• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Whatever happened to Spontaneous Combustion?

Stouffers

Stouffers

Banned
When I was a child, I thought this was a very real threat. I remember being exposed to it quite a bit over the course of a few years, but haven't heard anything about it in probably three decades. Did they find a cure?
 
Stouffers said:
When I was a child, I thought this was a very real threat. I remember being exposed to it quite a bit over the course of a few years, but haven't heard anything about it in probably three decades. Did they find a cure?
Click to expand...
They made a manga over it but then it turned into Dark Souls.
 
Same thing that happened to Toyotas accelerating when the brake was held down, vaping killing people etc etc. They are overblown or created by credulous reporting by the media and every single possible case that might even be tangentially related gets reported, making it seem like some big crisis. Then people start not caring and the media move on to the next thing.
 
Isn't this just a chemical theory? That all reactions are in a state of equilibrium, so an endothermic one should have some extremely small likelihood of going in the reverse direction to produce heat on its own without the need for any outside influence?

With the reactions being so favorably in the direction of the reactants, maybe one molecule out of billions might experience a flare up and it should never be noticed in any significant way. Or at least that's how I understand it.
 
It was not caught on camera since digital became cheap. Unlike UFOs, this is not something you can bullshit your way around - it's rather obvious when some starts burning.

Also, the wick effect became the proven explanation for lack of damage in the surroundings of some burned people.
 
Still happens in things not human.

Human Spontaneous Combustion though, not so much. The last one I know of happened in 2010.

In the early hours of 22 December 2010, Faherty's neighbour, Mr Mannion, was awakened by the sound of his smoke alarm. Mannion went outside to find heavy smoke coming from Faherty's house. Getting no answer from Faherty's house, he roused local residents and the Gardaí and the fire brigade was called.

Faherty's home was searched by forensic experts from the Gardaí and the fire service. Faherty's body had been found lying on his back with his head closest to an open fireplace. The fire had been entirely confined to the sitting room and the only damage found was to the totally burnt body, the ceiling above and the floor beneath him. No trace of any accelerants was found and there was nothing to suggest foul play had taken place. Assistant chief fire officer Gerry O'Malley told the inquest into the death that after a thorough investigation, fire officers were satisfied that the open fire was not the cause of the blaze which led to Faherty's death.

A post-mortem carried out by pathologist Grace Callagy noted that Faherty had suffered from Type 2 diabetes and hypertension but had not died from heart failure. Callagy concluded that "The extensive nature of the burns sustained precludes determining the precise cause of death."

In September 2011, the west Galway coroner, Dr Ciaran McLoughlin, informed the inquiry into the death that he searched medical literature to determine the cause of death. The coroner referred to Professor Bernard Knight's book on forensic pathology, which states that a high number of alleged incidents of spontaneous human combustion had taken place near an open fireplace or chimney.

The coroner subsequently made a statement to an inquiry: "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."
Click to expand...

But it's pretty much everyone saying "i dunno how this happened" when they find a charred corpse with no apparent cause, which happens less and less as forensic science improves.
 
water inside human body will prevent combustion at common temperatures.
if you want to burn meat quickly, you need small pieces of meat.

i hear mummies are weak against fire in fictions.
 
Candle wick theory.

"The wick effect is the name given to the partial destruction of a human body by fire, when the clothing of the victim soaks up melted human fat and acts like the wick of a candle. ... It is one commonly offered explanation for the alleged phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion (SHC)."
 
Last edited:
Humans don't spontaneously combust, per the latest science and studies. There have been reports of it, but in the science community they're basically accepted as urban legends only. Humans can't get hot enough to just catch on fire. There have been some cases where humans have died in controlled fires, and they thought it was spontaneous combustion, but really it was something like they passed out with a lit cigarette while piss drunk, caught fire, and their body fats fueled the fire and produced enough heat to ashen some of their organs.
 
Last edited:
giphy.gif
 
Whitesnake said:
I believe the cure is masturbation.

I masturbate all the time and have never combusted.

Surely the two must be linked somehow.
Click to expand...

Every time you masturbate, someone else spontaneusly combusts.
Whenever you hear about a genocide somewhere, it's a lie to hide the real reason people from those places are gone.
 
Same as aliens, ghosts and monsters.
Once everyone started walking around with an internet connected HD camera in their pocket it magically disappeared :goog_unsure:
 
Last edited:
As I understand it most documented cases involved a blanket and a large indoor heater of a type that is no longer available for sale. I'm fairly certain if there was a general phenomenon of people randomly burning to death we would know more about it.
 
Airola said:
Every time you masturbate, someone else spontaneusly combusts.
Whenever you hear about a genocide somewhere, it's a lie to hide the real reason people from those places are gone.
Click to expand...
How is he suppose to masturbate when his dick retracted inside of him?
 
I was on an airplane back in December. Halfway through the flight, I started to get REALLY hot and vibrate uncontrollably. I was able to down a double rum and Diet Coke before anything bad happened.
 
The Clintons realised they could just have people whacked and not face any repercussions so they stopped using that lame excuse for cause of death.
 
I love how this topic is framed, as if spontaneous combustion was a 90s fad that suddenly vanished.

Whatever happened to Nickelodeon game shows?
 
Same what happened to all miracles when camera was invented. God looked at camera and said: They have camera i am not needed anymore cya guys !
 
Ornlu said:
Was the floormat thing a hoax, or was that legit part of it?
Click to expand...
I'd say it was just a blatant attempt from Toyota to blame the consumers for accidents that came as a result of something they messed up in the development of their embedded systems.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

What the hell happened to nichegamer.com
14
430
Darkmakaimura replied
Wtf happened to our Borat?
47
1K
Cyberpunkd replied
The thing this say doesn't happen but keeps happening just happened again...
12
297
RJMacready73 replied
what happened to the neogaf pc build recommendations thread
4
353
AJUMP23 replied
What is happening to Japan?
2 3
119
2K
Shadowplay1979 replied
Top Bottom