Spontaneous Human Combustion is defined as the process by which the human body bursts into flames with no visible accelerant as a result of an incredible amount of heat generated by an internal chemical reaction. Over the last 300 years, there have been more than 200 cases of spontaneous human combustion (“SHC”).
The earliest mention of spontaneous human combustion can be found in the bible as a sign from God. The passage found in Num 11:1’The people began to complain to the Lord about their troubles. When the Lord heard them, he became angry and sent fire on the people. It burned among them and destroyed one end of the camp’ has been explained by some to be spontaneous human combustion.
Medieval literature also is full of stories of spontaneous human combustion including that of a knight named Polonus Vorstius sometime during the reign of Queen Bona Sforza in Milan. The most reliable information came from a book compiled by Jonas Dupont in 1763 which included the Nicole Millet case that involved a man acquitted of the murder of his wife when the court found that her death was caused by spontaneous human combustion.
On May 18, 1957, Anna Martin, 68, of West Philadelphia, was found burned alive, with only her shoes and a portion of her torso intact. Medical examiners estimated that temperatures must have reached between 1700 and 2000 degrees. Mysteriously, newspapers just two feet away were intact.
When Anna Martin died of SHC, the police report was ignored by the public. People were oblivious to the fact that SHC was occurring, seemingly showing no concern. However, people became alarmed when Charles Dickens wrote a book, Bleak House, killing off one of his characters with SHC. The public did not want to be victims of SHC.
In St. Petersburg, Florida, 67 year old Mary Hardy Reeser spontaneously combusted, while sitting in her easy chair. The next morning, her neighbor found that Mrs. Reeser’s door knob was hot to the touch. When she came back to the apartment with help, they found a blackened circle four feet in diameter. All that remained of her and her chair were a few blackened seat springs, a section of her backbone, a shrunken skull the size of a baseball, one foot encased in a black stain slipper, and about ten pounds of ashes. One medical examiner stated that the 3,000 degree heat needed to destroy her body should also have destroyed the apartment. However, damage was minimal.
Over the years, critics have come up with ideas that disprove SHC, including:
The wick effect is a theory which explains why many people do not believe that SHC is real.
The wick theory claims that the human body works as a candle. That is the explanation for items around the body not burning. The Items around the body work as a wick, slowly burning. The body fat works as the wax or fuel that the candle burns on. The flame of the candle is burning yet the fire does not burn items outside the candle.
The body is burning at an extreme temperature yet the walls and ceiling and near by items remains in tact.
After examining all of the evidence it is our opinion the spontaneous human combustion cannot occur. While there is much evidence in favor of SHC, the fact that not one clear logical explanation has been put forth continues to be the deciding factor in whether or not to believe the claim of SHC.
Most occurrences of spontaneous human combustion have never been witnessed. The victim had just been found in a pile of ash with some body parts intact. Although there have been a few people who claim to have witnessed SHC their accounts are unreliable and cannot be considered as evidence supporting SHC. It is hard to accept a claim that has never been witnessed by a reliable source.
There have been many theories of how SHC works. Some of these theories like stress are just completely ridiculous and are rooted in no scientific fact whatsoever. Other theories like Larry Arnold’s of a new sub-atomic particle that causes SHC seem to be created just to fit the purpose of proving SHC. As we stated earlier, not one satisfactory theory has been created to prove spontaneous human combustion indefinitely.
The evidence against SHC is much more convincing than the evidence for. The Wick Effect is a clear and logical theory to explain and disprove SHC. Also, the human body is primarily made of water so under normal circumstances it would be impossible for it to consume itself.
The Skeptic’s Creed states “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” and in the case of spontaneous human combustion the evidence in support isn’t convincing enough and the evidence against is logical. The claim of spontaneous human combustion is almost as random as its victims.