Paranormal
Although it is not exactly paranormal in nature, the phenomenon of entombed animals is completely unexplainable by modern science. Frequently reported throughout history, people have been startled to find living animals trapped in stones, tree trunks, or concrete, sometimes hundreds of feet below the earth’s surface. In every report, the animal (usually a frog or toad) is found as a rock was split open or a tree trunk was being sawed, with no possible way evident for the creature to end up inside the cavity of the stone or tree. The cavity is usually slightly larger than the animal, and often it is the same shape as the animal found inside. Animals that are suddenly freed from their stony prisons are often reported as turning darker in color, having difficulty breathing at first, and becoming full of life.
A toad estimated to be over 6000 years old was freed from it’s stony prison in 1865, by excavators in Durham, England. The live toad was found in a block of magnesian limestone 25 feet underground. Its eyes were reported to be especially bright, its hind claws were particularly long and the claws of its forefeet were turned in. It grew darker in colour, from a pale colour matching the stone it was found in to a darker olive brown. It appeared to have difficulty breathing as it made a barking sound from its nostrils.
In 1865, the Hartlepool Free Press reported that excavators working on a block of magnesium limestone taken from about 25 feet underground near Hartlepool, England, discovered a cavity within the stone that contained a live toad. "The cavity was no larger than its body, and presented the appearance of being a cast of it. The toad's eyes shone with unusual brilliancy, and it was full of vivacity on its liberation. It appeared, when first discovered, desirous to perform the process of respiration, but evidently experienced some difficulty, and the only sign of success consisted of a 'barking' noise, which it continues to make invariably at present on being touched. The toad is in the possession of Mr. S. Horner, the president of the Natural History Society, and continues in as lively a state as when found. On a minute examination of its mouth is found to be completely closed, and the barking noise it makes proceeds from its nostrils. The claws of its fore feet are turned inwards, and its hind ones are of extraordinary length and unlike the present English toad. The toad, when first released, was of a pale colour and not readily distinguished from the stone, but shortly after its colour grew darker until it became a fine olive brown."
Around the same time, an article in Scientific American related how a silver miner named Moses Gaines found a toad inside a two-foot diameter boulder. The article stated that the toad was "three inches long and very plump and fat. Its eyes were about the size of a silver cent piece, being much larger than those of toads of the same size as we see every day. They tried to make him hop or jump by touching him with a stick, but he paid no attention." A later article in Scientific American said: "Many well authenticated stories of the finding of live toads and frogs in solid rock are on record."
There is no scientific explanation as to how a frog or toad could survive in a seemingly air tight stone without water or food. Some suggest they collect water and nutrients that seep through the stone, especially if it is porous like limestone. Air could get in the same way. However, many of these entrapped animals are found hundreds of feet underground in rock believed to be thousands of years old. Even if the animal survived being trapped in stone, it is extraordinary that it would have remained alive for so long. Ironically, many reports of freed animals claim the creature only lived a few hours or days after being released into "survivable" conditions.
Most scientists will hold firm to the opinion that cases in which 6000 year old frogs survive such a long period of time encased in stone are absolutely impossible. Skeptics suggest the frogs or other creatures were actually discovered near the recently split stone or tree trunk and were assumed to be trapped inside as the observer noticed the small cavity. However, the reports of trapped animals are very similar, and many notice the creature inside the cavity before it is freed. Although frogs are known to hibernate for months at a time in mud, it is hard to imagine so many hibernating so long that the mud turned to stone, then sat for unknown periods of time until split open.
It is interesting to note that many reports of such trapped animals suggest that they were a prehistoric species as descriptions often match those of animals that were extinct or have since evolved. Perhaps some animals survive fossilization.
In 1761, Ambroise Pare, physician to Henry III of France, related the following account to the Annual Register: "Being at my seat near the village of Meudon, and overlooking a quarryman whom I had sent to break some very large and hard stones, in the middle of one we found a huge toad, full of life and without any visible aperture by which it could get there. The laborer told me it was not the first time he had met with a toad and the like creatures within huge blocks of stone." "The cavity was no larger than its body, and presented the appearance of being a cast of it. The toad's eyes shone with unusual brilliancy, and it was full of vivacity on its liberation."
In 1818, a geologist named Dr. Edward D. Clarke was looking for fossils in a chalk quarry 270 feet underground. Dr. Clarke found some fossilized sea urchins and newts. He dug three well-preserved newts out and placed them on paper in the sun. To his astonishment, they began to move around. Two of the newts died shortly, but the third remained lively and was released into a pond. Dr. Clarke claimed the newts were unlike any other living at the time and were an extinct species unknown to science.
Here are a few more reports:
In 1719, French lumbermen were astonished to find a living frog directly in the center of a solid elm trunk about 4 feet above the root.
In 1853, a live horned lizard was freed from a block of solid stone. It was sent to the Smithsonian Institution. The lizard only lived two days after being freed.
The Uitenhage Times of South Africa in 1876 printed the experience of timbermen who were cutting a tree into planks, when deep inside of it a hole was found containing 68 small toads, each about the size of a grape. "They were of a light brown, almost yellow color, and perfectly healthy, hopping about and away as if nothing had happened. All about them was solid yellow wood, with nothing to indicate how they could have got there, how long they had been there, or how they could have lived without food, drink, or air."
The most amazing case of living fossils is one of a pterodactyl in France during the winter of 1856. Workmen were digging a railway tunnel through a layer of Jurassic limestone. They were startled to find a large creature stumbling out of a recently split boulder, flapping what looked like wings and croaking. It died immediately. The creature was identified as a pterodactyl by a local paleontology student who recognized the characteristic features of the extinct reptile. The stone in which it was found was consistent with the time period in which pterodactyls lived and formed an exact mold of the creature’s body.
Renowned biologist Julian Huxley received a letter from a gas fitter in Devonshire, England, who had broken up some concrete flooring to install some pipe extensions: "My mate was at work with a sledge hammer when he dropped it suddenly and said, 'That looks like a frog's leg.' We both bent down and there was the frog. [The] sledge was set aside and I cut the rest of the block carefully. We released 23 perfectly formed but minute frogs which all hopped away to the flower garden." In 1821, Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine wrote how David Virtue, a stone mason, was working on a large chunk of rock that had come from about 22 feet below the surface when "he found a lizard embedded in the stone. It was coiled up in a round cavity of its own form, being an exact impression of the animal. It was about an inch and a quarter long, of a brownish yellow color, and had a round head, with bright sparkling projecting eyes. It was apparently dead, but after being about five minutes exposed to the air it showed signs of life. It soon ran about with much celerity."
