Scientists Say Lake in Washington Can Turn People Into Soap!
In the Olympic peninsula there’s a very deep and very cold lake called Lake Crescent. In the 1930s a man tried dumping his wife’s body in the lake to hide the fact he’d killed her. Years later she was discovered floating on the surface… only she was white and waxy like a mannequin. Upon further investigation, it was found her fat had turned to soap! Like, real soap!
Hallie Illingworth sunk to the bottom of the cold lake (over 1,000 feet in some places) and in the freezer-like conditions her body did not decompose. In fact, no flesh-eating bacteria could live in the water so instead of rotting she fossilized. Minerals including alkali in the lake seeped into her flesh and fat and mixed… creating soap the same way pioneers used to make it on purpose with lard and lye. It’s called saponification! Now residents wonder how many other bodies may lie at the bottom of Lake Crescent from as far back as 10,000 years stuck there like cold bars of soap!
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