I have been searching the net and Ratskep for any plausible or conclusive explanation to the phenomena we call Spontaneous human combustion. Some of the the hypothesis are, static electricity, cigarettes, or high levels of alcohol in the blood.

Any thoughts on this strange, mostly unexplained phenomena?

Just one. It doesn't happen.

The most plausable explanation so far is The Wick Effect.

Listen to the Skeptoid episode on the subject too.

Animavore wrote:Just one. It doesn't happen.

Seconding that. No such thing.

shimwah wrote:Any thoughts on this strange, mostly unexplained phenomena?

It's totally explainable. Think about it: Cell phones, radio waves, television waves, microwaves, x-rays, they're all flying around us all the time. Now imagine all of those waves happened to converge on a single spot AND you happen to be standing there...WOOF!

The evidence:

We discussed this on a thread I started earlier this week. An Irish quack found no other explanation for a recent case, case written off as SHC...


Sent from my iPhone using Magic, or somesuch.

I have actually had the displeasure of seeing a victim burned to a crisp on their living room chair while the rest of the house was left intact. I don't remember the exact theory of why the person caught on fire, but the story goes something like this:

A disabled elderly woman was trying to light up a cigarette or something similiar. She manages to catch herself on fire and burns alive. Since the house was air tight, the fire consumed the oxygen within the house or room and subsequently extinguished.


So, there you have it, burn victim with an intact house. Mystery over.

There was a brilliant QED program about this about twenty years ago that explained it in terms of completely natural processes, chief among them, as Bribase has pointed out, being the Wick effect. They did a conclusive experiment with a pig carcass that demonstrated it beautifully. Most interesting aspect for me though, is that SHC is a cultural belief: one French expert on the show was saying "Why is it that in the English-speaking world, you are so hung up on the phenomenon? As an idea, it exists nowhere else..." or some such.

I blame Charles Dickens.

Not entirely English - Emile Zola had a go, with an old soak drinking too much brandy and catching fire. I can't remember which novel it was in.

Oeditor wrote:Not entirely English - Emile Zola had a go, with an old soak drinking too much brandy and catching fire. I can't remember which novel it was in.

Doctor Pascal. I've never read it though.

Well this is something that I believe. Humans have oxygen, fat,oil, heat and methane in our body. Its not hard to imagine that too much heat could ignite our entire body...

I think it is a clear warning to those people who think it funny to hold a match near their arse & fart. A simple backdraft & you're toast!

It's not what you believe or what you can imagine. It's what you can provide evidence for. And nobody has ever presented any for SHC.

I was always told it was people who wear to many jumpers and cardigans overheating!

If you think it's real, try phoning an insurance company to add it to your life assurance policy. The silence you hear is them having hung up on you.

chairman bill wrote:I think it is a clear warning to those people who think it funny to hold a match near their arse & fart. A simple backdraft & you're toast!

Blowback. It can really fuck you up.

Louiesan wrote:Well this is something that I believe. Humans have oxygen, fat,oil, heat and methane in our body. Its not hard to imagine that too much heat could ignite our entire body...

We've also got a lot of water though, which makes up about 65% of our body mass, and you can't easily burn something that's two thirds water.

When you consider that, in a crematorium, it takes temperatures of around 1000 degrees Celsius sustained for over an hour to burn a body, it's hard to imagine a spontaneous process that could supply the necessary amount of energy.

Louiesan wrote:Well this is something that I believe. Humans have oxygen, fat,oil, heat and methane in our body. Its not hard to imagine that too much heat could ignite our entire body...

The question, of course, is what constitutes "too much heat." A normal room temperature does not meet the standard.

shimwah wrote:I have been searching the net and Ratskep for any plausible or conclusive explanation to the phenomena we call Spontaneous human combustion. Some of the the hypothesis are, static electricity, cigarettes, or high levels of alcohol in the blood.

Any thoughts on this strange, mostly unexplained phenomena?

I had been under the impression there were documented cases but, upon checking, every case has had some highly suspicious circumstances. So I'd guess first we would need some conclusive evidence that it is a phenomenon that happens to begin with.

Louiesan wrote:Well this is something that I believe. Humans have oxygen, fat,oil, heat and methane in our body. Its not hard to imagine that too much heat could ignite our entire body...

Except for all that pesky water...

Try to light a piece of steak on fire sometime.

Surely a great deal just comes down to an inaccurate name - there's no evidence that burning is spontaneous, yet the phrase continually suggests some Great Mystery when there doesn't appear to be one.

Matt_B wrote:When you consider that, in a crematorium, it takes temperatures of around 1000 degrees Celsius sustained for over an hour to burn a body, it's hard to imagine a spontaneous process that could supply the necessary amount of energy.

Though you have to bear in mind that in a crematorium, having a lot of burning gas requires a decent airflow, so a lot of heat will be escaping the chamber.
Presumably, in a crematorium, the main idea is to burn at temperatures where the exhaust gases are fairly unobjectionable rather than smelling like a culinary disaster.
Also, how much is the temperature related to some destruction-related ideal, rather than simply being the temperature that gas burns at in air?

If placed in a furnace, how much effect does the gas temperature have on the rate of destruction of a body is the relationship simple or potentially complex?
There's a limit to how fast heat will conduct inwards - once tissue gets to ~100 degrees, it will dry out, but once it is dry, if it is charred by intense heat, can that sometimes have slowing effects on the rate of heat transfer?

I suggest that someone would have to have knowledge enough to competently address all those points and probably many more before declaring something Truly Mysterious rather than merely beyond their own understanding.