Unlocking the Mystery of Spontaneous Human Combustion

Abstract:

When an obstacle occurs in the process of aerobic respiration of human cells, hydrogen cannot combine with oxygen to form water, and hydrogen atoms combine together to form hydrogen molecules, which will cause spontaneous human combustion. Hydrogen is combustible and oxygen helps burn. Starting from every single cell, this kind of burning is therefore fast and complete in a very short time.

Spontaneous human combustion is an objective phenomenon. It seldom happens and can’t be copied in a human body, not to mention an experiment in the testing ground. But it truly exists.This paper holds that the existing explanations to the causes of spontaneous human combustion are incorrect. In aim of finding the causes, the analysis should begin with the human physiological function and its errors.

I. Analysis on the types of spontaneous human combustion

In the natural world, a combustion caused without the participation of human factors or without the contact with the open fire is known as spontaneous combustion. Spontaneous combustion can be classified into electrostatic fire,oxidation fire and lightning fire. Human body’s automatic combustion without coming into touch with the open fire is called spontaneous human combustion, so it is with the condition that is in contact with the open fire.

The analysis of spontaneous human combustion is not to aim at the causes of the fire, but focuses on why the fire can quickly burn with little traces left, why there is no self-help or calling for help when spontaneous combustion takes place, why the household and other items don’t burn while the human body is burning, and why the burning is so fast within such a short time.

1. External fire is not regarded as spontaneous human combustion:

It’s generally believed in the theory circle that it’s wrong to attribute all the burning happened to human body for unknown reasons to human spontaneous combustion. Like the burning of other organics, the external burning for some certain reason doesn’t belong to human spontaneous combustion.

The event of Adele Wada G from Brussels, Belgium on the New Year’s Day 2002 is a good illustration. On the way driving home from the beach where she picked some shells with her family, her thigh suddenly flared flames, making her suffer from sever degree burn from waist to thigh, later sodium was found in the shells she had picked. The accident was characterized by external fire, having the time to call for help, to be rescued and to succeed in being saved.

This sort of burning should be classified into electrostatic fire of the natural spontaneous combustion or oxidation fire. Electrostatic of human body is so common that everyone has experienced the pain made by static electricity. And it’s a chemical phenomenon that the sodium can release a large amount of heat when wet.

2. Human spontaneous combustion is supposed to be part of internal oxidative combustion:

In spontaneous human combustion, there is no time to call for help, no evidence of struggle,or any room for being rescued. Most of the dead are lonely fat old cigarette-addicted people who live alone.

The victims without any exception in all the cases get burnt and reduced to ashes in an extremely short time without charred surfaces, without much damage to the furniture beside the corpse and the wallpaper, leaving the house flawless and perfect.

Generally, a burning house will make the candles melt, plastic transformed and wallpaper got involved in. Normally it takes over 30 minutes to burn a body into ashes with the high temperature of 2000 centigrade. The oddness is made up of the highly increased temperature, the completely-burnt body in so short time and no damage to the surroundings. Then only one explanation can unlock the mystery—each cell is on an oxidation fire at the same time.

II. Limitations of the existing theories

1. Limitations of wick-effect theory:

In an experiment conducted by the biologist Mark, because of the similarity between pork’s fat and human being’s, he wrapped up a piece of pork with a piece of cloth, it turned out that the pork were burnt into ashes after being lightened in the way candles do. It equals to the principle of candles’ burning except for the internally or externally set wick.

But the theory is not convincing. First, there is inconformity with the scene of spontaneous human combustion since the fire is outside the body like the burning candles, the people will definitely call for help and struggle in the scene in great pain leaving the traces of struggling. Moreover, it is not the reality that the external fire will basically reduce everything outside the body to ashes before burning the body itself.

Additionally, when the house is in a temperature of 2000 centigrade within 30 minutes, it will certainly be on fire, including the furniture and alarm the neighbours. In spontaneous human combustion, on the contrary, the neighbors are ignorant of the fire and the house together with the furniture is good as before.

2. Limitations of nuclear fusion theory:

The biological part of “Supernatural Science Phenomena” attributes spontaneous human combustion to nuclear fusion and fission, which holds that the abundant trace elements, hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms in human body will react with the ideation biological electric field high potential (like the partial high temperature produced by the ideas of Qigong), and a thermo-nuclear reaction of hydrogen atoms occurs in the circumstance of high potential, generating several hundred centigrade, which ignites the clothes and makes human spontaneous combustion happen.

The limitations of this theory are listed as follows:

First, the human body neither meets the conditions of nuclear fusion or nuclear fission, nor meets the needs of the high temperature when nuclear fusion takes place. And also in the human body there are no neutrons with high energy and high speed to hit the atomic nucleus.

Furthermore, spontaneous human combustion has never happened to the people having the ideation biological electric field who practise Qigong, and none of the victims of the spontaneous human combustion have practiced such Qigong.

In addition, once the nuclear fusion or fission happens, the energy will burst in a flash and it won’t stop easily. However, there are no traces of any explosion in the scene of human spontaneous combustion. Last but not the least, this theory makes the same mistakes as the wick-theory does that it assumes the clothes gets burned first and thus makes the human body combustion take place.

III. The essence of the spontaneous human combustion

The spontaneous human combustion is in fact caused by the simultaneous imbalance of many human physiological functions. That is why most of the victims are sickly people.

1. The control of the disorders of rates of oxidation mechanisms:

The glucose will release the same energy no matter its oxidation takes place in vivo or vitro.The vitro combustion is characterized by rapid oxidation and the concentration of releasing the energy.

In contrast, the vivo oxidation is slow and releases energy slowly under the controlled conditions. Once the control of the rates of oxidation mechanisms becomes imbalanced, the rate is not in accordance with the need of body’s energy, which may result in the lack of energy in body.

2. The central administration responsible for regulating and controlling the body’s temperature locates in hypothalamus:

Hypothalamus increases or decreases the heat generation and dissipation via the regulation of nerves and body fluid. When the outside temperature is lowered, the temperature difference between the temperature and the environment increases and so is the dissipation of heat. Then hypothalamus increases the amount of heat production and decreases the heat dissipation by regulating the nerve system and having the aid of thyroid hormone from thyroid hormones and adrenal hormones, aiming at reaching the balance of body temperature. If hypothalamus fails in regulating the temperature, the loss of function of body temperature regulation will take place.

3. Disorders of regulating the breathing process are the internal factors of spontaneous human combustion:

The source of the body energy is from the respiration of the cells, which is consisted of aerobic respiration and anaerobic respiration. The amount of energy produced by anaerobic respiration is only 1/19 of that produced by aerobic respiration, which the energy of human body mainly relies on.

The disorder of aerobic respiration will lead to the disorder of respiratory mechanism when spontaneous human combustion takes place. In the process of aerobic respiration, glucose will generate a small amount of energy in cytoplasmic matrix first, and produce a large amount of energy after entering the mitochondria.

The great amount of energy is produced by the combination of hydrogen off the glucose and pyruvate with the oxygen sucked in aerobic respiration. The hydrogen has to combine with a coenzyme in order to produce water by combining with oxygen, producing and releasing large amounts of energy at the meanwhile. If the coenzyme acts oddly, hydrogen atoms generated by aerobic respiration can not be combined with the coenzyme, the hydrogen atoms then combine with each other from a high-energy state to a lower energy state, releasing 436KJ energy in the combination of per mol hydrogen, which is slowly released with the slow decomposition of the glucose.

Although these energies can not transform ADP and Pi into ATP to provide energy for life activities, they are capable of maintaining body temperature temporarily for the sickly people and ensuring the activity of enzymes in their bodies, so as to continue the incomplete aerobic respiration. Hydrogen molecules from the combination of hydrogen atoms are becoming more and more, and they move freely by diffusing in every direction in human body.

Besides, oxygen can’t be used by being combined with hydrogen,  oxygen will be constantly accumulated in the body, constantly elevating the oxygen concentration, and the oxygen concentration inside the human body can be balanced with that in the air , reaching the amount of 21%. Hydrogen is capable of igniting while oxygen can help igniting.

Substances undergo complete aerobic combustion in the oxygen concentration of 10%. In addition to the burning of hydrogen and oxygen, body fat and other substances will get burnt with the aid of oxygen. This combustion starts from each single cell interior instead of burning from the outside of the cell. It will take over 30 minutes to burn a body from the outside with the high temperature of 2000 centigrade.

The time of burning is surely prolonged since the combustion starts from the outside to the inside, from the outside layer cell to the inside layer cell. However, high temperature and long time are not necessary for the complete combustion beginning with each single cell interior. Once the burning proceeds, no trace will be observed except for the feet and other hard parts due to the lack of hydrogen and oxygen. The whole process will be completed with the aid of static or striking a light for smoking.

IV. Explanations to the scene of human body combustion

1.Why there is no call for help in a spontaneous human combustion:

This kind of burning is starting from each single cell interior, and almost all the cells, nerve cells included, are simultaneously burning with very wide range, fast speed, and rapidly increased temperature. The enzymes necessary in metabolism quickly inactivate and the people lose their consciousness.

All functions of body stop working when feeling the temperature increases or losing consciousness. That is why there is neither call for help nor evidence of struggling left when spontaneous human combustion takes place.

2.The reasons why the furniture and wallpaper are not burnt in spontaneous human combustion:

The most abundant compound of the human body is water, amounting more than 70%. When spontaneous human combustion occurs, the temperature rapidly increases in a short time, the water of intracellular and extracellular is quickly vaporized, and the furniture and wallpaper surrounded will be cut off from oxygen when the vaporization of water vapors in the air. Then the surrounding materials don’t get burnt due to the absence of oxygen.

The human body won’t stop burning because of the hydrogen and oxygen in body or body cells in spite of the lack of oxygen outside. Some fatty substances in the high temperature are not burnt, but vaporized, just like  the humanoid traces left on the ground in the Hiroshima atomic bomb explosion in Japan.

3.Why there were no massive explosion phenomena in spontaneous human combustion:

Hydrogen can burn, oxygen can help to burn, and hydrogen and oxygen will explode when their proportion is different. But Why were there no massive explosion phenomena in spontaneous human combustion? The reason is: Hydrogen and oxygen are distributed in each cell in the body, each cell’s volume is very small, and the number of cells is considerable, but the amount of hydrogen and oxygen stored in each cell is not large.

Although hydrogen and oxygen are freely diffused in between cells, each cell is a relatively independent unit. Spontaneous human combustion begins with the first cell, spread one by one, and there is a time gradient between the cell and cell combustion, so there were no massive explosion phenomena in spontaneous human combustion.

Writers’ Resume:

1. Yangji was born in October,1957, graduated from Liaoning Normal University in 1982, receiving a bachelor degree in biology, and he has been working at Tieling Normal College since then, now he is an associate professor at Teachers College. His research interests are in Genetics and Human behaviour.

2. Xian Changyan was born in February, 1966, graduated from Liaoning Normal University in 1988, receiving a bachelor degree in English, and a Master’s Degree in English in 2008. She has been working at Tieling Normal College since 1988, now she is an associate professor at College of Foreign Language. Her research interest is in English.

By

Ji, Yang

Tieling Normal College, Liaoning, China

Yangji ;  Xian Changyan

Email: [email protected]