Investigators in Bulgaria have been perplexed after finding “a complete mummified corpse,” just 16 days after the man was last seen alive. Sherlock once said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” and in this case, his adage fits perfectly.

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The 34-year-old man was last seen alive on 16 August, in the city of Sofia, Bulgaria. Then, on 3 September, his “mummified” body was discovered lying beside a railway line. With a history of alcoholism, one might expect the man’s organs to be a little pickled, but a report published in Cureus Journal shows his insides were “reduced to structureless masses”.

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The researchers write that the natural mummification happened over one month, in a process known as “precocious mummification.” But this is rarely observed in temperate regions. Therefore, this case is of the greatest importance for the forensic community, as only a handful of similar incidents have ever been reported. However, the investigators have struggled to account for the body’s advanced state of mummification that occurred so rapidly, in a particularly non-suitable environment.

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