Spontaneous Human Combustion And Bigfoot Whats The Connection

Spontaneous human combustion and Bigfoot, two favourite weird topics from my youth. And in fact big favourites of all sorts of people who like to read about weird things, numerous books have been written about both. And it's safe to say that many people are firmly convinced of the reality of both. And that's where I recently discovered common ground between the two, in both cases, like Oakland, there is no there there. I know, this is turning into a distressingly skeptical blog. If the gentle reader wants to continue believing in the reality of Bigfoot or SHC, it's probably safest to stop reading now. The older I get the more I realize that almost everything in print online and off has little or no actual bearing on reality. I don't think most people could find reality even if they had a map. Or worse, they think things like the Bible and the Koran are the map. I digress. Moving right along, spontaneous human combustion (SHC.) This is when a human body is found where the body has almost been completely destroyed by fire, with no evidence of how the fire occurred, and often little to no fire damage to surrounding items. And no doubt it "would" be mysterious to find someone burned to a crisp in their living room with little fire damage to other items in the room. The phenomena is definitely real in that the finding of such bodies is well documented and continues to occur occasionally. And is even sometimes officially classified as spontaneous human combustion. Though it is done so because the cause of the combustion was undetermined, not that there was anything weird or supernatural about the deaths. That's the first thing to understand about SHC is that while it sounds superficially implausible that a human body could burn to a crisp without setting a room on fire, in fact this isn't particularly mysterious. Humans, and this is especially the case in SHC victims, have a lot of body fat. Think candle. Tests with pig cadavers that once a body begins to burn, it will indeed burn up over a period of time without undue damage to other items ion the room. The flames aren't particularly hot, and they are confined to the fallen person's body and clothing. And it's not particularly hard to ignite a body, any open flame will do, especially if clothing catches fire. Pretty gruesome, but not mysterious. It gets worse. How is it that someone can catch fire and then just do nothing and let it burn? Well, undoubtedly some SHC cases are people who died of natural causes while they were smoking. The classic case though is found on a kitchen or bathroom floor, as if the victim was felled instantly somehow and began to burn. In fact that's exactly what happened, though the other way around, they caught on fire and were felled instantly. What made them drop dead? Their clothing on fire. How does that kill someone instantly? Easily as it turns out, which I didn't know. What does one do if one looks down and their shirt is on fire? In many cases people panic. They run for a bathroom and kitchen, and in some cases they look down and inhale at the same time. And if someone gets flames into their lungs they drop dead. Well, they pass out I guess, but the effect is the same. Yes, another mystery of life that has a prosaic explanation. Back to the drawing board. Or, in this case, Bigfoot. Someone mentioned something about that I wish I had thought of. Bigfoot tracks, still found all the time. A friend asked, why don't they just have dogs follow the trail? Hmm. Not just a good point, a damning point. People hunt with dogs in Bigfoot country all the time. In fact all sorts of people with dogs, hunting or not, travel in Bigfoot country. A Bigfoot can outrun a dog or a pack of dogs? Not if it's a flesh and blood animal. Granted the Bigfoot coffin was already firmly nailed shut, but this objection is really hard to explain away. Impossible really considering how long humans and dogs have been wandering around the USA. Fortunately the world is still full of imponderable mysteries. Like how come Americans never learn from their foreign policy mistakes? Have a great weekend everyone! (The above image is a still from a movie called Curse of Bigfoot. I'm claiming it as Fair Use under US copyright law. Since it's available as a free download (it was that good apparently) I think it's safe to use an image from it in a not-for-profit way. And it is the only image of a flaming Bigfoot I could find on line. The Internet is a wonderful thing, how could I have found such an image before?)