Your take on spontaineous combustion?

And logic would where only possible ways take it also. Where you could recreate a identical ferensic scene.
I for one am stuck on bodies becoming that of candle and wick effect as the body fuels a constaint slow feed making airborn any carbon or even being so slow that it keeps reburning constaintlyleaving no ashes. Probably wrong.
Foul play maybe; using this as a scapegoat.
Molecular reaction of adversaty where circulation was not in some of these cases; quite adaquatly present within that leg that was no affected and left behind; and what was that state of where it seavered; was the inner part of the remaining body part burned or scared or cloted or what?
No but it is funny about that; that I have seen one or two documenteries on this and have never had been as far as I recall; the state of the part's openning.

One minute your sitting in your favourite chair ,the next your a pile of ashes on the floor,very strange but at least it saves on funeral costs. Possibly happens in a similar way as stacks of hay that build up temperature inside and ignite

Originally posted by MichelJCardin
I for one am stuck on bodies becoming that of candle and wick effect

It's definitely candle and wick effect.

This is confirmed.

And it's not spontaneous, there is always an ignition source.

Tests with pig bodies, very similar in fat content to human bodies, shows that pigs and humans have enough fat to burn the body exactly as seen. The fat is the candle and the clothes are the wick.

I don't buy the weak attempts at debunking it.

Eta buy that I mean the people who say we burnt a pig so we know for a fact that it does not exist just because wicking works that does not mean that it is what is happening in all cases or even any case untill proven some cases are but not all by a long shot.

Hay will spontaneously combust due to the growth of bacteria. The bacteria will generate heat over time until it gets hot enough to burn the surrounding hay. Which is why it is necessary to salt your hay while stacking it in a barn.

I suppose something similar could happen to a human. Perhaps if the victims were heavy drinkers who enjoyed high proof liquor. If they had some sort of infected cyst where the bacteria could grow, and if the generated heat were able to ignite the alcohol in their system, it could be enough to also ignite the fat stored up in their body.

But I don't see how it could get hot enough to burn the body and bone to ash. That would take heat on par with an industrial furnace.

dont hold your farts in!! its the leading cause of spontaneous human combustion!

Don't see if the person was still alive how it could not have been I have held lighters on people and they usually scream and junp around etc... Unless they are unconcious or dead it's not likely your going to light their fat on fire. and if their fat is still in their skin its not likely to wick threw to their cloths with out them realising they are on fire.

The "problem" with the wick effect is that it is very difficult to get human flesh to actually burn. We see, in the case of many burn victims, that clothing will burn off long before it can effectively create a wick for burning flesh.

Thus - the source of ignition comes back into question. Why do all of the cases that fit into "spontaneous human combustion" involve a person who seems to have just died and caught fire where they lay? While there are some people who do, indeed, sleep deep enough to allow them to actually remain asleep through the ignition process... it seems rather unlikely that you would get an ignition source compatible with the wick effect and such a sleeper.

Of course - this could also be my bias against solving the mystery. Spontaneous human combustion is simply not as interesting of a concept if it's just "someone had a heart attack and a spark just so happened to land right and set them on fire, leading to the wick effect." That, to me, is just a stick in the mud.

So, I admit that I am simply not willing to let go of some of the mystique behind the phenomena. Surely, there are cases where the rank-and-file "heart-attack + spark = wick effect" simply doesn't cut it. I don't think every case of "spontaneous human combustion" is going to be the same... just like not every case of someone dying in a car accident is the same.

reply to post by iNkGeEk



Randy Marsh, best scientific mind in town.

Ireland has just had its first (official) case of human combustion. Interestingly there was "no trace of an accelerant" and there had been "nothing to suggest foul play".

Here's the BBC report...

BBC

reply to post by MichelJCardin


My personal take on human spontanious combustion is that its on a vibrational level, A VELE if you will. (Vibrational Ex tinction Level Event).We at one time assumed there was nothing faster than the speed of light which we now know is not true. We as humans just don't "know it all". Molicules have the ability to move faster than we know or can measure. Perhaps at some point these molicules speed up to a rate that is Explosive and so hot that a human body can be reduced to ash in a flash as if vaporized, leaving the chair or bed in which the body layed relatively untouched. Stepping outside the box, it may be imagined that something as simple as being in a devine presence at the moment of death could spirituall and therefor physically change the bodies molecular vibrational structure. Well .......at least Im considering what may be beyond our human perception at this time.

I think it must have something to do with the diet of the person. There must be something chemically going on.

We know the body is basically a lot of chemical reactions and also the body has nerve impulses which are electrical in nature.

We think of ourselves as this fluid fleshy thing that couldn't burn well, but under the right circumstances I guess we can.

As far as i know there is no eveidence of human combustion being "spontaineous".

I think the burning wick theory is probably the best explanation. I saw a pretty decent experimant done using a dead pig that proves the theory

forensic scientists are now convinced that the cause of such incidents is the so-called wick effect, started by a source as simple as a cigarette.

This means that in certain rare circumstances a human being can burn like a candle.

But the fact that human bones were completely destroyed remained a mystery, until now.

Even in human crematoria where temperatures are 700-1000 centigrade, the bones are not destroyed. Dr John de Haan of the California Criminalistic Institute used a dead pig in a gruesome experiment to show that small flames can consume a human being with the help of burning body fat.

The pig is prepared for the experiment

A pig was used because it closely resembles a human's fat content.

The pig was wrapped in a blanket and a small amount of petrol was poured on it.

After five hours of continuous burning the bones were being destroyed.

Dr De Haan said: "The sort of damage here is exactly the same as that from supposed spontaneous human combustion."

Pig's bones were destroyed after five hours

The scientists believe they demonstrated how a case of spontaneous human combustion can occur through normal processes on a person who has been knocked unconscious.

The wick effect means that a person could burn slowly without attracting attention from passers-by.

It also explains why only part of the body, the part which is rich in fat, burns while the rest stays intact.

I remember they as trouble putting the pig out at the end of the experiment because it burnt so well. There was minimal damage to the room they burnt the pig in just like actual human cases.

Spontaneous combustion is fairly common in many instances such as hay stacks and compost piles. The temperature generated during decomposition can cause the material to ignite.

Silane gas will ignite when it comes in contact with regular air.

However concerning human combustion I have a question. Are there any cases from before the end of the 19th century?

I know that the Women's Christian Temperance Union used the concept as a brainwashing tool.

"If you drink alcohol, then you could go up in flames."

It was the turn of the century version of the "Just say NO"

Are there any cases that have been documented before the anti-alcohol propaganda of the WCTU?