One of the events that most excites devotees of the paranormal is spontaneous human combustion (SHC). A human body, alive or not, spontaneously begins to burn, without any known reason, until it is almost completely consumed. Despite how strange it may seem, dozens of cases of spontaneous human combustion have been documented from the 17th century to today. Does science have a satisfactory explanation for this event?
Spontaneous human combustion (CHE, though it is very often cited as SHC, from Spontaneous Human Combustion) is one of the favorite events discussed at gatherings of paranormal enthusiasts. Typically, an SHC event consists of a victim who unexpectedly bursts into flames. The fire appears abruptly and without any evident cause. It is said to be very intense but extremely localized and, in a very short time (minutes or even seconds), destroys almost completely the body, which is reduced to a small pile of grayish ashes. Everything happens so fast that, in general, the victim does not even have the possibility to ask for or receive help from another person.
One of the most disturbing aspects of spontaneous human combustion stories is that objects near the burning body are almost always unharmed, including combustible items like wooden furniture, newspapers, or even matchboxes. In some cases, not even the clothes the person is wearing are completely burned. Another peculiarity is that the fire seems to concentrate on the victim's chest, and typically the legs, feet, and sometimes arms are relatively undamaged. At the scene, a layer of greasy soot is usually found on the walls and ceiling.
The First Recorded Case
The first recorded case dates back to 1673. A Parisian citizen, whose name has not been recorded in the annals of history, “was reduced to a pile of ashes and a few finger bones, but the straw bed on which he died remained intact,” as quoted by Garth Haslam in his book Spontaneous Human Combustion: Brief Reports in Chronological Order. It's all so impressive that, not surprisingly, Hollywood has used SHC as part of the plot of many films.
While the origin of the flames, which appear spontaneously, may be difficult to explain a priori, it is even more complicated that a body burns until reduced to ashes. A dead person is very hard to burn, since—remember—70% of our body is water.
We can use what happens in a crematorium as a reference: these devices, operating at temperatures between 760 and 1100 °C for two to three hours, do not manage to completely destroy a corpse. In these furnaces, several kilograms of solid residue and bone fragments remain, which need mechanical treatment to be integrated with the ashes. Logically, all this conspires to make people imagine dark and terrifying forces as the cause of the phenomenon.
Scientific Explanations
However, difficult as it may seem, most cases of spontaneous human combustion (at least those that are correctly documented) have a satisfactory explanation from a scientific point of view. When we say “correctly documented” we are discarding those cases that only contain second-, third-, or fourth-hand and very vague information. The first thing to note is that no one has ever seen a person spontaneously begin to burn. Throughout the long history of this phenomenon, cases have always been reported in which the victim is alone and therefore there are no witnesses. The effect exists, and has even been reproduced at will using animal carcasses, but the fire never starts without an external agent.
One of the most remembered historical cases is that of Countess Cornelia Di Bandi of Cesena, 62 years old, in 1731. The remains of this woman were discovered by her maid on the floor of her bedroom when she went to wake her in the morning. The countess had been reduced to a pile of “greasy and foul-smelling ashes,” but her legs and arms were practically intact. The walls of the room, as almost always happens in these cases, were covered with soot, and the bed in the room had not suffered damage. On the floor, an empty oil lamp was found, also covered with ashes. This case became famous when it was later cited by Charles Dickens, and it contains practically all the elements that would later be repeated (again and again) in almost all cases of spontaneous human combustion.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries there were few cases of SHC. In the middle of the 20th century, spontaneous human combustion was brought back to the forefront with the case of Mary Reeser, which occurred in St. Petersburg, Florida, on July 2, 1951. The lady was a 37-year-old widow, fairly obese, who was found reduced to ashes. The only thing that remained standing was... her left foot (lol). Also burned were the armchair where she was sitting and a nearby table and lamp. The rest of the apartment suffered no damage. An interesting detail was provided by her son: the night before, Reeser took two capsules of Seconal (a barbiturate) and smoked a cigarette. The case became known as “the mystery of the ash woman,” and the police report determined that “once the body began to burn, the almost complete destruction occurred due to the combustion of its own fatty tissues.”
In almost all recorded cases, spontaneous combustion occurs inside enclosed places. Usually in the victim's bedroom, who is alone (and has been for several hours). No witnesses have ever been reported, and no one has arrived at the precise moment to see the person burn. The burns are much more severe than in a normal fire, and victims are almost always reduced to ashes.
Furthermore, spontaneous human combustion burns are not distributed uniformly on the body. Surrounding objects usually remain relatively intact, although those located one meter or more above floor level (like the plastic covers of electrical switches) are the most damaged. And, as we said, the floor, ceiling, and walls of the room are frequently covered with a layer of “a greasy and foul-smelling soot.”
The victims also constitute a group with interesting characteristics. The vast majority are women, almost always obese or overweight. A large proportion are alcoholics, elderly, or have chronic diseases. Many of the victims are smokers, and with messy habits. It seems they are people who naturally have a high risk of dying, either by combustion or any other cause.
The Mythology vs. Reality
The mythology surrounding SHC says the victim suddenly bursts into flames and is consumed in a very short time. However, the absence of witnesses contradicts this fact. It is possible that combustion enthusiasts consider as proof that the victim doesn't call for help, but if the person to be burned is intoxicated or unconscious due to barbiturates, or any other cause, it is highly unlikely that they can effectively ask for help. If they do manage to ask for help and it arrives in time, for example discovering that the person was smoking in bed, it is obvious that no one will think of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
The Wick Effect
One of the most accepted theories that can explain spontaneous human combustion is the “wick effect.” In it, science states that a person can be completely burned using their own body fat as fuel, after it has been ignited intentionally or by accident. The clothed human body is basically a candle in which the fuel source (fat) is inside and the wick (the victim's clothes) is outside. When combustion begins, a constant supply of fuel is produced from the fat that melts and soaks the clothes. The hydrophobic chains contained in animal fat contain a large amount of energy.
The BBC Experiment
The BBC used a dead pig wrapped in a blanket as a “model” to test the wick effect theory. They placed the animal in a simulated room and poured a small amount of fuel over the blanket to act as an accelerant. Once ignited, researchers recorded a temperature of about 800°C that remained throughout the experiment. As the flames burned the pig's skin, its subcutaneous fat melted and dripped into the blanket. The surrounding furniture suffered practically no damage, although the heat managed to melt the plastic casing of a television on a piece of furniture. The fire, manually extinguished to end the experiment, lasted more than 7 hours, during which most of the pig's body had been reduced to ashes.
The BBC showed that the flames never exceeded 50 centimeters in height, so the fire did not affect nearby furniture. The fire, despite its relatively low temperature (lower than that of a crematorium), burned for a long period of time as it was fed by the body fat itself of the “victim.” It also explains why appliances on some furniture burn: the fire continuously heats the air and produces a convection current, hot enough to melt plastic.
The Verdict
The myth of spontaneous human combustion is one that shows how easy it is to create a paranormal fable. It is enough to suppress some data and falsify, exaggerate, or interpret others in a biased way. As Mulder would say, “the truth is out there,” but sometimes it is more comfortable to invent one than to bother looking for it.
