Irishman’s Death Ruled Spontaneous Combustion
EmailThe death of a 76-year-old Irishman has been ruled a case of spontaneous combustion, the BBC reported.
Michael Faherty died in his home in December 2010. His body was badly burned, but a fire in the nearby fireplace did not cause the blaze, forensic experts said. Scorch marks on the ceiling above the body and the floor below, and no trace of accelerant, led the coroner to return the controversial verdict, the first of its kind in Ireland, according to the BBC.
“This fire was thoroughly investigated and I’m left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation,” West Galway coroner Dr. Ciaran McLoughlin told a court Thursday.
Proposed explanations for spontaneous combustion range from static electricity to divine intervention. One theory, called the wick effect, paints a person’s clothes as a wick, of sorts, and their body fat as a fuel source. But the burning would take several hours, and many alleged victims have not tried to escape, the BBC reported. The wick-effect theory also fails to explain the absence of an ignition source or accelerant.
Some experts dismiss claims that such cases occur spontaneously, arguing instead that the flame’s source, such as a match or cigarette, must be masked by the badly burned body. But the mystery continues to captivate, as it has for centuries.
Charles Dickens described the haunting scene in his 1853 novel “Bleak House.”
“Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to be steeped in something; and here is — is it the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it coal? Oh, horror, he IS here!”
In 1951, Mary Reeser, 67, burned to death in her Florida home. Only her skull, left foot and ashes remained. But her apartment was intact, save some soot on the ceilings and walls.
“I cannot conceive of such complete cremation without more burning of the apartment itself. In fact, the apartment and everything in it should have been consumed,” Wilton Krogman, an anthropology professor who investigated the case, reported at the time. “I regard it as the most amazing thing I have ever seen. As I review it, the short hairs on my neck bristle with vague fear. Were I living in the Middle Ages, I’d mutter something about black magic.”
The police report claimed Reeser’s dressing gown had caught fire but no flame source or accelerant was found, the BBC reported.
Larry Arnold, author of “Ablaze! The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Combustion,” has three theories. The first posits that small, high-powered particles whizzing between the molecules of the body collide – an event he calls “the Internal Hiroshima Effect.” The second suggests kundalini, a powerful energy flowing up and down the spine, becomes unbalanced, triggering a temperature spike. The third theory, based on the geographical clustering of alleged spontaneous combustion cases, credits the phenomenon to energy anomalies in the earth.
“Although I am constantly speculating about what could cause those patterns to manifest, at this point I have nothing I can take into a scientific laboratory and reproduce under controlled conditions,” Arnold wrote in a February 2011 report in Vice. “This is essentially why it’s so easy for the experts and the scientific orthodoxy to dismiss spontaneous human combustion. It is truly spontaneous.”
Man Discovers He's a Woman at the Hospital 
Head Trauma, Behavior Problems Linked
God’s way of saying, “You’re fired?” ;-)
Posted by: WorkingClass | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 11:12 am
Thanks for quoting Larry Arnold–it’s nice to know we have true scientists on the case that you respect & admire.
Posted by: x x | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 12:22 pm
Instead of looking for the most unlikely cause, this coronor should be looking for the most plausible explanation.
There is not a single case of spontaneous combustion in modern times that can be proven to be anything other than caused by other sources. It’s the usual ‘non-science’ response – using anecdotal evidence instead of actual science. (the reason I say ‘modern times’ is that there’s no way to go back and use data from hundreds of years ago to truly determine what happened in reported cases back then).
There’s many ways that this can happen – all are very unusual and usually take many rare or infrequent conditions to occur in order to make it happen.
Go look up the very real science behind credible research on this issue and you’ll find out what I’m talking about.
Posted by: FormerMarineSgt | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 12:22 pm
no such thing, you must be running out of news.
Posted by: frenchie11 | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 12:26 pm
There is one item that it alone should discount spontaneous combustion: it has never been witnessed. If any of these theories were true and that a build up of static, or inbalance of energy, or whatever were true, there’s no reason to explain why these events couldn’t happen in front of witnesses. The fact that cases of “spontaneous combustion” occur only when the victim is alone should point to that there is a rationale explanation (e.g., a dropped match), but that all evidence is destroyed in the fire. It’s just my opinion, but I chalk all of it up to coincidence and statistical probability. If something happens enough times, anomalies are bound to happen.
Posted by: A | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 12:27 pm
That can’t happen–someone must have placed a spell on ‘em.
Posted by: Bob | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 12:39 pm
Is it possible that someone has figured out the perfect murder? Introduce elements that explode or burn once they are internal and all evidence is burned in the fire? I realize that the scientists look for that sort of thing, but one way or the other they have not found any solution yet.
Posted by: Judy | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 1:06 pm
“Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It’s just not really widely reported.” David St. Hubbins
Posted by: KCfla | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 1:12 pm
Where’s Monk? Get Monk in on this one.
Posted by: NotAbner | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 2:08 pm
The same people who denies 911?
Posted by: GARCIA | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 2:12 pm
We have some people here at work, if this happened to them we would probably never notice.
Posted by: johnB | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 3:03 pm
What a joke.
Posted by: Jenn | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 3:22 pm
Nothing surprising, spark came from the fireplace, the cotton gown acted as tinder and wick, and body fat as fuel. Indoor fat fires do behave weirdly. The victim may have already died and thus didn’t put out initial flame from ember.
Posted by: Ralph Siegler | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 3:26 pm
It can’t be divine intervention or priests who molested children would have been lighting up churches all over the world.
Posted by: Cassandra | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 3:45 pm
Did the guy work with any kind of pesticides or fertilizers? There was a story on Mythbusters a while back that proved if a mans clothes was covered in accelerant even if it was dried up it can ignite in a flash fire.
Posted by: Paulie | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 3:46 pm
“Instead of looking for the most unlikely cause, this coronor should be looking for the most plausible explanation.” Investigators DID look at the most plausible causes…and none of those causes FIT the evidence. I like Bob’s explanation – has to be a spell. LOL.
Posted by: puppyfeet217 | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 3:57 pm
Now there was a man that really did love his chilli hot…!
Posted by: Sandra MacMillan | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 4:11 pm
Hello! They were VAMPIRES!
Posted by: Duh | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 4:20 pm
“We have some people here at work who if it happenned to no one would even notice.” Now that’s funny!
Posted by: newcountryman | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 4:26 pm
This must be one post mortem diagnostic debacle that is not unspeculative enough to be discarded. I just hope that proponents of spontaneous combustion in humans would first try this theory on those lab rats before coming out to qoute Charles Dickens.
Posted by: Dr Nseobong Nkanta | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 8:13 pm
This can be caused by anti matter that must have strayed.
Posted by: BNKPrasad | September 23, 2011 September 23, 2011, 9:21 pm
Space aliens with a death ray.
Posted by: dadnamit | September 24, 2011 September 24, 2011, 12:31 am
There was a documentary on spontaneous human combustion a few years back. They even recreated a supposed SHC scenario using a dead pig (their flesh burns most like ours).
Basically, have somebody who can’t move (dead or unconscious), an accelerant and a few hours for the flames to be low and hot enough to consume as much fuel from the body as possible.
Apart from the very small burn circle around the victim, it also does weird things like melt the plastic from the TV in the same room (due to the high temperature).
As for a lack of accelerant… what if the poor man had some alcohol in/on him? Since ethanol would burn into carbon dioxide and water vapour, there would be no traces left. And a low flash point would mean he’d just have to be sitting too close to his fire.
Though, I’m not a forensic scientist or anything…
Posted by: Procrastinateher | September 24, 2011 September 24, 2011, 7:26 am
I note that all these cases involve old people.
Other than this one, most of these cases happened years ago, not recently.
Posted by: Tim Kramar | March 19, 2012 March 19, 2012, 12:28 am