Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is a name used to describe cases of the burning Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame. Fuels of interest often include organic compounds in the gas, liquid or of a living human body without an apparent external source of ignition. Some regard SHC as a unique and currently unexplained phenomenon, others feel that cases described as SHC can be understood using current generally-accepted scientific principles, but the most common view by far is extreme skepticism.[citation needed] While there have been about 200 cited cases[1] worldwide over a period of around 300 years, most of the alleged cases are characterised by the lack of a thorough investigation, or rely heavily on hearsay Hearsay is information gathered by one person from another concerning some event, condition, or thing of which the first person had no direct experience. When submitted as evidence, such statements are called hearsay evidence. As a legal term, "hearsay" can also have the narrower meaning of the use of such information as evidence to and oral testimony. In many of the more recent cases, where photographic evidence is available, it is alleged that there was an external source of heat present (often cigarettes), and nothing occurred "spontaneously."
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Causes
There are many hypothesised explanations which account for the various cases of spontaneous human combustion. These generally fall into one of three groups: paranormal explanations (e.g. a ghost In folklore, fiction, philosophy, and popular culture, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person, taken to be capable of appearing in visible form or otherwise manifesting itself to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely: the mode of manifestation can range from an invisible presence to translucent or wispy or alien Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth. It is unknown whether any such life exists, and all discussion of it must be regarded as highly speculative. Various claims have been made for evidence of its existence, such as those listed in a 2006 New Scientist article. However, the mainstream scientific community caused it), natural explanations that credit some unknown and otherwise unobserved phenomenon (e.g. the production of abnormally concentrated gas or raised levels of blood alcohol cause spontaneous ignition), and natural explanations that involve an external source of ignition (e.g. the victim dropped a cigarette).
Objections to natural explanations usually revolve around the degree of burning of the body with respect to its surroundings. Indeed, one of the common markers of a case of SHC is that the body — or part of it — has suffered an extraordinarily large degree of burning, with surroundings or lower limbs comparatively undamaged.[1]
Suggested explanations
Many hypotheses have attempted to explain how SHC might occur, but those which rely on current scientific understanding say that with instances mistaken for spontaneous combustion, there actually was an external source of ignition, and that the likelihood that truly spontaneous human combustion actually takes place within the body is quite low.[2]
Unverified natural phenomena
- Since every human body contains varying strengths of electrical field and the human body also contains flammable gases (mainly methane Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CH4. It is the simplest alkane, and the principal component of natural gas. Methane's bond angles are 109.5 degrees. Burning methane in the presence of oxygen produces carbon dioxide and water. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel. However, because it is a gas at in the intestines In human anatomy, the intestine is the segment of the alimentary canal extending from the stomach to the anus and, in humans and other mammals, consists of two segments, the small intestine and the large intestine. In humans, the small intestine is further subdivided into the duodenum, jejunum and ileum while the large intestine is subdivided into), an electrical discharge could ignite these gases.
- SHC victims are sometimes described as lonely people who fall into a trance The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer. It may also be related to the earlier generic term, altered states of consciousness, which is no longer used in "consciousness studies" discourse immediately before their incineration. Heymer[3] suggests that a psychosomatic Psychosomatic medicine is an interdisciplinary medical field studying the relationships of social, psychological, and behavioral factors on bodily processes and well-being in humans and animals. The influence that the mind has over physical processes including the manifestations of physical disabilities that are based on intellectual infirmities, process in such emotionally-distressed people can trigger off a chain reaction A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events by reacting nitrogen within the body and setting off a chain reaction of mitochondrial In cell biology, a mitochondrion is a membrane-enclosed organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. These organelles range from 0.5 to 10 micrometers (μm) in diameter. Mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), used as a source of explosions. This theory has been criticised on the basis that Heymer "seems to be under the illusion that nitrogen exist as gases in the blood and are thus vulnerable to ignition, which is, in fact, not the case."[4] (Mitochondria In cell biology, a mitochondrion is a membrane-enclosed organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. These organelles range from 0.5 to 10 micrometers (μm) in diameter. Mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), used as a source of are organelles found within cells.)
- Another theory suggests high-energy particles or gamma rays[1] coupled with susceptibilities in the potential victim (e.g. increased alcohol in the blood) triggers the initial reaction. This process may use no external oxygen to spread throughout the body, since it may not be an oxidation-reduction reaction. However, no reaction mechanism has been proposed, nor has a source for the high-energy particles.
- The victim is an alcoholic and has been smoking while drinking or shortly after drinking a strong spirit. There are claims that this raises the blood alcohol level to a point where it ignites; however, this theory is implausible, since ethanol typically burns only if the concentration is greater than about 23%, whereas a fatally toxic level is about 1%.[5] However, this does introduce the probability that the victim will fall asleep while holding a lit cigarette.
- A suggested possibility is that both clothing and the person are caused to burn by a discharge of static electricity Static electricity refers to the build up of electric charge on the surface of objects. The static charges remain on an object until they either bleed off to ground or are quickly neutralized by a discharge. Although charge exchange can happen whenever any two surfaces come into contact and separate, a static charge only remains when at least one. A person walking across a carpet can build up sufficient charge and voltage to create a spark. It is unlikely that this could start a clothing fire, as although the voltage can be high (several thousand volts The volt is the SI derived unit of electromotive force, commonly called "voltage". It is also the unit for the related but slightly different quantity electric potential difference (also called "electrostatic potential difference"). It is named in honor of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), who invented the), the stored energy is very low (typically less than a joule The joule , named after James Prescott Joule, is the derived unit of energy in the International System of Units. It is the energy expended in applying a force of one Newton through a distance of one metre (1 Newton·metre or N·m). In terms of dimensions:).
- The controversial phenomenon of ball lightning Ball lightning is a atmospheric electrical phenomenon, the existence of which is disputed. The term refers to reports of luminous, usually spherical objects which vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but lasts considerably longer than the split-second flash of a lightning bolt has also been proposed as one of the causes of spontaneous combustion.[citation needed]
Natural explanations
- Cigarettes are often implicated as the source of ignition. Usually, the victim is alone at the time of death, and it is thought that natural causes such as heart attacks may lead to the victim dying, subsequently dropping the cigarette. However, some of the victims did not smoke.[3] Additionally, cigarettes smolder at a temperature too low to trigger a flare up of most otherwise combustible materials. Typically if a person drops a lit cigarette on an article of clothing, it will create a burn-hole, but not ignite into an open flame and spread.
- The "wick effect" hypothesis suggests that a small external flame source, such as a burning cigarette, chars the clothing of the victim at a location, splitting the skin and releasing subcutaneous fat, which is in turn absorbed into the burned clothing, acting as a wick. This combustion can continue for as long as the fuel is available. This hypothesis has been successfully tested with animal tissue (pig) and is consistent with evidence recovered from cases of human combustion.[6][7]
- Scalding can cause burn-like injuries, including death, without setting fire to clothing. Although not applicable in cases where the body is charred and burnt, this has been suggested as a cause in at least one claimed SHC-like event.[8]
- High temperatures, normally over 570 K (300 °C, 570 °F) can combust the skin.
Possible cases
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Deaths
Some cited cases include:[1]
- Robert Francis Bailey
- John Irving Bentley
- George I. Mott
- Mary Reeser
- Jeannie Saffin
- Henry Thomas
- Janice McCall
Survivors of static flash fires/events
Two examples of people surviving static flash events are given in a book on SHC.[9] The two subjects, Debbie Clark and Susan Motteshead, speaking independently and with no knowledge of each other, give similar histories.[10] In addition, Jack Angel claims to have survived an SHC-like event:
- In September 1985, Debbie Clark was walking home when she noticed an occasional flash of blue light.[11] As she claimed, "It was me. I was lighting up the driveway every couple of steps. As we got into the garden I thought it was funny at that point. I was walking around in circles saying: 'look at this, mum, look!' She started screaming and my brother came to the door and started screaming and shouting 'Have you never heard of spontaneous human combustion?'" Her mother, Dianne Clark, responded: "I screamed at her to get her shoes off and it [the flashes] kept going so I hassled her through and got her into the bath. I thought that the bath is wired to earth. It was a blue light you know what they call electric blue. She thought it was fun, she was laughing."
- In winter 1980, Cheshire, England Cheshire's area is 2,343 square kilometres and its population is just over a million. Apart from the large towns along the River Mersey and the historic city of Chester, it is mostly rural, with a number of small towns and villages that support an agricultural industry. It is historically famous for the production of Cheshire cheese, salt, bulk, resident Susan Motteshead was standing in her kitchen, wearing flame-resistant pajamas Pajamas, also spelled pyjamas can refer to several related types of clothing. The original paijama are loose, lightweight trousers fitted with drawstring waistbands and worn in South and West Asia by both sexes. In many English-speaking nations, pajamas are loose-fitting, two-piece garments derived from the original garment and worn chiefly for, when she was suddenly engulfed in a short-lived fire that seemed to have ignited the fluff on her clothing but burned out before it could set anything properly alight.[10]
In fiction
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Examples of spontaneous human combustion are common in fictional works from the 19th century onwards. It is used both as a central plot device and as an incidental occurrence.
The second and third chapters of Charles Brockden Brown Charles Brockden Brown , an American novelist, historian, and editor of the Early National period, is generally regarded by scholars as the most ambitious and accomplished US novelist before James Fenimore Cooper. He is the most frequently studied and republished practitioner of the "early American novel," or the US novel between 1789's 1798 novel Wieland focuses on the emigration of Wieland, a German, to colonial America. Wieland practices a solitary form of Protestantism. As part of his religious practices he spends solitary hours in a temple constructed on his property. One night his family hears "a loud report, like the explosion of a mine." Rushing to the temple, they find Wieland lying with his clothing burned off and delirious. He dies soon after. While the term "spontaneous human combustion" was not yet created, Brown includes a footnote at the end of chapter 2 that suggest the phenomenon and its existence in 18th century medical studies. The footnote reads:
- "A case, in its symptoms exactly parallel to this, is published in one of the Journals of Florence. See, likewise, similar cases reported by Messrs. Merille and Muraire, in the "Journal de Medicine," for February and May, 1783. The researches of Maffei and Fontana have thrown light upon this subject."
Examples of spontaneous combustion occur in three works by the nineteenth-century Russian author Nikolai Gogol. In the story "St. John's Eve" from Gogol's "Village Evenings Near Dikanka" (1831–32) the guilty character Petro the orphan spontaneously combusts when confronted with a vision of a child he had killed. In the story "Vii," a huntsman in a Cossack village combusts after an encounter with a witch: "And once, when they came to the stable, instead of him there was just a heap of ashes and an empty bucket lying there: he burned up, burned up of his own self." In the novel Dead Souls Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer, was first published in 1842, and is one of the most prominent works of 19th-century Russian literature. Gogol himself saw it as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book as a "novel in verse". Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, Gogol destroyed it shortly, the landowner Korobochka laments that her serf-blacksmith burned up: "Something inside him started burning somehow, he'd had too much to drink. A blue flame just came out of him, and he smoldered and smoldered all over, and turned black as charcoal, and he was such a really skillful blacksmith![12]" The latter incident is used in the book as a metaphorical device.
In the novel Bleak House Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. The story is told partly by the novel's heroine, (1853) by Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and he remains popular, responsible for some of English literature's most iconic characters, the character Krook is killed by spontaneous combustion, "engendered in the corrupted humors of the vicious body itself." Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who helped pioneer the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869–1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) and The Mysterious Island (1875) describes in his novel Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen (1878) that when a fictional African "King of Kazounde" tasted a punch set aflame, "An act of spontaneous combustion had just taken place. The king had taken fire like a petroleum bonbon. This fire developed little heat, but it devoured nonetheless." Verne had no doubt about SHC being the result of alcoholism : "In bodies so thoroughly alcoholized, combustion only produces a light and bluish flame, that water cannot extinguish. Even stifled outside, it would still continue to burn inwardly. When liquor has penetrated all the tissues, there exists no means of arresting the combustion."
The fictional band Spinal Tap, known largely for the casualty rate of its drummers, had two drummers die of spontaneous combustion. Drummer Peter "James" Bond spontaneously combusted at the Isle of Lucy Blues-Jazz Festival, leaving nothing but a green globule on his drummer's throne. Bond was replaced by drummer Mick Shrimpton, who spontaneously combusted during Tap's tour of Japan.
See also
- Exploding animal
- Anomaly Anomalistics is the study of scientific anomalies. In computer science, anomaly detection refers to the process of detecting anomalies from the relevant data
- Combustion Combustion or burning is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of chemical species. The release of heat can result in the production of light in the form of either glowing or a flame. Fuels of interest often include organic compounds in the gas, liquid or
- Pyrokinesis Pyrokinesis, derived from the Greek words πυρ and κίνησις (kínesis, meaning "motion"), was the name, coined by horror novelist Stephen King for the ability to create or to control fire with the mind that he gave to the protagonist Charlie McGee in Firestarter. Critic S.T. Joshi describes it as a "singularly unfortunate
- Wick effect
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Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:20:56 GMT+00:00
Creamer Media's Mining Weekly These include research into the reduction of spontaneous combustion , improving the efficiency of mining activities, and the capture of ventilation air ...
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new This started as a joke about being zombie hunters and I actually wanted to draw out friends as zombie hunter people i might complete it I might not It s all about having fun really Su yin gets a picture cause shes the only one who makes me draw And offers critique And all that other useful stuff So yay
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Sat, 13 Jul 2002 23:00:00 GM
Naked Scientists Podcast -14th Jul 2002 - Chemist John Emsley discusses phosphorus. Discovered when early alchemists boiled up urine, looking for gold, and instead found a substance that . spontaneously. ignited, phosphorus has since ...
