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There are 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.760 few lines more familiar to fans of American horror cinema 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.920 than They're coming to get to you, Barbara. The line 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.560 uttered by Barbara's brother Johnny at the beginning of George A. 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.920 Romero's The Night of the Living Dead surely before he 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.840 is killed by a zombie, sets the tone for what 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.560 some consider to be one of the most influential films 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:07.280 ever made. Released in nineteen sixty eight, the film is 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:12.880 celebrated for bringing the previously much maligned genre of horror kicking, tearing, 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:18.440 and screaming into the twentieth century. The film's potency has 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.279 much to do with the year it was released, coming 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.240 out at the height of public disillusionment with the American 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:28.400 Vietnam War, but also in the immediate aftermath of both 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:34.199 Martin Luther King Junior and Robert Kennedy's assassinations. For many, 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:39.240 Romero's film, with its portrayal of uneasy alliances, not so 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.560 casual racism, and the endless march of a moronic, ghoulish 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.480 horde intent on devouring anyone with a fully functioning brain, 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.840 appeared to reflect the entire state of a nation. However, 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.800 The Night of the Living Dead will perhaps mostly be 0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:00.760 remembered for its portrayal of the humble zombie. Though somewhat 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.760 ironic since the term zombie is never used in it, 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.120 Romero's film, none the less set the template for almost 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:13.480 all subsequent iterations of these hapless creatures. It was there 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.800 that we were first introduced to the flesh hungry, cannibal 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.000 version of the zombie that could only be defeated by 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:25.919 destroying its head. Romero zombies have become so ubiquitous as 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.080 a modern day monster, it is often easy to forget 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.840 just where the notion of the zombie originated from in 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:37.560 the first place. Some perhaps are aware of the figure's 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.840 origins in Haitian folklore and its associations with the ancient 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:46.600 practice of voodoo. What you might not know, however, is 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.840 that for many the zombie is not merely a figment 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.240 of folklore, but is in fact considered to be something 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:59.320 very real. In nineteen eighty, a man walked into a 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.840 village market place in Haiti claiming to be a local 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:08.720 landowner named Clavius Narcisse. After interviewing the man and his family, 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.960 local authorities confirmed that he was indeed who he said 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.600 he was, the only problem being that Clervius was supposed 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:22.560 to have been dead and buried for eighteen years. Two 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:28.600 years later, inspired by Clervius's story, ethnobiologist Wade Davis was 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.360 sent to Haiti on a research trip to find out 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:35.360 just how exactly this could have happened. What he eventually 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.280 discovered was far more bizarre than anything he could possibly 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:46.640 have imagined. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McClain Smith. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.520 Before gaining entry to Harvard University to study anthropology in 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.160 nineteen seventy one, where Davis had barely been out of 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:06.760 his home province of British Columbia in Canada, all that 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.240 changed However, when he signed up to a course led 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:15.840 by Professor Richard Schultz, a pioneer in the field of ethnobotany, 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.040 the scientific study of how different cultures and societies relate 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.120 to and utilize plants, Schultz held somewhat of a mythical 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:28.800 status among its students. Schultz had devoted much of his 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.599 early career to investigate in the ritualistic use of pyote 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.279 and iowaska. He was also known for a tendency to 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.400 disappear into the Amazon rainforest for months, sometimes years at 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.440 a time in his quest to better understand the secrets 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.920 hidden within it. It was Schultz who first encouraged Davis 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.640 to take his own trip to the Amazon, where in 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.799 his early twenties he also tried iowaska and soon proved 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.520 himself to be an outstanding field researcher. By nineteen eighty two, 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.400 then twenty nine year old Davis, now a fully fledged 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.599 ethnographer in his own right, was teaching a course at 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.599 Harvard University alongside Schultz when he was called into his 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:16.359 mentor's office late one Monday evening, finding the professor on 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.440 the phone. When he entered, Davis quickly took a seat 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:24.040 opposite and waited for him to finish. As he continued 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.599 the conversation, Schultz quickly scribbled something onto a notepad and 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.520 handed it to his colleague. It was an address in 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:38.360 Manhattan belonging to a doctor Nathan Kline. Kline was well 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:42.119 known to Davis as a pioneer in the field of psychopharmacology, 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.680 having been one of the first psychiatrists in the US 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:51.360 to use medication to treat individuals with psychiatric disorders. With 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.479 the call finally coming to an end, Schultz put down 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.919 the phone and asked Davis if he was free to 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:01.000 travel to Haiti in two weeks time. Having never been 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.480 to the country before and intrigued by Schultz's playful tone, 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.440 Davis took up the gauntlet and agreed to contact Kline 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:13.840 to find out more. Two nights later, Davis arrived at 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.440 doctor Clyne's Manhattan apartment, where he was introduced to both 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.880 Kline and his colleague, professor Heinz Lehmann, who also happened 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:26.280 to be the head of psychopharmacology at Montreal's mc gill University. 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.400 With Davis still unshore as to why he'd been invited over, 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.680 the men made the usual pleasantries before quickly turning to 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:40.039 the subject of death, or more specifically, how you determine 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.480 that a person has well and truly died, As both 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.880 Lehman and Klein noted, there had been countless examples over 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.080 the years of individuals being declared dead only to seemingly 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:56.880 reanimate days later, not to mention the various horror stories 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.320 of people believed to have died later a wake up 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:06.039 to find themselves trapped in a coffin deep underground. Interesting 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:10.600 as that all was, however, Davis, growing impatient, demanded what 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:15.400 it had to do with his being there. Klein promptly 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.120 got up and left the room, returning moments later with 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:23.080 the slim file, which he handed to Davis and invited 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:27.880 him to take a look at. Inside, and, now even 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:32.240 more perplexed, Davis found a death certificate for a man 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:38.240 named Clavius Narcis from Lestaire in Haiti, dated May nineteen 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:44.000 sixty two, twenty years ago. I don't understand, said Davis. 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.160 Layman took a sip of his drink, then invited Klein 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:53.720 to elaborate. Clavius, he explained, had been declared dead by 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:58.040 two separate physicians, only to reappear eighteen years later in 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:04.080 his home village, very much alive. Davis was unimpressed, however, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.760 clearly it had just been some kind of administrative error, 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:20.480 But then Kleine elaborated further. It was late in the 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.560 evening of April thirtieth, nineteen sixty two, when a man 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.320 approached the front desk of Haites Albert Scheitzer Hospital suffering 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.880 from a high fever and spitting blood. The man, who 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.800 was forty two and gave his name as Clevius Narcis, 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.480 had been struggling with chest pains and muscle aches for 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:45.680 a few days before taking himself to hospital. By now 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.360 in a desperate state, the medical staff immediately rushed him 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.920 through to an operating theater to examine him further. Unable 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.120 to determine the exact cause of his ailment, the man 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.679 was kept in for further observation, only for his condition 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:05.320 to deteriorate rapidly over the next few days. But shortly 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.319 after one pm on May the second, with his sister 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:16.760 Angelina watching on from his bedside, Clavius Narcis died, having 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:21.280 been pronounced dead by two separate doctors. Clavius's older sister, 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.480 Mary Claire, arrived soon after to identify the body and 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:30.160 signed the official death certificate. The man's lifeless body was 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:34.000 then placed in cold storage at the hospital Morgue before 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:38.720 being released for burial the following morning. At ten am 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:41.840 on May third, in a cemetery just north of the 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.880 man's hometown of Leicsterre, a small handful of friends and 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:50.600 family members gathered together as a coffin containing Clavius's body 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.440 was lowered six feet into the ground and buried under 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:59.640 a mound of soil. Ten days later, a hefty memorial 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.040 stone commissioned by the family was placed over the unfortunate 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:11.440 man's grave, and that it seemed was that. It was 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.120 eighteen years later that a relative of Clervius's was walking 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:19.120 through the market place in Lesterre when a commotion erupted 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.839 before him, and soon a large crowd had started to gather. 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.640 Pushing through to the front, the relative soon found the 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.840 subject of its attention, a stranger that had just entered 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.920 the village who looked surprisingly similar to the long dead Clervius. 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.880 The relatives soon realized with horror the man didn't just 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:48.160 look like him, it was him. Clervius's sister, Angelina, who 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:51.079 still lived in the village, was quickly summoned to speak 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.320 with the man now openly claiming to be her long 0:10:54.440 --> 0:11:01.280 dead brother. Though incredulous at first, Angelina found herself standing 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.960 before the man, who, though much older and a little 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:10.760 frailer than he was before, looked undeniably like Clervius. When 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.760 he gave her his nickname, only something she and her 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.600 siblings had ever called him, her legs threatened to crumble 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:22.440 beneath her. There was no denying it anymore. It was 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.760 Clavius back from the dead, and there could only be 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:31.040 one reason that that was possible. Her brother, or what 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:38.559 was left of him, was a zombie. Are you always 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.240 taking care of your family? Do you often take care 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.240 of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.880 care of yourself, to make time for you. 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Download 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.199 the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:40.600 podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:50.079 Unexplained Podcast. The figure of the zombie is deeply ingrained 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.440 in Haitian culture and folklore. To understand why, you have 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.160 to understand the history of Haiti, or, as uc Irvin 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.880 Professor Amy Wilence puts it more specifically, you have to 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:09.240 understand the concentration camp culture of the slave plantation. Haiti 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.720 is located on the island of his Biola in the Caribbean, 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.560 which is also home to the Dominican Republic. The island 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.960 is believed to have been inhabited for over fifteen hundred years, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.520 having once been home to the Arawak, who migrated there 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:29.680 from South America. It was descendants of these people, the Tyinho, 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.600 who are thought to have been the first indigenous people 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.360 that Christopher Columbus and his crew encountered on their maiden 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:41.160 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in fourteen ninety two. Soon 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.200 after arriving, Columbus attempted to establish a settlement on the 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:51.120 northwest of the island, known as La Navidad. The following year, however, 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.520 some of the Tayino burned it down, having become convinced 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.600 that Columbus and his men had in fact been sent 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:04.079 from the underworld to consumed them. When Columbus returned to 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.960 find Le Navedad destroyed, he responded by establishing another settlement 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.200 in what would later become the Dominican Republic, on the 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.120 opposite side of the island, which he named La Isabella. 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.960 When gold was discovered shortly after, the European settler population 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.880 began steadily to increase, partly in retribution for what some 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.440 of the Taino population had done to Le Navedad, but 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:35.240 also as an inevitable consequence of the ever expanding European population. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:41.600 The settlers slowly began to exert more authority. The indigenous 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:46.520 population of what is now Ispiola before Columbus's arrival is 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.320 estimated to have been somewhere between several hundred thousand to 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.680 a million people. Over the next ten years, as the 0:14:54.720 --> 0:15:01.280 colonialists enslaved, massacred, and fatally infected the Taino, this population 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:08.000 had dropped to thirty five thousand. As rampant colonial expansion 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.440 into the Caribbean continued over the next few hundred years, 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:16.320 Ispaiola became increasingly important as a gateway to the other islands. 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.320 When buccaneers from France succeeded in settling on the west 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.960 side of it. Rather than become embroiled in an endless fight, 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.480 the governments of France and Spain decided instead to divide 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:34.160 the island between them. In sixteen ninety seven, the government 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:38.040 of France assumed ownership of its western third and named 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:49.440 the territory Sant de Mingue. What appealed most about Sant 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.560 Deming to the French government and the colonial families that 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.520 lived there was its abundance of sugar cane. As the 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.760 crop became increasingly lucrative, Sant Deming in turn and became 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:05.680 France's most profitable territorial holding. But in order to make 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:12.080 and keep it so required thousands and thousands of slaves abducted, 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:17.440 mostly from Africa. By seventeen twenty, as many as eight 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.960 thousand a year were being brought to the island. Conditions 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.240 in the slave colonies were so harsh and their treatment 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.400 by slave owners so brutal, that a third of all 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:32.920 slaves died within two years of arriving. By the mid 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.280 seventeen eighties, it is estimated that as many as four 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:40.800 hundred and fifty thousand slaves lived in San Domingue, with 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.680 as many again having died as a result of their 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:49.720 bondage since the colonies were first established. But then in 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:56.440 seventeen eighty nine, something extraordinary occurred thousands of miles away 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.360 on the other side of the ocean. The spirit of 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:03.960 revolution had been unleashed in the French homeland. Back in 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.679 San Deming, a small section of the population, known to 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.639 the colonial powers as the free people of Color, inspired 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.960 by the French Revolution, began to wander if they could 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:19.639 achieve the same. This group, which occupied a unique place 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.840 in San Deming society, was composed largely of children whose 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.719 mothers had been raped by slave owners and had been 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:31.840 granted some minor freedoms in return. Emboldened by the size 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.639 of the island slave population, which outnumbered European settlers, by 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.399 nine to one. The free people of color succeeded in 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:44.760 organizing a mass slave revolt, as plantations were torched and 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.880 colonialists killed off one by one. The French government were 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:54.000 eventually forced to relinquish control of the country. On January first, 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:59.080 eighteen o four, taking the original Tayino word for the island, Haiti, 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:11.160 the newly freed people declared their independence. Despite gaining independence, 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:15.439 the deep rooted history of slavery, which so horrifically underpinned 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.480 the founding of the nation, has continued to haunt the 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.399 people of Haiti. It is from out of this history 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:29.240 that the zombie, as an icon of Haitian folklore first emerges. Certainly, 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.200 it isn't difficult to see the similarity between the image 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.439 of a zombie and the basic horror of servitude to 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.399 be robbed of all personality and agency and reduced to 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:45.240 your most basic functions. Over time, as the anxieties of 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.760 slavery became more entwined with the culture of voodoo that 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.760 had been brought to the island from West Africa, a 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:56.080 new idea of the zombie materialized, becoming something that could 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.560 be conjured up with the power of voodoo and treated 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:04.680 like a at the beckoned call of its master. Voodoo, 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.760 meaning spirit in the Fond language of Dahomey, a kingdom 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:13.200 which once occupied parts of today's Togo, Benin, and Nigeria 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.880 in West Africa, was first brought to Haiti by slaves 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:21.399 in the seventeenth century. Those who followed the religion centered 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:26.440 their beliefs around the divine creator Mawu, a female being who, 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.760 in one tradition, bore seven children, each gods in their 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:35.440 own right, governing the forces of nature and human society. Further, 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.280 spirits are considered to be embodied in various elements of 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:43.600 the natural world, such as streams, trees, and stones, with 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.199 all creation being divine. In this sense, the religion is 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:52.280 particularly fascinating from an ethnobotany perspective with regard to medicines 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.960 and herbal remedies, since they are also believed to contain 0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:00.440 the power of the divine. It is this under standing 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.080 that gives rise to the ritualistic use of talismans known 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.480 as fetishes, that many who are otherwise unfamiliar with the 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:12.400 religion might recognize, such as the use of dolls, statues, 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:17.520 and even in some cases, human body parts. Voodoo priests 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.480 known as Houngans, have traditionally played a vital part in 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:26.080 Haitian society, occupying all manner of roles, from community leaders 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:32.280 to psychologists and spiritual healers. And then there are the Bokour. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.199 Although once considered simply priests, they have since come to 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:41.840 be known more specifically as sorcerers capable of using voodoo 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:46.720 to conduct black magic. Though many consider the zombie to 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.120 be little more than a feature of Haitian folklore, there 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.560 are many others who know them to be real, and 0:20:53.720 --> 0:21:04.879 it is the Bocour who create them. Having been deeply 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:10.399 unsettled by her brother Clervius's sudden reappearance, Angelina Narses offered 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.280 him money to go away and leave the family alone. 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.520 As the other villagers grew equally unsettled by the reappearance 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:19.919 of a man who had been dead and buried eighteen 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.400 years ago, the police were eventually forced to arrest him 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.639 for his own safety. A short time later, Clavius was 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.920 brought to the attention of Lamarque de Joune, a one 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.080 time student of doctor Kleins, who had now returned to 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:37.359 his home country of Haiti to practice as a psychiatrist. 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.520 Doyjune carried out a number of extensive interviews with both 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:46.439 Clervius and his family and concluded incredibly that he was 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:51.280 indeed who he said he was. Once More, Clervius wasn't 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:56.360 the only one to suddenly reappear under such circumstances as 0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.760 it happened. Douyune had been systematically investigate eating reports of 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.640 zombies since nineteen sixty one, with a number of cases 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:09.360 being of particular interest. In nineteen seventy nine, for example, 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.320 one bereaved mother spotted someone that looked exactly like her 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.639 thirty year old daughter walking aimlessly near her village. The 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.800 woman was later identified as the daughter through a matching 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:24.040 scar on her forehead, and after the coffin she was 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:28.119 supposedly buried in was found to contain nothing but rocks. 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:34.640 The following year, another woman, Nattiget Joseph, was found wandering 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.680 around her village by a local police officer, the same 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:44.280 officer who had pronounced her dead fourteen years previously. All 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:47.679 the subjects had been not only clinically determined to have died, 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.119 but had also been buried, only to seemingly reanimate and 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:58.000 reappear alive many years later. Although he was convinced that 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:01.800 the phenomenon was very real. Indeed, do Yune didn't believe 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.480 that these zombies had risen from the dead either way, 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:11.280 he had so far been unable to explain it. The 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:14.679 relatives of the unfortunate victims of whatever it was that 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:19.920 was taking place remained adamant, however, that these individuals had 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:23.760 been first murdered and then brought back to life without 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:35.280 their souls. Like Lamarque Doiune, Klein and his colleague Laymen 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:38.960 were also convinced that the phenomenon was real, but that 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:42.760 there had to be a rational, scientific explanation behind it. 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:47.400 But just how, thought Davis, could these individuals have been 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:52.280 declared dead, buried alive, then somehow kept alive long enough 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:55.800 for them to later be dug up again. And what 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.159 on earth would account for them having been kept in 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:03.520 their supposed zombie state for so long? Well, said Kleine 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:08.080 as he handed Davis a sealed envelope. That is precisely 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:13.040 what we want you to find out. Later that night, 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:16.800 Davis made his way to Grand Central Station and took 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.320 a train back to Boston. Once on board, he opened 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:23.639 the envelope that Klein had given him, finding inside it 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:27.240 a smaller envelope filled with cash, a ticket to Haiti, 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:33.640 and a polarid photograph of Clavius Narcisse. Over the next 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.720 few days, he made the necessary arrangements for the trip 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:41.040 and began formulating his own ideas about the apparent zombie phenomenon. 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:45.080 It was doctor Kleine's theory that some kind of drug 0:24:45.160 --> 0:24:47.679 was at the center of it, something that could give 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:51.639 the appearance of death. Klein had in fact come across 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:55.680 something similar thirty years previously, after being given a possible 0:24:55.720 --> 0:24:58.360 sample of it by a film crew from the UK's 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:02.720 BBC who had making a documentary about voodoo at the time. 0:25:04.240 --> 0:25:07.560 Despite carrying out a number of promising tests with the substance, 0:25:08.240 --> 0:25:11.679 Klein was unable to ascertain precisely what it was made of, 0:25:13.640 --> 0:25:17.560 and so it was in April nineteen eighty two, armed 0:25:17.560 --> 0:25:20.960 with little more than a photo of Clavius Narcisse and 0:25:21.119 --> 0:25:26.280 contact details for three individuals, Max Bouvoir, a local authority 0:25:26.359 --> 0:25:31.040 on voodoo religion, Marcel Pierre, the Bocour who had given 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:36.119 the sample to the BBC, and lastly the psychiatrist Lamarque Deyune. 0:25:37.280 --> 0:25:42.080 Davis boarded a flight to Haiti and his adventure was 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:49.600 just about to begin. You've been listening to Unexplained, Season four, 0:25:49.920 --> 0:25:55.600 Episode eight, Death's Pale Flag, Part one of two. You 0:25:55.640 --> 0:25:59.120 can hear the second and final part next week on Friday, 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:06.760 seventeen of May. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and 0:26:06.800 --> 0:26:09.199 would like to help support us, you can now go 0:26:09.280 --> 0:26:14.720 to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward Slash Support. All donations, 0:26:14.880 --> 0:26:20.120 no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All 0:26:20.119 --> 0:26:23.879 elements of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith. 0:26:24.720 --> 0:26:27.879 Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel 0:26:27.920 --> 0:26:30.320 free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas 0:26:30.359 --> 0:26:33.879 regarding the stories you've heard on the show. 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