Mystery

The Puzzle of Human Spontaneous Combustion

WIDOW MARY Reeser was a plump woman of 67 who lived quietly in a modest but pleasant apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida. On the morning of July 2, 1951, a telegram arrived for her. The landlady, who lived in the same building, tried to deliver it but could get no reply from Mrs. Reeser. She tried the doorknob. It was so hot to the touch that she cried out in pain.

Two painters were working nearby, so the landlady called them over and asked them to break in. they put their shoulders to the door and, with a splintering of woodwork, it swung open. The landlady and the workmen reeled back under a blast of furnace-hot air. But when shortly after they crept inside the apartment there was no sign of the conflagration they had expected. All they could see was a feeble flame flickering on the partition wall, which separated them from the apartment's small kitchen. They easily put it out, and peered round the partition into the kitchen.

The landlady expected to see Mrs. Reeser, perhaps sleeping in her armchair. But all she saw of the armchair were a few springs-and all she saw of Mrs. Reeser were a few unrecognizably charred bones, a skull shrunken to half-size by intense heat, and a single satin carpet slipper containing a left foot burnt off at the ankle… Plastic utensils in the kitchen had been melted and a mirror had been shattered by the heat. But the only other sign that there had been a fire was a small area of scorched floor. A newspaper lying nearby was quite untouched.

At an inquest held into Mrs. Reeser's death, experts professed themselves utterly baffled. The blaze, which had consumed her body, had been more intense than 2,500° Fahrenheit needed to dispose of the corpses in the city's crematorium. Yet the fire had not spread by more than inches from the old woman's body. No cause could be found for the blaze and a police suggestion that Mrs. Reeser had fallen asleep while smoking and had set fire to her clothing was laughed out of court by the pathologist.

The experts admitted defeat. Their only other course would have been to admit the possibility of one of the strangest and most argued-about scientific phenomena of all time-spontaneous combustion, the sudden bursting into flames of a human body, during which the clothing is sometimes not even scorched

The unfathomable case of Mrs. Reeser is only one of the more recent cases of spontaneous combustion. Such 'human torch' blazes have been discussed for centuries. But because 20th-century scientists are highly skeptical about the phenomenon, cases of it are seldom well documented and rarely studied. Even so, apart from the death of Mrs. Reeser, there are some other well-substantiated cases.

In 1880, an eminent physician, Dr. B. H. Hartwell, was among several witnesses to the death of a woman at Ayer, Massachusetts. Flames suddenly burst from the woman's torso and legs, and she sank to the ground and died in a horrifying blaze.

In England, in 1919, a well-known author of the day, J. Temple Thurston, died at his Kent home, his body horribly burned from the waist down. The inquest verdict was that he had died from heart failure. But no one could explain how he came to be burned over half his body when there was no sign of fire in his room and when the rest of his body was untouched, and how his body had blazed away beneath his clothes without even singeing them.

In 1922, Mrs. Euphemia Johnson, a 68-year old widow, was burned to a pile of blackened bones at her home in Sydenham, London. The fire that consumed her body must have been as intense as that of a furnace-yet her clothes were untouched.

Two similar, horrifying cases of spontaneous combustion occurred in England in the 1930s. The first involved a 19-year-old secretary, Maybelle Andrews, who was dancing with her boyfriend at a club in London's Soho. Flames suddenly shot from her chest and back, consuming her within minutes and resisting all attempts by other dancers to beat them out. At the inquest no solution was offered to the mystery of her death. Her numbed boyfriend, William Clifford, said: "The flames seemed to come from within her body." The inquest verdict: death by misadventure, caused by a fire of unknown origin.

The second case was reported in 1938. Phyllis Newcombe, 22, was leaving a dance hall at Chelmsford, Essex, when blue flames suddenly engulfed her body. She was reduced to a pile of ashes within minutes. The coroner who investigated her death said: "In all my experience I have never come across anything as remarkable as this."

Another case in England that same year was investigated by biologist Ivan Sanderson, who founded the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained, in New Jersey. This was the case of Mrs. Mary Carpenter, who was with her family aboard a boat on the Norfolk Broads on a hot summer's day. Suddenly, as her husband and children watched in horror, she burst into flames and was reduced to ashes.

Two of the best-authenticated cases of spontaneous human combustion in the second half of the century have occurred in the United States. The first involved Billy Peterson, who was sitting in his parked car in Detroit when flames apparently burst from his body. When rescuers pulled out his charred corpse they found that the heat inside the car had been so intense that part of the dashboard had melted. Yet Billy Peterson's clothes had not even been singed.

The second and equally remarkable phenomenon occurred on December 5, 1966. Early that morning Don Gosnell started his working day reading gas meters in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. One of the first houses he called at was the home of Dr. John Bentley, a 92-year-old retired family physician. Knowing that the old man could move around only with the help of a walking frame, Gosnell was not particularly surprised when no one answered the front door. He let himself in and walked downstairs to the basement to read the meter. There he found a neat little heap of ashes on the floor. Gosnell wondered how it had got there but did not think to look up at the ceiling, where a charred hole gave a clear view into the bathroom. The ashes had fallen like powder through the hole.

Gosnell read the meter and walked back upstairs, calling Dr. Bentley. Traces of smoke hung in the air and as Gosnell walked down the hallway to investigate he sniffed 'a strange, sweetish smell'. He opened the bathroom door and fell back in horror.

The doctor's soot-blackened walking frame lay on the floor, overhanging a gaping hole, its edges scorched by fire. Also on the floor lay all that remained of Dr. Bentley-a right foot, still in its carpet slipper and burnt off at the calf.

At the inquest which followed, the coroner recorded a verdict of 'death by asphyxiation and 90 percent burning of the body'. All the comment he would make later was: "It was the oddest thing you ever saw." (Nigel Blundell, author, World's Greatest Mysteries)

Araw ng Kalayaan Special

New Findings on the Philippine National Flag

Except for a dozen years, when the Flag Law was enacted by the Philippine Commission in 1907 and repealed in 1919, the Philippine national flag proudly fluttered since President Emilio Aguinaldo unfurled it in Cavite on May 19, 1898. It is the first Asiatic emblem symbolizing the libertarian aspirations of the downtrodden peoples of colonial Asia during the 19th century. Yet, controversies surround this historical symbol. Clarifying these controversies is necessary to erase the confusions that exist among our countrymen regarding our national emblem.

Every revolutionary group made its own banner when the revolution erupted in August 1896. The common banners were one with the letters "KKK" or "K" in the old Filipino script at the center of a red field. In Batangas, the Filipino forces there had a flag of two stripes, red and blue, and at the middle is a sun surrounded by seven stars, while another had also a red and blue stripes and at the middle a rising sun with three stars under it all colored in yellow. In Cavite, the revolutionary flag had a letter "K" surrounded with rays. On April 19, 1897, in a meeting at Naik, Cavite, the Filipino leaders replaced it with a sun with eight rays. This emblem lasted until December 14, 1897 when the Truce of Biak-na-Bato was forged between the Filipinos and the Spaniards.

While at Biak-na-Bato, the Filipino leaders received, from time to time, copies of the El Cuba Libre, the Cuban revolutionary newspaper, and they liked the design of the Cuban flag that was printed on the newspaper's masthead. In fact, General Gregorio H. del Pilar and his Tropa ng Pasong Balite had already used their own banner based on the Cuban flag. Del Pilar's flag was one where the equilateral triangle is blue, the upper stripe is red (pulang kundiman), and the lower stripe is black. It was while on self-exile in Hong Kong that Emilio Aguinaldo, with the concurrence of his fellow leaders, decided to create the flag that is now our national emblem.

In as much as it was President Emilio Aguinaldo's brainchild, it is important to consult original documents pertinent to it that could shed light on what was the original design and features of the flag that President Aguinaldo had had in mind. From the Philippine Insurgent Records are to be found a number of original documents that clearly state the original design and features as well as their original meanings. One of these documents is entitled E. Aguinaldo Description of the Filipino Flag. Written in Tagalog by Aguinaldo himself, it states:

Ang tatlong kulay , tatlong tala at isang araw na tinataglay ng Kagalanggalang nating Bandila nitong Sangkapuluang Filipinas ay inihahayag ang mga sumusunod: ang pula may dalang kahulugan na ang valor o tapang ng mga Filipino na di ipagpapahuli kanino pa man. Ito ang unang kulay at tanging ginamit ng mga alsado sa Cavite ng ika-31 ng Agosto hanggang sa dumating at dinatnan ng Paz sa bundok ng Biak-na-Bato. Ang itim ay inihahayag niya sa buong mundo na kung sino man ay magnanasang kumuha nitong Sangkapuluan ay mapupuksa muna at mauubos muna ang mga Filipinos bago niya ipalupig. Ang puti ay nagsasabi ng buong katunayan na maaari ng Gomobierno o mamahala sa sarili, katulad din naman ng ibang mga Nacion at kusang napamamasid sa mga Extrangheros na masdan nila ang mga gawi kung tunay ngang tahimik.

Ang kahulugan ng tatlong bituin ng tiglilimang dulo ay ang mga Yslas Luzon, Visayas at Mindanao, at itinuturo ang mga pulong mumunting nakaliligid na kanyang sakop. At tapusa'y ang walong rayos na nataglay ng araw na sumisikat ay ang walong provincias Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Morong, Laguna, Batangas, Nueva Ecija at Cavite na dineklara ng Gobierno Kastila en estados de guerra, at ito ang siyang biglang nagbibigay linang sa lahat at kasalukuyang ngayon, nagkukusang pinapalis ang mga dumi sa paglilinis sa bagsik ng liwanag ng araw na dala ay napararamay at kusang nananaog sa bundok ang mga Aetas, Igorotes, Manguianes at Moros na tinatawag na pawang din Filipinos at kapatid kong kinikilala.

Interviewed by the Philippines Herald on October 30, 1929, Mrs. Marcela Agoncillo declared that in designing of the Filipino flag, the following were taken into consideration: the white equilateral triangle of the Katipunan, the general characteristics of the first Philippine flag bearing a sun with eight rays in the middle of the red field, the general outline of the Cuban flag, and the three five-pointed stars to represent Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Interviewed on October 6, 1984, the late historian Professor Teodoro Agoncillo averred that "…the original [sun] is the mythological sun. Merong mata, merong ilong, merong bibig…But the Sun [in the national flag] today is a violation, it is not the original. Ang original sketch ni Aguinaldo na ginawa ng Lola Silay [Mrs. Marcela Agoncillo] sa Hong Kong is the mythological Sun…"

It is interesting to note that the color black in the flag that was originally envisioned by Aguinaldo became blue in the flag that was made in Hong Kong. How the "black" became "blue" in the evolution of our national flag is clarified by the document entitled Act of the Declaration of Independence of the Filipino People Drawn Up in Cavite Viejo, June 12, 1898. Pertinent portions of this document, translated by Dr. Conrado Benitez, say, "the colors of our present flag were adopted in honor of the flag of the United States and as a sign of thanks for America's help and protection in those early days."

American Apostasy and the Philippine-American War that broke out on February 4, 1899 contributed to another change in the development of our national flag. President Aguinaldo, in fact, wanted to restore his original ideas about the flag, as could be seen in his September 29, 1898 speech before the Filipino Congress at Barasoain Church, in Malolos, Bulacan. Eventually, the Filipino revolutionary leaders effected the change. In an article published in the October 25, 1899 issue of Filipinas Ante Europa, Isabelo de los Reyes wrote:

"It proudly and nobly flutters before the altar of Liberty, symbolizing the sublime redemption of the Filipino people, sacredly carved and worthily affirmed by the indomitable integrity of their Heroes and Martyrs.

It is the emblem of Filipino ideals and of Filipino heroisms. Under its shadow is the Philippines' unparalleled history. Firmly opposing colossal perfidy, its honor is purified by the lifeblood of the Sons of the Country so that it shall remain spotless and shining brilliantly.

The Filipino people revere its beautiful colors and features. The white triangle symbolizes Katipunan's unswerving faith in the ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

The resplendent and radiant Sun in the middle of the triangle shows the country's triumphant destiny. The Sun represents the rule of Liberty and Justice shining throughout the land. Its three golden stars represent the geographic divisions of the Archipelago-Luzon, Visayas, with Mindanao and Sulu.

The Filipino people behold its red and blue stripes. The color sky blue proclaims to the whole world the nobility of the Filipino cause, and its red-blood color is the eternal monument to the many blood shed by the Filipino people…"

Other Filipino leaders corroborated the sky blue hue of the flag. In a letter to a Japanese friend, General Y. Fukushima, dated February 21, 1899, Mariano Ponce stated that "the blue in the Philippine flag refers to the color of the sky." Apolinario Mabini also asserted that the blue in the Philippine flag is azul celeste (sky blue).

What happened to this original Philippine national flag? Emmanuel Baja quoted President Aguinaldo's statement regarding its fate:

"It was the same flag brought from Hong Kong which was taken to Malolos and used there in the Hall of Congress. It was taken by my staff in the retreat north but was lost somewhere near Tayug, Pangasinan."

The historian Dr. Gregorio Zaide reiterated the same observation that it was "lost in Tayug during President Aguinaldo's flight across Northern Luzon, hotly pursued by the Americans."

Recovery of his original Philippine national flag and its preservation shall be a priceless contribution to the Filipino people's celebration of the centennial of the 1896 Philippine Revolution. Lastly, restoring the above-mentioned original symbolic meanings shall settle the many controversies that surround this sacred relic of our forefathers' patriotic struggle to cut off the colonial bondage and make the Philippines truly free. (Luis Camara Dery, Ph.D. , PHILIPPINE PANORAMA 1998)