The Bizarre Phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion: Is It Real or Myth?

today's video is brought to you by vessi I'm going to tell you more about them a little bit later on they make shoes though could you guess I'm holding up a shoe Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of decoding the unknown as always I'm your host someone say one of my writers in this case Katie thank you Katie it's written me a script the bizarre phenomenon uh spontaneous human combustion is it real or is it a myth wasn't there like an X-Files about this uh or like a CSI or something and there was like a burned body and they were like but doesn't marks anywhere and I think with CSI and then they come across like a totally reasonable explanation people don't just catch on fire right I mean I'm open to this one maybe there's some science there maybe there's some cool examples let's just jump in [Music] I didn't give my inevitable device too much thought as a Char but when I did I presumed I would go out in one of three pretty specific ways 1. death by swallowing gum I don't remember who told me this but I was pretty certain as a kid that if you swallowed chewing gum a bubble gum you would die what the f no one to have told me this it was always like oh if you swallow that it'll be in your tummy for like seven years that's what everyone said and that turned out to not be true at all people swallow gum all the time nowadays if I'm in a pinch I'll swallow gum because I know I'm gonna poo it out real soon it's like I've got like years and years of gum in my tummy I feel like tummy is quite a childish word for it isn't it that's what I call like I've got two kids and it's like ah in your top top foreign I suppose it's just like stomach but I kind of mean the whole system intestinal tract at all why I continued to merrily Chomp on Hubba Bubba in orbit when I knew I was dancing with the devil on a very slippery slope I have no idea can you imagine if that was true no one if every piece of chewing gum had like a little arsenic thing inside arsenic is that what kills you cyanide cyanide I mean arsenic does kill you as well right but not like it's not like a suicide pill there'd just be a tiny little suicide Builder there and if you accidentally swallow that gum death instant death no one would be chewing their gum no matter how good it tastes orbit would have a real marketing nightmare I think I thought it would somehow settle over my windpipe or something but anyway Cube blind panic when accidentally swallowed a piece while on holiday with my grandparents I spent a couple of minutes in floods of Tears because I've never seen my parents again about 30 seconds feeling relieved that I was in fact still alive and the rest of my life forgetting all about it number two the IRA oh my god oh okay like I was I'm a bit too I think in the last episode I recorded Katie said that she was I think seven or eight years older than me perhaps and the IRA like the terrorist bombings in like London and stuff where they put bombs in bins I think I was really too young to understand this but if I was a few years older I think I probably would have got it living quite near London in the 80s and 90s I was vaguely aware of terrorist bombings happening not too far from my home so getting blown up by the IRA it was always a low-level threat on my radar every time a bomb went off it would kind of be scary for a while I'd be reluctant to go outside even to the nearest park to take the dog for a walk as it had a bin in it that I thought could house a deadly explosive yeah the bin bombs was a big thing I definitely remembered that and then they made these fat bins which apparently it's almost like because they just put a bomb inside a bin and then wait for it to go off on a timer or whatever they built these like bomb-proof bins which were these massive things that apparently could contain a bomb which is kind of cool must have been a hassle for the trash people going to open up bomb bins every day I even briefly considered sleeping with a knife under my pillow how this would protect me from the IRA I had no idea and luckily I was more worried about accidentally hurting hurting myself in the night so I never went through with this plan then after a while probably like a day or two in actuality I decided that I couldn't live my young life in fear anymore so Fu Ira I was going to take my dog for a walk awesome my dad probably just told me to take the dog out and being an obedient child I did what I was told be like sure Dad I'll take the dog to the park even though I know I'm going to my my death by that dog bin with a bomb inside it Dad um boom 3. spontaneous human combustion if you know you know as a child I had many a book from charity shops or local Fates about paranormal Supernatural and unexplained things but there was one particular image that has stayed in my memory from the instant I saw it a shoe a leg and nothing apart above it apart from ashes the unfortunate occupant of the only lightly damaged room had apparently been a victim of spontaneous human combustion where a person could basically go up in Flames at any time Kate Katie you and I worry about really different things when we were kids I don't think I really worried I'm trying to think back now on things I worried about drowning I think I was really afraid of deep water as a kid I didn't even want to go in the deep end of the pool and I don't know I'm a good swimmer and like so I don't really know why I worried about that but I definitely didn't have these in-depth thoughts about the IRA or like terrorist bombings or spontaneous human combustion I did I I did think about death I yes um but not like the specifics of how it would happen so what we're trying to figure out today is is this a real thing was I justifiably worried about it happening to me or are there other more reasonable explanations to be found also do not Google this if you don't want to see some pretty disturbing images luckily my retinas were burned away many years ago so I could handle it but maybe don't go looking if you're just about to eat okay let's get to the burning questions yeah that you sometimes see on Google Images like where that filter the the safe search field hasn't worked or whatever I've seen something and I'm like I don't I don't like thinking about it I don't like it like I don't know how and it just I still think about it to this day I somehow saw bodies after an airplane crash like there was a big airplane crash and then there was like the the wreckage I still I don't know like that is something I never wanted to see and it was years and years ago and I still think about it thank you Google I mean sorry business Daddy but can you sort that out have you ever had that stinky feeling you're walking through the rain you could feel your shoes getting so Thrice to have this you'll be like oh no I stepped in a puddle and there's a little hole in the front or whatever and now my socks all wet it's just miserable well look good news everybody vesi now exists vesi is a brand of sneakers that will change your life that's what they say in the copy that they send me but it is entirely true since Bessie started sponsoring me a couple of years ago now two three years ago I have won nothing else they sent me this first pair of shoes like a few years ago it was black this like white salt it looks super cool I wore those shoes for every day for a year it didn't matter what I went to went out for a nice dinner put my bessies on because I wanted to wear nothing else then they started being like Simon we'll send you some more shoes like hey you can try out our other styles they have so many stars and they're all awesome oh and the whole point of that story at the beginning is besties are 100 waterproof I don't know if they said that they're made out of something called dime attacks which is what do they describe it as dual climb knit material um that's complicated science speak for uh they keep your feet warm in the winter and cool in the summer I wore those shoes I wear these shoes all year it doesn't matter see these bigger ones they look super warm I haven't tried these in the summer yet but I guarantee you you wear these in the summer your feet won't be sweaty and hot it's just what they see do and it's amazing and it doesn't stop there Bessie shoes are also grippy so uh look if it's uh raining out or even a little bit icy you're gonna be fine they've got loads of stars to choose from I think these are called the boardwalk pair these are new they just sent me to these to me these are like these cool classic sneaker look these ones black kind of sporty that's cool I've also got a pair just like this that I wear to the gym actually fessies for All Occasions with Messy shoes you can enjoy every moment without worrying about wet feet so try best issues for yourself an experienced dry feet always use the code unknown to get 15 of your order at bessie.com unknown there is a link below and now back to today's episode what is spontaneous human combustion anyway if you've never heard of this or aren't quite sure what's go what we're going on about here's a bit more information spontaneous human combustion is a rare but document phenomenon okay with approximately 200 examples of it in the last 300 years or so okay that's not I mean it's not very many but it's not none it's basically where a person will suddenly Catch Fire for no apparent reason with no apparent outside sources hence the spontaneous part the body the person will burn at such a high and intense temperature that they're soon reduced to a pile of Ash although creepily unburned lower legs and hands are often found at the scene I mean we've got a lot of energy in us right I remember doing a video a while ago which describes how much calories the different human body parts had I don't know why I made that video it seems a little bit disturbing doesn't it but there's obviously a lot of energy in us but it's gonna we need to get pretty hot to burn that nearby furnishings and other items often remain unburned and there's not a trace of any accelerant or external source of the fire while it's popped up in literature from time to time as a way to create a slightly ridiculous character death spontaneous human combustion is a real thing is an idea that has refused totally die off in our cultural Consciousness the coroner in Ireland gave a ruling of spontaneous human combustion as recently as 2011. really coroners are like scientists okay let's go so let's take a look at some famous examples of victims of spontaneous human combustions if we can learn anything about more learn anything more about why it might occur I'm I'm increasingly open to this one let's see what happens go apparently the earliest documented example of someone going up in Flames for no obvious reason comes from Italy around 1470 a night called polliness vorsteus God people back in the day had sick names didn't they like I just feel like if my middle name was Maximus I'd be better just did everything Simon Maximus Whistler maybe I should have had that should I have that put on my ID yes Queen yes Queen yes Queen foreign I think you could do that without even like officially getting your name changed because you just fill in the form you just put what's your middle name like I've mentioned this before my students ID throughout my entire time at University I have my middle name is Legend because on that first day of induction they just had a big form and instead of writing my real middle name I just wrote Legend in there legendary and because no one's even questioned it because no one's looking at it it just goes into a computer and it prints it out and no one ever questions that so the whole time it just said that and I'd tell people that it was true and that's that okay so this night dude was drinking wine with his parents when all of a sudden he started belching fire if this wasn't bad enough he then burst into flames in front of them a yikes scooting forward a few centuries we find another Italian victim Countess Cornelia zangari bandi born in March 1731 the contest went to bed and when her maid came to wake her the next morning she found nothing but a pile of Ash where a mistress used to be actually that's not quite correct as well as the pile of Ash that there were also both legs complete with stockings intact below the knees three fingers and the front of the countess's skull holy sh the Countess had a bad time and listen to this part of the translated report from Reverend Joseph bianchini about the state of the countess's room the whole Furniture as well as the bed was spread over with moist and Ash color soot which are penetrated into the chest of drawers even to foul the Linens oh no not the Linens oh no oh no the Countess has litted she's gonna be so upset oh wait no no no it's her Ash isn't it neither soot was also gone into a neighboring kitchen and hung on the walls movables and utensils of it from the pantry a piece of bread covered with that soot and brown black was given to several dogs all of which refused to eat it in the room above it was moreover taken notice that from the lower part of the windows trickle down a greasy loathsome yellowish liquor and there about they smelled like a stink without knowing of what and saw the soot fly around oh my God people in the past were you just stringing random words together and hoping that it made sense because that is the hardest thing to read I've ever read it was remarkable that the floor of the chamber was so thick smeared with a glueish moisture that it could not be taken off and the stinks spread more and more through the other Chambers also people in the past who just randomly capitalizing words what's going on Rose the glueish moisture by the way was the melted remains of the countess so loathsome that sticky glue that counts as his body one of the most famous recent examples attached to the theory of spontaneous human combustion is that a Florida resident Mary Risa in July 1951 after having a social evening the night before Mary did not answer the door when a telegram was delivered to her a landlady went to check on her and found the front knob to her apartment was very hot worried about a tenant being trapped in a burning home she got help to break down the door inside they found the charred remains of Mary Reeser in a far damaged champ but the rest of the apartment got off pretty lightly according to the landlady Mrs Carpenter quote Mrs Reese's 170 pounds have been reduced to less than 10 pounds of charred material only a left foot remained intact still wearing a slipper burnt off at the ankle but otherwise undamaged also found were a liver oh my God now fused to a lump of vertebrae oh my gosh date oh and stranger still no skull shrunk to the size of a baseball by the intense heat no way a skull can shrink in intense heat that's crazy the visual lab report stated that there were quote no signs of oxidizing chemicals petroleum hydrocarbons or other substances used to initiate or accelerate combustion but there's plenty of fat in us right and fats vary energy dense like when you're if I'm cooking a steak and there's bat in the pan and I'm using a blow torch to like sear my steak a little bit that fat can catch on fire that seems reasonable but whether it can burn to like such a hate to burn bone I mean that's really hot the circumstances and state of the body seem to flummox the police who contacted the FBI to investigate further as well as asking for specific tests on various bits of evidence chief of police J.R Reichert ends the request by saying quote we also request an informational theories that could explain how a human body could be so destroyed and the fire can find such a small area and so little Damage Done to the structure of the building and the furniture in the room not even scorched or damaged by smoke the FBI did do an investigation into the death and while they agreed that no accelerants or other evidence of a fire starting could be found they recorded that the fire likely started for an external source and therefore was not a case of so-called spontaneous human combustion eventually Mary Reese's cause of death was given as accidental okay so I feel like there's got to be a spark right your body's probably not very good at getting at creating enough heat to cause spontaneous like a spontaneous spark right although I feel like we could definitely do it like if we got two bones and started rubbing bones together that's gonna get pretty hot right and we've got bones inside us so what if there was like a joint that was rubbing in a weird way or something and you were doing a lot of work with it that's going to create a lot of friction that could potentially create enough heat to set some fat on fire maybe I might I'm probably that's probably well off base isn't it [Music] smart that does it doesn't seem unreasonable does it another famous case was that the Pennsylvanian Doctor John Irving Bentley in December 1966 a man popped round to see Dr Bentley's meter and as the 92 year old was getting on a bit he said that the meter reader could let himself in down in the basement then pound a pile of Ash could smell something kind of sweet it could see a light blue smoke a bit worried he went upstairs to check on Dr Bentley and found only Dr Bentley's right lower leg with slipper attached oh my Lord how quickly did this guy burn when the meter person comes to my house they're only for like 30 seconds they're like hello they look at the meter they scan it with some device and then they leave how quickly did odd Dr John die burn entirety there was also his walking frame and a hole in the floor it seems that Dr Bentley had burned up with such intensity that the fire burns a hole through the floor the ash in the basement was the cremated remains of the doctor while it seemed likely that he had set himself a light because he was a pipe smoker his pipe was actually found in the room next door well maybe he had more than one pipe I Granddad had many pipes I never met him because he died probably because he smoked too many pipes I died to buy some heart condition or something but my nanad for ages just this like Pipe Rack and it was full of different pipes and stuff that he must have smoked like a legend although it probably wasn't that bright of an idea to smoke if he had a heart condition did he wasn't it he was a doctor as well oh God I'm fairly sure is the picture of the remains of Dr Bentley that I saw in that book of mine but I couldn't find a picture online that exactly matched what I thought my memory was believe me I looked at a lot of images that come up for spontaneous human combustion and it and wasn't 100 sure if I was in fact remembering the image I'd seen correctly but this was probably the closest one yeah if you've thought of an image that you saw in your childhood and you've thought about that like many times over the years you're never going to be able to identify that image if you see it again because you've thought about it so many times that it's changed like loads of times you're not gonna be able to do it like with much degree of certainty one example that was Witness by someone else happened to be poor Genie surfin in September 1982. while the 61 year old was sitting in a chair at home in Edmonton England a father and brother-in-law witnessed her suddenly burst into flame while they managed to put it out and get her to a hospital she died a few days later from conditions arising from her Burns this case is held up as a major example of spontaneous human combustion as Genie was reported to have Sparks flashing from her eyes her clothes were unburned and there was no external heat Source anywhere near to where she was sitting isn't another thing that could potentially cause this I don't know if it's the case today but didn't people back in the day or I mean even today maybe use like uh gels like or um creams that are flammable like they're petroleum-based jellies and stuff I mean it's right there in the title and if you're like rubbing that over your body for like skin care or whatever you're kind of just rubbing petrol all over your body on you which seems a bit risky the recent example from Ireland where the coroner gave a verdict of spontaneous human combustion happened in Galway in SEPTA in December 2010 76 year old Michael Flaherty or possibly fahati was found burnt to a crisp in his home with no other damage to the room apart from the floor and ceiling directly above and below here he was lying on his back with his head near a fireplace a fireplace you say aha however thorough investigation of it by fire officers determined that this was not the cause of death no trace of accelerant or evidence of Foul Play were found leading coroner Kieran McLaughlin to record the surprise verdict quote 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 may you can also just write deny samoico on fire you don't oh just go I'll go for it whatever I don't mind seems to me that he spontaneously human combusted how it happened no idea some adequate explanation come on people there must be some reason why these people have gone up in Flames so let's just think about this a spontaneous human combustion was a real possibility that could happen to practically anybody at any time why doesn't it happen more often there have been around 200 reported cases but a lot of these pretty anecdotal or have been tacked on even though the cause of death might have been something else although play devil's advocate for a second there are some examples that don't make the tally as a coroner decided that spontaneous human combustion or shc as we'll refer to it just wasn't a believable explanation how many more examples would there be a body's inexplicably bursting into flames if coroners were a bit more open-minded I have no idea but my research indicated that at least a couple more could be thrown onto the pile still not exactly statistically probably a thing that's going to happen to anyone I also saw somewhere that if it were possible for humans to spontaneously Converse I.E catch fire with no external Source then surely there would be the possibility for animals to do it too we never see that happening and there are lots of animals around think of all the answers have you ever seen one go out in a blaze of glory that wasn't induced by a magnifying glass surely someone somewhere would have witnessed just one animal self-cremating at some point in time not don't all call out at once yeah that's totally fair that is a really good Counterpoint to this and I'm like quite into this one I'm like this seems like a thing I hope there's a cool scientific explanation why people catch on fire but it's like yeah why aren't all the animals doing it and maybe it's just people just getting burned doesn't that seem more likely although what is causing like for it to be such a thorough thorough burning how does that happen so anyway there's no doubt that all these people did in fact Catch Fire and their bodies ended up burning a crazy amount like way more than they should so let's look at some of the reasons people have thought of over the years to explain how a person's body might set itself on fire going way back one of the common explanations for shc given was that it was divine or maybe even Supernatural intervention wait that's for a moment I was like did Katie say scientific reasons no no she just said reasons can we so we could still be like it's God God did it you know well Johnny Briggs was being a mean old Miser so the Lord did doth strike it down and reduced him to a pile of Ashes with one leg sticking out classic Briggs deserved it let's face it if this was a way of striking down evildoers it probably would be happening a bit more frequently and to people who were actually known to be evil rather than just a few random pensioners minding their own business at home Supernatural or divine intervention aside is there something going on internally in our bodies that could in fact us to combust it's a pretty scary thought as who knows what's bubbling away inside there we produce gases that's true so is there a chance these gases could somehow ignite and cause us to go up like a Roman Candle you may have witnessed people lighting their farts for example heck you may even have done it yourself I thankfully have never been a witness to this tomfoolery but I do know that it's definitely possible yeah I've never done it myself I have seen people do it yeah but no I'm I'm good like one of my fears I don't know if this is actually a Justified thing is like and this is also another thing that I was told when I was a kid and I have no idea if it's true like thinking about it is if you light something on fire like uh we I I did this until I found out this other thing like with all light our deodorant cards on fire so you'd like spray it and then you'd light it it'd be like a giant flamethrower you'd scare this that are people with it you better but then I heard that it can like suck back into the can so you'll be like holding it and then it'll wash it back into the can and blow the whole thing up in a crazy explosion and I just always believed that that was possible and now I'm realizing that's probably not possible Right so I believed with the farts that if you lit your fart it could get sucked back inside and blow you up from the inside it's not really possible is it there be methane oxygen and hydrogen in your farts which if introduced to a source like a cigarette lighter can briefly be set alight it's not a great idea to do this by the way I just don't think the victims of the so-called shc were sitting around flagrantly lighting farts in the privacy of their own crimes and it all got way out of hands yeah usually because it's like well I was at dinner with my parents or you're having a family dinner and then I caught on fire it's like uh were you uh lighting your farts a family dinner it's like bro it's not a frat house no here's a scary side note though in Japan in 2016 a woman was having laser treatment on her cervix what the [ __ ] is that I mean not what cervix is but laser treatment on it when a fire started causing her to get burned the hospital said that all of their equipment was in working order and blamed the woman for farting which led to the laser igniting of fire which quickly spread to other material in the operating room how unlucky was she I bet people fart all the time especially in uncomfortable or nerve-wracking situations such as being in an operating room this is something usually performed under local anesthetics and maybe she didn't have that much control over the situation also I personally suffer from nervous toot syndrome and yes which is something I totally made up and now it's a real issue if something's about to happen I'm a bit worried or nervous about well expect a little smell from my general direction I don't fart when I'm nervous I just fart all the time I've probably had a fart during this episode I'm on some drugs like uh statins to get my cholesterol away because it's too high and they make me party I take another drug not like a drug but it's like this little uh it's like wind pills or whatever it's only less windy you're welcome of that TMI usually I can get away with it but I've just remembered at University I did a weekly radio show which I was nervous about shout out to just a phase on urb okie dokie I wish I'd done that I always regret not doing that I'm not sure why I didn't like do the radio shows at University like University radio I think I'd have loved that and I just for some reason never signed up to it I did like uh drama and acting club and stuff but I never signed up to a radio I think I'd really enjoyed radio this is kind of what I do in a weird way there were also at least two other people in the very small Studio at the time but luckily we were all friends so I didn't die of Shame every time that happened sorry Katrina if it was dudes like I'll be on a trip with a mate of iron we're just being in the car and I'll just let one rip and if I'm in the driver's seat I'll hold the Windows like you know from the driver's control panel so that they can't like wind them down oh just on the highway people opening doors and they'll be like no no no child locks engaged man you're not then you're not getting out of this one okay so maybe it's not caught farts causing shc but what about the build up of gases or some sort of internal reaction it's not plausible over half of the body is made up of water meaning that a fire is not going to be able to start inside you know no matter how many bean burritos you might have eaten okay so look my watery rubbing bones together thing isn't causing fires and if we're talking methane buildup why aren't cows bursting into flame all over the place there is one theory that may be a tiny particle called a pyrotron could be the culprit in a 1995 book called Ablaze the mysterious fires of spontaneous human combustion what an attention-grabbing Title by the way author Larry Arnold posits that a tiny energy Unity called a pyrotron is all around us all the time but occasionally fuses with human atoms within the body causing a chain reaction cable of totally burning up a human being in the blink of an eye all I'm thinking is like bro I've never heard of a pyrotron before it sounds very sciency but it sounds like something you might just have made up let's see before you get all alarmed there is no evidence for the existence of this pyrotron and even if there were it would presumably have happened a lot more often and in front of actual Witnesses over the course of history wait I thought there were actual Witnesses haven't we had cases where people are like yeah no it happened to my mum happened to this dude or are these kind of light oh well I was I walked in and it already happened so there's is there actually any it was also far kind of like I wasn't directly there sort of situations right so what else is flammable and we come into contact with all the time how about alcohol in literary examples especially it seems that the victims of shc were generally drinkers if not full-blown alcoholics so does a long period of heavy drinking somehow saturate your cells and make your entire body more likely to catch fire no that's not how alcohol Works whether by internal combustion or via an outside Source not exactly drinking alcohol by itself does not cause one to become more flammable even if you're saturated in ethanol it would just burn off not reduce you to a pile of Ashes one of the earliest founders of organic chemistry Justice Von liebig it's unfortunate if you're a scientist and your name is lie big experimented with whether the human body was flammable all the way back in 1851 his conclusion no it's not anatomical specimens were usually preserved in Solutions of 70 ethanol but when he tried setting them on fire the ethanol eventually burned off but the tissues weren't really burnt in any significant way in a piece by Brian J Ford for the microscope titled solving the mystery of spontaneous human combustion Ford also states that Justice Von leibig quote injected ethanol into rats over very prolonged period before trying to set them on fire but found that even the rats didn't burn well I guess that proves that also our psycho is that what you'd end up I'm injecting rats with ethanol and then I'm gonna set them on fire bro are you a scientist or a sadist holy sh all right I think we've explained that it's unlikely if not impossible that human being can just catch far spontaneously I.E without the introduction of an external Source putting that aside for the moment let's now focus on what happens during so-called spontaneous human combustion I.E the fact that a body is reduced to ashes in a short space of time with the exception of the lower legs and sometimes the hands how is this possible does it happen so fast that the victim has no time to get help why is it localized to a body while much of the surrounding room remains intact but their commonalities between victim that we can point to to help with our explanation what has kept mediocre actor Keanu Reeves on the A-list of late so harsh wow that yeah that is brutal that's so harsh because Keanu Reeves is such a good guy and I'm not going to comment on his acting but that's really means the answer that covers all these questions is the wick effect hope you got it Simon yes yes I don't particularly enjoy the John Wick movies I'm not sure why like I went to see when I was just like not particularly enthralled by it and I like action movies like I and I like stupid action movies I'm a big fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger so I mean stupid action movies I like his thing and they're great except a Terminator which is a brilliant film it's not stupid in any way yeah but I don't know why I didn't like John Wick anyway let's move on to the wick effect I like your joke as well Katie well done the wick effect scientists favorite rebuttal or explanation for the phenomenon known as spontaneous human combustion is something called the wick effect you might be thinking of a candle wick and you're correct you know how a candle burns slowly for extended period of time but the wick giving the flame something to feed on and the wax melting due to the heat of the flame well given the right circumstances that's what can happen to a human body basically the wick effect is when a human body is ignited somehow with the clothing catching on fire first if the person remains immobile for whatever reason the fire will start burning the body melting the body's fat and this serves as more fuel for the fire eventually turn the body to nothing more than Ash and maybe a lot of melted fat this process can take several hours but could be sped up if there is accelerant on the clothing such as gasoline or spilled Spirits or if the victim has a higher body fat ratio overall the effect of the human candle is a long slow burn okay so that's human combustion the only thing we're arguing about is spontaneous here like what starts the fire and I'm telling happy to say that it's like not the bones jumping together or whatever stupid idea that I came up with but it's like okay so someone lit a cigarette cool and then the the human combustion can still happen with this Wick effect thing in Brian J Ford's piece for microscope he also suggests that it's actually naturally occurring acetone that is the main culprit in the burning process experiments conducted with pig abdomen soaked in acetone and set a light provided an almost immediate Fireball with results mirroring those found in shc victims and evidence of a blue flame also reported by some witnesses well you might be familiar with acetone as nail polish remover it's also present all over the place and we breathe it out all the time as fat breaks down in our body oh there you go I learned something today pregnancy may increase acetone levels in the body and higher amounts may be present in people with diabetes people who drink alcohol people on various darts and people who are just a bit run down okay acetone can also ignite super easily even at room temperature infected as a flash point of minus 17.8 degrees Celsius is that zero degrees Fahrenheit which means that can basically start a fire in an igloo never mind into your in your regular furnished home in case you've been wondering a crematorium reaches temperatures of over 980 degrees Centigrade or 1 800 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce the body to Ash in a couple of hours whoa does it take that long that's crazy body temperatures reach during a wick effect burning aren't quite so high but the bodies are generally burning for several hours if not overnight yeah so the ones of it being someone alive and then just like wrapped up in flame and then gone I'm pretty super skeptical about that especially when it doesn't cause any damage the surrounding place because you're gonna need like so there's gonna be a crazy amount of energy given off fire also prefers but prefers to burn upward rather than laterally which explains why there isn't much damage to other items in the room even if they're quite near to the victim yeah with a slow burn sure once the fire is consumed the human fuel it goes out leaving damage above and below the victim until whatever the person was sitting on but rarely traveling to other areas think about it unless it's a raging Inferno with a lot of Highly inflammable things next to it you can get pretty close to a normal fire without fear unless you have nervous toot syndrome I guess so how close have you stood to a fire to those marshmallows throw stuff in it or whatever most of the time the fast stays where it is and it's actually quite hard to keep a light experiments have been done to confirm this Wick effect because Pig's bodies are quite close to humans they are usually first in life to be burned the bar in the name of debunking spontaneous human combustion I'm not against animal testing and all the stuff and it's like I know we need to test on mice and all of that stuff but it's like why are we killing this big oh well we're just gonna see if we can uh spontaneously combust it it's a bit unnecessary isn't it can't we use it for bacon or something is that it honest sounds like these people just wanted to have a bit of a hog roast doesn't it is that what should we do well let's just roast it up didn't work so I guess we'll just have to roast this one and then have a delicious lunch yes Chaps in a test for the BBC's QED program in 1998 a dead pig was wrapped in a blanket and set on fire in a furnished room it actually took a while to get the pig to ignite but it was left to burn for several hours before being put out hmm I bet that's spelled good the remains of the pig were comparable to victims of shc in the main part of the body was nothing but Ash but the Trotters also remained also not much else in the room was damaged apart from a melted TV so let's talk about those remaining limbs the things that haunt anyone who's seen a photo of shc never mind actually seeing life this would be the legs there are quite a few different photos of shc victims online and in every one you can see at least one leg or foot completely untouched so how is this possible well there are a couple of things going on here this previously stated Fire Burns upward so it starts in the middle of the body somewhere by the time it's reached the top all the useful body fat has been consumed typically people's legs don't have as much fat and hands and feet especially are just skin and bone not giving the fire anything to feed on also it could be that as the fire burns through the legs higher up the lower legs drop off becoming the only unidentifiable sign the human was ever there that that's so dark suddenly can we link most of the cases with several common factors that can help us explain this phenomenon better why yes we can oh we're decoding this and I went into this being like Oh you know I'm open to it and now I'm like it's getting decoded so hard most of the reported cases going people older let's say 60 plus most of the cases happened when the victim was alone in their own home or room most of the victims were not Paragons of a healthy lifestyle having been known smokers haven't been witnessed having a Tipple the night before or with known medical conditions in most cases the victim does not appear to have actively sought help in many cases an external fire Source was near the victim such as a fire in the fireplace a cigarette lighter matches Etc exactly spontaneous no there needs to be an ignition Source let's decode a little further we can explain all these shc cases by saying that an external ignition Source whether that be a cigarette open fire even a spark from static electricity caused the victim to catch fire and due to their ability and other conditions such as body fat content clothing material Etc they eventually became the aforementioned Grizzly human candle but why wouldn't they be running around beating those Flames out like a mad person well maybe they were already dead or at least unconscious I mean think about it an elderly woman sits down in her favorite chair with a nighttime cigarette has a stroke or a heart attack and drops the cigarette and turns into a human candle there's nothing left autopsy so the cause of death cannot be determined even if the person is still alive or when the burning starts the rising smoke and Flames would soon render them unconscious or dead pretty fast this is all extremely reasonable so why did that Irish coroner why was he like spontaneous human combustion why not just say human combustion probably caused by uh dropped cigarettes or a spark from static electricity something you know not spontaneous decoding shc alright we had some examples of shc at the beginning of the episode let's get further info on them in case you were holding out that they were genuinely inexplicable Mysteries we'll start with a fire breathing Knight pollen as vorstius yeah this was also ages ago and people in the past are really bad at like writing down history and stuff so I'm pretty happy so kind of write this one off anyway but you're also Breathing Fire come on he's not Dragon don't be silly old Maximus here well this happened so long ago that we can't exactly rely on the story to be accurate exactly also it didn't even appear anywhere until around 1640 nearly 200 years later so yeah not exactly a contemporary account how about the 18th century Countess Cornelia zangari she left quite a gross mess for her maid to clean up if you recall oh yes the spoiled Linens oh no there were candles in her room and she had reportedly felt dull and heavy earlier that evening a bed cover was thrown back so Shamir felt unwell got up in the night and passed out or died coming into contact with a lit Candle on the way down and slowly melting all night long in the case of Mary dress up no accelerants were found and the strange circumstances of animated body with not much damage the rest of the apartment caused the chief police to call the FBI there were blankets and stacks of newspapers near Mary that remained untouched to paint on the wall behind her was not damaged ball lightning was thrown into the Knicks as a possible cause of death but has never been considered that likely wait I thought ball lightning wasn't a thing ball lightning is a real thing okay never mind um okay but it only happens very rarely and there was no evidence that it didn't Department as the window would have been broken what what the [ __ ] is ball lightning is entering Apartments through broken breaking Windows what the [ __ ] gotta do a video about that also investigators found no evidence of faulty or fried electrics or anything that may have started the fire but is actually quite easily explained if you take the landlady's report into account okay then let's go pansy Carpenter popped in to see Mary Reeser on the evening before her body was discovered she said the merrier told her she was a bit upset over something and had taken two second hour tablets I don't know what that is I guess it's about to be explained in the next sentence isn't it why do I even say these things this is a sleep medication and Mary also apparently said that she might take two more later so basically she was going to pretty much go out cold [ __ ] out so what are you up to tonight gonna take four sleeping Bill tablets and pass out cold brother like Jesus just go to sleep I know haha some people struggle to sleep don't be a diamond yes okay don't take four sleeping pills though don't get addicted to that she was also wearing a nightgown made of rayon during the FBI investigation they found something that they thought was probably the melted remains of a cigarette that lighter there we go so Mary had been smoking dozed off and dropped the lit cigarette on a nightgown rayon Burns slightly slower than cotton so this would have been perfect conditions for the wick effect to take place Jesus there's another reason not to take four sleeping pills because and have a cigarette or just in general because you'll be burning to death and he won't even wake up that's terrifying don't take that many sleeping pills always take enough sleeping pills that you could be like in an emergency be like oh okay I'll just get out of here Dr John Bentley was next on the list he was a known pipe smoker and while his pipe was found in a different room to his body it's not impossible that he got lit Embers on his clothes without immediately realizing maybe he had dozed off our smoking in bed and he woke up to find the founder to find himself a light he left the room but before being overcome by smoke going into shock falling or coincidentally dying from another cause he also would usually have matches on him somewhere so these far regarding Genie safin shared witnesses to her supposed spontaneous human combustion episode I thought okay that's the witnessed one okay her brother-in-law and father claimed that there was no heat or far sources anywhere near her and that her clothes were mysteriously unburned this tidbit comes from a book called The enchanting Flame by John Hamer however it was related by Genie's brother-in-law over a decade after the event so uh sounds super reliable that was sarcasm by the way really in a written report made at the time of her death her brother-in-law had stated that her clothes were definitely burnt okay well that is a more reliable contemporary report right there police responding to the scene also reported removing burnt clothing while the source of the fire has never been definitively proven Genie's father was a pipe smoker and apparently a window near Genie was open if a lit Ember had landed on her clothing the breeze could have fed it and her nylon outfit would have gone up causing severe burns clothes are not flammable these days right but if we get an ember our clothes not going to suddenly catch on fire we sorted that outright like beds and stuff and couches they've all got to meet these like fire codes if you unlike cigarettes if you drop a cigarette now it doesn't burn stuff right because they changed how cigarettes work or something to uh to stop house fires which is why there aren't that many house fires although an apartment down my street caught fire there was a I'm always like there's not that many fires there's not many fires and I suppose the only fire I've ever seen or been aware of near to me except for my parents when I was a kid we had this big hedge all the way around the border of the property so the house like sat in the middle and then there was this big hedge that would go all the way around like maybe it's just on like the bottom side of the garden but it caught a fire when I was a kid I barely remember it it was just like a story told years later and the fire brigade had to come around to put out this hedge which it caught on fire it was like some really super hot summer and everything was super dry or something and uh yeah and they let me use a fire Heist which I don't remember but apparently I I enjoyed there we go fun side fun aside Simon let's move on next while she was 61 years old Jeannie had the mental age of a child so she may not have been able to respond quickly enough to her situation to understand what was happening until it was too late she also didn't display the traditional characteristics of shc as there wasn't enough time for the wick effects take place a police officer on the scene however thought that shc could be the reason for her Catching Fire and her family then brought this up with the coroner the policeman said that maybe it was spontaneous human combustion and the coroner will be like yes and that's why he's a policeman coroner uh how did that go he probably didn't say that because it would make him look like a total penis but let's see he was a no-nonsense sort of guy however and said I sympathize with you but I cannot put down shc because there is no such thing I will have to put down misadventure or open verdict ended up going with misadventure that's how I want to die this adventure like what happened to this adventure or like the other horse play it's just around and died I imagine that's what the parkour guys get right you know when they fall off the building Miss Adventure play Genie's brother-in-law also stated that a father's pipe was unlitten at fresh tobacco in it presumably to Discount this as a source for the fire if it had fresh tobacco in it though doesn't that mean that it hadn't been smoking you before maybe the men knew very well the source The Blaze and just felt so guilty that they tried to blast the blame onto pseudo-scientific explanation of shc yeah sadly possible isn't it now on to the most recently called case of shc Michael flahati I mean surely the fire in the fireplace is the Smoking Gun here so to speak I don't know how the coroner investigators managed to rule it out and there are a number of ways in which the man could have set himself a light maybe you tried to retrieve something that accidentally fell in maybe some burning coal or wood fell out maybe accidentally fell or passed very close to the fire then regained Consciousness and moved further away only to collapse again all incredibly reasonable explanations which the police in Carla just didn't seem to consider for some bizarre reason dudes if there was some physical connection between his body and the fire it would probably have been turned up leaving no obvious trace or maybe he just set himself a light with a cigarette after having a medical episode spontaneous human combustion should I be worried if you're still concerned about the possibility of shc happening to you let's go through a quick checklist are you over the age of 60. this appears to happen to older people more frequently do you live alone this is probably a biggie as I'm sure many more cases of shc would have cropped up if a friend or family member hadn't been around to quickly help extinguish an accidental clothing fire do you smoke or have an open fireplace the good news for me no no and no if you answered no to all three questions congratulations you have a zero percent chance of dying from spontaneous human combustion in your home actually if you answered yes to any of the questions you also have a zero percent chance of dying of spontaneous human combustion in your home other than the smoke detectors could probably help a lot of so-called shc cases in their tracks as neighbors may be alerted earlier in the proceedings most of the famous cases covered happened in an era before smoke detectors were the norm as I grew up the threat of s h c receded for indeed I no longer believe it is a valid cause of death plus I currently live in the USA so I've got far more things to worry about than my Inland suddenly combusting harsh basically flammable clothing plus external ignition Source plus lack of movement from the victim can equal the wick effect with an almost totally burned up body apart from some practical practically untouched extremities I feel like the biggest takeaway from the episode today is don't smoke so let's wrap up with a quote from forensic pathologist Roger Bard who says the reality is that people can bust but not spontaneously what a relief thanks Roger's spontaneous human combustion one less thing to worry about yeah kind of like I said has started this one kind of thing and maybe this is a thing but no human combustion is a thing there's just nothing spontaneous about it thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Decoding the Unknown

Views: 277,084

Keywords: spontaneous human combustion reports, spontaneous human combustion secrets, spontaneous human combustion facts, spontaneous human combustion, spontaneous combustion truth, spontaneous combustion stories, spontaneous combustion st petersburg, spontaneous combustion today, spontaneous combustion secrets, spontaneous combustion fact, spontaneous combustion, human combustion, combustion truth, combustion stories, combustion secrets, combustion facts, facts matter, combustion

Id: bikLNAmoGwU

Length: 47min 14sec (2834 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023