In this mountain town, corpses are repeatedly mummified – and the scientists are at a loss

Strange but true

From Ben Cost

They are frozen in time.

No embalming fluid is required in this mysterious village. In a scenario straight out of a zombie apocalypse movie, deceased residents of the Colombian mountain town of San Bernardo mummified spontaneously and without preservatives – and their clothes, hair and even eyes were often still intact.

“People were a little incredulous about what was happening,” Rocio Vergara, a guide at the city cemetery’s mummy museum, told Agence France-Presse, to which Science Alert responded.

The petrified bodies of people born around the last century were first exhumed from the Alpine village cemetery in the 1950s after it was relocated due to flooding.

While this initially seemed like an isolated incident, more and more of these bodies were being unearthed. At the height of exhumations in the 1980s, San Bernardo residents were reportedly digging up to 50 specimens per year.

Around a dozen of the best-preserved examples are now on display for all to see in the José Arquimedes Castro Mausoleum.

Some of the carcasses appear to be so resistant to decay that even their most ephemeral features – eyes, clothing and hair – remain in remarkable condition.

“She still has her little brown face, round, her braids, her hair,” said Clovisnerys Bejarano, 63, as she described her mother, Saturnina, who died 30 years ago and is on display at the Historic Preservation Society.

The late mother is reportedly wearing the same dress she was buried in and is holding a carnation in her incredibly well-preserved hands.

The reason for these spontaneous mummifications remains unclear; However, numerous theories have been put forward.

According to Vergara, some locals believe that the postmortem Fountain of Youth is a reward for people who were “too good” while alive, while others view it as a “punishment” akin to eternal damnation.

Some San Bernardo residents attribute the phenomenon to the locals’ diet of guatila and balu, two native fruits commonly consumed in the area.

However, this explanation is somewhat suspicious considering that the corpses’ clothing is also in perfect condition.

Some experts believe the mummifications have to do with the bodies’ burial location in dry, above-ground vaults, which they say could act as a natural embalming agent.

Prior to the opening of the sites, no preservation cases were recorded in San Bernardo’s former cemeteries.

“The wind blows constantly because it is hot,” said Daniela Betancourt, an anthropologist at the National University of Colombia. “You can assume that the vaults act like an oven… they dehydrate you.”

However, there are no studies yet on “what specific conditions cause people to mummify,” she said.

Bejarano pointed out that it is not people’s job to ask questions, explaining, “If God wanted to preserve them, there had to be a reason for it.”