Real-Life X-Files

by Joe Nickell

  Dr. Dougal Drysdale of Edinborough University agrees: “The idea that the body can burn like a candle isn’t so far fetched [sic] at all. In a way, a body is like a candle—inside out. With a candle the wick is on the inside, and the fat on the outside. As the wick burns the candle becomes molten and the liquid is drawn onto the wick and burns. With a body, which consists of a large amount of fat, the fat melts and is drawn onto the clothing which acts as a wick, and then continues to burn” (Drysdale 1989). Experiments show that liquefied human fat burns at a temperature of about 250 degrees centigrade; however, a cloth wick placed in such fat will burn even when the temperature falls as low as 24 degrees centigrade (Dee 1965). In an 1854 English case, a woman’s body had been partially destroyed in the span of two hours it was explained that “beneath the body there was a hempen mat, so combustible, owing to the melted human fat with which it was impregnated, that when ignited it burnt like a link” (i.e., a pitch torch). (Stevenson 1883)

  Even a lean body contains a significant amount of fat, which is present even in the bone marrow (Snyder 1967). Indeed, “once the body starts to burn, there is enough fat and inflammable substances to permit varying amounts of destruction to take place. Sometimes this destruction by burning will proceed to a degree which results in almost complete combustion of the body,” as police officials reported in the Mary Reeser case (Blizin 1951). Moreover, in general, “women burn hotter and quicker than men, because proportionally, women carry more fat.” (Bennett n.d.)

  Arnold tries to compare favorably the partial destruction of bodies that occurs in his SHC cases (in which limbs, large segments of bone and other matter may remain, and that which does is rarely quantified or described scientifically) with the more complete destruction typical of crematories. But this is an apples-versus-oranges comparison at best. As Drysdale (1989) explains: “In a crematorium you need high temperatures—around 1,300 degrees C, or even higher—to reduce the body to ash in a relatively short period of time. But it’s a misconception to think you need those temperatures within a living room to reduce a body to ash in this way. You can produce local, high temperatures, by means of the wick effect and a combination of smouldering and flaming to reduce even bones to ash. At relatively low temperatures of 500 degrees C—and if given enough time—the bone will transform into something approaching a powder in composition.”

  It is interesting that the major proponents of spontaneous human combustion—Michael Harrison (Fire From Heaven, 1977), Jenny Randies and Peter Hough (Spontaneous Human Combustion, 1992), and Larry E. Arnold (Ablaze! 1995)—are all popular writers who are credulous as to other paranormal claims. They stand in contrast to the physicists and chemists, the forensic specialists, and other scientists who question—on the evidence—the reality of spontaneous human combustion.

  References

  Arnold, Larry. 1995. Ablaze! The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion. New York: M. Evans.

  Bennett, Valerie (crematorium superintendent), n.d. Quoted in Randies and Hough 1992, 50.

  Blizin, Jerry. 1951. The Reeser case. St. Petersburg (Florida)Times, Aug. 9.

  Dee, D.J. 1965. A case of “spontaneous combustion.” Medicine, Science and the Law 5: 37-38.

  DeHaan, John D. 1991. Kirk’s Fire Investigation, 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

  Drysdale, Dougal. 1989. Quoted in Randies and Hough 1992,43.

  Gaddis, Vincent. 1967. Mysterious Fires and Lights. New York: David McKay.

  Liebig, Justus von. 1851. Familiar Letters on Chemistry, letter 22. London: Taylor, Walton & Maberly.

  Nickell, Joe, and John F. Fischer. 1984. Spontaneous human combustion, The Fire and Arson Investigator 34 (March): 4-11 no. 4 (June): 3-8. This was published in abridged form in Joe Nickell with John F. Fischer, Secrets of the Supernatural (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1988), 149-57,161-71.

  Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1992. Mysterious Realms. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 165-75.

  Randles, Jenny, and Peter Hough. 1992. Spontaneous Human Combustion. London:Robert Hale.

  Snyder, Lemoyne. 1967. Homicide Investigation, 2nd ed. Springfield, 111.: C.C. Thomas, 233, 242.

  Stevenson, Thomas. 1883. The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Lea, 718-27.

  Chapter 5

  Believe It or--- ?

  One of my old cases—solved twenty years ago—was never published. However, I recently rediscovered a souvenir of the investigation—a strange curio—at the bottom of a stored trunk. It has an interesting link to the “Believe It or Not” empire founded by Robert L. Ripley.

  Ripley (1893-1949) began his career by combining a love of athletics and drawing to produce a series of sports cartoons. One day in 1918, facing a deadline and lacking any other idea, he transformed some notes on unusual sports events into a cartoon panel headed “Champs and Chumps.” His editor at the New York Globe liked all but the title, and soon “Believe It or Not” was launched. The changed title permitted a much broader selection of oddities, and the cartoon went from a weekly to a daily feature. In 1929, it began to be distributed by King Features Syndicate.

  Ripley’s income skyrocketed, boosted by “Believe It or Not” books, radio programs, movies, “freak shows,” and other venues and ventures. Seeking out the weird, the grotesque, and the amazing, he traveled world wide, earning the sobriquet the “Modern Marco Polo.” According to a biographer, Ripley was his own greatest oddity:

  He lived it up, this strange, mixed-up man. He would own the most expensive foreign cars obtainable, but never summon up enough courage to drive. He would pioneer in transatlantic radio broadcasting, but he would never dial a telephone, because in his curious mind there lurked the suspicion that he might be electrocuted in the process. He consumed enormous quantities of liquor and may have set a record for amorous dalliance, but he considered smoking and card playing evil and would have nothing to do with them. He was, to those who knew him best, the very personification of shyness, but no contemporary matched him in flamboyance or in seeking notoriety. (Considine 1961,16)

  Although Ripley insisted that every “Believe It or Not” claim was true, his biographer observes: “The truth was that Ripley literally believed everything. He made flat statements such as ’Neils Paulsen, of Uppsala, Sweden, died in 1907 at the age of 160 and left two sons—one nine years old and the other 103 years of age.’ His sources were usually reprints of old newspapers for items such as the long-lived Swede—rarely medical records, birth certificates, or such” (Considine 1961, 56). In addition to claims based on flimsy evidence, some of Ripley’s assertions were largely provocative. An example appeared beneath a portrait of William F. Cody: “Buffalo Bill Never Shot a Buffalo in His Life.” Ripley’s substantiation was that Cody actually slew bison. If readers felt they had been “had,” Ripley was all the more pleased (Considine 1961, 51, 54).

  Ripley began to amass a collection of curios from his travels, including shrunken heads, strange effigies, and other oddities, including (his reputed favorite) a “genuine” Fiji mermaid. In 1933, he displayed such items along with live performers at his “Odditorium” at the Chicago World’s Fair. Its success led to shows at various fairs and expositions, and in time Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museums—twenty-seven so far—have spread around the world (Kemlo 1997).

  My case began in the early 1970s at the Ripley museum in Niagara Falls, Canada. I used to visit it on my day off when I was Resident Magi cian at the nearby Houdini Magical Hall of Fame. (Admission at most Falls attractions was reciprocally free to employees.) I have always enjoyed the “Believe It or Not!” museums’ displays, although I sometimes choose the “or Not” part of the equation. Such was my response to a particular item in the museum. It was a conical piece of wood accompanied by a display sign describing “A cypress growth found in the swamps of Florida with the word RIPLEY written by nature.” Obviously nature produces infinite random shapes that—given our tendency to make order out of chaos—we may perce
ive as recognizable forms, as by seeing pictures in clouds or envisioning images in ink blots. But the RIPLEY pattern seemed too good to be true. Each time I saw the object, I shook my head in disbelief and thought about how it might be scientifically examined or otherwise investigated.

  After I left the Falls, I forgot about the mystery object until a few years later, in 1979, when I was traveling in Florida. On U.S. 27 near Palmdale, Florida, I came across the Cypress Knee Museum, with its ac companying factory and sales room and a three-quarter-mile catwalk that meandered through a cypress swamp. There I learned much about the curious growths known as cypress knees. The cypress is the only tree that has “knees,” which form on the roots and rise, without limbs or leaves, above the water level of swamps. Their function is the subject of some conjecture, but being porous, they may aerate the roots during high water (“Tree-Root” 1937 Gaskins 1978,18-19).

  In the museum were many cypress knees “shaped by nature,” their gnarled forms prompting their descriptive names like “Mother and Child,” “Brown Bear,” and the like. But one was strikingly evocative of the Ripley knee, bearing a name and address! Alarm bells were going off in my head. When I asked proprietor Tom Gaskins about this, telling him of my interest, he led me to a shed where he revealed five more “RIPLEY” knees! Therein lay an interesting tale.

  Tom Gaskins pioneered in using cypress knees for decorative purposes, beginning in 1934 and advertising them in House Garden in November of the following year. In 1937, he was awarded U.S. Patent 2,069,580, for “Articles of Manufacture Made from Cypress Knees.” Basically, the knees are harvested from the swamp with an ax, peeled, and—without affecting the natural shape—modified by hollowing, drilling, etc., to produce “ornamental” items. These include flower holders, bird houses, lamp stands, ashtrays, candle holders, and other household articles.

  Within a year of cutting his first knee, having observed a stump that had begun to heal and soon noticing the effects of scarring, he was struck by the idea “that it might be damage that caused knees to grow in strange shapes.” He began to conduct experiments in “controlled knee growth” and produced test scarring in 1938. He stated he had learned that letter ing, for example, could be cut into the knee and that subsequent growth would heal the wounds, producing raised wood where the cuts were made (Gaskins 1979).

  In 1939, Gaskins spoke with a Ripley representative at the Odditorium at the New York World’s Fair about the possibility of employing his tech nique “to produce a knee—purely for novelty effect—bearing the word “RIPLEY.” He did later produce such a knee and sent it to the man who, as he recalled, subsequently asked for five more. He made the necessary carvings but forgot about them. It was not until 1978 that he finally sent a photograph of a group of the completed five knees to the Ripley Inter national Ltd. office in Toronto but was told that they did not require any more at the time (Gaskins 1979).

  Figure 5.1. Cypress knee with

  “RIPLEY” “written by nature” ? Believe

  It or Not! (Author’s collection, gift of

  Tom Gaskins)

  There was ample room for confusion and misunderstanding in all of this, and Tom Gaskins did not believe that anyone at Ripley ever intended to misrepresent how the “RIPLEY” knee was actually formed. During my investigation, a Ripley official reported to me that “This exhibit has been in the possession of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for many, many years, and we have no further details concerning it” (Copperthwaite 1979a). It remained for me to apprise Ripley’s of the facts by means of an affidavit from Tom Gaskins, and subsequently to be advised that the display wording had been amended satisfactorily (Copperthwaite 1979b). (The RIPLEY knee is no longer on display at the Niagara Falls Museum.)

  When I reported Ripley’s prompt, appropriate action to Gaskins, I mentioned “luck” regarding my meeting him and learning the true Ripley story. He replied, “I have contemplated luck quite a great deal and use the word as it is commonly used now and then but with my tongue in my cheek. On account of, if you had not had [the] eyes you had and if a thousand other little parts had not been carefully put together, then this entertaining story would not ever have come out” (Gaskins 1979). Hmmm. As “Rip” would say, “Believe It or Not!”

  References

  Considine, Bob. 1961. Ripley: The Modern Marco Polo. New York: Doubleday.

  Copperthwaite, Rita. 1979a. Letter to author from Ripley International, Oct. 19.

  ———. 1979b. Letter to author, Nov. 26.

  Gaskins, Tom. 1978. Florida Facts and Fallacies. Palmdale, Fla.: Privately printed.

  ———. 1979 Personal communication (including letters and supplementary materials) affidavit of Nov. 13.

  Kemlo, Karen. 1997. Educational booklet, n.p.: Ripley Entertainment.

  Tree-root craftwork forms unique business. 1937. Popular Science Monthly. April, 66.

  Chapter 6

  Legend of the

  “Miraculous Stairway”

  The CBS television movie, “The Staircase” (April 12,1998), told how “a dying nun’s wish to complete her order’s chapel is fulfilled by a mysterious stranger” (Bobbin 1998). Starring Barbara Hershey as the terminally ill mother superior and William Peterson as the enigmatic carpenter, the movie is an embellishment of the legend of the “miraculous stairway” at the Sisters of Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe. The wooden, spiral stair is thought to be unique, and some claim its very existence is inexplicable.

  The Loretto legend begins with the founding of a school for females in Santa Fe in 1852. A combined day and boarding school, the Loretto Academy was founded by the local Sisters of Loretto at the behest of Bishop John Lamy. In 1873, work was begun on a chapel. Unfortunately, some earthly—even earthy—events reportedly marred the work: the wife of Bishop Lamy’s nephew caught the architect’s eye, and he was killed for his interest—shot by the nephew who was distraught over his destroyed marriage.

  At this time, work on the chapel was nearing completion, and although the choir loft was finished, the architect’s plans provided no means of access. It was felt that installing an “ordinary stair” would be objectionable on aesthetic grounds as well as by limiting seating (Bullock 1978, 6, 8). “Carpenters and builders were called in,” according to one source, “only to shake their heads in despair.” Then, “When all else had failed, the Sisters determined to pray a novena to the Master Carpenter himself, St. Joseph” (the father of Jesus) (Bullock 1978, 8).

  “On the ninth day,” reportedly, their prayers were answered. A humble workman appeared outside, leading a burro laden with carpentry tools. He announced he could provide a suitable means of access to the loft, requiring only permission and a couple of water tubs. Soon, he was at work:

  Sisters, going in to the Chapel to pray, saw the tubs with wood soaking in them, but the Man always withdrew while they said their prayers, returning to his work when the Chapel was free. Some there are who say the circular stair which stands there today was built very quickly. Others say no, it took quite a little time. But the stair did grow, rising solidly in a double helix without support of any kind and without nail or screw. The floor space used was minimal and the stair adds to, rather than detracts from, the beauty of the Chapel.

  As the tale continues:

  The Sisters were overjoyed and planned a fine dinner to honor the Carpenter. Only he could not be found. No one seemed to know him, where he lived, nothing. Lumberyards were checked, but they had no bill for the Sisters of Loretto. They had not sold him the wood. Knowledgeable men went in and inspected the stair and none knew what kind of wood had been used, certainly nothing indigenous to this area. Advertisements for the Carpenter were run in the New Mexican and brought no response.

  “Surely,” said the devout, “it was St. Joseph himself who built the stair.” (Bullock 1978, 8,10)

  No doubt the legend has improved over the intervening century, like good wine. As we shall see, there is more to the story. But Barbara Hershey concedes, “Those who want to beli
eve it’s a miracle can, and those who want to believe this man was just an ingenious carpenter can” (Bobbin 1998). Evidence for the latter is considerable, but first we must digress a bit to understand spiral stairs.

  Spiral and other winding staircases reached a high point in development in sixteenth–century England and France, with several “remarkable” examples (“Stair” 1960 “Interior” 1960). To appreciate the problems such stairs present, we must recognize that builders use turns in staircases to save space or to adapt to a particular floor plan. The simplest is the landing turn, which is formed of straight flights joined at the requisite angle by a platform. A variation is the split landing, which is divided on a diagonal into two steps. Instead of a landing, the turn may be accomplished by a series of steps having tapered treads. Such staircases are called winders and include certain ornamental types, like that which takes the shape of a partial circle (known as circular stair) or an ellipse. An extreme form of winding staircase is a continuous winder in the form of a helix (a line that rises as it twists, like a screw thread). This is the popularly termed “spiral staircase” like the example at Loretto Chapel (Locke 1992, 135–36 Dietz 1991, 340–42). Helixes—in contrast to, say, pyramids—are not inherently strong weight–supporting structures. They require some kind of strengthening or support. Therefore, in addition to being secured at top and bottom, the spiral staircase is usually also braced by attachment along its height to a central pole or an adjacent wall (Dietz 1991,342 “Stair” 1960).