Perhaps one of the most bizarre things that can occur to a human is spontaneous human combustion. Victims can be doing anything, when they suddenly burst into flame. What adds to the mystery is that more often than not, the objects surrounding the victim remain unscathed, but the remains of the victims indicate that a very high temperature was involved in burning the victim. Experts have tried to explain this phenomenon but failed, and they have also not been able to find any connection among the victims.

Jack Angel of Atlanta, Georgia is believed to be the only victim of the phenomenon who lived to tell the tale.

Once a perfectly healthy salesman who earned $70,000 a year, Angel is today disabled and confined to his home – all because of a bizarre incident that happened when he was in Savannah on a business trip. While taking a nap in his mobile trailer, Angel was jolted awake by a searing pain as his body erupted in flames. When physician David Fern arrived at the scene to help the badly burned man, he found that Angel had a hole in his chest, fused vertebrae, and an arm so badly charred it could not be saved.

According to Fern, since no objects in the trailer were even singed, the only explanation for Angel’s injuries is spontaneous combustion – an unexplained molecular reaction that literally causes people to burn up.

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Incidents of spontaneous human combustion usually seem to occur behind closed doors and without any observers. For instance, the night that Cornelia di Bandi, an eighteenth century Italian countess died, some people noticed yellowish smoke coming from her bedroom. A maid rushed into the room, but found just a heap of ashes next to the bed. Only the countess’s legs seemed to have been untouched by the flames. And in America, a 27 year old Pontiac, Michigan welder was apparently in the process of committing suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide when he combusted – of course nobody saw.

According to experts, in fact, the first case with a bona fide witness occurred in 1982, when a Chicago man sitting in his car casually noticed a woman crossing the street. When he turned back for a second glance, she was on fire. Examination by bomb and arson investigators found no foul play involved.

While driving through Ayer, Massachusetts on May 12, 1890, Doctor B.H. Hartwell was stopped and called into a nearby woods. There he and other witnesses found a woman crouching as flames engulfed her body. Neither Dr. Hartwell or other witnesses were able to determine the cause of the fire.

Although there have been relatively few open admissions, Dr. Hartwell has not been the only physician to encounter incidents of spontaneous human combustion. At a Massachusetts Medico-Legal Society lecture, held in the autumn of 1959, many doctors said the had experience with spontaneous human combustion as well. The doctor who gave the keynot lecture was met with a round of applause and found that several doctors had also come across such cases as well. One doctor even said he came across cases of spontaneous human combustion once every four years.

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Christmas Combustion

In 1885, Patrick Rooney and his wife invited their son John and their farm hand, John Larson, to join them for a Christmas Eve drink. The four sat around the table, enjoying the whisky bought by Patrick in town. After a few more drinks, young Rooney headed back to his own farm, and Larson retired to his room.

Larson rose before dawn, even though it was Christmas morning to perform his routine chores. But when he walked into the kitchen, he found Patrick Rooney slumped in the chair where he’d been sitting the night before. He was dead. And Mrs Rooney was no where to be found. In a daze, Larson raced to John’s farm. When the men returned to the death scene, they found a three-by-four-foot hole in the floor. At the bottom lay the remains of the 200-pound Mrs Rooney, a burned piece of skull, two charred vertebrae and a foot in a pile of ashes. She had evidently been burnt to death, the two men concluded.

When the police and the coroner arrived, suspicion quickly fell on Larson, but no case could be made against him. The rising soot, they found, had left an outline on the pillow while he obviously slept through the ordeal. The coroner concluded that Mrs Rooney had been the victim of spontaneous combustion. Her husband had been asphyxiated by the fumes rising from his wife’s burning body.

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A case of apparent spontaneous human combustion has occured in Co. Kerry in the Irish Republic. On 24 March, 76-year-old John O'Connor was found dead in his living room at Gortaleen, near Tralee, by the community nurse who regularly visited him. She notified the Gardai, who discovered Mr O'Connor's charred remains in a chair positioned some distance from the hearth. The body had been severely damaged by anintense and localised fire; only his head and upper torso and his feet remained unburnt. There was little smoke damage to the room or furniture.

Local priest Fr Patrick McCarthey, who attended the scene, said it looked"as if somebody had poured petrol into his lap". Both a telephone and a community alert device were within reach, which suggests that either the fire took hold with great speed, or that Mr O'Connor was already dead when it started. He had last been seen late on the evening of the 23rd.

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