Man officially dies from 'spontaneous combustion'.

[BloodyHeretic]

This is totally bizarre, I didn't think spontaneous human combustion actually happened.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep...sfeed=true



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15032614

[Darwinian]

There's always a source of ignition somewhere in these cases and what do you know, there was an open fire!

[Welsh cake]

His body had been extensively burned and, because of the extensive damage to the organs, it was not possible to determine the cause of death.

So... cause of death unknown.

McLoughlin said: "This fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation."

The coroner is making the most fatal and obvious of all contradictions. He's essentially saying we don't know what happened, so spontaneous human combustion is the only plausible explanation. I can't explain it, therefore I can.

The unexplained is just that, the unexplained.

[searchingforanswers]

Why don't you guys believe in spontaneous combustion?

[Minimalist]

The guy was Irish....time for the obligatory blood-alcohol content joke.

[MilesTailsPrower]

Spontaneous human combustion? Yea...? That sounds viable?

[Faith No More]

The unexplained is just that, the unexplained.

At least he didn't say, "God did it."

[Anomalocaris]

Why don't you guys believe in spontaneous combustion?

We don't believe it bacause there is no plausible internal source of ignition. If the ignition came from outside, that that would hardly fit the notion of "spontaneous". If you incinerate yourself by setting your cloth on fire with an accidentally lit match, that hardly counts as spontaneous combustion.

Most of the alledged cases of "spontaneous" combustion seems to involve a ghastly high degree of incineration of portions of a human corpes with surprisingly little heat and fire damage to the rest of the body or the nearby furniture.

It's easy to understand how the ghoulishly impressionable might conclude that the incinerated portion must have somehow burned from inside out since any normal fire burning from outside in would do much more damage to the surrounding before completely incinerating portions of the body.

But the advocators of spontaenous combustion have never advanced a plausible mechanism of internal spontaenous ignition. Those who thinks the ignition source came from outside, on the other hand, have demonstrated through experiments that wicking effect of closing on body fat can produce all the results seem in claimed cases of spontaneous combustion.

[searchingforanswers]

Oh. Okay. Thanks. (Not much I can say after that haha)

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Why don't you guys believe in spontaneous combustion?

Because there are reasonable natural explanations..

Note I do not claim "it simply does not happen" only that so far I do not believe that it does. I'd like evidence such as a few eye witnesses or some film.

Characteristics

The spontaneous combustion of people (i.e. death from a fire originating within the victim's body without a direct external cause) is a theorised explanation for a number of unexplained cases, some of which are well-documented and many of which are not. The more convincing cases share the following characteristics:

The body is completely or almost completely incinerated, while nearby furniture that should normally have been damaged under such temperatures remains intact. Damage is limited to the victim's clothing, to the area of the floor or furniture on which they died, and to the ceiling above the corpse.
The torso is the focus of the fire, and if remains are found these are of the extremities, such as the feet.
There are no traces of fire accelerant, and the fire does not have an evident external cause.
The victim is typically alone at the time of death, and is thought to have been alive when the fire started, despite showing little sign of having struggled.[2]


Natural explanations

Cigarettes are often seen as the source of fire. Usually, it is thought that natural causes such as heart attacks may lead to the victim dying, subsequently dropping the cigarette. Embers from cigarettes and pipes may also ignite clothes.[4] However, cigarettes burn at a temperature too low to trigger a flare up of most otherwise combustible materials. Typically, a lit cigarette dropped on an article of clothing creates a burn-hole, but does not initiate an open flame and spread.
The "wick effect" hypothesis suggests that a small external flame source, such as a burning cigarette, chars the clothing of the victim at a location, splitting the skin and releasing subcutaneous fat, which is in turn absorbed into the burned clothing, acting as a wick. This combustion can continue for as long as the fuel is available. This hypothesis has been successfully tested with animal tissue (pig) and is consistent with evidence recovered from cases of human combustion.[5][6] It is not normally understood that the human body typically has enough stored energy in fat and other chemical stores to fully combust the body. However, human tissue does not hold a flame.[citation needed]
Scalding can cause burn-like injuries, including death, without setting fire to clothing. Although not applicable in cases where the body is charred and burnt, this has been suggested as a cause in at least one claimed SHC-like event.[7]

Other propositions:

Unverified natural phenomena

Since every human body contains varying strengths of electrical field and the human body also contains flammable gases (mainly methane in the intestines), an electrical discharge could ignite these gases.
SHC victims are sometimes described as lonely people who fall into a trance immediately before their incineration. Heymer[4] suggests that a psychosomatic process in such emotionally distressed people can trigger a chain reaction by reacting nitrogen within the body and setting off a chain reaction of mitochondrial explosions. This hypothesis has been criticized on the basis that Heymer "...seems to be under the illusion that nitrogen exist as gases in the blood and are thus vulnerable to ignition, which is, in fact, not the case."[8] The hypothesis also fails to take into account the fact that nitrogen is an inert, non-flammable gas.
Another hypothesis suggests high-energy particles or gamma rays[1] coupled with susceptibilities in the potential victim (e.g., increased alcohol in the blood) triggers the initial reaction. This process may use no external oxygen to spread throughout the body, since it may not be an oxidation-reduction reaction. However, no reaction mechanism has been proposed, nor has a source for the high-energy particles.
The victim is an alcoholic and has been smoking while drinking or shortly after drinking a strong spirit. There are claims that this raises the blood alcohol level to a point where it ignites; however, this theory is considered implausible. However, this does introduce the probability that the victim falls asleep while holding a lit cigarette.
Another hypothesis is that both clothing and the person are ignited by a static electric discharge. A person walking across a carpet can build up sufficient charge and voltage to create a spark. It is unlikely that this could start a clothing fire, as although the voltage can be high (several thousand volts), the stored energy is very low (typically less than a joule). Proponents of this hypothesis say that records show there has never been a recorded case of a naked SHC victim.
The controversial phenomenon of ball lightning has also been proposed as a cause of spontaneous combustion.[citation needed]
One hypothesis for SHC takes into account mitochondria, the "internal combustion engine" of higher living organisms. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the body, and sites of highly active energy packet production that uses an oxidative phosphorylation mechanism. Uncoupling of the metabolic processes in mitochondria from its energy production results in generation of large amounts of heat that is called thermogenesis. (This heat production is different from fever, which is an inflammatory response to infection.) Mitochondria are especially abundant in the skeletal muscle cells that require high energy output for their function. Since skeletal muscles constitute a major portion of the body, they harbor an enormous number of energy producing mitochondria. Under stress and certain extreme physiological conditions, the hyperactivity of energy producing mechanism of the body may exceed the conservation or utilization. Available body fat may also serve as additional fuel for combustion. This hypothesis still requires rigorous laboratory testing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous...combustion