Mystery AtlasSpontaneous Human Combustion
The claimed phenomenon of a living human body igniting and burning without an identifiable external ignition source; forensic science attributes the great majority of cited cases, including Mary Reeser's, to an external ignition source combined with the wick effect rather than any unexplained process.
This is a knowledge-graph entry: what our data records about Spontaneous Human Combustion and how it connects to the rest of the atlas. It does not have a full article of its own yet.
Connected to
How this topic links to the people, places, and ideas around it — drawn from our knowledge graph.
Related Mysteries
- Death of Mary Reeser2 July 1951
Spontaneous Human Combustion has as instances Death of Mary Reeser — Widely cited as the archetypal case in popular accounts of spontaneous human combustion, though forensic investigators attributed the destruction to the wick effect rather than any anomalous process.
Spontaneous Human Combustion has proposed explanation Ball Lightning — A fringe hypothesis, floated by a small number of researchers, proposing ball lightning as an ignition trigger for some SHC cases; not accepted by mainstream forensic science, which attributes documented cases to ordinary ignition sources and the wick effect.
People
Spontaneous Human Combustion was popularised by Wilton M. Krogman — Krogman's widely quoted public statements of astonishment at the extent of destruction in the Reeser case helped cement the case's reputation as unexplained, even as forensic explanation accounted for it.
Science & Technology
Spontaneous Human Combustion has proposed explanation Wick Effect — Forensic science's mainstream explanation for the great majority of documented apparent SHC cases, given a plausible external ignition source.