In a message dated 4/9/2001 8:07:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< OK, Ralph, I know this is too ripe of a topic to not get blasted
 so I figure this should keep you responding for at least a week. >>

OK, smarty pants.  I ain't buying the electric storm theory, since I can't
see how there would be enough electricity to bounce these coffins all over
the place.

The flood theory sounds much more probable to me, but the notion of these
metal coffins floating around sounds unlikely in the first place (if they're
metal, they're heavy, and unless they're absolutely airtight, they ain't
gonna float ["I see dead people....floating"].  For the coffins to have been
tossed and turned as described, it seems to me there would have to have been
a very large volume of water moving pretty violently, and unless the vault is
a Swiss cheese or a set of Monkey Bars, the movement of the water inside it
should have done noticeable damage and left a lot of mud and debris  that
would've been remarked upon by our intrepid latter-day Carnarvon.  One would
think that said flooding would've been reported to and by the Cemetery
Authority to the Owners of said vault.  Not that I'm a expert in Funerary
Vault practice, but it seems to me that the caskets therein entombed are
(typically? usually? often?) permanently installed and walled up or otherwise
secured, rather than left sitting around, even in an orderly manner.  Anybody
out there have more first-hand knowledge of standard practices obtaining in
cemetery vaults?

More likely yet, it seems to me, is the possibility that, protestations to
the contrary notwithstanding, somebody (or several somebodies) got in there
and scrambled things, and relocked the door and/or window; or perhaps they
came and went by some otherwise undetected passage, in any case for the
express purpose of driving Bryan's Funerary Friend crazy.

Most likely of all, in my view, is the possibility that Bryan's Funerary
Friend, or a friend of the friend, is pulling Bryan's leg.   But if this is
not the case, I think we need the data requested by the ever reasonable and
always charming Miz Julep before determining, to a reasonable degree of
engineering certainty, what in the hell (if anything) is going on.

Ralph