41 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
41 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
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Faced with such a mystery, the St. Petersburg authorities called in the FBI.
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Laboratory findings showed that Mrs. Reeser's estimated weight of 175 lbs. had
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been reduced to a total of _less than 10 lbs._, including the foot and shrunken
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head. The final report concluded that no known chemical agents or other
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accelerants had been involved in starting the fire.
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Dr. Krogman has burned cadavers with gasoline, oil, wood, and all kinds of
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other agents. He has experimented with bones encases in flesh or stripped, both
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moist and dry. His tests have utilized combustion apparatus ranging from
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outdoor pyres to the most modern pressurized crematorium equipment. He has
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demonstrated conclusively that it takes extraordinary heat to consume a body,
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and that only at over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit would bone become volatile enough
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to lose its shape and leave only ashes. "These are very great heats", he said,
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"that would sear, char, scorch or otherwise mar or effect anything and
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everything within a considerable radius."
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Another mystery was the slippered left foot, which Mrs. Reeser, having been in
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some discomfort, was in the habit of propping up on a stool. The foot was left
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unburned, apparently because it was outside the mysterious four-foot radius of
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incineration.
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Perhaps strangest of all, and unique to this case of SHC, was the shrunken
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skull. Dr. Krogman commented:
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...the head is not left complete in ordinary burning cases.
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Certainly it does NOT shrivel or symmetrically reduce to a
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smaller size. In presence of heat sufficient to destroy soft
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tissues, the skull would literally explode in many pieces.
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I...have never known any exception to this rule.
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______________________________________________________________________________
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SEE: Michael Harrison, "Fire From Heaven"
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Vincent Gaddis, "Mysterious Fires and Lights"
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Francis Hitching, "The Mysterious World: An Atlas of the Unexplained"
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Frank Edwards, "Stranger than Science"
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Reader's Digest, "Mysteries of the Unexplained"
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