Mummies of the Modern World: Wanted Dead, Not Alive

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-13

[00:00:06]December 8th, 1976, Long Beach, California. An unwitting Universal Studios camera crew arrives at the New Pike Amusement Park. They're here to film the Carnival of Spies episode of the classic sci-fi TV show, The 6 Million-Dollar Man, about a former astronaut turned secret agent, Cyborg.

[00:00:27]We can rebuild him. We have the technology. While the crew sets up a scene in the Laughinthe-dark funhouse, a worker moves what he thought was a wax mannequin hanging from the gallows of a measly 2x4. But as he moves it, the arm pops clean off. Inside, he spots a human bone surrounded by muscle tissue. The entire camera crew is mortified. Long Beach firefighters arrive and one of them calls a paramedic buddy of his, joking with him to get over the pike because they needed to tend to a victim with severe dehydration. Very funny.

[00:01:04]Police are immediately called as well and the corpse is then taken to the coroner's office. Identifying the remains is top priority, but for now he's John Doe 255. The following day, LA County coroner Dr. Thomas Nguchi performs an autopsy and as an experienced coroner, he's already run countless autopsies on many of the rich and famous in Hollywood. He confirmed that John Doe 255 is a human male. The remains weigh 50 lb and he stands at about 5'2 in. He has very little hair left on the back and sides of his head and his ear tips, toes, and fingers are all missing. He also has several scars and bunions.

[00:01:50]Before making any incisions on the body, the medical team notices it had already showed signs of old incisions made by a previous autopsy. Hm. As they pursue a second autopsy, it's eventually determined that the victim had died from a fatal gunshot wound to the chest. No bullet could be found since it was most likely removed during the first autopsy.

[00:02:15]This clearly is not a recent victim of a murder. Not in the slightest, because the body is completely petrified, professionally imbalmed, and it's filled with arsenic. Arsenic apparently was once used by inbalmers, but that practice had died off around 1920, which was over 50 years earlier. And although no bullet is found in this second autopsy, the bullet's copper cap is found inside the chest. It's from a 3220 caliber round which hadn't been manufactured since before the Second World War. And that specific copper jacket style ammunition first appeared in America in 1905. Knowing these two things, they figured this man must have died between 1905 and 1920. Oddly, a coroner's examiner points out that a 1924 penny was found inside the man's mouth, as well as some ticket stubs. One is for Louiswis Sunny's Museum of Crime, Main Street, LA. To try and trace this body's origins, which ended up being quite the undertaking, police discovered that the amusement park had acquired the body from the Hollywood Wax Museum in 1968. And the amusement park owner thought that he was just paperier-mâché, and the $6 million man production crew thought he was just a strange looking mannequin. So going even farther back, investigators discovered that before that, the body was owned very briefly by a filmmaker Dave Freriedman. He even put this body in a schllocky 1967 movie, She Freak. Dave Freriedman said that the Sunny Company had sold McCertie to the Hollywood Wax Museum in 1968. So it became obvious that this body had had a very, very long journey. But after everything, previous owners confirmed that this body belonged to a Mr. Elmer J. McCertie, an American outlaw.

[00:04:15]Although besides his bone structure, Elmer had deteriorated quite a bit over the years. So to confirm his identity even further, forensic anthropologist Dr. Clyde Snow gets creative and invents a way to visually match Elmer's remains.

[00:04:30]He first gets a photograph of Elmer McCertie obtained from the University of Oklahoma's western history collections.

[00:04:37]He then takes a pair of video cameras and links them to a special effects generator and also to a monitor. One camera focuses on the mummy. The other points at the 1911 postmortem photograph of Elmer J. Mccertie and superimposed.

[00:04:53]Dr. Snow says the two profiles were remarkably coincident.

[00:04:59]With all this evidence, Dr. Snow concludes that these were the remains of Elmer McCertie, and Dr. Nguchi agrees and signs a death certificate. Elmer's body then soon makes big news, and it hits NBC News on camera just behind the award-winning reporter Leslie Stall.

[00:05:17]Elmer was only 31 years old when he was killed by law men after robbing a train for a measly $46 and two jugs of whiskey back in 1911. And by the time he was found in the Laughinthe-dark funhouse, his remains were over twice that age at 65 years. And as more was revealed about the mysterious body discovered in the Laughintheark Funhouse, Elmer's remains might have had a more bizarre journey in death than in life.

[00:06:00]Welcome to Doge Geese See God, a palendrome turn podcast where I cover true stories, bizarities, folklore, and wonder from across the world and back.

[00:06:10]I'm your host, Austin Lee, a living human in the flesh. We also have another very meaty human back there behind the cameras, my good friend Robert.

[00:06:20]>> Hey, man.

[00:06:21]>> How's it going?

[00:06:22]>> Good. Good.

[00:06:22]>> Were you offended that I called you meaty? Is that okay?

[00:06:25]>> No. Uh, we're just a couple of uh meat sacks over here.

[00:06:28]>> How much can you lift nowadays?

[00:06:30]>> I don't know.

[00:06:31]>> Just say the number.

[00:06:33]>> Tough is the answer. 275 bench last time.

[00:06:36]>> Yeah, crazy. Um, and also, as you guys know, we have Jerry here, my sweet, sweet dog. A beautiful animal. And as always, I got to plug it here. Remember, please for the love of God, go follow and subscribe uh wherever you get your podcast, on Spotify, over on YouTube, always do it all. Uh it helps the show significantly. Also, hop on over to Patreon where I'll be doing some fun stuff in the future. That is a great way to support the show. And uh you know, even if you just want to join for free, you can do that, too. And also go hype the YouTube video. Uh, I guess that's a thing. You can hype it up. It uh I think it's only on mobile, but it can really help this show grow. It's for uh smaller creators like myself. And just big shout out. Thank you to everyone who's already subscribed and followed and all that jazz. I love you. And honestly, I'm going to get a little heartfelt right now. The love and support that I've gotten from you guys is priceless to me and it really gives me the motivation to keep going with this show. Um, I have put all of my energy into this thing and uh, it's been very rewarding so far and I love doing this. I love being able to bring you guys this show. So, just shouts out if you're listening in.

[00:08:00]Shouts out. I love you. Uh, and as always, we got another killer episode today. Uh, this one took us down some crazy rabbit holes, Robert and I, while we were researching this one. Um cuz you when I don't know whenever you hear the word mummy most of us just think like oh king Tut mummies of Egypt the historical accounts they always feel very distant.

[00:08:26]Um honestly sometimes to me mummies as cool as they are almost like a a bit boring at this rate cuz mummies are cool when you're a kid because they're like whoa what this is nuts how they do this and that's still fascinating. ancient Egypt will always be fascinating to me. But it there was always some there's a big bridge between now and the ancient mummies. But with this episode, my goal is to convince you by the end that not only is the modern world still obsessed with mummies. The modern world does this in a way that is so discreet and cloaked in something like uh quote unquote educational value that you almost don't even see mummification anymore. You we don't even identify them as such because it's so well hidden in plain sight. And uh so that'll be fun. We'll get to jump into the present day with mummies cuz you just always think about history and and uh ancient Egypt when you think of mummies. But they're still here. I can promise you and we're kind of surrounded by them to some degree. Uh, obviously we'll be covering the old Nard Dwell Elmer Mccertie here and the strange life and death that he had, but you know, I'm not going to just tell a story about a mummy cuz come on, it's a bit boring and you guys should know me better than that by now. We are going to dive in very deep into the endrails of the modern mummies. And I feel like also if we just exploit this man just for his money, then we're really not any better than the people who first propped him up for money uh throughout his whole death. And so we're not going to be doing that. I also want to touch on our cultural obsession with exploiting the dead in different ways, almost maybe metaphorical mummies a little bit, and how we continue to exploit the dead in a number of different ways. And we'll also touch on this bizarre church that we found in Salt Lake City. And no, they're not Mormons. Uh because believe it or not, there are still ways that you can get mummified in the United States to this day. Only if you have, you know, a big chunk of cash. But this episode really, as we were going through it, it gave me a bit of existential dread while researching and writing. And these stories, they're not necessarily horrific due to, you know, the act of dying or how we die. Instead, it's more about the cultural response that we have to death and how we treat those who die depending on their status uh throughout history and their personal relationships that they have. Um, that's what really got to me in this episode. And while I was writing this episode, I couldn't help but say the old Latin saying over and over in my head. Uh, momento mori momento viv or weare if you know how to speak Latin. But it just means remember you die. So remember to live. But of course, as is tradition, before we get in too deep, let's get our toes a little wet with some rapid fire mummy facts.

[00:11:40]Here we go. Common misconception. Some think the oldest mummies are in Egypt, dating back about 4,500 years. Some people might correct those people and say that no, the oldest mummy is actually from South America of the Chinurro people and is about 7,000 years old. But then no, those people might be corrected by other people who say that the spirit cave mummy from Nevada is 9,400 years old. But then some people might even correct those people and tell them to shut up because there are actually pre- Neolithic mummies in southern China and Southeast Asia that date back up to possibly 12 to 14,000 years. They were actually smoke dried over a fire, but it's not a competition, so just chill. What might be even cooler is that in 2020, fingerprints were identified on a 3,000-year-old mummy.

[00:12:41]And this can potentially help with genealogy and identifying descendants.

[00:12:47]That is crazy. Egyptians were famously known to scoop out the brains but leave the heart because they believed the heart was where the soul resided. Organs were removed and placed in canopic jars, each one protected by a different god.

[00:13:03]Egyptians didn't just mummify humans.

[00:13:05]They mummified cats, dogs, crocodiles, baboons, and even beetles as religious offerings. Some humans have been naturally mummified through bogs, glaciers, deserts, and caves. And the iceman in the Alps is probably the most famous among them, about 5,000 years old. Victorian era Europeans notoriously hosted unwrapping parties. That's it's exactly what it sounds like. Where they would watch mummies be unrolled for entertainment. Why does that not surprise me? European artists would also use mummy brown paint, which was a paint pigment that used real groundup mummy remains. They also used groundup mummies as medicine they called mumia. And it was used to treat headaches, stomach issues, tuberculosis, and internal bleeding. Again, a bit shocking, but why am I not surprised as a Victorian era Europeans were just doing some crazy stuff? But that is it for the rapid fire mummy facts. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

[00:14:19]So, who was this mummy Elmer J.

[00:14:22]Mccertie? Well, he was born in Maine in 1880. Some have described him as not so bright, and that's putting it lightly. I read some words and phrases describing him in much harsher terms that I don't want to relay here, but just know that he was a bit slow and others simply said he was born unlucky.

[00:14:44]He also never knew his biological father, which caused him great grief in his youth. He originally thought it had been his uncle until his mother broke the news when he was a bit older. And ever since, according to her, Elmer became unruly and rebellious. At the age of 10, he lost both his mother and his grandfather in the span of two months.

[00:15:04]In his teen years, he became a big drinker. And when he was old enough, he left home and traveled west, where he found some odd jobs as a minor and a plumber. But he struggled to hold down a job due to his alcoholism.

[00:15:17]He eventually enlisted in the army in 1907 at the age of 17 and he was assigned to Fort Levvenworth as a machine gunner and here he developed a fascination with explosives specifically dynamite and nitroglycerin. His lack of intelligence and love for explosives obviously concerned those around him, but nonetheless he was determined to work with explosives. After being honorably discharged, he became a drifter and found his way in and out of jail. He became a man with many names, and his talent with explosives led to him being able to crack safes and rob trains. In his early 30s, in 1911, he teamed up with a man named Walter Jared and his crew of highwaymen. Walter had a plan to stick up a train just over the Oklahoma border near Coffeeville, Kansas. So, Elmer joined in. It was, by most accounts, a failed robbery against the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Elmer accidentally blew most of the silver and cash to Kingdom Come when he blasted the safe doors open with explosives. And what was supposed to be a $4,000 haul ended up being between $100 and $500 worth of silver coins, which this was a ton of money at the time. And many of these silver coins were melted and fused to the inside of the metal safe. But despite the hiccup ever since that first robbery, Elmer thought he would make a career out of it. In September 1911, he and a few others tried to rob the citizens bank in Shiakwa, Kansas. And after spending 2 hours trying to break through the bank wall with a hammer, he set a nitro charge on the door to the bank's outer vault. He destroyed the interior, but the large safe inside remained undamaged. He then tried to blow the door off of that safe, but the fuse on his charge failed.

[00:17:14]Not sticking around to find out the lookout man just ditched the crew, Elmer and the few men who remained scrunched for any money in a tray outside of the safe, and they ended up splitting a grand total of $150.

[00:17:27]After this, Elmer laid low in a hay shed in Oklahoma where he binged alcohol for a few weeks. When he eventually met back up with his crew, they soon brought Walter Jared's brother into the inner circle and they planned to strike the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad next. This was a major railroad called the Katy that was known for hauling a large amount of cash. Word had gotten around that one of these trains carried $400,000 in cash, and these were payments from the US federal government to the Oage Nation in Oklahoma. October 6th, 1911.

[00:18:04]The rugged terrain of Osage County.

[00:18:07]Night had fallen, and Elmer, Walter, and his brother and a small group of men waited at the treeine beyond the tracks.

[00:18:15]Elmer was in charge of identifying the correct train. And once he gave the signal, they brought the Katy to a halt in a small opening between the hilly wooded areas that surrounded them. The band of outlaws uncoupled the engine and the express car and moved them down the rail. And once they ransacked the rest of the train, they found the stash, which was just a measly $46 carried by a mail clerk. A newspaper later called it one of the smallest in the history of train robberies.

[00:18:46]This was not the pot of gold they had been looking for because Elmer, the nerd dwell, the idiot, had identified the wrong train. Realizing his mistake, he snatched a person's coat, a revolver, the train conductor's watch, and two jugs of whiskey before running back into the wooded hills. And these hills of Osage County gave shelter to countless criminals for days at a time. It was wilderness that was basically left untouched since the earliest days of the Wild West, so criminals could hide from law enforcement and posies indefinitely.

[00:19:21]But meanwhile, a pack of blood hounds soon picked up Elmer's trail from one of the whiskey jugs that he stole. And within hours of the robbery, a posi tracked him down to Revard Farm on the Big Cany River. Late at night, the posi approached the property while Elmer was fast asleep. His snoring could be heard coming from the barn. Oage deputies Bob and Stringer Fenton and Dick Wallace decided to wait until daybreak. So Elmer's chances of escaping were slim to none. At about 7:00 a.m. Elmer stumbled outside hung over as a dog and three posi members were waiting for him. He quickly reached for his Winchester and reportedly took two very poor shots at Bob and Stringer Fenton. Three more shots rang out, all of them missing Dick Wallace and the men scrambled for cover.

[00:20:12]A shootout lasted about an hour before one of the men placed a shot in Elmer's chest that traveled to his abdomen, killing him. No one knew for certain whose bullet had struck him, but the train robber was finally dead. After searching the area, they found a jug of whiskey nearly empty. Elmer had likely drank almost all of it the night before.

[00:20:34]They hauled him to Pah Huska, identified him, and then took him to the undertaker, Joseph L. Johnson. The mortician then used an arsenic compound that preserved the body. And this arsenic compound was sometimes used to preserve the body for a long time when there were no next ofkin. So if there was eventually a next of kin looking for the departed, they could still identify them. Elmer was then shaved, clothed, and stored in the back room of what was described as an undertaking emporium, kind of like a funeral home. Locals had heard of Elmer by now, and here they came to see his remains for a nickel.

[00:21:12]They featured him as the bandit who wouldn't give up. Other names included the mystery man of many aliases, the Oklahoma Outlaw, and the Imbalmed Bandit. Another publication called him King Tut of the Tumbleeeds. He stayed in the back of this funeral home for about five years until a man named Aver, claiming to be Elmer's long- lost brother, showed up and confronted the Undertaker. He pleaded for the man to release Elmer's body so he could bury him in the family plot. And the man had already gotten permission from the local sheriff. So, the Undertaker agreed, but possibly for a price. Although this was not Elmer's brother, he was the operator of a carnival, one of the Patterson brothers from the great Patterson carnival shows. They put Elmer in a movie theater lobby where he advertised horse operas, which is just another term for cliche cowboy westerns. But his body was not much of a draw. So he moved around with the brothers traveling carnival and he was featured as the imbalmed bandit. As he was in life, he was not very popular in death. So he spent some time in storage, passed between new owners who never found much use for him, and one prospective buyer turned him down because he quote wasn't lifelike enough. He then ended up in Sunny's Museum of Crime, which was a mobile museum that featured a variety of wax figure outlaws. Lewis Sunny, whose ticket stubs ended up in Elmer's Mouth, if you remember, they were probably shoved in there by some pranksters. This guy was actually a peace officer in Washington in 1921, and he captured the notorious robber Roy Gardner. He then collected the $5,000 reward, took the body, and was inspired to create his own traveling show, The March of Crime. He acquired Elmer around 1930 and put him on display with his real name. His museum also featured wax models of Bill Dulan and even Jesse James. for a time.

[00:23:09]He was also rented by director Dwayne Esper to promote his 1933 exploitation film Narcotic, which this is a god-awful movie. I watched some of it just to check it out. Really terrible if you want to go uh entertain yourself with something awful. But Elmer was propped up in the theater lobbies with the sign dead dope fiend and it was accompanied by a fictional story about ruining his life with drugs. By then, Elmer McCert's body was very dense and shriveled. He was pretty much fully mummified by this point, but the director claimed that his skin had dried out due to drug abuse.

[00:23:48]After Sunny died in 1949, Elmer went into storage deep in the pits of an LA warehouse, and he did not see the light of day again until he was featured in the 1967 movie shereak. He then ended up in the hands of Spoony Singh, the owner of the Hollywood Wax Museum in the late 1960s after being sold for $10,000.

[00:24:09]He was marketed as the 1,000-year-old man. Completely untrue. For a moment, he traveled to a show at Mount Rushmore where he suffered from windstorm damage, and this caused the tips of his ears, his fingers, and his toes to be blown completely off. Singh no longer wanted him after this because he looked quote unquote too gruesome. He then finally made it to the New Pike amusement park where he was originally meant to be added to a different haunted house, but he was deemed quote too stiff. Instead, the owner covered him in UV paint that made him glow orange and red under a UV light. The idea was that a light switch inside the attraction could be flipped by a visitor and then the UV light would turn on and Elmer's body would glow and it would try and scare the visitors. But according to the owner, he thought Elmer was only paperier-mâché and he had been buil for a wax dummy. He did not know that this was a real mummy. In 1976, that's when the $6 million man crew accidentally tore his arm off and discovered that Elmer was not just a prop made of paperier-mâché. He was a human whose remains had been lost in the dusty, dirty pits of the entertainment business. Fast forward through the investigation and the identification of Elmer J. Kurtie. He actually ended up returning to Oklahoma in 1977 and here he would be a guest of the Oklahoma Historical Society and the Indian Territory Posi of Westerners. This organization aimed to preserve the state's historical heritage and finally after decades Elmer was given a proper funeral and burial during a spring reign on April 22nd 1977 in Guthrie, Oklahoma. the old territorial capital. 300 people attended this burial. He is still at rest in the Summit View Cemetery and his body is encased in several feet of concrete.

[00:26:11]This was made certain by the chief of police so no one could ever steal his remains. In the years since his burial, several books, documentaries, and songs have been made about him and his popularity es and flows with time. But I liked this one. A short verse was made for him and passed around. It's kind of just a folk verse, but it goes like this. Rest in peace, dear Elmer, beneath this oy sky where many an outlaw slumbers and politicians lie.

[00:26:42]Amen, brother. But that is the story of Elmer McCertie. And uh you know he failed as a career criminal and then even in death he was just exploited and abused. And even though we've established a cultural standard of respect and dignity or at least we believe that we have you know when it comes to our deceased and what we do with them. It makes you wonder why are there exceptions to the rules like when it comes to Elmer McCertie? Uh, why do mummies like this even exist when we pride ourselves on how we treat the dead?

[00:27:26]For Elmer, especially in the mid 1900s, uh, we can give some of those owners the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really thought he was paperier-mâché or a wax doll. Who knows? you know, if that's what they're just lying to kind of cover themselves or if they genuinely believe that Elmer wasn't real. Cuz I mean, if you look at some of the pictures of Elmer, he he doesn't really look that real. But he also looks like a really poorly made wax model if that's what they were going for. So, who knows? But really, the further back you go and even like I said, even in modern times, we explicitly exploit dead bodies. And I will prove it to you. Unfortunately, as many of you might know, Elmer J.

[00:28:16]Mccertie is not alone when it comes to the exploitation of bodies for scientific study, you know, quote unquote, and also just entertainment and pure profit.

[00:28:27]In 1955, Einstein's brain was removed shortly after his death with the permission of his family. The idea was that we could possibly understand his genius if we studied his brain enough, but there's no definitive connection between his anatomy and his genius. His brain now rests mostly at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland and the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. Some tissue samples are believed to be held by private individuals. Like, why? Other than it being some sort of weird trophy, there's no reason for an individual to own a man's brain tissue. On top of that, Galileo, the father of modern science, has his middle finger on display. It's kept in a small glass egg in Florence, Italy, and it was removed 95 years after his death. It was then passed around for several centuries and finally ended up at the Florence History of Science Museum. In 2009, two more of his fingers and his tooth, which had been missing for 100 years, suddenly showed up at an auction. These were later turned over to the museum, and now his middle finger, thumb, index finger, and tooth are all reunited in a bell jar. Well, honestly, shouldn't they just be reunited with his body where he's buried? Why do we have this fascination with his body parts and keeping them on display? Going even further, when Napoleon died in 1821, his doctor removed his sexual organ during the autopsy and gave it to a priest who then smuggled it into Corsica. The priest was later killed in a bloody vendetta, but he passed the member along to his family who kept it until 1916.

[00:30:14]A British collector then got it and it ended up on display in New York City in 1927. Someone described it as like a piece of leather or a shriveled eel. It wasn't stored in formaldahhide, so it had dried out and decomposed a bit. And an NPR article said someone described it as a little baby's finger. Does this is even being picked up by NPR? Allegedly, as a lot of you might know, Rasputin's member has been jarred in formaldahhide, but there's a debate over whether it's fake or real. Regardless, we won't linger on this one any longer than we have to uh cuz it's gross. But it does segue neatly into our next segment here.

[00:30:56]In the early 1900s, Carnese gave certain preserved human remains the nickname pickled punks. Originally, these were infants or fetuses kept inside jars of formaldahhide.

[00:31:08]While sometimes used for educational purposes, or at least that's how they tried to bill it, especially in the 1800s, it was also used with the purpose of shocking and disgusting onlookers at carnivals. Others included things like shrunken heads, animals, fake mermaids, and even aliens or other worldly beings.

[00:31:29]Many shows were willing to go out of their way to trick their audience. One carnival built a mummy named Big Cleo, world's tallest girl. She stood 8 feet tall and weighed 460 lb and she was promoted wearing a bikini. One sideshow banner featured her towering over two tropical explorers saying, "Take me to your leader." Others became obsessed with taxiderermy animals like PT Barnum famously. He featured lions, zebras, wolves, grizzly bears, and even huge stuffed elephants. Others showcased shrunken heads, which were created through a very intricate process by the Hebro tribes of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon. Their preparation was intended to keep the enemy spirit from taking revenge in the present life and the afterlife. And then American showmen figured they could just make an easy dollar by showcasing these shrunken heads. A showman, Lou Defor became fascinated with the pickled punks in the 1920s. He and a partner created the quote life museum. It featured human fetuses and continued with exhibits on human anatomy, growth, and reproduction, animal life histories, and the evolutionary stage of mankind. He planned on a second show called Alive two-headed baby, but the two-month-old infant died before the show opened.

[00:32:55]Clearly, anything was on the table for shock and awe, even though the exhibit tried to bill itself as educational.

[00:33:03]Carnival owners found loopholes to exhibit fetuses since they neither had birth nor death certificates. The carnese couldn't be charged for the illegal transporting of human remains.

[00:33:14]On the other hand, if jurisdictions outlawed the real deal, the carnese would then create rubber molds, which they called bouncers, and then they would be accused of fraud for not having the real thing. As for cases like Elmer, he and others like him served more than just shock value. It was also a way to show the public that crime doesn't pay.

[00:33:37]In 1867, the New York Museum of Anatomy exhibited the preserved head of an executed murderer and his right arm he used to commit his crime. Other examples include a mummy of a corpse that was claimed to be Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wils Booth, famously. And a man named David George confessed he was actually John Wils Booth and his body was exhibited in several carnival side shows. Although David looked like Booth with similar structure and broken bones, the fabrication was debunked in 1910. At one point, five different skulls with all the owners claiming them to be the skulls of John Wils Booth were on display at the same time in 1936.

[00:34:22]Each of them also had affidavit to legitimize them. But obviously, were any of these real? The act of putting criminals bodies in these exhibits reminds me of jibbiting where towns would hang the bodies of criminals on the main roads leading a town as a warning. You've probably seen them in movies, but in this fashion where it's revealed in a show, it's not just a warning, right? Because people are making money off of it. In Simon Harrison's Museums and Lynchings: Bodies and the Exhibition of Order, he writes this, which I found very enlightening.

[00:34:59]My argument is that the era of the racial spectacle lynching needs to be understood as part of a much broader continuum of practices relating to crime and its punishment. To the male population of small town and rural communities, these must have seemed to resonate powerfully with one particularly important aspect of their own lives, the stalking and killing of game animals and the victorious display of their remains. For all these practices appeared to share a common moral purpose, and to speak a single narrative of consummated justice. First, the hunt for the perpetrator, usually male, of a shocking crime. Then, his capture, death, and dismemberment, and finally, the commemoration of his life and well-deserved death through the retention and display of parts of his body. Evidence of these links between lynching and the medical musiology of crime is that both came to an end as significant social phenomena at the same time. The popular anatomical museums disappeared in the 1930s and by the middle of that same exact decade.

[00:36:10]Lynching had become repellent to the vast majority of US public opinion and was in rapid decline. That is food for thought, something to think about and chew on.

[00:36:34]You know, you're probably still thinking that mummies are just a thing of the past, but think again. There are several instances of mummification in recent decades. Some of them very high-profile. And there are also ways that you, that's right, you my my little fellow little little golings out there, you can actually mummify yourself. So, let's take an even deeper dive into the mummies of the modern world. January 21st, 1924. Gorki, Soviet Russia. Russian revolutionary, Bolevik leader and head of the government and founder of the USSR, Vladimir Lenon, dies after falling into a coma. Some report a brain hemorrhage or a stroke, but officially his cause of death was quote, "an incurable disease of the blood vessels." After his state funeral, it was decided that his body should remain on display, and it is still on public display to this very day, over 100 years later. He rests in a climate controlled glass sarcophagus in his mausoleum at Red Square in Moscow. Not long after his death, his body was imbalmed, and many have worked to maintain and preserve him ever since.

[00:37:50]His skeleton, his muscles, his skin, and other tissues remain, but all of his internal organs have been removed.

[00:37:57]Various methods like micro injections, washes every 18 months, and various substances have been used to maintain his body and do things like deter aging and repair spotting areas.

[00:38:09]Many compare his body to that of a wax figure. After the Soviet Union's collapse, they lost state funding to preserve his body and relied on donations, but the Russian government eventually began funding the preservation again in recent years. As for Vladimir Lenin's body, he's not alone. His sarcophagus has gone on to inspire many more governments to place their leaders on public display. These imbalmed bodies together are what people have collectively called the communist mummies. When the state stopped funding the Lenin lab after the collapse of the USSR, many went to work on preserving other communist leaders to make ends meet. And this included the former Vietnamese leader, Hochi Min. His imbalmed body is on permanent display in a glass coffin at the Ho Chi Min mausoleum in Hanoi, Vietnam, despite his request to be cremated. Other preserved high-profile bodies include North Korean leaders Kim Jong-il and Kim Ilsung. They are on display in the Kungusan Palace of the Sun. And another famous communist mummy is the Chinese revolutionary and chairman of the CCP from 1949 to his death in 1972, Mao Sadong. He is also on display in the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in Beijing. Controversially though, Mao did not want to be on display. He had formally requested cremation, but high-ranking officials denied his request after his death. Instead, they placed him in a crystal sarcophagus where he remains to this day. And if you know enough about Mao, it's wild to me that this decision went against his direct request for cremation. But anyway, reportedly Mao died from two severe heart attacks and potentially also suffered from Parkinson's and ALS.

[00:39:54]And at the time of his death, some didn't even believe that Mao could die since he was seen as a god-like figure.

[00:40:02]So, officials frantically rushed to preserve his body, half in disbelief that he was even truly dead. Some reports claim that while on display, his head began to swell up like a football.

[00:40:14]And Shea Piao, one of the main men in charge of cooling and preserving the body, had to hide behind some plants when Mao's short-tempered wife, Jangqing, arrived to view the body.

[00:40:27]But all in all, these bodies have cost inordinate amounts of money to preserve over the decades. And in one year alone, the Russian government spent the equivalent of $200,000 US to restore and preserve Lenin's body when the state took over preservation again. So the question is, for how long can these bodies even last, even with the best preservation skills? Some argue that they might be able to last indefinitely as long as they're well preserved. But I think at some rate, they're going to be become mostly synthetic after a while. I I can't imagine we can just preserve these bodies indefinitely.

[00:41:04]But while having these leaders on display serves as a way to mythologize and immortalize historical figures, many mummies throughout history have simply been made to generate profit. They serve the almighty dollar. But bodies in carnival sideshows and entertainment exhibits in the US lost a lot of their popularity in the early 1900s. But even then, I promise you, it's still around to this day, just in different ways, maybe more deceiving ways. And I'll prove it to you right here. This all leads me to, you guys probably remember this actually. There was a Dr. Gar Vanhogen and he created Body Worlds in 1995, and it opened to the public in Germany in 1997, and it gained popularity very quickly over the years.

[00:41:55]It went on to tour through Europe, Asia, and North America, and over 60 million visitors have seen this exhibit. I swear I I even saw this when I was younger. I think it was either at the DIA, the Detroit Institute of Arts, or maybe it was the M Michigan Science Center. I can't remember. It was somewhere in Detroit where I went down. I was maybe like 12 or 13 at the time. But I do remember they had like they have all these bodies sectioned off and like cut into pieces or like in different poses.

[00:42:25]And one I remember I can't get the imagery out of my head. It has like it's like the human cardiovascular system.

[00:42:31]All the rest of the body is stripped away but you just see the blood vessels and like the heart. Um it's pretty wild.

[00:42:38]But I also remembered, you guys also might remember, Body Worlds was featured in a scene in the 2006 James Bond movie Casino Royale, where the villains are exchanging an explosive device inside one of these exhibits. So, there's a good chance that you guys either remember this being very popular at the time, um, or you had seen it in media somehow. But according to the journal article Body Shock, the political aesthetics of death, it was so popular in Germany and Australia that the exhibition was kept open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, just to accommodate all visitors. The exhibit marketed itself as a scientific exhibit to explore human anatomy.

[00:43:22]Seems like that's what we've been doing for over a hundred years. According to this journal article, the bodies are arranged in various stages of dissection, albeit without showing any signs of decomposition. The corporal remains have undergone a process of preservation, a procedure called plastination. The plasticized corpses do not rot or smell, and they maintain the structure, color, and texture of the original tissue and organs down to the microscopic level, and the bodies have an unprecedented measure of realism. The cadaavvers have been skinned, cut open, dismembered, and sectioned to expose the interior world of human physiology, muscles, bones, blood vessels, and organs, including fetuses, wombs, and sexual organs. In the exhibit, surreal visuality and hyper realism work in tandem to promote the relentless consumption of the dead. Dr. Gunar Vanhoggins developed plastination in 1977 and it's a process that stops decay, uses acetone to remove the cadaabver's water, then replaces acetone with polymer under a vacuum and then cures the cadaabver with gas heat or UV light. Really, those are all just big words uh saying that we found a new way to mummify people. The exhibit, although it proposes that it's for scientific means, might have some ulterior motives.

[00:44:47]In my opinion, many of the cadabvers are placed in positions that make them look alive. Some are performing social or physical activities like a ballerina, a horse rider, a chess player, a skateboarder, a swimmer, a cyclist, runner, and even a sword fighter.

[00:45:04]The exhibitors argue that it's quote unquote living anatomy to enhance the educational elements rather than having the body simply lying on a table. Some could argue that that is what's called entertainment. Dr. Hoggins admitted there's a bit of artistic intervention at play as well. For example, he's admitted to swapping organs and tissues between bodies.

[00:45:32]In one display, a pregnant woman is shown with the fetus inside her womb, but that might not actually have been her fetus. Many of the cadaavvers are male and many still retain their sexual organs. Some of these are paired down to their muscle and according to the article, they show these sexual organs enlarged, engorged, and oversized. The cadaver's breasts are also accentuated.

[00:45:55]And from this article, one visitor remarked that he was gawking at one of the cadaabvers in a yoga position. The cadaver was apparently bent over in a back handstand. Others are also set in a very questionable position.

[00:46:09]And if you might begin to think that this article or some of these commenters are being overly sensitive or maybe puritanical, I urge you to even go check out the body world's website and just look at the homepage because there's a guy in a very peculiar position and it looks like the muscles in his rear are like blasted open. So it begs the question, what exactly are we even doing here? Are there other motivations besides human anatomy? I mean, can you make the argument that anatomy and human sexuality are inherently tied together?

[00:46:46]Sure. But I'm not convinced that the exhibit is purely serving up science and anatomy as its selling point, right?

[00:46:55]Because we're here to make money. At one point, Dr. Hoggins even said that he was in the process of presenting two corpses copulating. So, if you think this is still educational at this rate, I'm not sure what to tell you. Um, hit me up in the comments if you disagree if this still is and has scientific merit. He even said this, which if you're not convinced yet, Dr. Hoggin said this, "The corpse must be displayed artistically, otherwise it becomes an object of revulsion and obstructs the unemotional gaze." And he argued that the dead body undergoes quote a shift in value from a useless corpse to a useful aesthetically instructive plastinated specimen.

[00:47:44]Very bizarre how this guy sees the remains of humans. According to the exhibitor, compassion is an intrusive factor, quote unquote, a digressive obstacle in this enterprise for quote unquote mourning would interfere with learning.

[00:48:03]So, we're trying to strip away emotions from the dead, which is bizarre. And to really drive it home, the author of the article Ulie Link ends with this. This is a very powerful ending to this segment. This rational economy which simultaneously devalues and reclaims value by recycling and which aims to extract surplus value from the bodies of the dead was rarely acknowledged in German public discussions. And yet it is part of a cultural logic, a capitalist mode of thinking whereby historical consciousness is repressed in favor of an instrumental rationality.

[00:48:43]Not only the living, but also the dead must be usefully productive.

[00:48:52]It is wild to think that not only are we constantly exploited for profit in life, it's weird to think that we could be subjected to being exploited to profit even in death.

[00:49:06]And I'm going to let that sink in just a little bit.

[00:49:11]So clearly with things like plastination, we can see that the mummification process has come quite a long way in recent years. And if you want, you can actually also mummify yourself.

[00:49:27]It all started back in 1975 when a man named Claude Noel, who went by the nickname Corki, had a ringing in his ears. And he was then met by beings with a capital B. He emphasized capital B. He wrote about his first encounter saying this. I know how it feels to touch beings not of this world, what they look like, how they smell, and how it is to be with them. I know how they behave, where they come from, and why they contacted me. In this trance, he envisioned a pyramid, and the beings gave him information telepathically on the nature of creation. He then took this and formed a church based on these teachings and he would later legally change his name to Sum Bonum Ammon Rah.

[00:50:14]Rah being the Egyptian sun god. Sum the religion believes in God and believes that God created the universe and the creation of the universe was a sexual act. The big bang is just a big sexual innuendo. Not very original, but he says the universe was created through the masturbation of God. All right. This gave Corki a great reason to start grifting lubricant that he called myrr and a book called Sexual Ecstasy from Ancient Wisdom.

[00:50:46]Corki then built the Sum Pyramid in 1979 in Salt Lake City, Utah. It stands 26 feet tall and 40 ft long. Here he not only taught spirituality, started a winery and held meditations, but he also provided mummification. And this is most likely the only place in the United States that offers mummification.

[00:51:08]The price for mummification in 2024 was just a casual $67,000.

[00:51:15]But this has to be a donation to the church, of course, because why would they want to pay taxes on all that money? and their process of mummification has been taxexempt since 1986.

[00:51:29]The website also clarified, "Please note, we only accept your donation for providing our rights to you at the time of your passing. In addition, we make no guarantee that we will provide these rights when the time comes. After a body is turned over to the church, the family members are not allowed to see the body ever again. The church claims the body is mummified, then placed in a quote unquote mumm form or a sarcophagus and then buried.

[00:51:59]Corki passed away in 2008 and was mummified according to the church and apparently he is stored inside the sum pyramid. I wouldn't trust this organization as far as I could throw them, but apparently there that is still the uh modern option of getting mummified today. But really the mystery of what happens after death is what in my opinion makes us so obsessed and also cautious and also very contemplative toward death while we're still alive.

[00:52:32]And you know, although we don't really know what happens to our soul or consciousness, whatever, after we die, which is an entirely different episode, what we do know, at least most of the time, is what happens to our physical remains after we're gone. We know the ways that we're buried, uh, if we're cremated and disposed of in in other ways. We have rituals in order to help those who are grieving, who are still alive. But we often forget that there are plenty who are willing to exploit us even in death. And I wonder, you know, this whole episode has made me question, what other modern ways do we exploit the dead? I considered um AI reanimating dead celebrities. If you remember the big um Tupac uh um hologram from many years ago and then all the way up till now uh where people like Val Kilmer are being featured. They star they're they're like the top build cast member of a of a feature film that's coming up.

[00:53:38]I think that's insane. someone who's dead yet we can just use AI to is that a form of mummification kind of metaphorically if you if you understand what I'm getting at or we also you know have things like murder abilia which is now thankfully frowned upon that's another way we exploit the dead you know people selling things like John Wayne Gasey's artwork or things that are connected to horrific crimes um we're obsessed with it in these certain ways and this episode also made me think, you know, does true crime place somewhere on this list, especially when handled poorly? You know, obviously that is a realm that I come from. That was my past. And uh that weighed heavily on my conscience and still does to some degree. I I still am grappling with true crime being uh a form of media where we exploit the dead, especially if it's uh not handled correctly.

[00:54:39]um is that just another way or do you see you know true crime as as beneficial to victim's families and and solving crimes? You know that there's a big conversation there and it's conversations I've had many times uh beyond the microphone but I still consider it um especially when we cover things like this like mummification and the exploitation of the dead. I can't help but think of true crime. But let me know in the comments what you think about all that and if you can think of any other ways where we exploit the dead where uh you know this maybe quote unquote mummification not literal or physical mummification comes into play but can you think of anything else where we exploit the dead in certain ways especially in the digital sphere. Um but yeah just let me know. But Robert, do you have any comments on this? I know you're quiet as a mouse typically but do you got anything to say about this one?

[00:55:32]Yeah, it's a pretty weird topic overall, but all I know is I swear to God, if someone tries to plastinize me when I pass, I will come and haunt you.

[00:55:43]>> Yeah.

[00:55:43]>> Yeah.

[00:55:44]>> People like Dr. Hoggins, I feel like has some bad Yeah. bad juju surrounding that guy.

[00:55:50]>> Ghost need to get him.

[00:55:51]>> They do. They do. If if if people deserve to be haunted as is, especially people that exploit the dead like that.

[00:55:57]Exactly.

[00:55:58]>> Yeah. I agree. But with all that said, as is tradition, we're going to get into the physical media portion. And for this episode, it is the 1930 Southern Gothic book, As I Lay Dying by William Faulner. Um, I read this maybe about, I don't know, a decade ago. It's a very short, as you can tell, it's it's not that big. It's a very short, but a very important read in my opinion. It's about the death of a mother, Addie Bundren. And uh it's this family in this rural household and she requests to be buried in uh her hometown which if I remember right is Jefferson, Mississippi. So the family ends up they they load her into a wagon and they set off on this really long journey. And really all this talk of mummies reminded me of this book because it shows you know what we're willing to go through to carry out the wishes of the dead. And it also describes in kind of graphic detail what happens to the body in death. Uh which is very brutal. You know, we want to preserve our loved ones and bury them with dignity. But you know, this poor mother's corpse is in the back of this hot wagon and it's a very long journey.

[00:57:10]And Falner knows how to remind us just how brutal death can be in the end. And it's a very arduous journey. And it's told in all these different perspectives from several different characters. And it reveals just how self-centered many of the characters are when on the outside they're kind of all contributing to burying this poor woman and moving her across the country. You get to see the interior of all these people and no one has like a collective uh goal in the end which you think it's kind of just moving this woman and burying her but it becomes uh much more selfish. everyone's kind of directing everything inward and everything becomes about them rather than being about burying this body. And uh in in the fashion of of Elmer McCertie, I feel like that's also very poignant. You know, it it no longer becomes about Elmer. It becomes about all these other people who who control Elmer and do things to Elmer or try to use his body to promote an agenda. And um you know I know in previous episodes I was harping on Ulisses uh which uses a stream of consciousness technique in in the writing and Faulner does as well but I for some reason it just works better for me. There's just more to hold on to.

[00:58:28]I'm going to read a little excerpt from this book just to give you an idea of uh what the writing is like. It's pretty poetic and awesome.

[00:58:39]In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you? And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am.

[00:58:54]I don't know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall where I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sought it, nor yet theirs that bought it, and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon, though it does. Since only the wind and the rain shape it, only to jewel and me that are not asleep. And since sleep is is not and rain and wind are was it is not yet the wagon is because the wagon is was add and jewel is. So Addy Bundren must be and then I must be or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is how often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof thinking of home. I want to say one more thing about this. Um I I just love that you get a good glimpse into his writing style, but also apparently he wrote this book uh between the hours of 12 a.m. midnight and 4:00 a.m. And he did it for like a series of weeks. And he apparently, according to him, he said he didn't make any edits.

[01:00:31]He just wrote all the way through and then submitted it and that was it. But yeah, go check that book out. As I Lay Dying, William Falner. And as always, remember to go subscribe on Spotify, wherever you get your podcast and on the old YouTube. And also go uh go follow me and the show on Instagram as well if you want to get all the the stupid shorts and stuff which are very fun to do by the way. I've been having a blast with that. And also remember to go hop on the old Patreon. That is really one of the places you can really help me out is on Patreon so I can keep pumping out very highquality podcast episodes here. And as always remember, always remember whenever you get lost in the existential fear of death and what comes next, always ask yourself, do geese see God?

[01:01:33]Think about it.

[01:01:39]Heat. Heat.