Page 72 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

52 Ghosts and Phantoms

Internet Movie Database Inc. [Online] http://us.imdb. 90 percent of her body. Firefighters and the
com. coroner’s office were left with the puzzle of
Maltin, Leonard, ed. Leonard Maltin’s 1999 Movie & how this could be possible when the fire took
Video Guide. New York: Dutton Signet, 1998. only four minutes to extinguish and was con-
Stanley, John. Creature Features: The Science Fiction, fined to a couch, a table, and the chair in
Fantasy, and Horror Movie Guide. New York: which the victim was sitting.
Boulevard, 1997. Was this another case of spontaneous
Steiger, Brad, and Sherry Hansen Steiger. Hollywood human combustion? In many ways it is simil-
and the Supernatural. New York: St. Martin’s Press, iar to so many other unexplained instances of
1990. SHC.

On March 24, 1997, 76-year-old John
O’Connor was found dead in his living room
at Gortaleen in northern Ireland. An intense
Spontaneous Human
and localized heat had left only his head,
Combustion (SHC)
upper torso, and feet unburned, as well as the
he enigma of spontaneous human com- chair in which he was sitting. There was very
bustion (SHC) is considered the most little smoke damage done to the room or the
T bizarre and frightening of all the phe- furniture.
nomena in the world of the unexplained and In December 1956, Virginia Caget of Hon-
the unknown. Some believe that stories of olulu, Hawaii, walked into the room of Young
SHC are only urban legends, eerie tales of Sik Kim, a 78-year-old disabled person, to find
people bursting into flames that never really him enveloped in blue flames. By the time
happened to real people. But this is not the firemen arrived on the scene, Kim and his easy
case. Urban legends happen to a friend of a chair were ashes. Strangely enough, nearby
friend, but are really untraceable back to any curtains and clothing were untouched by fire,
true original narrator of the event. In the case in spite of the fierce heat that would have
of spontaneous human combustion, one is left been necessary to consume a human being.
with the charred remains and ashes of individ- On August 19, 1966, Doris Lee Jacobs of
uals who were once fully living, breathing, Occano, California, burned to death in her
feeling human beings.
trailer home at 1342 23rd Street. Although
Spontaneous human combustion is included Jacobs suffered burns on over 95 percent of
in the chapter on ghosts and hauntings because her body, the inside of the trailer was only par-
for centuries certain scientists and psychical tially scorched. Officials could offer no expla-
researchers have suggested that the phenomena nation for the fire, because it was the woman,
may be due to some kind of internalized psy- not the trailer, who had burst into flames.
chokinetic facet of the human mind. Polter-
How can human flesh be heir to such dan-
geists have been known to cause spontaneous
gers as spontaneous combustion? Spontaneous
outbreaks of fires, and mysterious fires and lights
combustion, it is assumed, is confined to oily
have been part of the repertoire of a haunted
rags and newspapers piled up in poorly venti-
house since humans first began to keep records
lated corners of basements and garages.
of such phenomena. Then, too, there are those
theorists who place the blame for SHC directly On September 20, 1938, in Chelmsford,
on vengeful spirits or malicious entities from England, a woman burst into blue flames in
other dimensions of reality. Whatever the true the midst of a crowded dance floor. No one
cause of SHC, such accounts have haunted men was able to extinguish the blaze that seemed
and women for centuries, thus the mystery is to be fed by her own flesh, and in minutes she
placed in this chapter. was but a heap of ashes.
In December 2001, a 73-year-old woman On July 30, 1937, a woman who had been
in Garden Grove, California, died from the paddling about in a small boat with her hus-
third-degree burns that she had suffered over band and children at England’s Norfolk

The Gale Enc y clopedia of the Unusu al and Unexplained