Faced with such a mystery, the St. Petersburg authorities called in the FBI.
Laboratory findings showed that Mrs. Reeser's estimated weight of 175 lbs. had
been reduced to a total of _less than 10 lbs._, including the foot and shrunken
head. The final report concluded that no known chemical agents or other
accelerants had been involved in starting the fire.

Dr. Krogman has burned cadavers with gasoline, oil, wood, and all kinds of
other agents. He has experimented with bones encases in flesh or stripped, both
moist and dry. His tests have utilized combustion apparatus ranging from
outdoor pyres to the most modern pressurized crematorium equipment. He has
demonstrated conclusively that it takes extraordinary heat to consume a body,
and that only at over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit would bone become volatile enough
to lose its shape and leave only ashes. "These are very great heats", he said,
"that would sear, char, scorch or otherwise mar or effect anything and
everything within a considerable radius."

Another mystery was the slippered left foot, which Mrs. Reeser, having been in
some discomfort, was in the habit of propping up on a stool. The foot was left
unburned, apparently because it was outside the mysterious four-foot radius of
incineration.

Perhaps strangest of all, and unique to this case of SHC, was the shrunken
skull. Dr. Krogman commented:


        ...the head is not left complete in ordinary burning cases.
        Certainly it does NOT shrivel or symmetrically reduce to a
        smaller size. In presence of heat sufficient to destroy soft
        tissues, the skull would literally explode in many pieces.
        I...have never known any exception to this rule.

______________________________________________________________________________
SEE:    Michael Harrison, "Fire From Heaven"
        Vincent Gaddis, "Mysterious Fires and Lights"
        Francis Hitching, "The Mysterious World: An Atlas of the Unexplained"
        Frank Edwards, "Stranger than Science"
        Reader's Digest, "Mysteries of the Unexplained"