It's hard to know why they did that. My very limited understanding is that it showed energy density in between nuclear and chemical yet had nuclear by products.
I really wish people would take expert disagreement seriously. I mean, as a non expert, all you can do is weigh the opinions and guess. This means to me no hard conclusions can be drawn from LENR or NDE research, though I have greater confidence LENR is not real now and less confidence there is not an afterlife.
I was nearly certain there was no afterlife. Now I realize how dumb i am and will remain. I don't understand Alex's confidence. I just know people smarter than me disagree on a lot of important topics so that leads me with dismay.
I once had a good LENR link. All i can find is skeptical reporting sadly. But that is my view, mostly. Ditto economically viable hot fusion. In other words, hot fusion will remain a future technology too. But that is a known consensus.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01675-9
Given the money to be made out of coal, oil, or 'renewable' sources of energy, I think it is extremely likely that LENR was squashed either because someone knew that it is possible, or someone feared that it might be possible. I guess another possible motive would be that LENR could form the basis for a very powerful bomb.
Incidentally, Rupert Sheldrake speculates that biology may make use of LENR, not so much to create energy, but to provide scarce essential elements.
As regards NDE's, I am much more positive. As Gregory has shown, this phenomenon is not new - i.e. it is not a New Age fad - and those who reported NDE's were often at some danger because the details do not really align themselves with orthodox religion.
These things are also reported by children, such as kids who fall through ice on open water. Interestingly, because their brains are rapidly cooled, they sometimes survive longer than would normally be the case. Children do not often think about death, nor were they likely to be thinking about death prior to the accident - yet they also report NDE's with many of the same features as adults report.
There is also a fascinating continuity with other phenomena, such as explicitly paranormal phenomena. If you are cynical about the most basic NDEs, such as those where a patient looks down from the ceiling on the teem trying to perform a resuscitation, wait till you are lying fully conscious with eyes open in a dentist's chair. How much of the procedure could you report, other than the sound of the drill?
Finally, NDE's do not seem to fit with conventional science without a lot of arm twisting. The mechanism creating an NDE would have to be quite elaborate, and how could it evolve, and what survival value?
David