When is a Dead Man Really Dead?

Tony Yahle had been dead for 45 minutes, and hospital staff at Kettering Medical Center were preparing to move his body to the morgue.  Then his son stepped up and said, “Dad, you’re not going to die today.”  At that second, Yahle’s heart began to beat.  Doctors are at a loss to explain his sudden recovery.

It began when Yahle’s family realized he was not breathing and had no pulse.  They performed CPR while waiting for paramedics to arrive, but all efforts to revive him failed.  He was rushed to Kettering Medical Center with no heartbeat or other vital signs.  Doctors spent 45 minutes trying to revive him before declaring him dead.  It was then that his 17-year-old son shouted, “Dad, you’re not going to die today.”

At that point, Yahle’s heart monitor started showing up tiny electrical signals once or twice a minute.  His
cardiologist noticed them and renewed efforts to revive his patient.  Gradually, Yahle’s heart rate began to increase.  Finally, the cardiologist was able to say that Yahle would live through the bizarre incident.

Yahle later was transferred to Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.  He woke up five days later.
Eventually he was allowed to go home to rest and recover.  When asked, the 37-year-old Yahle said he was feeling fine and planned to return to work the following Monday.

Interestingly enough, as I was preparing this article, I ran across stories of two other people, a man and a woman, who had also suddenly revived after having been declared dead by medical personnel.  Both had been dead approximately 45 minutes. 

Ordinarily, when oxygen to the brain has been cut off for a much shorter period of time than 45 minutes, there is significant brain damage.  In each of these three cases, the victims did not seem to experience obvious damage to their brains.  Is there some sort of “magic window” at 45 minutes in which some people can be restored with minimal or no damage? 

If you’d like a little more information, you’ll find it here:

Is This a Vampire Cemetery?

Construction workers working on a road near Gliwice in southern Poland uncovered four skeletons.  Later, another thirteen skeletons turned up.  All seventeen were found with their skulls placed between their knees or hands and stones placed on top of the skulls. 

According to archaeologists, this is the way suspected vampires were buried during the 15th and 16th centuries in Poland in order to prevent them from returning to life. 

So far, a total of 43 graves have been located at the grave site.  The other bodies were not treated in the same way as the seventeen.  Since the cemetery was located near an execution site, it is possible that some, if not all, of the victims were actually executed and then buried nearby. 

It is interesting that there was no sign of clothing or buttons found on the bodies.  It is probable, however, that the bodies were stripped of jewelry, coins, and other valuable items by either the executioners or the people who actually buried the bodies.

The skeletons are being removed from the site for testing designed to determine the ages of the victims and the possible causes of death.  Researchers are also studying church and court records to try to identify at least some of the individuals buried in this strange graveyard. 

There’s another article, along with a few photographs here:

What is This Stone Structure?

There is a strange stone cairn at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee.  It was discovered more than ten years ago, but information about it is only now becoming public.

The cairn (a stacked pile of rocks) is estimated to be 32 feet tall and is cone-shaped.  It is huge, with a diameter of 230 feet at its base.  Built of stacked, rough basalt cobbles and boulders, its weight is estimated at 60,000 tons.

It is probable that the mysterious cairn was built when sea levels were lower and most likely is more than 4,000 yearsold, although investigations into its actual age are still underway.  Archaeologists are hoping to find artifacts or other evidence to help them identify the cairn’s purpose. 

Similar cairns often mark graves.  If that is the case, the individual buried there would have had a high status
deserving of such a massive structure. It is also possible, of course, that the cairn was dedicated to an entire family group.

When Did Humans Really Reach the New World?

There are a number of archaeologists who say they have found evidence that people had ventured into the New World much earlier than the iconic Clovis culture.  In almost every case, their evidence has been dismissed by their colleagues.  So it is no real surprise that one of the most recent studies is being hotly contested.


A research team led by Christelle Lahaye of Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3 University in France led a team which excavated a rock shelter in Brazil.  They found 113 stone tools inside the site buried in ancient sediments.  Careful analysis of those sediments revealed that some of the tools had been buried 22,000 years ago, at least 6,000 years earlier than the oldest reliably dated Clovis artifacts.


One of the first criticisms of the team’s findings came from John McNabb of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.  He pointed out that evidence in rock shelters is open to different interpretations.  Rocks falling from cave ceilings and walls often resemble crude tools. But in the case of the Brazilian rock shelter, the “tools” are made of rock that is not naturally present at the site, suggesting that they were brought in from elsewhere. The team has found that some of those stones originated at least 10 miles away.

There is one more piece of elusive evidence that has not been discovered yet.  No human remains have been found.  Nor has any ancient cave art, a sure sign of human occupation, turned up at the cave or other nearby sites. 

LaHaye and her team are studying the original rock shelter and others nearby, looking for more evidence of human occupation.  It will be interesting to see how their investigation develops.  If this team can uncover more proof that people were in the Americans 22,000 years ago, there may yet be hope that some of the other claims for early occupation might be taken more seriously.

For more information about this intriguing find, go here