Is spontaneous human combustion real?

This is in tribute to the lobotomy episode. Would I just give you a verbal lobotomy? You did? You don't want to know what we're talking about? Yeah, bad things, hey, Chuck. When I was a kid, I was in the cub Scouts. Okay, yeah, cub Scouts. I never made it a boy scout. I don't even Yeah, I definitely didn't. Um and I you would think that that would have helped shape me as as a young man, right, yeah, you would be wrong. Okay, I can tell you one thing that shaped me more

than cub Scouts ever did. And it was a single picture, a photograph, and all it was was a leg And there was a sock and a slipper attached to it, black and white. And the thing about this leg is it wasn't severed. The end of it was charred. And it turns out that this leg belonged to a guy named Dr Irving J. Bentley, and the photo was taking a nineteen sixty six in his Pennsylvania home. And what

happened to Dr Bentley was that he spontaneously combusted. And I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever heard of in my entire young life. You really remember seeing that? Oh yeah? And actually, strangely enough, I was at a nursing home woods and I saw in real life something that startled me because it looked just like it. It was a prosthetic leg and it was just dumped on this gurney that also had like a TV bedpants. It was apparently like a mobile storage closet right out

in the hallway. But there was a prosthetic leg that went from the knee to the foot and it had like, um, knee high pantyhose on it and a shoe. Still, I'm like, all these people are gonna die soon. Can we maybe keep this out of their line of sight? Right? But yeah, so I saw that, I immediately thought of Dr Bentley's leg. But yeah, so I used to just think spontaneous human combustion is the coolest thing ever. It is pretty remarkable. Yeah, let's talk about it. Why not. That's a great idea.

And I feel bad because someone requested this last week and I don't have the name. I apologize to whoever is out there. This is for you, Becky, Becky, this is for you. No, binky, that's right. So yeah, this is a listener request. Have you noticed the uncomfortable pauses have been increasing in frequency lately? It's because you're wearing sunglasses and its weird. No, it's not just today. Okay, yeah, you don't like the shades. It's just off putting because

I can't see your beautiful browns, your dream boat. Chuck, So chuck, Let's get back to spontaneous human combustion. Um. The earliest written account of it occurs in sixteen sixty three, and such anatomist Thomas Bartolin wrote of a woman in Paris who quote went up in ashes and smoke right right, which is normal enough. The weird thing is is this woman, you know, as I imagine, was normal for the era was sleeping on a straw mattress, and a straw mattress

didn't go up, just the woman did. That was the first clue that something was odd, something amiss. Uh. And then the couple of years later there was a guy who he was French. His name was Jonas DuPont, and he apparently there were enough stories of spontaneous human combustion that he put a collection of them together called d Incentdus corporus humany spontaneous Latin dead language, not a dead language, no, trust me, listener. Mail came in and scolded us for

saying it was a deadline. It's just a phrase, sure that it's dead. Yeah, it's a figure speech. Yes. So um, apparently this has been around for a while. Yeah, at least since the seventeenth century, and it's only happened, uh, a couple of hundred times. They think between two and three d two people burning up inexplicably a couple of hundred times. That's pretty significant. I mean, that leads a

lot of credence to it, your opinion, you know. So let's talk about spontaneous human combustion, and it's actually differentiated from just spontaneous combustion because you stick the human in there,

it means a person is burning up. Yeah. Other things can spontaneously combusts, I know, like a bucket of oily rags or yeah, hay bales have been known to combust, which is weird because we know how a bucket of oily rags can combustum the as as the oxygen interacts with the oily rags, it can actually raise the temperature to the ignition point and then there you go. Or a kid goes behind and throws a match in it. Yeah, one of those two. You know, we used to believe

that field mice were born from leftover grain. So yeah, so maybe oily rags don't really combust spontaneously. It is just little kids. I never thought about it. Yeah, uh so let's let's talk about this, Josh. We have. The deal is is your extremities remain intact. That's one of the tail tail giveaway. Sometimes I thought it was all the time. No, it's most of the time, yeah, but

not always. So what we're saying is by that, we mean that the torso and the head are usually burned through, and then there's usually a foot or a leg or an arm or completely Yeah exactly, um. Another characteristic is that the surroundings, the immediately surroundings are often left untouched, or they have strange burn marks to them, not your typical burn marks, or you know, the room doesn't catch on fire for some reason, a sweet smoky smell and

a greasy residue. Greasy residue, imagine licking a greasy residue off of a piece of furniture in a room or someone spontaneously combusted. Yeah, that would be gross, so unnecessary. So uh. And then a lot of times the um, like you said, the limbs are left untouched. It's very rarely um in cases of spontaneous human combustion. Does do the victims survived? But they have? Yeah, this is freaky. Sometimes it's just burned spots forming on somebody's where somebody

will start smoking. Yeah, imagine smoking, just smoking, that's no no, and there's no flames whatsoever. You're just smoking, or all of a sudden you're you're burning. Um. So so those are very very rare, but they have been documented before, right, Yeah, I can't imagine that'd be so bizarre. So what's up next about it? Well? I guess some theories on why it happens, well, first, let's point out why this is

weird if it's not obvious enough. But the combustion. For combustion to take place, you need intense heat, you need a flammable substance. We're not too terribly flammable. We'll burn right if somebody does is gasoline on us and throws a match. Um, but that's about that. So that's why spontaneous human combustion, scientifically speaking, is so weird, right, um? And what what's what's the earliest explanation you came across

for how spontaneous human combustion works? The earliest explanation are you talking about the Dickens Charles Dickens, Well, he reflected a widely held belief at the time. Right in his novel Bleak House, he had a character that he killed off by spontaneous human combustion, which I thought was kind of funny, or not funny, but kind of cool. Um. The character's name was Kruke and he was an alcoholic.

So at the time they positive a theory that maybe excessive amount amounts of alcohol, which as we all know, is flammable in the body, caused us. Yeah. Um, apparently one theory is that methane builds up in the intestine, which is flammable. Methane flamable, definitely, it's very flammable, and it's a terrible greenhouse gass. Did you know that? I did? Um? And then some sort of enzyme that acts as a catalyst in cellular processes and builds up heat as a

byproduct ignites this methane in kaboom. But there's a problem. There's a big problem with it. Yeah, most of the victims when they spontaneously combine us, they have more damage to the outside of the body than in internal organs. So that kind of flies in the face of that theory. Definitely, So we poo poo that one. That one static electricity, Yeah, go ahead, I guess. I mean that's pretty much it. You get static electricity build up on the outside your

body again, kaboom, right. Or magnetic force a geomagnetic magnetic force exerted on the body is another one kind of along those lines. Again, these are entirely possible. There's another one that's possibly a little less credible, posited by Larry Arnold, who is a an expert, an investigator, a self proclaimed expert. Well,

whatever I mean, are in all now some people are vetted. Okay, Um, well he also wrote a book called Blaze, and it's like an account, an amazing account of spontaneous human combustion stories which I gotta tell you I would have eaten alive at age eight. Um. But yeah, so he he has his own hypothesis, and it's that there's a subpotomic particle called pyra ton, all right, uh, and that when it interacts with cells in a certain way, it can

create an explosion. The big problem with this is a miniature explosion, we should point out, Okay, not some huge depending on how much methane is built up in your intestine. Yeah, if you know what I'm saying. Um, the big problem with is that this particle is theoretical. It hasn't been proven to exist. Yeah he made it up, or made up the name at least. Yeah. Pyroton, good name. Yeah, it means fire ton. You know what I like? What I like? The wick theory. This one makes the most

sense to me. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, so the wick theory. Uh. You know how a candle works, Josh, I do, Chuck? Would you like me to explain that, no, I will. A candle has a wick, which everyone knows, and that wick is surrounded by wax, which is made of flammable acids, fatty acids, or it can be petroleum like paraffin wax. Right or my wife candles are soy oh on um, love your Mama dot com? Are they available for failing Love your Mama dot com? Indeed? Uh? So the wax

ignites the wick and it keeps the wick burning. And so a lot of people, a lot of scientists were scientists actually come in and say they think that folks may like drop a cigarette and then that cigarette catches their clothes on fire, the wick which is the wick, and uh then what the fats of the body start to melt, ignite and melt, which they are flammable. We said earlier that we're not. We're not generally flammable. We will burn, and what's burning most readily is our fat.

But that kind of creates like a contained slow burn, and that it surrounds like say, your your pajamas are on fire, It surrounds it and it continues. It allows the wick to continue to burn very slowly. Right, but what about extremities chuck wire, people's limbs left intact. Well, my thought would be that the limbs don't have as much fat going on that That actually is pretty good explanation. What I read was that, um, it has to do

with the temperature gradient. Okay, that they simply don't contain as much heat. Like you know how your arms get colder than say your torso, so like if you hold the matchupside out, what's what's at the bottom of something that's burning is usually cooler than what's at the top. That's why would light a match. You're supposed to hold it up right, If you hold it upside down, a lot of times you'll go out because there's simply just

not enough heat to sustain a flame. Right, So, the the idea with the wick effect is that eventually this the the flames, the candle, the human candle, I'll put that's something to see. Um, the human candle eventually gets to a point in the body where there's not enough heat to sustain the flames. And if so, fact though, you have just somebody's foot sitting there. Right. Did you see the graphic and the article. I didn't. I saw like the print out of it. I haven't gone through

and looked at the flesh. And it's pretty cool. There's like little three stages you can click on. It shows the body burning and then the body torso you know, decompose it, and then at the very end you're left with limbs laying on there. Awesome, I'm checking out. Is it as cool as the face transplant illustration? Negative? Not ere close, But it's good. So that's what science says, and that's what I say to I think that makes a lot of sense. It does, and drop the smoke

on your chest, and that's what happened. And that's supported actually by a lot of revelations of people who have been who have spontaneously combusted that they were in fact smokers, um, and they probably caught themselves on fire and in this really strange series of events they turned into human candles, right. And then some people, at least some people they've decided after the fact, we're pretty hardcore alcoholics, so they may

have been passed out and a stupor. And then some people were infirm and they couldn't get out of bed in a normal state and so they were kind of trapped there. So these things come out after the fact that kind of makes scientists think, well, it's really not spontaneous combustion. Someone dropped a cigarette and they were passed

out drunk, and so they burned. I think the point is is that if you're a caregiver to an firm individual, if you light a cigarette and stick it in their mouth, stick around to make sure that you put it out once they're done with it, because it can end up really bad for him. What's weird to me is that nothing else burns in the house. Well, that's that wick effect, that's the fact protecting the actual burning. It's burning inside it's it still seems like it wouldn't be so hard

for a bed sheet to up. That is it is odd. I agree with you. And that's what makes it so cool is that it's so you know, unexplained. Yeah, well I think, um yeah yeah. And it seems like it will probably always be unexplained because there's no way to replicate it in a laboratory, not at all, and they after so that's all they can do. Yeah, So, Chuck, let's talk about some real life, amazing, uh incidents of spontaneous human combustion. Man, do you hear the eight year

old me coming out too? But that's not unusual? Uh? Ight set the set the scene for us Chuck warm Night. Twenty two year old woman named Phillis Nuka was leaving a dance hall at in England and chelmps for England, and she was going down the staircase of the hall in her dress just caught on fire out of nowhere for no reason and she ran to the back of the ballroom and collapsed on fire, which that was quite a sight too at the dance and people rushed to her aid, but it was too late and she died

in the hospital. And you know, there were theories that it combusted, but then some other people said, now it was probably just a cigarette that someone dropped. So that one's actually the weakest one I've heard. Well, that's because I saved the pearls for you. Let me. You know, you've got the biggest pearls since she started. And there's three of them, all right, go ahead, and this one, this one was pretty Now I think you should do

the last one. UM. The this case Mary Research, sixties seven year old widow who in nineteen fifty one was discovered in her house in St. Petersburg, Florida, um her front door was actually hot and a neighbor broke it down and found that um Mary was sitting in her easy chair. There was a black circle around her, I imagine a charred circle. Um, and her head had been burned down to the size of a teacup. That's pretty good. That was about all that was left except for her

backbone and part of her left foot. That was it. Yeah, and apparently her easy chair was still at least enough intact for her to be sitting up and it to be erect, so didn't burn completely up. No, that reminded me of Beetlejuice. Yeah, visually when I read it, that's the first thing I thought of. Yeah, the Yeah, that's

a great scene. Yeah. So yeah, And actually the coroner, uh Dr Wilton Krogman Um he wrote about the incident in his notes apparently that where I living in the Middle Ages, i'd mutter something about black magic because it was just so curious interesting. I thought that was probably the coolest thing of coroner has ever written. Yeah. Yeah, alright, so chuck take it home, baby, knock it out of the park. Yeah, I'm just a mirror eleven year old rug rat in Atlanta, Georgia. Josh's what are you like?

Four six six? So you're already caused in trouble. A mentally handicapped woman named jean Lucille Jeanie seven was sitting with her eighty two year old father in northern London, and according to her dad, he saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye and he turned to his daughter and saw that her upper body was enveloped in flames out of nowhere. So he and his son in law, Donald Carroll, managed to put out the fire, but she died of third degree burns. Tell

them what what he said later of the incident. This is the best part, he said. Quote the flames were coming from her mouth like a dragon, and they were making a roaring noise. I know that is crazy. Can you imagine seeing your daughter the flames roaring out of her mouth because I don't have a daughter, that would

be really weird. Yeah, it would be. It would be a little disconcerting, especially since some people suspected that it's possible in ember from his pipe set her daughter on fire right and led to flames coming out of her mouth and making a roaring sound. You know, the TV show Fringe actually covered spontaneous human combustion recently, just like House did. Alien Han syndrome recently. But they were both kind of sensationalized, so it was how so well they

just it wasn't really sciency. It was you know, it's for TV, so but they tried science can be boring, Chuck Sure, yeah, yeah, Well thank you to our friends at the Fox Network for taking science, exploiting it and making it much more interesting. And let's see, I guess that's what the listener mail time it is, so Josh, I'm just gonna call this amusing fan mail. Okay, I got a couple of light ones for like the sound

of this. I remember a couple of weeks ago when I said, yeah, I'm gonna plug it like and I couldn't think of a plug analogy. Nothing you could say, nothing I could say. We had a guy named Scott right in a Scott and his last name is something a Scott blank. He he wrote in and said he gave us a few suggestions. We're gonna plug it like a Dutch boy at a dike. We're gonna plug it like a B list celeb on Letterman. We're gonna plug it like an out of work plumber at a rest stop.

We're gonna plug it like a hair Club for Men convention that was pretty good, or we're gonna plug it like the notorious b I g okay, which I don't get that one. I think that's a reference to shootings. Maybe I don't know. I wasn't a big Biggie fan, so maybe there's something now. And then this one comes from Katie and Wisconsin. Katie says, Hi, Chuck, Hi Josh, a longtime listener, first time writer. Love you love your podcast,

but seriously, Wisconsin, she's took us the task. Yeah, uh no, the way you said Wisconsin the first time was just fine. Nobody here really says it like that. I'll try to explain how Askanni says it. We uh sounds like the start of whistle So with yeah scan the O sounds like oh and con Man not can Man. So with wiscon sin s I n like the Seven Deadly Sins sin uh so Wisconsin. So the way we're saying at

the first time, Wisconsin, Wisconsin. Yeah right, So it's it's just Wisconsin and we you don't need to drag out the a like that. She said, that's just a bunch of bunk. And she said, I guess some French still spell it. Oh U, I sconsin so Wisconsin and she thinks that's neat and I do too, as do I. So Katie from Wisconsin, thank you for polling that out and we love you guys. And oh Claire yeah, and elsewhere you Claire nos so Claire, Oh that's right. So yeah.

If you have any amazing facts about Wisconsin or any other place on the planet, or if you just want to say hi or whatever, you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the re invented two thousand twelve Camri. It's ready, are you