In August 1999, BBC TV broadcast in prime time a film in its prestigious science series 'QED', entitled Spontaneous Human Combustion.
The film was ambitious both as science and as reporting, for it set out to debunk once and for all the centuries-old belief that, under some mysterious circumstances, humans can catch fire and be almost entirely consumed, even in the security of their own homes.
Most impressive of all, the film set out to debunk the idea not merely with argument and theories, but with an actual experimental demonstration on camera in which the carcass of a pig was substituted for that of a human body.
The film's narrator, Samuel West, told viewers that, 'This film has brought together for the first time the world's top fire experts and follows their quest to solve the mystery of Spontaneous Human Combustion.'
The film's method was persuasive. First it showed experienced, intelligent and sincere professionals -- a fire chief and a police officer -- swearing that the bodies they found could only be cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Later, though, evidence was produced of possible sources of flame, in one case a book-match, in another a small candle, and the professionals were compelled to admit they could have been mistaken. Viewers saw for themselves how even the experts can be misled, and how easy it is to imagine extraordinary or paranormal causes for what are really quite mundane events.
Home Office Pathologist professor Mike Green, of Southampton University, made it clear that he did not believe in spontaneous human combustion. 'The way the body burns -- the so-called wick effect,' he said, 'seems to me and to my colleagues to be the most scientifically credible hypothesis.'
Then the film makers, producer Jan Klimkowski and director Stephen Leslie, enlarged on this scientific explanation.
'Forensic scientists . . .' they told viewers, '. . . are convinced that, like other fires, these fires are most commonly started by a careless match or cigarette and they believe there is a simple explanation of how this can reduce the body to ash.'
'The scientific explanation -- the 'wick effect' -- proposes that in certain rare circumstances the human being can burn like a candle.'
The explanation advanced by the film makers was that a clothed human body is like an inside-out candle where the fat, or fuel source, is inside and the wick is outside. Once burning begins, the melted fat seeps into the clothing and burns like a wick, slowly over a period of many hours.
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Dr John DeHaan of the California Criminalistics Institute demonstrated this theory by burning the body of a pig wrapped in a blanket to simulate a clothed human being, using about a litre of petrol as an initial accelerant.
The film makers concluded emphatically, 'The scientists have clearly demonstrated how the classic features of spontaneous human combustion can occur through normal processes.'
Importantly, the 'wick effect' explanation proposed in the film necessarily entails three key features:-
* It is a slow, gradual process taking many hours, typically 5 to 10 hours or more. In the DeHaan experiment, the pig carcass was still not fully consumed after 7 hours.
* There is always a source of combustion -- matches, cigarette, candle, gas fire, coal fire etc, and some initial accelerant -- perfume, alcohol, or some other spirit.
* Because it is a long slow process involving the melting of body fat, the victim must necessarily be killed.
