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Spontaneous Human Combustion: A Bizarre Controversy · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: always so much for tuning in. We didn't start the fire,
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• 0:51
  Speaker 3: So topical, it's also kind of it's very at the
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: end of the world as we know it, cadence wise,
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: you know. And what's that band? A Little fallout does
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: a modernized version of that song with like updated lyrics.
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  Speaker 3: That done not you know, the hugest Fallout Boy fan,
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: but I thought it was clever and.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It plays a big role in an episode of Always
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Sunny in Philadelphia's latest season where they tried to do
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  Speaker 2: but it's the first time they mentioned it in the show.
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  Speaker 2: Speaking shows, this is our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 3: Whoa whoa whoa who.
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  Speaker 2: That is none other than the one and only mister
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  Speaker 2: Noel Brown. I am Ben Bullen. I don't know why
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  Speaker 2: I paused there for a second, and I gotta tell you, guys,
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  Speaker 2: at the risk of sounding like an arsonist.
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  Speaker 3: Oh year, fire is pretty cool, I know what. Unequivocally,
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: it's pretty cool. Fromethean even right. It's a big deal.
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  Speaker 3: It is the great Creator and the great destroyer. It's
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  Speaker 3: pretty cool and pretty terrifying.
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  Speaker 2: And this is a bit of a This is a
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: nice episode of ridiculous history for anybody who's a fan
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: of our sister podcast stuff they don't want you to know.
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  Speaker 2: If you, like us, grew up reading time life books
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  Speaker 2: like The Mysteries of the Universe and so on, you
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  Speaker 2: probably at some point learned of the controversial concept of
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  Speaker 2: spontaneous human combustion or SHC. It's the idea that, due
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  Speaker 2: to some unknown factors or variables, at any point, a
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  Speaker 2: human being can catch on fire internally, just for.
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  Speaker 3: No good reason, sort of self destruct. This is definitely
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  Speaker 3: a bit of red meat for paranormal enthusiasts. As you mentioned,
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  Speaker 3: the kind of stuff we talk about and stuff they
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  Speaker 3: don't want you to know. Surely, Ben, there, I've been
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  Speaker 3: rewatching The X Files lately. It's got to be a
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  Speaker 3: spontaneous human combustion episode of the X Files.
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  Speaker 2: Oh or there are things related to SHC the X
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  Speaker 2: Files for sure. Yeah you yelled it.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it was an episode called fire.
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  Speaker 2: There is, and I think there's an episode about maybe
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  Speaker 2: more than one about someone who can start fires, like
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  Speaker 2: another one called soft Light.
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  Speaker 3: I think there are more than one spontaneous team. There's
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  Speaker 3: a whole section of on spontaneous human combustion on the
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  Speaker 3: X Files fandom wiki. So there you go. Nice.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, shout out to Chris Carter. When
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  Speaker 2: you've got to put out an episode every week, sometimes
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  Speaker 2: you return to similar wells.
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  Speaker 3: Brother. Let me tell you, I think I've been watching
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: season seven because I've been enjoying Pluribus so much that
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I wanted to go back and watch some of Vince
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  Speaker 3: Gilligan's X Files episodes. And I think he started writing
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: a little later in the series. But yeah, and while
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: some of those episodes that he wrote are great, there
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: are some real stinkers later in the XI. There's one
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: where Molder speaking of stuff that I want you to know,
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  Speaker 3: gets trapped in the Devil's Triangle and transported back in
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  Speaker 3: time on like the Queen Anne. And it is some
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  Speaker 3: scenery chewing bad British accents in that episode, I'll tell
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  Speaker 3: you what.
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  Speaker 2: And then yeah, I put that with the the humorous
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  Speaker 2: episodes some of the there's a Christmas episode I'm thinking
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  Speaker 2: of as well, or with the a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: technology episodes did in age super duper well?
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  Speaker 3: No, And to your point, make that many episodes in
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  Speaker 3: the season back in the day when a season was
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  Speaker 3: like thirty something episodes, You're gonna reuse some topics and
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  Speaker 3: there's gonna be some misses.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean. Even Stephen King asked
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  Speaker 2: to write about similar things at some point. Guy has
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  Speaker 2: several novels about a haunted bicycle. So here we go.
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  Speaker 2: What is a with spontaneous human combustion? Is there any
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  Speaker 2: proof or confirmation of cases of SHC? And what does
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  Speaker 2: science have to say?
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  Speaker 3: Science does have something to say about it. The National
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  Speaker 3: Library of Medicine rights on their website from the journal
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  Speaker 3: article Spontaneous human Combustion in the light of the twenty
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  Speaker 3: first century, the term spontaneous human combustion refers to a
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  Speaker 3: situation when a human body is found with significant portions
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  Speaker 3: of the middle part of the body reduced to ash,
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  Speaker 3: much less damage to the head and extremities, and minimal
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  Speaker 3: damage to the direct surroundings of the body. Typically, no
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  Speaker 3: observable source of ignition is found in the vicinity of
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  Speaker 3: the victim, and a bad smelling oily substance is noted.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this will be familiar to all of our
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  Speaker 2: fellow nerds in the crowd. The idea has been around
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  Speaker 2: for quite some time and it's still controversial. I compare
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  Speaker 2: it almost to the idea of the mellified man, which
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  Speaker 2: is an episode for another day. But it's into means
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: someone with honey basically. So it came and went throughout history,
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  Speaker 2: but it really had its big pop culture moment thanks
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  Speaker 2: to Charles Dickens, the guy who wrote a Christmas Carol
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  Speaker 2: and Bleak House and a bunch of other stuff. He
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  Speaker 2: mentioned spontaneous human combustion in his eighteen fifty three novel
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  Speaker 2: Bleak House. There's a case of human combustion in the story.
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  Speaker 2: That really gripped his audience and in the public's perception,
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  Speaker 2: this was amazing writing. They were like this guy spits
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  Speaker 2: hot fire about fire.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, there's quite a reaction, you know, from
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  Speaker 3: the public, from his readers. Like you said, it was
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  Speaker 3: just such an outlandish idea. So considering that just ten
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  Speaker 3: years before that he was writing about Ebenezer Scrooge being
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  Speaker 3: visited by ghosts bleak house, you know, created an even
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  Speaker 3: more extreme response. One of the characters described is an old,
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  Speaker 3: sleazy alcoholic and his name is mister Crook, and he
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  Speaker 3: ultimately meets his end as a pile of ash on
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  Speaker 3: the floor and noted in the text, a dark greasy
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  Speaker 3: coating on the walls and ceilings could be found.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so let's put on our investigative hats here
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  Speaker 2: because Deerstalker's right. Yeah, let's surelock it. So we know
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  Speaker 2: that heavy consumption of alcohol appears to be a common
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  Speaker 2: trend in a lot of human combustion stories. And also
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  Speaker 2: the note about a dark greasy coating or an oily
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  Speaker 2: substance in the vicinity, that's something that we see reported
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  Speaker 2: in other cases. Now, is that dark greasy coating thing?
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  Speaker 2: Is it something that Dickens made up and then laid
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  Speaker 2: informed a bunch of other people's stories and tall tales
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  Speaker 2: it's tough to parts that game of telephone. But we
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  Speaker 2: know the public said, Okay, this is amazing, but that
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  Speaker 2: can't happen in real life. Charlie, you've got a bridge
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  Speaker 2: too far. You've crossed a rubicad of realism.
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  Speaker 3: But he defends it pretty aggressively, doesn't He.
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  Speaker 2: Very much does? He doesn't say, well, everyone's a critic.
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  Speaker 2: He says, Hey, you guys don't know how much work
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  Speaker 2: I do making my little novels. All right, I did
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  Speaker 2: a lot of research. Here are dozens upon dozens of
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  Speaker 2: famous cases of spontaneous human combustion, and I have receipts.
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  Speaker 2: I have doctors from those times who said this stuff
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  Speaker 2: was real.
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  Speaker 3: You know, speaking of the X Files. If I'm not mistaken,
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  Speaker 3: there is a television mini series adaptation, I believe from
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  Speaker 3: the BBC of Bleak How, starring Jillian Anderson, Agent Scully herself.
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  Speaker 3: It is a little unusual, though, right, to include something
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  Speaker 3: like this as just like a basic plot point, right,
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  Speaker 3: It just seems like there were other you know, it's
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  Speaker 3: an interest. It must have been a pet subject for him.
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  Speaker 3: He just must have found it fascinating and thought it
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  Speaker 3: was worth including. Because I don't know the plot of
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  Speaker 3: bleak House right off the top, is it like a mystery,
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  Speaker 3: like no one could figure out what happened to the
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  Speaker 3: old Kook or Krook, mister.
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  Speaker 2: Crook right, Crookick A bit on the nose there, Charlie. Well,
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  Speaker 2: here's why I think the X Files mentions that we
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  Speaker 2: brought in here, Here's why I think they're so apropos
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  Speaker 2: because bleak House, while it's considered a novel now, it
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  Speaker 2: was a lot more like X Files or Lost when
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  Speaker 2: Charles Dickens was first writing it. It was published as
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  Speaker 2: a twenty episode serial from eighteen fifty two to eighteen
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  Speaker 2: fifty three. So our guy is writing in segments and
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  Speaker 2: publishing those segments. So, like Chris Carter or Vince Gilligan,
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  Speaker 2: he's got to put out an episode every you know,
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  Speaker 2: at a certain cadence. And so maybe he just starts
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  Speaker 2: thinking out of the box due to necessity. Right, Maybe
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  Speaker 2: he's like he's getting to the death scene for Crook
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  Speaker 2: and he's like, all right, I've done this, I did this,
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  Speaker 2: I gotta do I gotta do something. Oh what about
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  Speaker 2: spontaneous human combustion? Or maybe and this happens to us
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  Speaker 2: all the time. Maybe he just got super obsessed with
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  Speaker 2: the subject and was trying to shoehorn it into his job.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my theory too, ben I do want to
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  Speaker 3: read a little bit of his introduction to the character
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  Speaker 3: of mister Crook, where he kind of plants the seed
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  Speaker 3: of his untimely demise. He describes him as being old, short, cadaverous,
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  Speaker 3: and withered, and his breath as issuing invisible smoke from
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  Speaker 3: his mouth as if he were on fire within.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, so he had this in mind. Here's what
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  Speaker 2: he said to his critics. By the way, when people
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  Speaker 2: were questioning the veracity of the Death Seat, he said,
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  Speaker 2: I shall not abandon the facts until there shall have
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  Speaker 2: been a considerable spontaneous combustion of the testimony on which
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  Speaker 2: human occurrences are usually received. Now that sounds a little
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  Speaker 2: bit complicated, a little bit round about in circuitous for
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  Speaker 2: us in the modern day, but he is essentially saying,
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  Speaker 2: you guys are wrong. This happens. I know about this,
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  Speaker 2: and get this, folks. He is not the only author
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  Speaker 2: to use spontaneous human combustion as a plot device.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got Herman Melville as well as Nicholas Gogul
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  Speaker 3: both who use SHC to end the lives of some
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  Speaker 3: characters in their books, respectively, Redburn and Dead Souls. We've
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  Speaker 3: got more modern pop culture examples, of course, and characters
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  Speaker 3: like Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch from The Fantastic Four,
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  Speaker 3: Flame On and all of that, as well as Stephen
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  Speaker 3: King's son Joe Hill, who mimics the horrifying supernatural fate
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  Speaker 3: of SHC in his novel The Fireman.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, The Fireman's a great book. In this book, without
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  Speaker 2: spoiling too much, there's a horrific plague. It's a virus
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  Speaker 2: called dragon scale, and if you get too stressed out
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  Speaker 2: and you have this virus, you erupt in flames and
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  Speaker 2: you die. We don't want to give you too much
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  Speaker 2: more of the plot. It's definitely worth the read. It's
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  Speaker 2: a page turner for sure. Also, I want to shout
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  Speaker 2: out Joe Hill's most recent novel, an absolute epic called
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  Speaker 2: King Sorrow. I was able to get it before it
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  Speaker 2: officially released and just devoured the thing. It's like it's
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: nine hundred something pages long.
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  Speaker 3: Oh wow. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But I think people who enjoy create creative horror stories
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  Speaker 2: like this, I think you'll you'll really dig it. It's
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  Speaker 2: a page turner.
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  Speaker 3: As well, is it?
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  Speaker 1: It?
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  Speaker 3: Like for some reason, I'm picturing King Sorrow as being
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  Speaker 3: some sort of big, bad, supernatural figure.
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  Speaker 2: Oh dude, yeah, it's similar to it. Stephen King's novel
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  Speaker 2: The main bad guy and this is also not a spoiler,
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  Speaker 2: is an extra dimensional dragon.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, like like Pennywise was an extra dimensional spider. I'm
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  Speaker 3: not trying to poop poopy Joe Hill cribbing from his
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  Speaker 3: dad a little bit. If you're gonna steal, steal from
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  Speaker 3: the best, and if that happens to be your dad,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: so be it. I think Joe Hill's very is good,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: and he's getting good in his own right for sure,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: as I think you would agree. Oh yeah, and if
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: you like graphic novels, get into Lock and Key. Well
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: that's the one that's what got me into him. I
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: think that came out maybe before he was as known
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: as a novelist.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and then he was publishing short stories in novellas.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, I remember back in one of our older offices,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: you and I were actually trading editions of Lock and
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Key back and forth.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: It's just gosh, I think I may still have some
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: of yours. Ben I need to do a cleaning of
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: my graphic novel piles and I'll report back.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, we'll stay tuned. Now, we know that everything we
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  Speaker 2: mentioned so far these are works of fiction, and Charles
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  Speaker 2: Dickens is popping back at people and claiming that the
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  Speaker 2: fiction is informed by the facts. But when we get
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  Speaker 2: to the facts of what we call SHC, or spontaneous
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  Speaker 2: human combustion, we see over two hundred alleged cases in
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  Speaker 2: the past three centuries. So it would be a very
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  Speaker 2: rare thing to occur, but it seems like a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people have been convinced it is indeed a real
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  Speaker 2: thing that could happen.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So, over the past three hundred years there have
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  Speaker 3: been more than two hundred reported cases of alleged SHC.
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  Speaker 3: If you want to look back even further, back to
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  Speaker 3: medieval times, you know, the historical period, not the theme restaurant.
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  Speaker 3: We find that allegedly the first account of SHC was
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  Speaker 3: reported by Polonas Vorstius, and from that point on, each
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: case of SHC has shared some of the following characteristics,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: some of which we've already described. Originally described in the
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  Speaker 3: medical book Medical Jurisprudence from eighteen twenty three. That was
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  Speaker 3: revisited when cited by la Perry in nineteen thirty eight
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  Speaker 3: in a British Medical Journal article This is how that goes.
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  Speaker 3: Victims were chronic alcoholics, which tracks for our character in
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  Speaker 3: Dickens's novel, usually elderly females. Body had burned spontaneously, hands
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  Speaker 3: and feet usually fell off. Fire caused little damage to
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  Speaker 3: surrounding areas. The combustion of the body left a residue
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  Speaker 3: of greasy and fetid ash, as well as a horrid odor.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and doubtlessly Charles Dickens read this in an informed
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  Speaker 2: bleak house, or it's one of the things that informed it.
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  Speaker 2: We also know that, just as a as a note
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: in the interest of objectivity, we know that forensic science
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: and medicine was nowhere near where it is today. So
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: it's quite possible that there were cases that appeared to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: be shc that just got confused because we didn't have
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: the technology or know how to really investigate them. But
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: it looks like a lot of very smart people were saying, hey,
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  Speaker 2: something is happening. Let's go to some of the popular cases,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: the ones that will stand out to anybody familiar with
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: this and We're also going to give a special shout
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: out to a hometown case for our research associate Dylan
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: for sure.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Starting off with the aforementioned Polonus Vorstius, we'll call this
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  Speaker 3: patient zero right from fourteen seventy. His case is popularly
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: known for its sixteen forty one mentioned in Danish physician
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Thomas Bartholin's book Historarium Historiarium Anato mcarum Rariorum Again I'm
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: potter coated right now, a collection of strange medical phenomenon
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: and Vorstias was an Italian knight who lived in Milan,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Italy in fourteen seventy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and despite not fitting the profile of being an
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: elderly female, he did drink a lot of wine. Reportedly, Okay,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: he has a wild night cracking the veno and as
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: he is still consuming wine like this is a party
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: till Dodd's situation. Apparently, he gets a strong, fiery paid
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: in his chest that he starts coffee just really like
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: hacking it up. As his coffee escalates, he starts vomiting flames.
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  Speaker 2: His whole body burst into fire.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Wow, I was about to say sick. Now, It's that's scary,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: but it's pretty cool it's pretty metal breathing fire. Yeah, man,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I think we maybe are saying the quiet part out loud.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Here is the implication that these people are just like
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: so booze soaked, that like a single spark might just
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: set their entire bodies ablaze.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: It seems to be, you know, based on the information
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: we have now, it seems to that there is at
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: least some kind of alleged relation flammability. Yeah, alcohol consumption
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: and flammability. I mean, we see it again if we
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: go a little bit forward in time to Nicole Millet
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: from seventeen twenty five. This was reported by a French author,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Jonas DuPont in his book from seventeen sixty three, did
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Incindius boris umani Spontaneous? A collection of cases and studies
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: about the whole book is about spontaneous human combustion.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Yes, I expect to patrona. I'm sorry, I'm still so
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: potter brained. Her case is told through the eyes of
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: her husband, who's a Parisian innkeeper who was startled from
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: his slumber by the smell of smoke, at which time
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  Speaker 3: he rushed to the source, only to find his wife
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  Speaker 3: a blaze. Well not even a blaze. I think she'd already.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like what happens in Skyrim when you
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: get blasted by a wizard and you just end up
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  Speaker 3: like a little pile of ash.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: And again we see another factor that's common to a
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: lot of these ledged cases. She's on a straw palette,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: straw floor bed. But it has not caught on fire.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: It's not even singed. It's unscathed the fact, despite the
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: fact that straw is incredibly flammable when it's dry. All
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: that was left of her body was her skull, along
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: with a scattering of bones from her back and lower legs.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: And again, according to DuPont, the this victim was also
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  Speaker 2: a heavy drinker. At first, the authorities go to her
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  Speaker 2: husband and say, okay, man, you murdered your wife.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Clearly. He was initially put on trial and found guilty
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: of murder, but later was acquitted when he appealed using
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: the SAHC argument, and was backed up by the testimony
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: of one doctor Claude Nicholas Lecat This is amazing name,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: who was a surgeon who had been staying at the
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: end that very night and was able to corroborate some
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: of the more unusual features of the case.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and also able to speak from his own area
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: of expertise. You know, I am a man of medicine.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: This can happen. So we know that there are hundreds
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: and hundreds of alleged cases of this, so we can't
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: do all of them, but we're going to give you
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: one more that is crucial to hour Pal Research Associate Dylan.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: It is the case of doctor Irving Bentley that occurred
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: in counter Sport, Pennsylvania in nineteen sixty six, So we're
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: moving way forward to time.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: That's right. Doctor Bentley was a family doctor, a family
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: gugp serving the counter Sport area that's cou d Ersprt
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: from nineteen twenty five to nineteen fifty three. After he retired,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: he just kind of lived to chill, a little small town,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: quaint existence in his two story ranch Rambler. That's not true,
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: that's sank Hill's house, but it was a two story
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: home in North Main Street area of town. He had
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: kind of a verbal agreement with the North penn Gas
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Company that allowed them to enter his property and check
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: on his gas meter, which was located in the basement.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Because it was inside, so they can just walk up
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: to the sands, and so this is where we see
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: employee of the North Pen Gas Company, guy named Don Gosnell.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: It's December fifth, nineteen sixty six, and Don Gosnell, who's
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: done this many times before. He lets himself into the
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Good Doctor's home and it's nine am, and he's just
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: gonna go straight down to the basement and check the meter.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: But as he gets closer to the basement, he is
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed by a stench. He describes it as a sickly
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: sweetish smell. So he follows his nose and he sees
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: his Skyrim style pile of ashes, and above the pile
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: there's a large hole in the sea weed and it's
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: literally still smoking. They are glowing numbers rimming it.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: I'm not trying to make light of this dude's untimely demise,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: but it is a little funny to picture just the
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: smoking pile of ash and like dude's charred walker and
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: like a leg joint and a foot still slippered right
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: exactly and he had apparently I guess, burned through the
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: floor of the master bathroom.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: And so he calls out for doctor Bentley and he's
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: trying to say, hey, is everything okay, he got a
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: weird basement situation, and that's when he discovers Bentley in
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: his master bathroom over the basement with just a few
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: remains as we described there. I believe there was also
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: a bit of burned bathrobe. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: involved with this case, because of course don gets to
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the authorities too sweet. Everybody involved with this case is thinking,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: how can a fire get hot enough to burn Doctor
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Bentley but not scathe his walker. We do know that
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: he was, like so many people back then, a fan
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: of tobacco, a bit of a tobacconist. He was a
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: frequent smoker. We don't know too too much about his
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: alcohol consumption. We know the county deputy coroner got there.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: We know the local fire department was on the scene.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: The mortician was summoned, and eventually the deputy coroner had
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to make some official statement, that is Deputy Corner John Deck,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: and we've got a direct quote from him.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: We do indeed looks like Doc Bentley was smoking his pipe.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: The pipe toppled over and spilled over the tobacco, and
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: in the meantime he fell asleep. When he woke up,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: he was on fire. Because some of the flannel night
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: shirt pieces show on the floor as he went to
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: the bathroom. I don't know about that. That sounds that's
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: a little jumping. I mean, it's not particularly thorough sounding.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: It just seems, Yeah, accidental death is the ultimate verdict
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: or the ultimate conclusion of the authorities. But it's also
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: a very vague conclusion, and it doesn't really explain that
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the pattern of burning.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: I just think a moulder would say tisk disc to this.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, right, ever heard of the knife ghost. That's one
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: of my favorite molder likes.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Oh man, No, that's good, Ben. We're about to talk
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: about something called the Wick effect. But I was just thinking,
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: surely there must speaking of our deerstalker hats and literature
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: be a mention as a plot point in Sherlock Holmes
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: of Spontaneous human combustion, And there absolutely is. In a
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: story called the Singular Problem of the Extinguished Wicks, a
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: spinster has found dead in her apartment, strangely burned, with
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: nothing else affected. But what seems a simple case has
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: made more complex when her younger sister has later found
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: dead in the apartment, also burned. So two cases of
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: shc or something.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Else Yeah, and we again like, this is clearly an
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: obsession and a lot of fiction, especially in years past,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: But we have to ask what science to say about it.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: If you go to the scientific community at large and
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: you ask them, hey, how do we explain something as
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: out there and as frankly scary as spontaneous human combustion,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: You're most likely going to hear about something called the
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Wick effect. The best way to think about it through
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: grulish analogy is that your body is like a candle,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: and your body has fat in it. The fat acts
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: as a flammable substance, and the oils from your body
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: can be absorbed into your clothing, and it can be
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: found in your hair, and maybe, if the conditions are right,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: a source as small as the lit cherry of a
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: cigarette could set the candle on fire. And then they say, well,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: think about it this way, if we continue our grulish
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: candle comparison, maybe this theory explains why fire of this
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: sort can seem so contained, restricted just to the individual's
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: body and the stuff they're wearing, without really damaging the
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: rest of the room.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah. A guy named Brian J. Ford, who is a
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: biologist and author, had this to say, in support of
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: the argument, when a person is ill, they sometimes naturally
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: produce traces of acetone in the body, and acetone is
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: highly flammable. I experimented with scale model humans using pig
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: flesh that had been marinated in acetone. They burn like
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: incendiary bombs. Alcoholism can cause people to produce acetone, so
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: can many diseases. My conclusion is that an unwell individual
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: produces high levels of acetone which accumulate in the fatty
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: tissues and can be ignited, perhaps by a static spark
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: or a cigarette.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds good. I think we can all agree. However,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: there are some additional follow up questions, right like when
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: somebody is smoking a cigarette, how does that hit the
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: flammable stuff? Like, how does that trigger the issue? Because
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: usually the city I'm assuming theme from within, Yeah, it'll
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: be outside of the body. So are these people just
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: super hardcore gangsters and just putting the cigarette out on
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: their tongue.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Like a like they swallow it, but the saliva, you know,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: it seems like would put it out before it, you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: got any more meaningful? M hmm. Yeah.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: And this these are natural, valid questions, asking good faith,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: and with these in mind, it shouldn't surprise any of
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: us that there are other schools of thought. There are
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: scientists who oppose the Wick effect theory, and uh, they
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: point out something that is pretty obvious to medical authorities.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: The human body has to get to a very high
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: temperature to be reduced to just ash.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: That's the kicker, right, We're talking three thousand degrees fahrenheights.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: To put that into perspective, you know, the process of
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: cremating a human body happen when the temperatures reach between
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: fourteen hundred and eighteen hundred degrees. That is like vaporizing.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: You know, the kinds of temperatures that will you know,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: reduce bone to ash. So this notion of the Wick
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: effect doesn't really take that into account. And also the
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: whole secondary kicker of how does that fire stay contained within?
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, because there are many unfortunate and tragic cases
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: of total loss structural damage to homes and buildings that
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: start from fires that are pretty small but still spread
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: to consume the entire domicile. So at this point we
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: don't have the answer. We want to know what you think.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Hop on over to our show page on Facebook Ridiculous
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Historians and tell us your take on spontaneous human combustion.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Is this phenomenon alleged though it may be, Is it
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: something that really happenpons or is it possible that somehow
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: civilization got too excited about the concept and got everything
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: wrong in all of these cases? That seems kind of unlikely.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: It does, It does seem pretty unlikely, and the fact
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: that medical science still doesn't quite have a consensus on
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: this so many years later, I don't know, it does
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: seem relatively improbable.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: It also seems endlessly fascinating. Folks. Thank you so much
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: for joining us. We can't wait to hear your thoughts
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: over on Ridiculous Histories. Thanks for super producer mister Max Williams,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: our research associate Dylan and who else.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: Are oh man, Well, plenty of people, But I just
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: wanted to say, you're feeling spontaneous, why don't you head
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: on over to Apple Podcasts or your podcast platform of
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: choice and write something nice. It makes us feel good
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: and helps people discover the show. Huge thanks to Alex Williams,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: who composed our theme. Max Williams, superproducer extraordinaire Jonathan Strickle,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: the quiztor. You know what you did? A. J. Mohamas
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Jacobs the Puzzler, and.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Of course I'm not thinking the quiztor, but I am thinking.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: We're both thinking doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance, as well
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: as our pals, the rude dudes over a ridiculous crime.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: If you dig us, you'll dig them like a grieve.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: I'm kidding. It's ninety nine percent murder free tack line
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: that we're very happy with, very indeed.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Oh jeez, Happy holidays, I guess right, No is it Thanksgiving?
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Ish times?
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Like holiday season?
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Holiday season? You'll have a fun time with your fam
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: or you know, with your friends. Friends. Givings are great.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: to your favorite shows.