Spontaneous combustion?

Question

Is this actually possible or is it just a myth made up?

Answer 1

Over the past 300 years, there have been more than 200 reports of persons burning to a crisp for no apparent reason.

The first reliable historic evidence of Spontaneous Human Combustion appears to be from the year 1673, when Frenchman Jonas Dupont published a collection of Spontaneous Human Combustion cases and studies entitled De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis. Dupont was inspired to write this book after encountering records of the Nicole Millet case, in which a man was acquitted of the murder of his wife when the court was convinced that she had been killed by spontaneous combustion. Millet, a hard-drinking Parisian was found reduced to ashes in his straw bed, leaving just his skull and finger bones. The straw matting was only lightly damaged. Dupont's book on this strange subject brought it out of the realm of folkloric rumor and into the popular public imagination.

On April 9, 1744, Grace Pett, 60, an alcoholic residing in Ipswich England, was found on the floor by her daughter like "a log of wood consumed by a fire, without apparent flame." Nearby clothing was undamaged.

Answer 2

True!
http://www.alternativescience.com/spontaneous-human-combustion-burning-issue.htm

http://www.crystalinks.com/shc.html

Answer 3

Spontaneous combustion can have several meanings:

The self-ignition, or apparent self-ignition, and burning of any mass; often of highly flammable materials, such as a pile of oily rags; see combustion.
Haystacks often self-ignite because of heat produced by bacterial fermentation of the hay.
Spontaneous human combustion is the alleged phenomenon of a human being suddenly bursting into flames.
Pyrophoric materials can ignite spontaneously under certain conditions:
Some types of coal are susceptible to spontaneous ignition.
Some alloys, such as ferrocerium for lighter "flints" and the hardened depleted uranium used in anti-armor weapons, have a low ignition temperature when finely divided. Scraping such an alloy tends to create a large number of sparks, and pulverizing it can lead to a fierce metal fire.
Other substances such as caesium, rubidium or silanes can ignite spontaneously when contacting air. See pyrophoricity.
Sodium metal ignites spontaneously when placed in water.
tc,
BYE.

Answer 4

My wife is from Sierra Leone, told me about her next door neighbour a 20 year old girl got out of the bath then went to bed with a mosquito net. The next thing she has burst into flames my wife was there trying to put the fire out but sadly she died, but my wife said nothing around got burnt not the bed not the net.

Nobody in her neighbourhood including her (till I told her about it after she had told me about this) had ever heard of Spontaneous Combustion so they had but it down to witchcraft... I don’t I hasten to add

My wife does not lie or excaudate and could never have heard of the phenomena yet she described it to a T, I therefore believe.

Answer 5

This is normally caused by ignition of some outside force IE: cigarette, flame from an open fire etc, the clothes on the person acts as the wick so the person in turned into an inside out candle and because it burns so slowly it is very localised to the source.

Answer 6

I accept as true with you, thoughtless buggers some human beings might want to be, there should be a e book on it as a way to can keep on with the guidance guide lines on combusting in a miles extra dignified way.

Answer 7

It is possible, however it is a natural process where your fat acts as a kind of candle wax, but burns slowly at extremely high temperatures.

Answer 8

Myth made up

Answer 9

It appears that the jury is still out on this one. Check out this link and then decide for yourself

Answer 10

Its just the goverment practicing with thier space laser. Don't worry about it. They just use it on people that have really pissed them off.