Alison Wilson, a pathologist in Australia, after studying and photographing the movements of the corpse for 17 months, told AFP on Friday that she found that people have been unable to rest in peace lately.
In one of her examples, the arms of the corpse, which from the moment of death were extended along the body, for some unknown reason were eventually pulled apart.
One of the scientific explanations for the phenomenon now observed is decomposition and, as a result, deformation of muscles and ligaments, which consist of protein molecules elastin and collagen. Also, posthumous movement can cause loss of water by blunt tissues.
“We think the movement is related to decomposition as the body is mummified and the ligaments dry up,” Wilson said in a statement.
To carry out her unusual experiment of observing dead people, Wilson made a three-hour flight every month from Cairns to Sydney to check the movement of the corpse selected for observation.
The main subject of her observation was one of seventy bodies stored on the only "body farm" in the Southern Hemisphere, which is located in a secret woodland on the outskirts of Australia's largest city.
Officially known as the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research (AFTER, AFTER), the farm conducts groundbreaking research into posthumous movement.
Promotional video:
The goal of the work of Wilson and her colleagues was to improve the generally accepted system for estimating time of death today. For this, a special single-frame camera was used, which at regular intervals had to photograph the corpse. And to the great surprise of researchers, some bodies move very significantly after death.
In an interview with AFP, Wilson reports:
“After observing this kind of movement in previous research, I tried to find literature on this topic. But as it turned out, nowhere and no one in the world has ever conducted such a quantitative assessment of the posthumous movement. And then I thought, okay, I'm going to do this."
Alison Wilson began her research project after traveling to Mexico to help classify Mayan remains. The results of her research were recently published in the journal Forensic Science Internationa.
The question arises: why is all this being done? As Wilson herself explains, a better understanding of these movements and the rate of decay can be used by the police to more accurately estimate the time of death.
Dr. Wilson also hopes that new knowledge could, for example, narrow down the number of missing persons who are in fact an unidentified corpse.
A better understanding of the posthumous movement could also help investigators and forensic experts avoid mistakes in establishing the cause of death and correctly interpret the new unexpected position of the body found at the crime scene.
"Usually they map the scene of the crime, they map the exact position of the victim's body, tracing it in chalk, and then comparing it with the physical evidence helps to understand the cause of death."
“But what about the situation when the position of the body has changed? As a child, I lived on a farm and always paid attention to how the bodies of animals deform after death, but only now I begin to understand the reason for this,”says Wilson.
Well, what a joyful scientific news - the corpses do not bite yet, but began to crawl. In general, now approaching the dead, be vigilant: there is already a zombie apocalypse somewhere nearby.