9. Spontaneous Human Combustion
The process of how the human body can be completely incinerated, bones and all, has been answered by "The Wick Effect." A human body clothed in any material that will act as a wick when saturated by the fat contained in the body will allow a small but intensely hot flame to completely consume a human body in a few hours when laying in a horizontal position. In a vertical or upright position the process may be accelerated and the time necessary reduced accordingly. This small but intense flame is concentrated within the body and does not ignite any surrounding material. In many of the cases an ignition source has been found or postulated, but there still remain cases where no source of ignition can be attributed. The process is known, but in many cases the mechanism still remains a mystery.
Back to Mysteries of the Universe BBS