Spontaneous Human Combustion

You know what they say, there's no smoke without fire.

I believe this is real. I chose this as a phenomon for my research project. With enough research and theroies I think I could figure out if this exsits! Oh yeah if you want to screw me come do it!

Stupid ideas like this really burn me up!

I just learned how to make people combust, actually...

Somebody's got to come up with an explanation during my lifetime!

If you want evidence, how about Howard Dean's YEEEHAW! after his third place finish in the 2004 Iowa Primary?

Spontaneous human make believe is more like it. This is good sauce for the rubes who will believe anything. Please cite us one verified instance of this phenomenon.

According to Webster's Dictionary, it's the ignition of a substance or body without heat from any external source. Go figure.

This is what I sometimes feel is going to happen to me when I read particularly stupid comments on RIA.

Here in Phoenix you can get a good idea as to what it feels like just stepping outside in the summer.

This is a well documented oddity.Unfortunately it never seems to happen to the ones we wish it would.Lends a whole new meaning to the term "flaming queen"...

one time i was gettin freaky with my girl when she just exploded everywhere!

This is physically and physiologically impossible. Although I have seen Peter Griffin do this on an episode of Family Guy.

Our friend eagle scout is obviously a little confused in his theorys. When people think too hard about things not worth worrying about they explode? How is that possible? Ask anyone who knows the slightest thing about the human body and they'll call you a loony.

Boom!

As an ex-fire investigator, I can honestly say this one is totally bogus...

For a good brief treatment of this subject, I suggest reading the pertinent chapter in Real Life X-Files by investigator Joe Nickell. He researched several noteworthy cases of supposed SHC and found logical alternative explanations using his detective skills and the help of professional fire investigators. Turns out there was no case that could not be explained by predictable interaction of flames, combustible materials and the human body. For me, it was a reassuring read!

Maybe it is possible, who hnows? Maybe it happens when people think to hard about something not worth worrying about. Maybe thinking about stuff too hard creates gass, which is sparked by the electronic signals sent through the brain and other nerve cells, and when it hits the fat it busts into a very fast fireball, all from thinking too h------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I don't know where my room mate went but I found this up on his computer so I decided to submit it for him. By the way, does anybody know how to get burn marks off of an office chair? I don't know how the heck they got here but they are a mess.

How could this happen? People just burst into flames for no apparent reason and nothing else gets burned? I say it's a hoax!

This is really weird. I don't know anyone who's ever witnessed this phenomenon, but there have been documented cases of people's smoking remains being found in a chair that is mysteriously unsinged, or maybe there's an unburnt foot left over sticking out of a pile of ashes. I can't imagine what causes this. One of the more obvious assumptions that humans live with is that we're not going to just burst into flames without a good reason. And yet people seem to do just that. A lot of the people afflicted have been severe alcoholics, but there's no way the alcohol concentration in our systems could be so high as to make us flammable (we ARE mostly water, after all). And if someone inhaled flammable vapors and then lit a match, there might be an small explosion, severely burnt lungs, and death from asphyxiation, but that wouldn't cause our legs to burn to a crisp. Even being doused in gasoline and lit on fire wouldn't cause the kinds of injuries (ie complete immolation) experienced i... Read more

The way I see it, if I didn't spontaneously combust in college during the early 80s when I was so soaked with gin or vodka, and smoked at the same time, no one is going to catch flame by causing a spark while brushing their hair, or rubbing their too fat thighs together while climbing the stairs.

This is no mystery at all, I do it all the time.

The evidence seems to prove that SHC exists. It is a scary phenomenon, but i doubt it will happen to me. It is very likely that unstable chemical changes in the body may cause some SHC episodes.