SPONTANEOUS HUMAN COMBUSTION

Spontaneous Human Combustion is a well documented phenomenon in which a human body ignites and burns without any known contact with any external source of fire. In some cases the damage is slight and in other cases the victim is reduced to ashes. And in some of the strangest cases nearby objects escape relatively unscathed. The chair or bed in which the victim was sitting or lying, and even the clothes on the charred body, may be undamaged or slightly singed. Often, too, a single foot, a leg or tips of some fingers remain in tact, although the rest of the body is consumed.
Cases of Spantaneous Human Cumbustion (S H C) began to appear in medical reports as far back as 17 th. century, and in a span of four centuries more than 200 such incidents have been reported.
I too happened to read one such incident in a newspaper during my lifetime. Few examples of such incidents are given below.
A former actress Mrs. Olga Worth Stephens, age 75, of Dallas, Texas, was sitting in parked car in October 1964, when witnesses saw her burst into flames. She was fatally burnt before anyone could come to her rescue. Firemen said that the automobile was not damaged and contained nothing that could have started the fire.
Two constables found the burned corpse of a woman in the village Manner, near Dinapore, India in 1907. The two men carried the corpse, still smoldering inside unscorched clothes, to the District Magistrate's office. The Indian press said that the officers had seen no signs of fire in the room where the body was.
Several resarchers put forward several mundane causes for seemingly inexplicable fires. But none of these hypotheses could really account for spontaneous human combustion. Static electricity seems to be a good candidate for starting these fires, no matter what might fuel them thereafter. The human body can according to the Fire protection Manual of the National Fire Protection Association, accumulate a static charge of several thousand volts. Some people have been known to build up far greater charges, occationally generating upto 30000 volts. Ordinarily this electricity is harmlessly discharged through hair, but in certain volatile situations, such as factories for combustible materials or hospitals operating rooms using gaseous anesthetics, these people can spark of explotions. But these exploaions have never been known to burn one person to ashes, leaving the room and the furnishings undamaged.
Spantaneous Human Combustion still remains as a mystery unexplained.