Spontaneous Human Combustion
In August 1999, BBC TV broadcast in prime time a film
in its prestigious science series 'QED', entitled Spontaneous
Human Combustion.
The film was ambitious both as science and as reporting, for
it set out to debunk once and for all the centuries-old belief that, under some
mysterious circumstances, humans can catch fire and be almost entirely consumed,
even in the security of their own homes.
Most impressive of all, the film set out to debunk the idea
not merely with argument and theories, but with an actual experimental
demonstration on camera in which the carcass of a pig was substituted for that
of a human body.
The film's narrator, Samuel West, told viewers that, 'This
film has brought together for the first time the world's top fire experts and
follows their quest to solve the mystery of Spontaneous Human Combustion.'
The film's method was persuasive. First it showed experienced,
intelligent and sincere professionals -- a fire chief and a police officer --
swearing that the bodies they found could only be cases of Spontaneous Human
Combustion.
Later, though, evidence was produced of possible sources of
flame, in one case a book-match, in another a small candle, and the
professionals were compelled to admit they could have been mistaken. Viewers saw
for themselves how even the experts can be misled, and how easy it is to imagine
extraordinary or paranormal causes for what are really quite mundane events.
Home Office Pathologist professor Mike Green, of Southampton
University, made it clear that he did not believe in spontaneous human
combustion. 'The way the body burns -- the so-called wick effect,' he said,
'seems to me and to my colleagues to be the most scientifically credible
hypothesis.'
Then the film makers, producer Jan Klimkowski and director
Stephen Leslie, enlarged on this scientific explanation.
'Forensic scientists . . .' they told viewers, '. . . are
convinced that, like other fires, these fires are most commonly started by a
careless match or cigarette and they believe there is a simple explanation of
how this can reduce the body to ash.'
'The scientific explanation -- the 'wick effect' -- proposes
that in certain rare circumstances the human being can burn like a candle.'
The explanation advanced by the film makers was that a clothed
human body is like an inside-out candle where the fat, or fuel source, is inside
and the wick is outside. Once burning begins, the melted fat seeps into the
clothing and burns like a wick, slowly over a period of many hours.
Dr John DeHaan of the California Criminalistics Institute
demonstrated this theory by burning the body of a pig wrapped in a blanket to
simulate a clothed human being, using about a litre of petrol as an initial
accelerant.
The film makers concluded emphatically, 'The scientists have
clearly demonstrated how the classic features of spontaneous human combustion
can occur through normal processes.'
Importantly, the 'wick effect' explanation proposed in the
film necessarily entails three key features:-
* It is a slow, gradual process taking many hours, typically
5 to 10 hours or more. In the DeHaan experiment, the pig carcass was still not
fully consumed after 7 hours.
* There is always a source of combustion -- matches,
cigarette, candle, gas fire, coal fire etc, and some initial accelerant --
perfume, alcohol, or some other spirit.
* Because it is a long slow process involving the melting of
body fat, the victim must necessarily be killed.
Why is this an example of pseudoscience?
Almost incredibly, the reporters who made the film and the
scientists who took part in it, chose to ignore completely the fact that there
are a number of recent, well-documented cases of people who have experienced or
witnessed spontaneous human combustion at first hand and who lived to tell
what happened. And the first-hand experience of these witnesses
completely contradicts the key features of the 'scientific explanation' in every
detail.
First, there is the case of Fire Brigade Commander John
Stacey, called to a house fire in Lambeth in 1967, who discovered Robert
Bailey in the early stages of combustion and burning from inside his abdomen
'like a blow torch' in a derelict house where gas and electricity had been
turned off and where there were no other sources of ignition. [Click
here to read details of this and other cases and a discussion of their
significance.]
Second, there is the 1982 case of 62-year old Jean Saffin
who burst into flames while sitting at the table of her kitchen in Edmonton,
London, in the presence of her father and her brother-in-law, Donald Carroll,
who was called to the room. Ms Saffin burned in front of them and died later in
hospital. Despite the eyewitness evidence given at the inquest on her death, the
coroner, Dr. J. Burton, said 'I sympathise with you but I cannot put down SHC
because there is no such thing. I will have to put down misadventure or
verdict.'
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Third, there is the 1998 case of Agnes Phillips who
burst into flames while sitting in her daughter's parked car in a suburb of
Sydney, Australia, while on a shopping trip with her daughter. Mrs. Phillips
burned in front of her daughter and a passer-by, Bradley Silva, who beat out the
flames, and died a week later in hospital. The New South Wales Fire Inspector
told the inquest that at the time she caught fire, the car engine was not
running; there was no trace of liquid accelerants and no faulty wiring. Neither
Mrs Phillips nor her daughter were smokers and the maximum temperature on the
day of the fire was 16є C.
Other well documented eyewitness cases include:-
Click Here to read details of many similar well-documented
eyewitness cases.
But how could the film makers be expected to know about cases
such as these?
The QED team expressed their thanks at the end of the film to
Larry Arnold. Arnold heads an organisation called ParaScience International
and has been collecting cases of possible spontaneous human combustion for over
twenty years. He is the author of the 1995 book on the subject entitled Ablaze!
which contains details of more than 400 cases including numerous well-documented
survivor cases.
Even had they been overcome by group amnesia after looking
through the voluminous files and books of Larry Arnold, the researchers could
still have browsed the Internet, where they would have found the case of Agnes
Phillips on the Fortean Times web site, or simply visited the public
library and borrowed a copy of the 1982 Reader's Digest 'Mysteries of the
Unexplained' where further cases of SHC survival were reported. Or Colin
Wilson's 1988 'Encyclopaedia of unexplained mysteries', where again they would
have found similar cases.
In other words, even the most superficial research by the film
makers would have alerted them to the existence of living eye-witnesses whose
testimony they could have sought, and who flatly contradict everything advanced
in their conjectural theory.
The fact that they chose to ignore this contradictory evidence
and to rely solely instead on the theories of scientific rationalists who set
out to debunk what they perceive as just another piece of paranormal nonsense,
shows that the film makers' minds were already made up before they started
filming. They completely failed in their most elementary duty -- to check both
sides of the story.
Possibly this was because they themselves were pursuing some
misguided notions of defending 'scientific rationalism' against new age
credulity.
Whatever the reason, the reality is that it was they, the film
makers, who were the agents of pseudoscience in this case.
In my opinion, BBC TV and its QED team, if they wish to
retain their deservedly high reputation for honesty, accuracy and impartiality,
should publicly dissociate themselves from these film makers and their
fundamentally flawed film, a film that has been passed off on a trusting public
as scientifically credible and as representing the authoritative 'scientific'
viewpoint.
To read details of the possible SHC cases referred to above
and other similar eyewitness cases Click Here.
