Oklahoma Man Who Went Down In Flames May Have Been A Victim Of Spontaneous Combustion

By Danny Gallagher February 20, 2013 4:48 pm Posted in News-ish, WTF Danny Gallagher g+ page

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A man who suddenly caught on fire (without having to score three unanswered baskets in “NBA Jam”) may have been the victim of a rare and mysterious medical malady. [Image via Shutterstock.]

The Sequoyah County Sheriff’s Office said that a fire that killed a 65-year-old man have been caused by “spontaneous combustion,” a strange disorder that has only happened to about 200 people in the last 300 years …assuming it actually exists at all.

Sheriff Ron Lockhart told a local TV station that the man was completely burned by the fire but there was no fire damage to the house he was in at the time. There wasn’t even any damage to the furniture. He also said that the man was a heavy drinker and smoker but noted that “a cigarette burn will not do that.”

Medical examiners haven’t officially ruled “spontaneous combustion” as the cause of the man’s death but they also haven’t ruled it out yet either, Lockhart said.

“The most scientifically credible hypothesis” for spontaneous combustion comes from a theory called the “wick effect” in which a single spark mixed with a certain accelerant can start a small, undetected fire that slowly spreads to the body, usually when the person is sleeping or in a sleep-like state. Scientists conducted a demonstration of the “wick effect” on the BBC show “QED” using a pig wrapped in a blanket. That also makes it “the most scientifically delicious hypothesis” since the famous “Just How Much is ‘All You Can Eat?‘” experiment conducted by The Fat Boys in 1985.

via Gawker