This day in history: Gonzaga students snuffed out the ‘glow of life’ in the name of science

From 1975: Five Gonzaga University undergrads said they had found the scientific explanation for the so-called photographic “glow of life.”

The “glow of life” phenomenon became a paranormal sensation in 1939 when a Semyon Kirlian, a Russian scientist, discovered that “by running an electric current through an object placed on film, you get a flowing image of the object.” Mystics and parapsychologists claimed that it revealed the inner soul.

These five students had received a grant to study the phenomenon and conducted experiments at Gonzaga over the summer.

They found nothing “mystical” about Kirlian photography at all. They proved that the “supernatural glow simply showed the amount of water in a substance.”

“Sometimes scientists are so involved in their work, they overlook the obvious and it takes people like us to discover it,” said John W. “Doc” Robinson, one of the students.

From 1925: A “mad dynamiter” targeted the Sisters of Mercy Hospital in Kalispell, blowing out a window in the nuns’ dining room. The huge blast caused no injuries, but only because no sisters were in the room at the time.

People all over the city heard the explosion, and it “sent townspeople fleeing from their homes in alarm.”

Three men were brought in for questioning, but soon exonerated and released.

“The sheriff and his deputies, who have combed the entire region for a clue to the perpetrator, now believe he must be an insane man,” the Associated Press reported. “The hospital has no known enemies.”