To our proximate knowledge, we know that the sea-borne eels catch their prey with the help of the electricity, generated by their body. It has been observed that this particular marine species was capable of producing even up to 500 volts of electricity. But interestingly, at the beginning of the last century modern science had created a sensation with this revealing fact that the human body was also an excellent generator of electricity.

In his 1995 book “Ablaze!” Larry E. Arnold, a Director of Para Science International wrote that there had been around 200 cited reports of spontaneous human combustion the world over, starting from the seventeenth century until recent times. He also suggested a pseudoscientific new subatomic particle called pyrotron as a positive source for SHC. Besides, high level of alcohol in the victim's blood and high stress level in victim's daily life can be fatal for self combustion. Another study stated cases of automatic self-combustion owing to short circuits within the human body.

From the mythical point of view this auto-ignition of the human body was caused by the doppelganger, the soul of a person that dwelt in Hell. And when that doppelganger came out of the Hell and entered into the inner self of anyone and merged with his or her entirely that person ran the high risk of self–combustion.

In all of those cases of SHC, the witnesses had observed to their horror that without any related reasons or connections, the persons in front of them were charred to death. In our present age scientists have located few individuals who during their lifetime carried electricity at a dangerous level inside their bodies.

Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin was the first human who had made a written account of a case of spontaneous human combustion way back in 1663. According to his account in that year a woman in Paris while asleep, was burnt to ashes automatically. More interestingly the straw mattress, on which she had slept, remained unmarred by the fire. In 1673 a French man named Jonas DuPont published a collection of spontaneous combustion cases in his book, "De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis".

The conception of |Spontaneous Human Combustion was first proposed by Paul Rolli, a fellow of the Royal Society in 1746 in an article published in the Philosophical Transactions about the mysterious death of Countess Cornelia Zangheri Bandi.

In France, Angelic Kotin was famous by the nickname of “human electric eel ". For a period of four months, the level of electricity within her body was so high that anyone who touched her got electrocuted. In England whenever Pauline Shaw of Manchester touched anything metallic, that substance would turn into an electric carrier generating sparks all over its body. Before coming to terms with this newfound change in her physiology, she tried to clean the water in her aquarium using her bare hands. All the fishes had died instantly. In the town of Tamansk, Russia, the famous physiologist N. Vebdensky knew a person with whom anybody who tried to shake hands ran the high risk of getting electrocuted especially when the weather was dry.

In other reported cases of automatic self-combustion - combustion 77 years old Mary Reeser was sitting quietly on her easy - chair. It was late at night. But for some reason, she couldn't sleep. The night of 1st July, 1951was relatively hot. The landlady Mrs. Pansy Carpenter bid Mary goodnight at 9. Still, Mrs. Reeser sat on that chair quietly. The next day at 8 in the morning a telegram woke Mrs. Carpenter up. It was addressed to Mrs. Reeser. Mrs. Carpenter received that telegram, signed on the paper and went to Mary's room. But just after touching the door handle she freed her hands by a sudden pull and raised an alarm to which two of her tenants immediately responded and rushed to the spot. One of them covered that door handle with a piece of cloth and opened the door. A gush of hot air came out. At a glance no sign of fire was noticed anywhere in the room. But within a few moments, a portion of the carpet was found burnt out. Mary Reeser was sitting on that easy - chair exactly there. But now there was nothing left of her except a few springs from that chair. At the middle of that charred portion a skull, a backbone with a part of the lever stuck to it and a foot inside one of her shoes burnt up to the heel. Medical expert Gerald Callahan appealed to science to talk about “the fire within”. He proposed the mitochondria, minuscule organelles within our cells, which were the source of energy and heat production within our body, “the keepers of the flame”. Each of us “burns with a billion flames” and the fire was spontaneous. Callahan’s opinion was what one might take as a poetic presentation of cell biology in an account of the supposedly spontaneous combustion of Mary Reeser. The intimation was of mitochondria gone mad.

A similar incident took place in the October of 1980. Jena, an employee of the aviation section of the navy was out for a drive with a friend. Suddenly a flash of fire emerged out of her body. Her friend got frightened at that sight and at Jena's cry of terror. After much effort, she was able to put out that fire but by then the car had hit a telegraph post. Jena was saved in that incident.

The topic of SHC was discussed in the British Medical Journal in 1938. In his article L. A. Parry pointed out that in a book called Medical Jurisprudence published in 1823 the characteristics that had been found about the victims of SHC are: 

1. The victims are chronic alcoholics.
2. They are usually elderly females.
3. The body has not been burnt spontaneously, but some lighted substance had come into contact with it. 
4. The hands and feet usually fell off.
5. The fire had caused very little damage to the combustible things in contact with the body.
6. The combustion had left a residue of some fetid ashes, greasy and very offensive in order.

There seemed to be an out of this world element in those events. Sometimes they looked supernatural. But when something like that happened almost two hundred and fifty years ago, naturally that created quite an uproar.

The place was Rheims, the time 1725. The charred body of Nicole Millet, the wife of a feudal lord was found inside her room. At first her husband was held responsible. But after presenting all the evidence to the court, it took a lot of effort for the investigating doctor and philosopher Nicolas Le Cat to convince the jury that self-combustion was a reality and that Mrs Millet had died from that. Dr. Le Cat as fate would have it had stayed at Millet's house for four, five months from the end of 1724 till the beginning of 1725. He had left that house only a few days before Jeanne's death. Le Cat had noticed that the death of Jeanne's greatly resembled that of other victims of spontaneous human combustions. He observed that the fire in the hearth was insufficient to absorb the entire human body. More interestingly other articles near her remained completely unaffected by the fire. Le Cat had also observed that people, fallen in the fire and died from it were not completely burnt as was Madame Millet. In addition, according to the reports of the medical doctors who examined her, the origin of the fire seemed to have been inside the central part of her body. Le Cat pointed out a number of scholars who believed in spontaneous human combustion including for example, Francis Bacon who "saw the belly of a woman full of sparks". Le Cat included numerous cases that enabled him to suggest the frequency and geographic breadth of this strange event. A priest Pere Richer visited an underground grotto in Rome and saw sparks emanating from the head of his companions, overheated by the walk. The physician Johann Daniel Horstius wrote about a man named Antoine Godefroy who suffered from gout, Godefroy claimed that after suffering from a particularly violent bout of the disease he could rub his limbs and they would be "resplendent with light". Horstius also cited a woman who one day when very angry appeared to have flames all around her head. Another 17th century physician Ezekiel A. Castro wrote about the Countess Cassendre Buri from Verona whose shoulders shone with a luminescence after they had been rubbed with a handkerchief. Mizzanchelli, a medical doctor from Milan described a man who awoke to find his wife's body covered with a flame that moved about her body. After fifteen minutes the flame disappeared without having caused any damage. Giovanni Borelli, a 17th-century Italian savant reported a case in which flames appeared on a peasant when he was exposed to air. That was similar to Le Cat's thought to the kind of phosphorous common around Hamburg. He thought there was a sort of human phosphorous combined with various substances and found inside the body. In addition, there was an inflammatory effervescence which played the role of an active agent for all those fires. This effervescence was formed inside people of a certain age as a result of the sedentary in their lifestyle or decrepitude. Borelli also cited the example of a 17th-century woman who vomited fire to the point of death as well as how fire came out from the privy parts of a woman. Borelli also cited ancient authorities that suggested that such accidents happened to the great drinkers of wine and brandy. Besides, Le Cat was also of the opinion that aged people due to immobility, increasing drinking problems and laziness were susceptible to spontaneous combustion.

On the 27th of August, 1908 a blue ray of light came out of the body of the 22-year-old Phyllis Newcomb Chelmsford while she was dancing. Immediately afterwards it turned into a flash of fire and engulfed her entirely. Within the next few minutes, she was burnt to ashes in front of all eyes. In the next October of the same year, another girl named Maybelle Andrews died almost the same way.

A lot of explanations were made for the possible reasons behind self-combustion. During the eighteenth century, extreme alcohol consumption was held responsible. In the year 1976 Michael Harrison wrote a book named “Fire From Heaven “on this strange event. The book was an empirical study on the matter that included news, views and self-opinion related to self-combustion. Harrison mentioned few incidents where the bodies of some children turned into batteries or magnets and generated powerful electric fields all around them. In the London of 1877 a lady was suddenly turned into a human magnet. She could easily pull any metallic objects towards her. Some people even got electrocuted by coming into contact with her. Incidentally, the lady was suffering from severe depression during that period. In another telling incident, a gentleman named Frank started generating such a powerful magnetic field from his body that whenever he would set his feet on the ground, they got stuck. In 1846 a French girl named Cottin was turned into sort of a human battery. Whatever she touched used to rebound. Even it was noticed that when she stood in front of a huge handloom made of Oak wood, it started trembling.

An extensive two-year research project that involved thirty historical cases of alleged SHC was conducted in 1984 by science investigator Joe Nickel and forensic analyst John F. Fischer. Their two-part report was published in the journal International Association of Arson Investigators. Nickel has frequently written on the subject, appeared in television documentaries, conducted additional research and lectured at the New York State Academy of Fire Science as a guest lecturer.

Nickel and Fischer's investigation through the cases of the 18th, 19th and 20th-century incidents had made it clear that near all the burnt cadavers were present some possible sources of ignition, candles, lamps, fireplaces and so on. These sources were usually omitted from the accounts of those cases in order to deepen the aura of mystery surrounding the very concept of spontaneous combustion. It had also been observed that there were plausible connections between the victims and their state of intoxication or other sources of incapacitation that could have turned them unaware of the oncoming danger or incapable of responding properly to the accidental situation. The victims' clothes, blankets, chairs, chair coverings and floor mats could have worked as the additional fuel sources.

Static electrical phenomenon was also considered a significant reason. Although at the initial stage, these flames were harmless due to the lack of inappropriate fuel, in the suitable circumstances these flames reduced to ashes a full-grown human being. If the natural moisture

failed to quench them, these flames could arise inside us. At a meeting of the Royal Society on June 20, 1745, Paul Rolli declared, ".... a feverish fermentation, or a very strong motion of combustible matters, may arise in the womb of a woman, with such an ingenious strength that can reduce to ashes the bones and burn the flesh."

Another group of experts advocated preternatural combustion. Here the tissues took fire and were incinerated with extreme ease feeding themselves somehow to their own burning. The final result was an advanced degree of carbonisation without the aid of any heat derived from the consumption of combustible matter other than that of the tissues themselves. Several etiological factors were held responsible for this matter.

• Among men and women, the increased vulnerabilities of women towards these types of conflagration was their type of loose clothing that trapped large quantities of air that encouraged vigorous burning. In several cases, the victims wore night dresses.
• Most of the victims were extremely fat or bloated.
• Either the combustion started spontaneously or a slight spark had started it.
• Usually, the fire went upwards. But the entire combustion was spared, as victims' hair which happened to be a most combustible substance was spared. Whereas the liver and spleen were always burnt.
• Water instead of extinguishing ignited the fire more rapidly.

The "wick effect" hypothesis mentioned that possibly a burnt cigarette could have charred the clothes of the victim splitting the skin there and releasing subcutaneous fat which in turn was absorbed into the burnt clothing acting as a wick. This type of combustion could continue as long as the fuel was available. This hypothesis has been tested with the pig tissues and been present consistently with all the evidences of spontaneous human combustions. Human body has enough energy stored in the fat and other chemical compounds to burn a full grown body completely. This fat once heated wicks into the clothes and provided the ample fuel to complete the combustion. The feet of the victim don't burn because of their very small amount of fat resources needed to carry out the combustion. The same theory is applicable in case of the hands provided they rest on the victim's belly that provided enough fats to carry out the auto-ignition.

In the late hour of the Christmas Eve of 1885 at a residential house in Seneca, Illinois, Matilda Rooney was burnt to ashes while working in the kitchen. Only her feet remained unharmed. Strangely enough the fire didn't spread to the other parts of the room. It seemed to have started inside her body and stayed confined there.

In 1980 in Ebbs View, South Wales, Henry Thomas, a 73-year-old man was found burnt to death in his council house on Rassau Street. Most of his body was charred except his skull and legs

below the knees. The leg portions and the feet still were in trousers and socks. Half of the chair on which he sat was destroyed. Forensic analysis had stated that the death was from wick effect.

In December 2010, in Country Galway, Ireland, the death of Michael Flaherty, a 76-year-old man was certified from spontaneous combustion by the coroner himself. According to the

Coroner Ciaran McLaughlin "the fire was thoroughly investigated and I am left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation."

Scientist Brian J. Ford observed that ketosis caused by smoking and alcoholism produces acetone which is highly inflammable and if ignited can easily trigger self-combustion. But the question was would fat absorb acetone? Brian J. Ford had dipped a piece of the porcine abdominal wall as thick as a human finger into acetone. The specimen was kept on a chair covered with aluminium. Then a small butane flame was held near the specimen and it burst obligingly into a blue flame. The predominantly blue fire burnt brightly and occasional flames jetted out laterally from the piece of flesh. That was similar to the jets of flames that came out of the leg of Prof. Hamilton of Nashville University although he quickly extinguished them and lived to tell the tale. The chair stood within a liquid pool of body fat which slowly solidified into a yellow mass and glued the chair to the floor. This was similar to the reports of SHC that liquid fat soaked the floor below the charred remains of the body. As police officer John Heymer wrote of an incident in South Wales from 1980 "The charred portion of the rug and carpet were saturated in melted human fat. The report on Mary Reeser's death also suggested that liquid fat had saturated the rug under her body.

Now Mr. Ford went a step further to run a test on the full human body. For this he constructed one - a twelfth-scale model human from tissues cut to shape. The model was infused with acetone for five days. Then it was garmented and positioned on a chair. Then as a gas lighter was brought close there was a burst of flame as the vapour caught fire. The whole body was engulfed in a fireball. After a minute as the chair burnt completely, the body fell on the floor and the conflagration was fed by the pool of liquid fat forming on the floor. Within five minutes the model was completely consumed and converted to blackened ash. There was enough acetone in the model to burn for a minute or two. But the intense heat from the burning pool of fat on the floor continued to build up. The specimen continued to burn for another 40 minutes.

Now how did the fierce conflagration come about? It may be that acetone formed intermediate inflammable compounds in combination with lipid molecules. It would be helpful to quantify these experiments to determine what are the proportions of the acetone found in the tissues of the patients with ketosis. Those who suffer from ketosis better avoid synthetic clothes and fibres with the likelihood of static sparks and give up smoking immediately.

Inhaling or digesting phosphorous in different forms could lead to the formation of phosphine which can be highly responsible for spontaneous ignition of the human body. The discovery of the element phosphorous and the study of its properties plus the fact that it was readily found in human urine and bones provided data for a possible physical basis for SHC. It's rapid oxidation with heat and flame in a very low temperature and its gradual transformation into dust and ashes were strong presumptive evidence that the human body could take the flame from within itself without external aid. Willis in his theory about urinary disease had suggested that phosphorous which is commonly eliminated in such quantity by the kidney is not duly discharged by habitual drunkards and the body became filled with an oily solution of phosphorous ready to ignite at any time. Apjohn spoke of a phosphorated hydrogen which was generated in the body.

Scientist John Abrahamson suggested that ball lightning might have been instrumental in partial spontaneous human combustions. Because in all the cases of ball lightning, the bare hands and feet of the witnessing victims got charred severely. Therefore it was assumed that ball lightning happening at a small distance had also triggered the auto ignition of the human body.

On 28 March, 1970, 89-year-old Margaret Hogan, a resident of Dublin, Ireland was found burnt to the point of destruction. Plastic flowers on a nearby table had been liquidified and the television screen at a 12-foot distance had been melted. The rest of her surroundings remained almost untouched. Her two feet and legs from below the knees were not charred either. Although a neighbour had seen a small coal fire burning in the grate while leaving Margaret's room on that fateful day, no connection between that and the fire that Margaret Hogan had died from had been established. The inquest held on 3rd April 1970 recorded the cause of death from burning with the possible cause of the fire mentioned as "unknown".

Throughout the Middle Ages SHC was venerated by the common people as the divine intervention delivering justice to the person engaged in extreme alcoholism or evil doing. An Italian knight Polonius Vorstius had enjoyed few glasses of wine with her parents when he burped fire, succumbed to the flame and died.

In 1985, Vietnam veteran Frank Baker from Vermont claimed he caught fire spontaneously while sitting on the chair. More interestingly Frank survived and told the incident by himself to the world.

In other probable explanations, highly inflammable gasses were produced from putrefaction inside the victim's belly that took fire from the heat generated by fermentative microorganisms.

According to Dr. Thomas D. Mitchell, combustible gases are reproduced in the belly of the drunkards drinking alcohol at a random pace. Speaking at a meeting organised by the Parliamentary Committee Dr Dodds remarked " What condition of the body tends towards such a fatal issue (i.e., spontaneous combustion or preternatural combustibility) or how the various fluids and solids of the human body acquire a chemical composition fitted for such a phenomenon, it is difficult to explain, but it is well known that alcohol contains in itself all the elements of an olefiant gas, with oxygen and hydrogen in excess and it is not improbable that after a while it's elements might assume that condition which would give rise to such catastrophe. Another

expert John Gordon Smith held the same opinion that "Now if we recollect what is the composition of this substance (alcohol), and when it is decomposed in chemical experiments, a great quantity of carbureted Hydrogen is evolved; we may perhaps advance one step towards the solution of the problem. We know that Hydrogen is highly inflammable. Readily ignited by contact with burning bodies, and also by electricity. That we are more subjected to the action of this power than it were perhaps easy to demonstrate is the opinion of good authorities; and it is perfectly allowable to proceed further and say that certain states of the system admit of actions that under ordinary circumstances are unknown. These are hints that may not appear of much importance, but they are countenanced by observations that have been made on other occasions.”

In 1888, Dr. J. M. Booth reported in the British Medical Journal that a man had been burnt to ashes while sleeping on a hay loft. But the nearby hay stock had not caught fire. Around that person, there were no sources that could have ignited the fire. Dr. Booth had opined that the reason for the arson was internal. The victim was a pensioner and of a notoriously intemperate habit. That intemperate disposition was taken for granted as the reason for SHC.

Other probable causes according to the analysts were luminescence, psychic energy, telekinesis, bio-electricity, overactive mitochondria, malignant hyperthermia and poltergeists.

A hypothesis formed by Maffei, Le Cat, Kopp and others ascribed electric fluids inside the body as another possible cause. Citing various organic substances which took which took fire spontaneously they described morbid states of the body in which simple friction elicited

electrical sparks. It then sufficed to postulate a similar situation within the body with production of enough electricity and heat to set fire to the combustible elements. Marc endeavoured that inflammable gases accumulated in the cellular tissues and so primed the body. The gases consisted of hydrogen and its compound, explaining the failure of water to extinguish the fire and the minimal damage sustained by the contiguous and neighbouring objects. The heat required for the inflammation of these gases was much lower than that necessary to ignite the wooden or clothes object in the room. This theory explained the spontaneous combustion in the non-alcoholic victims. The concept was valuable inasmuch as no ignited body was called into play, and the process could then truly be called spontaneous.

Fontenelle and Luff proposed an internal decomposition with the formation of highly inflammable substances as the probable explanation as the thoroughness and rapidity of the combustion. Cases had been recorded where sober individuals had set fire to their breadth in blowing out a match or had burnt their faces when they belched while holding lighted objects close to their mouths, illustrating vividly the presence of inflammable and explosive vapours within the living body. In slightly modified form this theory was offered as recently as 1924 by Dixon Mann as a basis for preternatural combustibility. He asserted that inflammable gases were formed inside the abdomen either during life or from abnormal changes commencing immediately after death. The gases once ignited burnt vigorously and raised the temperature of the soft tissues, especially the fat so high that they became carbonised and gave off gases which also took fire establishing a chain type of reaction. The small group of medical doctors who accepted the possibility of post-mortem spontaneous combustion believed that fat flabby alcoholics, who died in an intoxicated stupor and in whom the cessation of life had been due to a fatty heart, furnished especially favourable circumstances for the growth of a microbe which brewed combustible gas or a combustible something.

In a new explanation released in 1894, it has been said that a progressive accumulation in the tissues over a period of years of carbonic oxide or carbon monoxide contact with flame and fire was indispensable to start the conflagration. The continuous piling up of carbon monoxide in the tissues led to the expulsion of oxygen with the resultant slowing of the oxidative metabolic processes. This favoured the deposition of fat and explained the continual complaints of prospective victims that they felt cold. The victims usually inhabited poorly ventilated rooms heated by stoves and frequently employed charcoal foot warmers to keep them comfortable. These unfortunates were thus exposed to atmospheres containing moderate quantities of carbon monoxide. The luminous flame seen in bodies undergoing this form of combustion was said to

be identical with the flame and the carbon monoxide started to burn, producing intense heat and carbonizing the skin, subcutaneous and muscular tissues. The carbonised tissues light and porous absorbed the melted fat and burnt with a characteristic smoky sooty flame. A continuous reaction was thus established when rabbits and roosters were kept for several months in an atmosphere impregnated either continuously or periodically with carbon monoxide. As a result of this exposure their tissues were said to acquire an increased combustibility. Such animals burnt readily with a bluish flame, leaving porous charred masses which retained the shape of the consumed part.

Michael Harrison had noticed that in some cases geographical relations were responsible for self-combustion. In 1966, on the 13th of March, three persons from three different geographic

locations succumbed to self-combustion exactly at the same time. In all of those three cases all other surrounding persons remained unhurt. Harrison posited that self-combustion was related to the human psyche, when mind overpowered the body and resulted into the creation of a huge electric field.

In the January of 1982 scientist Larry Arnold papered over self-combustion in “Frontier of Science “magazine. According to him Earth's power lines or “the lay lines “were responsible for all those incidents. Alfred Watkinson pioneered “the lay lines " conception. Few who corroborated to this conception had proved the situation of the megalithic stone circle was across some significant positions of “lay lines ". Mary Arnold drew few lay lines on the map of England and noticed some strong relations between those lines and the possibility of fire generation. She had even established the fact that across those lines there had been four such incidents of self - combustion in between 1852 and 1908.

Whether alcoholism, the wick effect, highly inflammable gases inside the belly, electrical fluids, different psychic powers, intemperate nature, mental depression and lay lines were responsible for self-combustion remained a contentious proposal. Perhaps all these possibilities had their secret designs working behind this frick of nature. Some day this enigma would be solved.

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