A Question About Spontaneous Human Combustion

Because I have written thousands of articles on a wide variety of unusual or “unexplained” topics for over fifteen years, I often get queries from readers who contact me through my website (www.benjaminradford.com) and ask questions, either general ones or some in response to a specific article or blog I’ve written.

I don’t always have time to answer them, and of course some are abusive or trolling. But when I have time, I try to reply as best I can, since the person took the time to write to me and is presumably sincere.

Today I got the following query:

“Could spontaneous human combustion be a product of sonoluminescence? Hit the right frequency and explode a bubble in the gut or something?”

I replied,

There are many theories about SHC, and I've heard that one floated now and then. Anything is possible, of course, but the biggest problem with that theory is that there's no evidence for it: gas bubbles in the gut aren't explosive, and even if it was I don't know of any research showing that sound waves can ignite it.

Certainly there's some methane in the colon (hence why farts can be lit), but sound can't ignite fire.

Plus, of course, the body itself is a pretty good sound barrier (water, bone, flesh, etc.); it's hard to imagine what sounds could be carried into the gut and do that.

And if that were true you'd expect to find a common thread among the SHC victims, listening to a certain music, or being exposed to some specific sound or frequency--but there's no evidence of that. Here's a piece with more on SHC: http://www.livescience.com/42080-spon...