The mysterious story of a man who turned into a corpse, lived like a zombie for nearly 20 years

The story of a man who lived for 20 years in the form of a living corpse is still a mystery to the scientific world.

In 1980, Clairvius Narcisse appeared at the hospital in Deschapelle, Haiti for nearly 20 years after his family buried him in the village cemetery.

Narcisse's sudden return made his relatives shocked. At this point, they revealed that shortly after Narcisse was buried, his tomb was dug. But no one knows that Narcisse's "corpse" has been stolen by the witch in the village and turned into a living corpse, according to Epoch Times.

Botanist, ethnographer and anthropologist Wade Davis gave explanations about this controversial case in an interview with Canadian CBC in 1986.

Mr. Clairvius Narcisse returned home after nearly 20 years of living.

According to Wade, Narcisse's appearance and disappearance are related , a neurotoxin that is 160,000 times stronger than cocaine. This substance will create a coma that is sometimes mistaken for death.

Wade argued that a witch in the area had somehow poisoned tetrodotoxin on Narcisse so that people thought he was dead. Upon burying, this person will steal the corpse and use another type of hallucinogen, Datura stramoniumk or Jimson weed, to make Narcisse from a comatose man into a living being, losing consciousness and act on the instructions of the poison.

The wizard is said to have used this method to keep Narcisse working in sugarcane plantations in Haiti for many years. Only when this person died, Narcisse was freed, returned to his hometown with a story that sounded as if it was a myth.

In 1980, some scientists claimed that this was the first confirmed corpse case, although they could not give convincing arguments to prove it. A few years later, Mr. Wade was sent to Haiti to study herbal substances thought to be able to produce living corpses.

Wade once said that he had never believed the living body existed but had to change his mind when studying tetrodotoxin and Haitian culture.

" The belief in zombies in Haitian culture is the key to the problem. Part of the effect of tetrodotoxin also comes from this belief," Davis said despite admitting it was a very difficult problem to explain.

Mr. Narcisse is on his own grave.(Photo: Getty Images).

Tetrodotoxin is actually the type of toxin found inside puffer fish and has caused many fatal cases in Japan. The chefs must be very careful to handle puffer fish to remove this toxin but still unavoidable regretful cases.

"The victims in Japan do not become dead even if they die because of this poison," Wade said.

The reason Wade makes is that under the influence of hallucinogens, one's thoughts and beliefs will have a direct impact on his perception.

"Some Haitians believe in corpses, so they are more likely to fall into that situation if they take drugs while Japanese people are not because they do not have faith in this phenomenon," said a scientist from Canada.

Despite this, many people disagree with Wade and dismiss his research because it is unscientific. But others, in which African-American historian Robert Farris Thompson supported these analyzes.

"I have never been inspired to learn seriously about" living corpses "or to see it as a social phenomenon. Without Wade Davis, I have not learned the research in the book. This book, " Thompson said in the introduction of the " Dark Road " he wrote.