Cases
A 19 year old girl dancing with her boy friend suddenly burst into flames. Her back and head was enveloped in fire. Her fellow-party goers tried to pat out the flames but with in minutes all that was left of her were ashes. "I saw no one smoking on the dance floor. There were no candles on the tables and I did not see her dress catch fire from anything. I know it sounds incredible, but it appeared to me that the flames burst outwards, as if they originated within her body", her boyfriend later testified at the inquest. The coroner labeled her case as, "Death by misadventure, caused by a fire of unknown origin."

In the 17th Century, in North Essex, England, an elderly woman was found burnt to death in her cottage. Nothing else in the cottage was burned.

In 1937, a woman was paddling a small boat along with her family at Norfolk Broads, England, when she was suddenly engulfed in flames. In a few moments, she was left in ashes. Neither her family, nor the boat had any damage.

In 1956, Virginia Caget walked into the room of Young Sik Kim, an elderly disabled person, to find him engulfed in blue flames. She called the fire department, but by the time they arrived all that was left were ashes.

On December 5, 1966, 92-year-old retired doctor John Bentley died from a fire of unknown origin in Coudersport, Pennsylvania.

Responding to a fire emergency, officials of Occano, California, found the body of Lee Jacobs with 95% of her body covered in burns. The trailer was only partially scorched. No explanation was given as it appeared that the only thing that caught fire was Lee Jacobs.

In 1997, 76-year-old John O'Conner was found dead in his living room in Northern Ireland. Only his head, upper torso and feet remain unburned. There was little damage on the chair he was sitting on.

Explanations

The late Professor Robin Beach suggested that static electricity may be the cause of these cases of seemingly spontaneous combustion. He tested many people with his electrostatic voltmeter and found one individual who had a charge of 30,000 volts of eletrostatic electricity and a resistance of 500,000 ohms.

The professor explained that in certain conditions, humans may possess extremely high amounts of static electricity. It may be caused by walking on carpets during dry winter weather. Most of the time, this electricity is discharged through our hair or through our finger tips.

Spontaneous combustion seems plausible when it occurs with oily newspapers or rags that are stored in poorly ventilated areas. It may just also occur in animals and humans.

In 1961, Dr. Gavin Thurston concluded that in certain conditions, a body will burn its own fat with little or no damange to surrounding areas. The combustion is not spontaneous, but started by an external source of heat. This has occurred where the body has been in the path of a draft up a chimney from a lighted fire.

Ball lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon, a glowing fiery ball that floats in the air. The ball can be anywhere from .1 cm to several meters in diameter, lasting anywhere from seconds to minutes.

The physical nature of ball lightning is still unknown, despite thousands of experiences of it and hundreds of experiments. There have been reports of artificial production of ball lightning, but it is unknown if they are the same as or related to natural ball lightning.

Professor Georg Richmann, of Saint Petersburg, Russia created a kite flying apparatus similar to that built by Benjamin Franklin a year earlier. He was attending a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when he heard thunder. The Professor ran home with his engraver to capture the event for posterity. While the experiment was underway, ball lightning appeared, collided with Richmann's forehead and killed him, leaving a red spot. His shoes were blown open, parts of his clothes singed, the engraver knocked out; the doorframe of the room was split, and the door itself was torn off its hinges.

This phenomenon has been witnessed and recorded all through out history. Many explanations have been put forth but none of them are any more conclusive than the others. Do certain humans possess a unique physiological condition that can make them a victim of spontaneous human combustion? Are these cases elaborate hoaxes to cover up murders? Or does an external phenomenon such as ball lightning play a role in this? SHC victims had almost nothing in common. From what we know now, it can occur to any one at any time. While the cases are not frequent at all, the range of victim demographics is wide.

Sources:

* Reader's Digest. Strange Stories. London: Reader's Digest, 1974.
* Wikipedia
* Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC)