The mysterious case of people who burst into flames for no reason

Spontaneous human combustion has been around for 400 years and was especially common at the end of the last century. But despite advances in science, we are no closer to knowing what causes it, writes David Barnett

Mary Reeser and the photograph that launched a thousand nightmares (Alamy/CC 3.0)

For anyone who lived through the 1970s and 1980s, and was perhaps an inquisitive child of a mildly macabre bent, there will be a photograph that is more than likely seared on their memories. It is a black and white image, and on first glance there’s a certain disconnect about it, a collection of unfamiliar shapes that it’s often difficult to process on initial viewing, possibly because there's nothing comparative to give a sense of scale or location.

It’s only when the eye finally kicks the brain into accepting what it is being shown that the true horror dawns. There’s a twisted grey mass that could be a fire-gutted building in a field or expanse of concrete. But it’s the main focus of the photograph that gives us sudden, rushing context. The field is a carpet, the building is a burned-out chair. And that thing in the foreground is indeed a human leg, charred off just below the knee, and still wearing an incongruously well-shined flat-heeled shoe.

It was, of course, a case of the dreaded spontaneous human combustion (SHC).