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A Shocking “Clot Discovery” Behind Closed Doors
On June 8, 2025, a quiet but historic moment unfolded in Franklin, Tennessee, at the annual convention of the Tennessee Funeral Directors Association. What seemed like just another gathering of embalmers and funeral professionals became the setting for a remarkable shift in awareness.
Thomas Haviland, a retired U.S. Air Force major and independent researcher, was invited to present his 2024 embalmer blood clot survey, and what he shared stunned the room.
Haviland didn’t arrive alone. With his assistant Laura Kastner and her sister, he attended the evening reception prior to his talk. Among the sixty attendees, half were embalmers and funeral directors, offering him a rare opportunity for candid, off-the-record conversations. Carrying a vial containing samples of white fibrous clots collected by fellow embalmer Richard Hirschman, Haviland began asking: “Have you seen this before?”
From Denial to Recognition
Many had. One of the first embalmers he spoke with didn’t just recognize the clots—he pulled out his phone and showed a photo of a similar white fibrous structure he had removed just a month earlier.
Over the course of the evening, multiple funeral directors and even their spouses expressed eagerness to attend Haviland’s upcoming presentation. One woman, a hospital worker, said she had also seen strange occurrences among patients and was anxious to learn more.
Not everyone was convinced at first. One older gentleman dismissed the phenomenon as the well-known “chicken fat” clots… common in postmortem cases. But Haviland explained the critical difference: these new clots were white, tough, rubbery, and unusually long, unlike the soft, yellowish, easily torn chicken fat clots of traditional pathology.
The next day, after Haviland’s presentation, the same skeptical embalmer did a full turnaround, publicly acknowledging that what he had seen was indeed something new.
Survey Says: Two-Thirds Seeing Abnormal Clots
During his talk, Haviland conducted a real-time survey. He asked all active embalmers in the room to raise their hands. When asked to lower their hands if they hadn’t seen the white fibrous clots in corpses, only about a third lowered them. This meant roughly two-thirds of those in attendance—practicing embalmers from across Tennessee—were witnessing the same bizarre phenomena.
A paper survey distributed that day confirmed these impressions. Of the 28 embalmers and funeral directors who responded, 18 said they had seen the clots in the first half of 2025. That’s 64 percent. While that marks a decrease from Haviland’s global 2024 survey (which showed a 27% average rate of occurrence in corpses), the new figure—17% of corpses showing such clots—is still deeply troubling.
What’s in the Clots?
The white fibrous clots in question aren’t just anomalies—they’re mysteries with implications. A 2023 study published in Nature by Ryu et al. showed that when fibrinogen (the precursor to blood clots) comes into contact with spike protein—whether from the virus or the vaccine—it misfolds into a twisted, sticky form resistant to enzymatic breakdown.
Normal fibrin looks like smooth spaghetti strands under a microscope. But in the presence of spike protein, it becomes a tangled mess—precisely what embalmers like Hirschman and Haviland have photographed and preserved.
Dr. Kevin McCairn, a neuroscientist in Japan, performed electron microscopy on samples of these clots, confirming the twisted and abnormal fibrin structures. Some of the clots retrieved by embalmers are over a foot long and nearly an inch thick.
Medical-grade clot-dissolving drugs like tPA can’t break them down, and the only way to remove them from living patients is through invasive catheter surgery… if they’re detected in time.
Microclots… Infant Deaths, and the Silent Crisis
Another red flag raised by the survey is the rise in microclotting, known to embalmers as “coffee ground” blood. In pre-COVID years, microclots were rare, seen in fewer than 5% of corpses, typically cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Today, they’re showing up in 17% of bodies, a massive increase. Seven out of ten embalmers at the Tennessee event reported seeing this disturbing trend.
Perhaps most heartbreaking is the increase in infant deaths. Eleven out of 28 embalmers reported seeing more infant fatalities than they did in pre-COVID years, with one noting a strange pattern around 19 weeks gestation.
While the sample size is small, the implications are massive. Haviland notes that spike protein has been found in placentas and breast milk, suggesting vertical transmission from mother to child.
Why the Silence?
One of the most troubling elements of Haviland’s ongoing research is the lack of engagement from institutions. Despite reaching out to the FDA, CDC, and NIH after every survey, he has received zero responses. Major medical societies in the U.S. and U.K. have refused to distribute his surveys to vascular surgeons, despite these specialists having access to patient vaccination records—something embalmers typically don’t.
Haviland argues that this isn’t just a curiosity, it’s a public health emergency. “These aren’t theoretical,” he says. “We’re pulling them out of the dead. If the clots are real, and if they’re happening post-vaccine, that needs investigation now, not ten years from now.”
Transparency is Urgent
With a new administration in Washington and fresh leadership at the CDC, FDA, and HHS, Haviland hopes change is coming. “I’ve done the legwork. I’ve collected and shared the data. Now it’s time for them to act.”
Until then, embalmers like those in Tennessee remain on the front lines, quietly witnessing, quietly recording, and quietly wondering when the rest of the world will pay attention.
