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.
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 open verdict.'
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 16º C.
Other well documented eyewitness cases include:
Helen Conway,
Olga Stephens,
Jeanna Winchester
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.