Mary Hardy Reeser’s death in 1951 July 2nd set off a firestorm of controversy and heated argument that really extends right to the present day. Mary Reeser managed to burn up leaving behind one foot, a few pieces of calcine vertebra, a piece of tissue that was later identified as probably liver and ... an ovoid mass later identified as her head. Larry Arnold, founder Para-Science International
Experts began speaking about a circle of fire not more than six feet in diameter that surrounded Mrs Reeser beyond which combustibles such as the bed linens failed to even singe let alone ignite. Larry Arnold, author Ablaze!
Whatever happened to Mrs [Helen] Conway, it happened suddenly and it happened without warning. Whatever energy, whatever force, consumed her to such an extent was within the body, forcing its way downward and backward, and blowing debris from her body out into the room. Larry Arnold, investigator Harrisburg Pennsylvania
Everything points to these fires beginning within the body and burning outward under conditions that belie common sense and what is commonly known about fire behaviour and fire pattern. Larry Arnold, interview Unexplained Mysteries
We got the call at about twenty past five in the morning. And when we arrived two or three minutes down the embankment there were about half a dozen office cleaners outside this derelict building and were pointing to the first floor and said that we think there’s a fire in there. And sure enough there was a flickering blue flame coming from the upstairs window. And when we got up the ladder to the first floor there was a man’s body laying on the stairs and there was a blue flame coming from his stomach, about a four-inch slit in his stomach and it was making a noise like a blow lamp bzzzzzzzzz. And it was about eight inches long – that was the thing we saw. A man came up the ladder with the hose-reel, and we actually put the hose-reel inside the man’s body – he was burning from the inside out. It was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen at a fire. Jack Stacey, firefighter
My immediate thought on seeing the deceased was that this was not an ordinary death. There was no external damage and no windows broken. We entered the living room of the premises. It was a sight that will never ever really leave me. Sergeant Terry Russell, Ebbw Vale rozzers
And this poor old lady – she was reduced to ashes, except for two lower parts of both legs. Well this was amazing to me to see a body in such a condition. The most abnormal thing about it was that there was nothing in the room damaged. Colin Durham, Newport rozzers
The walls were slightly brownish color; it appeared the place had been subjected to intense heat. In the bedroom itself there was a single bed; the mattress had been burned though, and the floor which was wooden structure was below the bed was burned through, and there was fragments of bone, possibly a skull, I remember laying on the floor. Dick La Vallee, Ticonderoga New York firefighter, televised interview re 1986 case of George Mott, fellow firefighter, non-smoker
It was dark. The inside of the house was warm, humid. Sweet smell. And when I finally got to the bedroom, I was astonished. I’ve seen a lot of fires with fatalities. I never saw anything like this. Robert Purdy, interview Investigation X – Spontaneous Combustion, 2008
A fire has consumed the bed. Burned a hole in the floor and melted a television set. Everything else seems untouched. Until Purdy realises he is looking at the remains of fellow firefighter George Mott. It appears the victim burst into flames so suddenly he didn’t have a chance to escape. ibid.
For believers in spontaneous human combustion there are four key traits that define the phenomenon. First, there is no obvious source for the fire. The body bursts into flame on its own. Second, the blaze barely spreads beyond the victim’s body. Third, flames reduce the torso to bone and ash leaving extremities unburned. And fourth, it appears the fire erupted so quickly victims had no chance to escape. ibid.
George Mott’s case is just one of hundreds recorded since the seventeen-hundreds. ibid.
There’s no clear ignition source. It’s hot enough to burn everything down to ashes, bones and limbs. But the inferno doesn’t spread beyond the bodies. Strangest of all, when witnesses come upon the scene, it seems the victims were caught by surprise. And engulfed before they could react. All died alone. But there is a timeline for Helen Conway’s case. The Fire Chief estimates that it took just twenty-five minutes for Conway to burn. ibid.
Peter Jones, survivor; his wife Barbara Jones, eye witness ... ‘Suddenly he just erupted in a cloud of smoke’ ... Less than a minute after it began, the smoke clears. The couple is startled but no harm seems to have come from the incident. Peter leaves for work shortly after. Later that day Peter is on his way home from work when whatever is smouldering inside his body reignites. While stopped at a train crossing, smoke begins to seep from Peter’s arm-pores. It quickly fills the car’s cabin. And he is forced to roll down the window. Unhurt and unmarked, Jones decides not to seek medical help. ibid.
After I walked around and got squarely in front of where the chair had lit you can see two legs. And then we realised it was a person sitting there. Daryl Haefner, Bolinbroke FD
But he had sat down on the edge of the bed to put his boots on – he always wore boots to work. Suddenly, he erupted in a cloud of smoke. He was covered in smoke. No flames. No flames at all. Barbara Jones, wife of Peter Jones
It did have a metallic taste to it. Peter Jones, survivor
There was no sensation at all. No pain or heat or anything. Just a billowing cloud of smoke. Peter Jones
Somehow I knew that although I was on fire and that’s the way it felt that I wasn’t going to fully ignite and go up in smoke. I would have these second-degree burns on my face, on my body, on my torso, on my thighs, on my arms, and there would be blisters this large that would swell up and they would break, and they would be running sores ... It was as if I had been plugged in a socket and that my body could not take the amount of energy charge and was shorting out the socket. I would have to go and sit in water for hours and hours and hours. That was the only relief that I had. Tanis Helliwell, survivor
But in deaths thought to be as a result of spontaneous human combustion the bones are consumed even beyond what cremation is capable of doing. Spontaneous Human Combustion – Burnt to a Crisp
Ninety-two-year-old Doctor William Bentley had been burnt to ash. Only the lower half of a leg remained. Amazingly, neither his aluminium walker nor the room suffered any significant damage. ibid.
Tanis Helliwell ... believes Kundalini is the probable cause of a series of spontaneous combustion attacks she experienced. ibid.
Belief in the occurrence of spontaneous combustion of the human body is of respectable antiquity. More recently opinion has swung away from the quasi-supernatural views of earlier years to regard such cases as due to unusual degrees of flammability of the human body in such circumstances, distinguishing the condition with the name or preternatural combustion … Human body fat, melted in a crucible, will only burn with a temperature somewhere about 250°C. However, a cloth wick in liquid fat will burn, like a lamp, even when the temperature of the fat has fallen as low at 24°C. Professor David Gee, Official Journal of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences, A Case of Spontaneous Combustion vol 5 1965
‘I couldn’t make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked in. And the burning smell is there – and the soot is there, and the oil is there - and he is not here!’ – Tony ends this with a groan. Charles Dickens, Bleak House
Whether such a quantity of hydrogen may accumulate in the bodies of drunkards as to combust is not easy to determine. Dr Robert MacNish, Anatomy of Drunkenness, Chapter XII, Spontaneous Combustion of Drunkards
cf.
Gases in the colon will support combustion, and serious accidents have been reported when diathermy has been used for fulgurating colonic polyps. Cutting diathermy is often used for enterotomy in surgery on the stomach and small bowel and has been considered safe. We found, however, that under certain circumstances gases in the stomach may be explosive. J J Earnshaw & T K Keane, British Medical Journal 6666, Gastric explosion: a cautionary tale
And when I opened the stomach with the electro-cautery device there was an explosion and the gaseous contents of his stomach ignited and splattered stomach contents all over the ceiling light and on those who were surrounding the operating table. It was all rather frightening at the time. There was a blue flame and a sort of thump. The flame lasted a second or two and stopped ... The patient did very well afterwards. Dr Jonathan Earnshaw, televised interview
I realised that the water must be the source of the fuel. Now hydrogen burning in oxygen burns with a fierce blue flame and will cut through steel. And steel melts at fifteen hundred degrees Centigrade. Now that sort of flame could indeed reduce a corpse to ashes without releasing enough oxygen to sustain burning elsewhere in the room. That would also explain the lack of water. I have no belief in spontaneous human combustion as a paranormal or supernatural event – it is an entirely natural event the mechanism of which we do not entirely understand. John Haymer, investigator
My tests have shown that the body supports a fire of no more than about sixty to seventy-five kilowatts. That’s half the size of the average waste-basket fire. The flames are quite hot, the temperature of the flames is seventeen, eighteen-hundred Fahrenheit but they’re very small, very localised and as a result they’re not producing a lot of radiant heat to ignite things any distance away. John DeHaan, fire scientist
Stow, Ohio: For Kay and Mike Fletcher it was a morning they’ll never forget. Out of nowhere a cloud of smoke suddenly erupted from Kay’s body. Unsolved Mysteries
Kendall [Mott] couldn’t believe what he was seeing. All that was left of his father was a scattering of ashes, a few splinters of bone and a fragment of skull. ibid.
A gas company meter-man named Don Gosnell made an unpleasant discovery at the home of Irving Bentley, a 92-year-old retired physician. ibid.
When I got to the bottom of the steps there was a pile of ashes on the floor, and there was an odour, something I’ve never encountered before, kind of a sickening sweet odour. And then I looked up and here there was a hole burnt through the floor right above me. And I stood there and looked at that hole and there were little red ambers all round the hole. Don Gosnell, interview Unsolved Mysteries
Sequoyah County, Oklahoma February 18th 2013: ‘There was nothing burnt around the body.’ The Unexplained Files, Discovery 2013, Sheriff
There was no external source. ibid.
This man burnt to ash while the house remained intact. ibid.
The first recorded case in 1641. ibid.
Incredibly, there are people who claim to have caught fire spontaneously and somehow lived through the experience. ibid.
June 1995 Frank Baker: ‘It was the damndest thing I’ve ever seen.’ ibid. Peter Willey
‘Doctor: this burned from the inside out.’ ibid. Frank