Spontaneous human combustion?

Question

I have no particular thoughts over the matter, other than I believe it could be possible, but what do you think causes spontaneous human combustion?

Answer 1

natural causes.

i was once convinced by a bbc programme which recreated an experiment into the "wick effect", but recent discoveries have alleged that the experiment was fixed. (another bbc mock up!)

the original experiment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/158853.stm

and a report of the "fixing".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion#A_televised_experiment

i have been most impressed by joe nickell's research, in which he states that a verdict of shc is reached by argumentum ad ignorantiam and a lot of imagination.

this is his take on the jeannie saffin case

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n2_v22/ai_20562395

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannie_Saffin

- and a synopsis of their findings on 30 cases he investigated.with john fischer.

"In most cases combustion probably wasn't spontaneous. Candlesticks, oil lamps, pipes, and the like were often found near the victims. Mrs. Reeser when last seen alive was smoking a cigarette.
The victims tended to be slow to react. Many were alcoholics; others were elderly, overweight, or handicapped in some way. Mrs. Reeser was 67, weighed 175 pounds, and had a bad leg. The evening before her demise she told her son she had taken two sleeping pills and expected to take two more.
Bodies can be totally consumed at temperatures much lower than previously believed. Proponents of paranormal explanations for SHC often point out that crematoriums use temperatures of 2,000 degrees or more, much hotter than the usual household fire. But experts say high temps are necessary only if the body must be destroyed in a short time. Smoldering fires can consume an entire piece of furniture (and presumably the body within it) if given long enough. Yet they often leave nearby objects undamaged. Twelve hours passed between the time Mrs. Reeser was last seen alive and the time her remains were discovered.
In cases where the body was completely destroyed, there was often a nearby source of combustible material to feed the fire. The floorboards beneath a number of victims were found burnt through; Mrs. Reeser was wearing a flammable nightgown and housecoat and was sitting in an overstuffed chair. In addition--this gets pretty gross--the fuel sources may have served to catch melting body fat which then added to the flames. Call it the "candle effect." A quantity of "grease," Nickell and Fischer note, was found where Mrs. Reeser's chair had stood.
"In the Reeser case, what probably happened was that the chair's stuffing burned slowly, fueled by the melted body fat and aided by partially open windows," Nickell and Fischer conclude. "What has been described as 'probably the best-documented case' of alleged spontaneous human combustion is actually attributable to the deadly combination of a lit cigarette, flammable nightclothes, and sleeping pills."

(the skeptical inquirer)

i had a girl with severe problems with her body temperature in my class some years ago (the mitochondria argument) - she lacked any way of cooling down her body - but she has certainly not spontaneously combusted - yet. :)

Answer 2

What Causes Spontaneous Human Combustion

Answer 3

That's just the puzzling thing, no one is sure what causes it.

"- Alchoholism - many Spontaneous Human Combustion vicitms have been alcoholics. But experiments in the 19th century demonstrated that flesh impregnated with alcohol will not burn with the intense heat associated with Spontaneous Human Combustion.

- Deposits of flammable body fat - Many victims have been overweight - yet others have been skinny.

- Devine Intervention - Centuries ago people felt that the explosion was a sign from God of devine punishment.

- Build-up of static electricity - no known form of electrostatic discharge could cause a human to burst into flames.

- An explosive combination of chemicals can form in the digestive system - due to poor diet.

- Electrical fields that exist within the human body might be capable of 'short circuiting' somehow, that some sort of atomic chain reaction could generate tremendous internal heat.

No satisfactory explanation of Spontaneous Human Combustion has ever been given. It is still an unsolved mystery"

Answer 4

it is well established that under certain moderately rare conditions human bodyfat can wick, making the dead human body very combustible.

this would not make 'spontaneous combustion' possible, but it would mean that a body which was already dead could burn down almost to ash (though very very slowly) leaving only the extremities untouched.

every case of 'human spontaneous combustion' which has been closely investigated turns out to leave open the possibility that the combustion actually happened slowly, and on a body which was already dead when the process started.

there is no satisfactory explanation for spontaneous combustion. wicking is only mildly unlikely, and if wicking did take place a very small flame (a spark from a housefire or a lighted cigarette) would be enough to start the combustion process.

i don't think we even need to posit the spontaneous combustion hypothesis.

Answer 5

SHC has recordedly been around for centuries...
Nobody has yet come up with a absolute answer to this phenomena as yet...
I believe it is what would be described as supernatural...
The theory that I have had about SHC for years would not hold much in scientific circles as they only deal in absolutes..
Here's what I think happens :- I believe that we live in a multidimensional universe, so we are in fact surrounded by other dimensions / realms, which are just as real as our own but vibrate at a different frequency...
I believe that when SHC occurs, it is a "glitch", so to say between 2 different dimensions and when a person enters that particular space they catch on fire and burn from the inside out...
The interesting thing about SHC, is that only the body burns and nothing else in the room at all is affected, nothing....
So that is my humble theory, and it's about as good as any other theory I have heard...
Here are a couple of sites on SHC, I found interesting :-
http://www.alternativescience.com/spontaneous-human-combustion-burning-issue.htm
http://skepdic.com/shc.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/shc.html
Blessed Be... )O(

Answer 6

This process of spontaneous human combustion already has been solved by science. One might call it human candle. Spontaneous human combustion often takes place in sedated persons (for example due to the consume of alcohol) and often involves cigarettes. A burning cigarette (or some other source of fire) falls on some of the clothes of the victim and ignites it. Due to the heat, the fat below your skin gets fluid and, as soon as the skin below the burning clothes bursts due to the heat, the fluid fat acts like a wax, with the clothes acting like a wick. This way (i.e. more and more body fat of the victim getting fluid and being used as fuel by the fire) the fire spreads through all the clothes of the victim and the victim slowly burns up, till no more fat in any part of the victim that is covered by clothes is present and the flames die out (which is why nothing in the vicinity is getting burned). Parts of the victim that are recovered intact normally aren´t covered by clothes, which is why the flames cannot liquidize the fat in these parts as well and spread to these body parts.

Answer 7

Martians.

Answer 8

I think the last time I looked into this, it was pretty much a myth.