Dead Sheep Gain Weight

Independent researcher Lewis Hollander of Redmond, Oregon, reports the observation of an anomalous weight gain in deceased sheep shortly after the moment of their death in the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

"Twelve animals (one ram, seven ewes, three lambs and one goat) were studied. At the moment of death an unexplained weight gain transient of 18 to 780 grams for 1 to 6 seconds was observed with seven adult sheep but not with the lambs or goat.

"The transients occurred in a quiet time at the moment of death when all breathing and movement had ceased. These transient gains are anomalous in that there is no compensating weight loss as required by Newton's Third Law. There was no permanent weight change at death."

These dynamic weight measurements may be worthy of further investigation, Hollander suggests.

In a concurrent study on humans during sleep (dreaming) and meditation similar transient weight gains were observed in a study published in the Journal of Parapsychology. During levitation experiments on humans, Hasted et al. reported that “four sharply peaked weight-increase signals were recorded in otherwise quiet sessions”, and that a second subject exhibited “two sudden 5 second weight increase signals of about one kilogram.” These values are consistent in both magnitude and duration with the transients observed in sheep at the moment of death and are the only other reported weight measurements done with an electronic scale.