Spontaneous human combustion is the mysterious phenomenon of a person bursting into flame for no apparent reason. The flames burn very hot and are very localized. They destroy most of the body but leave objects in close proximity to the person relatively unburned. These are the remains of Dr. John Bentley (on left)who died of spontaneous combustion in Pennsylvania in 1966. The spot where the body lay is burnt, but the rest of the room, including the toilet, was not even scorched. This shows a quick, hot flame that devoured the body in seconds. Only the bottom of one leg remained to identify this as a person. On the right is a picture of workers cleaning up the remains of Mrs. M H Reeser of Florida who apparently died of spontaneous combustion in July of 1951. The only remains found was her skull, shrunken to the size of an orange. There are theories on this occurance but no one is sure how or why it happens. It does happen even without scientific explanation. One theory is ball lightning which would produce similar results, but many of these instances seem to rule out this possibility just by the location of the death. A majority of these deaths have the opposite characteristics that one would see if a person was burned to death, such as the shrinking of the skull. Crematorium Specialist have viewed photos of combustion victims and say they cannot duplicate the complete destruction of bones in such a short period of time. They find it even harder to believe that this could happen so completely in ordinary rooms such as living rooms, bathrooms, etc. There are over 100 unexplained fire deaths a year just in England. If just ten of these deaths are spontaneous combustion, then the number world could be well over 100. Does the body have chemical reactions that science has yet to discover ? It seems that an internal reaction of some kind is the most likely explanation for these deaths, but what triggers it ? Can it be detected ? Avoided ? This picture is another case of spontaneous combustion that occurred in London in 1964. One compiled database states the following statistics on possible reported cases: 1950's - 11 cases 1960's - 7 cases 1970's - 13 cases 1980's - 22 cases