A BURNING QUESTION

by Dr. Abner Mality
There is no more terrifying phenomena in the world of the unexplained than Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC). What, indeed,could be more dreadful than suddenly finding yourself burning to a crisp in a matter of minutes? Yet this grisly event takes place on a fairly regular basis.

Down through human history, there have been records of people suddenly bursting into flame and being reduced to a charred husk with no apparent outside cause. Authors such as Dickens, Melville and Zola have recorded episodes of SHC in their masterworks, with Zola's description of death by fire being particularly gruesome in his book Dr. Pascal.

There can be no doubt that SHC takes place. It is no figment of the imagination but a real phenomena. What causes this hideous consumption of human flesh by flame? Is there a natural explanation? And is there anyway to predict its occurence? There are many cases of SHC that have been meticulously recorded by medical and police authorities but perhaps the most thoroughly investigated case was the strange death of Mrs. Mary Reeser of St. Petersburg, Florida in 1951.

No less an authority than the FBI itself investigated her bizarre demise yet they were completely unable to explain what had happened. The world's greatest living expert on cremation at that time, Dr. Wilton Krogman, described Mrs. Reeser's case this way:

"I regard it as the most amazing thing I've ever seen. As I review it, the short hairs on the back of my neck bristle with vague fear. Were I living in the Middle Ages, I'd mutter something about black magic."

Here are the facts: Mrs. Reeser was a well-liked elderly lady living in her own apartment. She was frequently visited by family and friends and there was nothing unusual in either her background or demeanor. She was last seen by her landlady Mrs. Carpenter on the night of July 1,1951.

At 5 AM the next morning, Mrs. Carpenter was awakened by a faint smell of smoke but since there had been an overheating water pump in the garage, she thought nothing of it. She next awoke at 8 AM and made her way to Mrs. Reeser's apartment to deliver a telegram that had arrived. She yelped in surprise after grabbing the doorknob,for it was red hot! Getting some help, she opened the door and looked around and saw no sign of Mrs. Reeser...at first.

When the fire department arrived, Fire Chief Griffith investigated more thoroughly ...and was shocked and disgusted to realize that in the middle of a four-foot diameter mass of charred material, there was a human spine, a skull shrunk to the size of a grapefruit,a bit of human liver and a perfectly preserved left foot wearing one of Mrs. Reeser's slippers. Everything else had been reduced to a greasy ash.

The case became more and more baffling .Some parts of the apartment were affected by the heat while others were completely untouched. Obviously, some enormous heat must have reduced the body to its state but why wouldn't have the entire room, if not the building itself, burned to ash?

The FBI was called in. They determined that Mrs. Reeser's 175 pound body had been turned into 10 pounds of ash. Lightning was initially blamed, as there were stormy skies that night, but an expert on lightning immediately dismissed the idea. Mrs. Reeser was a known smoker and it was speculated that she might have fallen asleep while smoking. But Dr. Krogman stated that it takes sustained heat of over 3000 degrees to reduce bone to ash. Surely such heat would have destroyed the entire apartment, yet newspapers were untouched mere feet away from the body. It was as if the heat were concentrated inwards instead of outwards.

Other enigmas included the perfectly preserved left foot. It seemed like everything within a four foot radius of the body was incinerated and anything outside it was untouched. Plus, the shrunken skull was also inexplicable, as no one could ever remember a skull shrivelling to half its size due to fire.

After months and months of investigation by the wisest experts in the land, the final verdict on Mrs. Reeser's death was: death by fire of unknown origin. And there the case stands. Her death was perhaps the most thoroughly investigated of all SHC cases but there are numerous others. The death of the elderly doctor John Irving Bentley was very similar, as only his legs were left untouched.

In one frightening case, the British teenager Maybelle Andrews burst into flame while she was dancing with her date in a crowded dance hall! She later died of her burns. The hall had been full of witnesses, who confirmed that flames actually seemed to erupt from her body. There is one famous case of SHC that took place right here in Rockford, USA. In 1959, the four-month old baby Ricky R. Pruitt was a tragic victim of this mysterious phenomena. His parents found him burned to death in his crib but his pajamas had no sign of burning nor was the bedding of the crib scorched. It seemed that the poor boy imploded .

What could be the explanation for this gruesome freak of nature? Many scientists blame it on something called "the candle effect", which states that the human body is like a candle. Clothes could act as a wick and the person's own body fat could be like fast-burning wax. It is true that many SHC victim's are elderly and overweight. Alcohol seems to play a part in some SHC events, also. Perhaps the burning is caused by a combination of weird factors like intestinal gas, static electricity, the candle effect and alcohol.

But it still seems unlikely that any combination of known events could cause the complete and total obliteration of a living human being while leaving surrounding objects and materials untouched. One thing is for certain... spontaneous human combustion happens. And as of now, there is no real way to predict when it will happen or exactly whom it will strike.

Pleasant dreams... This is Dr. Abner Mality,turning out the lights.

(Special thanks goes to these sources of information: "Borderlands" by Mike Dash and "Mysteries of the Unexplained" by the Reader's Digest Association) To contact this wrtier, send your email to drmality@wormwoodchronicles.com.