On the morning of July 2, 1951, Mary Reese was found dead in her apartment. Everything about her death was mysterious. To begin with, not much was left of her. There was only a pile of ashes, a shrunken skull and a completely undamaged left foot. It was obvious that Mary had burned to death. But the odd thing was the damage done to her apartment. Only the corner where Mary had been sitting in her chair was burnt to a crisp. Everything else looked normal. Mary's death was explained as spontaneous human combustion (SHC.) That's when the body suddenly ignites (usually from the inside) without any explanation.
Mary's not the only one to have died from spontaneous human combustion. Hundreds of other people have been victims of SHC. In 1998, Agnes Phillips was sitting in her daughter's parked car in Sydney, Australia, when she suddenly burst into flames. Her daughter and a man, who witnessed the incident, put out the flames but Agnes died a week later in the hospital. The car wasn't running at the time of the fire, there was no faulty wiring and police couldn't think of any explanation for the fire other than spontaneous human combustion.
I believe every single word of it except for when they said hundreds have died from it. My teacher said it has something to do with cells...
Kidz Submit By:
Nickname: twintron4
Age: 14
I have done a report on it and totally beleive it. There is always a foul smelling oil surrounding the body... STRANGE! For my report I made a cake with bone ashes. I made a couch of marshmellows and tons more creative ideas. It was realy cool. Anyway, I totally beleive it's real because all the cases I've read about had nothing burning in the room when it happened!
Kidz Submit By:
Nickname: riley
Age: 12
I saw a documentary on SHC on Discovery channel. At first I didn't believe it but there was a photo, and a professional found out that it wasn't a fake at all. Some peeps believe that it's a chemical reaction in the stomach. The show was near my bed time, I had a hard time sleeping.
Kidz Submit By:
Nickname: hermione_Black
Age: 12
Wow! I definitely think this is superb and true. There is a photo and I wonder how SHC starts and what is the reason that caused it to start?
Kidz Submit By:
Nickname: Smartest_gurl
Age: 10
What do you think? Are these stories made up? Is spontaneous human combustion even possible? Take our poll and see what others think or drop us a line.
Last week I wrote about 10 Strange Facts. Did you believe all of them? If you did, you shouldn't believe everything you read, but then again, most of them were true. Only the last two facts were NOT true.
Here are last week's poll results:
Which One of These Stories is Made up?
All these facts are true. 18%
None of these facts are true. 18%
Most of them are true. 25%
Most of them are false. 37%
