Shocking…Tree growing inside man

Plants require very specific conditions to germinate. In the case of Fir trees, they need an alternating day/night temperature cycle of 30ºC daytime and 20ºC nighttime temperatures. (86ºF to 68ºF) The Human body is simply too warm for germination, and does not cycle.

If he managed to somehow inhale a seed that had begun to germinate, there are still several problems with a human host. All plants require sunlight to get beyond the first set of "leaves" or needles in this case. Tanning lamps as mentioned before, would not work. Tanning lamps put out primarily UVB light which does not penetrate past the dermis or base layer of skin. Think about it, a simple cream can block UVB as will a shirt. UVB light would not penetrate to the lungs. Simple sunlight also does not penetrate to the lungs. Our skin has evolved to be a protective layer and blocks out light. You can shine a light through your hand, but sunlight, and artificial sun light will not penetrate to the lungs. If it did, your lungs would get severe sun burn, as they do not contain melanin to protect from UVA and UVB damage.

Plants also require specific nutrients to survive. Carbon is required for Photosynthesis. Without the presence of sunlight, photosynthesis does not work and the plant could not make food. Plants also require Oxygen, Nitrogen, Potassium, Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, and Sulfur. There are additional trace elements that are also required. Without all of these base chemicals a plant could not grow past germination. Once the small amount of food contained in the seed was exhausted, the plant would die without photosynthesis. In order for a plant to obtain most of these essential nutrients, they establish a root system. If any one of these essential nutrients is not present the plant will not grow. In the case of Fir tree seedlings, the roots are often larger than the shoots, or upper plant body.
Fir tree seedling photo showing root structure.

Ever get a splinter and not be able to get it out right away? In one day it will begin to fester and white blood vessels will attack the foreign body and the area will become red, swollen and puss will form. In the case of aspirated foreign bodies, pneumonia, bronchiectasis, and lung abscesses are the common results. If this " tree" was in his lungs for more than a few minutes, the body would have attacked it aggressively, and due to it's size a significant infection would have occurred. He would have experienced fever, and severe respiratory distress which the doctors did not report. They thought it was lung cancer. The Photo shows a relatively healthy section of lung with NO infection, puss, or other associated symptoms that would result from an aspirated foreign body.

It is a Hoax, and they are quite common in Russian media outlets. The Science simply does not hold up. Unless of course he was trying for Christmassy fresh breath.

How is this possible? I thought plants and trees needed sunlight to grow?? How would it grown inside of him without proper light? IDK....seems odd to me.

I don't know enough about the story to decide whether fake or not.

A lot of people are making a lot of the light issue - have you ever held your hand up to a REALLY bright light? It appears to glow red/orange because skin is pretty translucent. So in reality - if this guy is outside a lot/works in a very bright environment - maybe with no shirt on (what did he do for a living?) - light could have been getting through into his chest/lungs. Not much - but then - how much does it take? Especially if this thing had been growing for a long time...

Just a thought...

Some larger seeds also have A LOT of nutrients etc inside and get pretty big before they start needing light - for instance - a chestnut... but then how the mother inhaled that I will not even begin to imagine!

Originally posted by Revolution-2012
True:

Get a bamboo shoot up your fingernail, it will grow.

Wow, Errrrrrrrr, 22 more characters......and yeah

As a kid I once slid on an old railway sleeper, I had a splinter in my butt that grew into a boil the size of my ex wife's tongue.

Once again, just because you can shine a light through your hand, does not mean that sunlight can penetrate into your lungs. In fact, it cant. No sunlight ever gets into your lungs unless you have been cut open. Try this as an experiment. Shine a light through your hand and notice how much light gets through. Now hold your hand up to the sun and see how little gets through. Almost none in fact, other than perhaps the thin fleshy webbing between your fingers and even then it is a minimum amount of light.

Never mind the fact that any foreign body would cause an aggressive response from your immune system that would result in a serious pulmonary infection. There was no puss in the lungs, no fever, and no immune reaction according to the report. Given that the fir tree was shown to be 5cm in size with several needles, one could figure a minimum of another 5cm for the roots, which they never show, that would mean that a 10cm plant grew without sunlight, and without nutrients, from a single tiny seed. It simply can't happen. Check your botany and see for yourself. Even hydroponic plants can not get that big from a seed without the proper amount of sunlight. Learn some science and deny the Hoax.

[edit on 15/4/09 by Terapin]

I'm with the people who believe that this is a hoax.

Now, if they would have said they had found a ball of mold in his lungs or growing in his sinus cavity, ...

Mold in the lungs???

A biopsy was finally done last week and now she is being told she has a hole in her lung (???) and it has mold growing around it. They say she is too weak for any type of surgery that could possibly remove the area. She's told that antibiotics will not be strong enough and the medication she needs is too expensive.
******SKIP******
Fungi in the lung are found in two major categories: invasive and non-invasive. They can cause pneumonia or lung abcess (abscess) (the 'hole'). When invasive they are treated with anti-fungal drugs, many of which are not expensive (especially if life-saving) but sometimes these drugs must be combined with surgery
to remove the infected area.

INFECTIOUS MOLDS

According to a Mayo clinic study, sinusitis caused by growth of fungus fibers or balls of fungus fibers in the sinus cavities is not unusual. This is typically caused by common Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Curvularia species. Aspergillosis caused by the growth of aspergillus species in the lungs most commonly A.fumigatus, A. flavus, A. Niger and A. territus species typically occurs in persons with compromised immune systems or a history of lung disease that resulted in past lung damage.

Mold growing in lungs I would believe, but not a tree!!

[edit on 4/15/2009 by Keyhole]

Indeed, mold is something we have to deal with and it can cause serious problems. One should also consider that there are 10 times more bacteria in the Human body than there are human cells. Without bacteria we would not survive. Some bacteria may even protect us from HIV infection.
Friendly Bacteria may protect against HIV

As for the Russian with breath like a Christmas tree. Nonsense!

Fungal infections of the lungs is very commonplace. Aspergillosis is one. I've even heard of lichens and other mycological spores that can grow in the lungs. Even actinomycetes can survive and grow in the lungs.

However, there is a significant difference between fungi and lichens and mycological organisms that can live and thrive in the lungs when compared to a Fir Tree!

Sounds like a hoax to me...although stranger things have happened in the world of medicine, so it's not entirely impossible, just highly improbable to be anything other than a hoax.

If this is a hoax then it has fooled a lot of top people, I have seen the full news story on the BBC, ITN, SKY News a couple of time today plus it has been reported on a lot of the major radio stations. Think this one hasnt been debunked yet.
I was trying to think of some clever puns here goes:

He was barking up the wrong bush

The surgeons really got to the root of the problem

Lucky it never grew out of his hand or it would have been a a palm tree

He was feeling treeeemendious after the operation.........

And Im spent

Well so many people here on ATS say we humans are evolving. Maybe we are now capable of some photosynthesis and don't know it! A plant in the lungs can be hosted by our bodies now....!!!

Ok, yeah, I think it's a hoax too. Bleh. Boring.

[edit on 15-4-2009 by phoebeflakes]

I would prefer to think of this type of story is just to see how gullible people really are.

As far as bizzare stories go, this is one of the best, but I think that what it does illistrate is that most people will believe anything they see or read in the media and if they see it on the internet it must be true.

Probably just a test on the population to see how much garbage we are willing to swallow.

I am not swallowing this one, or inhaling it for that matter.

reply to post by Terapin


I have to agree. I have germinated a seedling in total darkness, which reached a pretty good size relatively fast. but for a man to "snort" a seed and get it caught in his lungs? That just seems crazy to me.

Originally posted by Terapin
Once again, just because you can shine a light through your hand, does not mean that sunlight can penetrate into your lungs. In fact, it cant. No sunlight ever gets into your lungs unless you have been cut open. Try this as an experiment. Shine a light through your hand and notice how much light gets through. Now hold your hand up to the sun and see how little gets through. Almost none in fact, other than perhaps the thin fleshy webbing between your fingers and even then it is a minimum amount of light.

Thats why I suggested sun beds as the light is intenstified and skin and bone are not solid. just playing devils advocate.

Never mind the fact that any foreign body would cause an aggressive response from your immune system that would result in a serious pulmonary infection. There was no puss in the lungs, no fever, and no immune reaction according to the report.

..actually I already made exactly that point.

Given that the fir tree was shown to be 5cm in size with several needles, one could figure a minimum of another 5cm for the roots, which they never show, that would mean that a 10cm plant grew without sunlight, and without nutrients, from a single tiny seed. It simply can't happen. Check your botany and see for yourself. Even hydroponic plants can not get that big from a seed without the proper amount of sunlight. Learn some science and deny the Hoax.

..and I already said I thought it was a hoax.

[edit on 16-4-2009 by riley]

reply to post by riley


The most common light source for tanning beds are 100 watt UVA fluorescent bulbs. Some beds use additional high pressure bulbs for face tanning that are rated at 400 watts. The goal is to produce a high percentage of UVA, and no UVB or UVC as they are dangerous wavelengths. I any case, the lumen output is not sufficient to penetrate into the lungs, or even much past the upper epidermis layers. Tanning beds use specific wavelengths but are not particularly bright.

Just like Ultra Violet wavelengths can cause harm to human tissue, it can also damage plants. Plants produce chemical compounds to protect themselves from the harmful effects of UV light. A tanning lamp is not a good source of light for trying to grow plants because the type of light it puts out is just what the plant does not want. If you shined a UV light down a persons throat, and into their lungs you could cause significant tissue damage. Lungs do not have melanin to protect the tissue from UV light. UV light can cause damage to DNA as well.

A video is out regarding that case. Some scientists are still divided.

video

Im bushed at this one! LOL

But then again after seeking monkeyping ANYTHING is possible LOL

realllly loved some of the comments stars all round the place lol

S+F just for the comments

It is true that plants need sunlight to grow leaves..but not all trees. Not all plants grow like Cannabis you see.
I think its possible.
First.. I think the lungs do let a certain amount of sunlight come through. Every botanist should know that sunlight penetrates leaves, so a plant shadowed by other plants leaves gets nearly the same amount of sunlight as the plant above it. Even though we see it as "shadow", the suns energy gets there anyway.

Second.. Tree seedlings don't need much light to grow. Remember they sprout in the undergrowth between the bushes and all the trees..they have to grow to reach sunlight.

There is plenty of nutrition to be found in a human.. the lungs are supplied with blood second after second. The roots don't need to grow big for a tree - again remember its not like cannabis.
The seed or several seeds could get inhaled easily. I heard people inhaling batteries and such.. It gets sucked in because of the pressure the lungs produce when you panic or during hard physical workout. There's a lot of suction going on even while inhaling normaly..

To finish..I remember a chinese torture procedure where they would put bamboo seeds in something and then make someone swallow it. The bamboo then grew out of the mans stomach.

reply to post by rattan1


Shocking... Man growing inside tree. An African tribal man has been found living inside a tree trunk with a diameter of about 1.1 meters for the past 22 years.

reply to post by globuser777


Your multiple references to cannabis could explain the errors in your knowledge of Botany and Physics.

It is true that seedlings sprout in darkness. Most seeds sprout beneath the soil and need no light to get started as they use the food energy stored within the seed. Under the right temperature and soil conditions they will germinate and send out roots and the first set of leaves, or in this case needles. In order to grow past the first set of leaves, they require sunlight and nutrients to photosynthesize more food.

To germinate, Fir trees require temperatures that cycle between 68º and 86º, and soil acidity, or pH levels, between 5.2 to 5.8. The human body is 98.6º and does not cycle, and our pH level is between 7.35 and 7.45, so a fir seed would not grow under those conditions. Sprouts use the energy stored in the seed to grow roots and shoots. Once that energy is used up, they need to photosynthesize food or they will die. Fir seeds are quite small and do not store a great deal of food energy, thus their sprout size is quite limited until the roots can get established and photosynthesis occurs.

Most sunlight that shines on us either gets reflected, or absorbed. Only a small amount of certain wavelengths penetrates into our skin. Once it has penetrated the skin it gets quickly absorbed. While high energy wavelengths like x-rays can penetrate deeper, the spectrums needed for photosynthesis do not penetrate past the initial layers of flesh. A good deal of scientific study has been conducted on the optical properties of skin. No guessing needs to be done, and studies indicate quite clearly that light only penetrates the skin to a very limited extent before it gets absorbed.

Light is absorbed by the various skin chromophores and scattering arises because of the refractive index fluctuations on a microscopic level.

Sunlight will simply not penetrate into the lungs. You can lie a body down on an examination table under a very bright light source, and a very sensitive camera inserted into the bronchial tubes will show only darkness. That is why endoscopic instruments have their own light source.

Contrary to your statement, Roots for fir tree seedlings are at least as large as the shoot, and are commonly a bit larger. I posted a link earlier to a photo of a fir tree seedling which demonstrates this. The images in the Russian article show numerous needles, indicating a long period of growth, but it shows no root system. Without an established root system and the proper levels of essential nutrients a fir tree would not grow past the first set of needles. I listed some of the essential nutrients in an earlier post, and they are not found in sufficient quantities in the human body.

I wont go over again the immune system reaction that foreign bodies provoke. It is quite obvious.

As for your comment about Chinese Bamboo torture... When you swallow anything, it passes through the body in a short time. A steak dinner may take as long as three days to digest, while fruit and vegetables pass through the digestive tract in just 12 hours. Bamboo seeds take two to three weeks to sprout under ideal conditions. Bamboo seeds would pass through your digestive tract long before they even started to sprout. Stomach acids and temperatures are not conducive to sprouting any plant, and Bamboo is quite sensitive to acidity when sprouting. Stomach acids are pH 1 or 2 and Bamboo likes pH levels about 6.5. You can swallow all the Bamboo seeds you can find, if you can find any as most species never produce seeds and other species flower only once every 100 years or so, and no matter how many seeds you swallow, they will never sprout inside you. Even if you swallow a pre sprouted bamboo seed, your body would simply digest it. People often eat bean sprouts as they are quite nutritious, but no one ever has any problems with a bean garden growing inside of them. The Chinese did use bamboo in torture, but the methods were not as you described. I could give you examples of Chinese bamboo torture, but that is for another thread.

If you dig a bit deeper, you will discover that Russian media quite often perpetuate hoax stories such as this one.

Ok, In my initial excitement I starred this thread, read a little further and thought "what have I done, am I totally gullible?" Looking at the photo, it does appear a little bit green,,, or does it? ALL plants require sunlight (or similar artificially produced light) to produce chlorophyll, so any green on the fir tree would indicate a HOAX, which i think this one is anyway.

They had this on the news tonight (Australia, i forget which channel), how funny, I watch very little TV and this came up. Light, no matter how bright DOES NOT shine through your hand, it may shine between your fingers, but it does NOT penetrate your body, can people please stop saying that light goes through your hand, seriously try it, it doesn't work.

I think it's a Hoax. Ink.