Preternatural Combustion
The first in a series on the true causes of Spontaneous Human Combustion
"What you have learnt," said the Patriarch, "will preserve your youthful appearance and increase the length of your life; but after five hundred years Heaven will send down lightning which will finish you off, unless you have the sagacity to avoid it. After another five hundred years Heaven will send down a fire that will devour you. This fire is of a peculiar kind. It is neither common fire nor celestial fire, but springs up from within and consumes the vitals, reducing the whole frame to ashes ...”
—Monkey by Wu Ch'eng-en
Spontaneous Human Combustion has always been with us, yet so total has been the suppression practiced by authority that few know more than rumor. True, it is rare, but it's a great deal more common than even some of its most dedicated researchers realize. I have never once examined a subject that has been so confused by the science deputies known as ‘debunkers’. Though SHC got considerable airtime in the 80s and 90s, it has vanished in recent years. So mightily has it been suppressed that the Reddit egregore can offer no consensus. Indeed, when it comes to SHC, they erupt into a firestorm of contradictory lies. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
In 2010, the Irish Herald reported on the Case of Michael Flaherty, a 76 year old pensioner that was found reduced to a pile of ash. The coroner determined the cause to be spontaneous human combustion.
“The inquest heard that the smoke alarm in the home of Mr Faherty's neighbour, Tom Mannion had gone off at about 3am on December 22 last year. Mr Mannion said he went outside and saw smoke coming from Mr Faherty's house. He banged on the door, but got no response. Gardai and the fire brigade were quickly on the scene.”
The time frame is key here, as you will see, it’s most likely the reason the coroner was reluctantly forced to such a diagnosis—
"I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation."
About 200-300 cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion have been reported. The markers of SHC are as follows:
1. The combustion occurs "spontaneously", with no external source of ignition. (There are some cases where a trivial source, such as a spark or a cigarette, were considered the cause of SHC)
2. There is almost total consumption of the body, along with bones, and even incineration of teeth.
3. SHC is known to occur indoors or outdoors, at any time of the day or night, but most cases do occur indoors.
4. According to eyewitness and survivor testimony, the burning does not cause pain during combustion.
5. Burning proceeds rapidly, starting at the trunk which is usually completely consumed. Most often, in conventional fires, the limbs are burnt first and the torso is left intact.
6. Certain extremities will usually escape serious burning; specifically hands and feet—and often the head—are never totally consumed.
7. The fire does little damage to flammable objects which are in contact with the body or close to it. Wooden floors, chairs, or even clothing near such bodies are merely scorched, and curtains or bedding almost touching the body are not burned.
8. The combustion of the body leaves a residue of greasy fetid ashes with an unctuous smoky odor and a fine soot.
9. The flame is light blue or silver, lambent, and recedes as one approaches the body.
10. Water, instead of extinguishing the flames, frequently increased their activity, causing them to burn more intensely.
Documented cases of combustio spontanea go back hundreds of years. According to the author Marcellus Donatus in book six of his 1613 De Historia Medica Mirabili ("Medical History Wonders"), a strange curse had befallen a place called Nineruam.
Donatus relates that in a much earlier historic text—Library 5 of Albert Krantz's Historia Saxonica—Krantz discloses that during the time of Godfrey of Bologne's "Christian War" (1096-1099 CE), the people of Nineruam were combusting with ethereal, unseen flames. Some of these people would cut off a foot or a hand where the burning erupted to prevent it from spreading further.