor.

If only a handful of people had ever encountered the Third Man, it might be dismissed as an unusual delusion shared by a few overstressed minds. But over the years, the experience has occurred again and again, to 9/11 survivors, mountaineers, divers, polar explorers, prisoners of war, sailors, shipwreck survivors, aviators, and astronauts.

All have escaped traumatic events only to tell strikingly similar stories of having sensed the close presence of a helper or guardian. The force has been explained as everything from hallucination to divine intervention. Recent neurological research suggests something else.

Best-selling and award-winning author John Geiger has completed six years of physiological, psychological, and historical research on the Third Man.

He blends his analysis with compelling human stories such as that of Ron DiFrancesco, the last survivor to escape the World Trade Center on 9/11; Ernest Shackleton, the legendary explorer whose account of the Third Man inspired T. S. Eliot to write of it in "The Waste Land"; Jerry Linenger, a NASA astronaut who experienced the Third Man while aboard the Mir space station - and many more.

©2009 John Grigsby Geiger (P)2013 Gildan Media LLC

Fascinating and Well Told

This collection of recorded events is entertaining, enlightening and thought-provoking. The experiences are described in vivid detail, making it easy for the listener to imagine what the people involved lived through. Highly recommended for people with a taste for adventure and an open mind.

Interesting. Well written and narrated but falls short in final analysis.

Far too much credit is given by the author to the few limited brain experiments which offered no explanation for the accurate guidance received above and beyond the comprehension of the experiencer, and the literal actions performed by the Third Man phenomenon. This book looks through the limited assessment of the physical senses at a much larger non-physical subject much the way one might search for a lost item in the vast dark with the single beam of a small handheld flashlight. The resolution that ‘if one can see it and it can be tested... then and only then it is real and not a brain-made illusion’ leaves the quest for truth stubbed, limited and in the dark. The author dismisses his very own experience of a shift of perspective in a dangerous scenario when a deeper more open look might expand our capacities as humans far more than the notion of producing a brain-created fake friend in times of duress and great need.

Beating a dead horse...slowly

I think my issue is likely with the narrator since many friends of mine loved the book who read the hard copy. The information is interesting at first, but the author becomes very repetative throughout the book. There also does not seem to be much organization to the book so the same ideas are presented over and over and over instead of being grouped by section. I was struggling to finish until I realized the reason I was frustrated was that the narrator spoke so slowly. i sped it up to 1.25x and it was better.