Real-Life X-Files (39 page)

The final product appeared on the Globo program “Fantastico, ” described by one correspondent (who sent e-mail to Barry Karr) as “one of the most popular programs in Brazil. ” He remembered the appearance of a CSICOP magician but not the name. (How fleeting is fame!) He found it an “interesting report ” and offered a prediction that actually came true: that we would receive a number of subscription orders from it (Karr 1996). Maybe soon we can buy some of that fancy O.S.I.R. equipment to play with.

References

Chacon, Christopher. 1990. Unused outtake for
Unsolved Mysteries
. Oct. (Copy in CSICOP Video Archive.)

“Fantastico. ” 1996. Brazil: Globo International Television, Oct. 13.

Karr, Barry. 1996. Personal communication, Oct. 15.

Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal.
1996. “File no. 33130, ” Nov. 2.

Psi Factor Web page. 1996.
http://www.psifactor.com/
. The World Wide Web. Nov. 4.

Unsolved Mysteries.
1990. Oct. (Copy in CSICOP Video Archives.)

Chapter 39

Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) cases continue to spark controversy (so to speak), largely due to the efforts of nonscientist authors and journalists. These include self-styled British paranormal researchers Jenny Randles and Peter Hough (
Spontaneous Human Combustion
1992), Pennsylvania school bus driver Larry Arnold (
Ablaze
! 1995), English coalminer-turned-constable John E. Heymer (
The Entrancing Flame
1996), and—more recently—the producers of A 8c E networks TV series,
The Unexplained
. The continued lack of scientific evidence for SHC (Benecke 1998) keeps proponents desperately looking for cases they can attribute to the alleged phenomenon—cases that are often quite disparate. They assign instances of unusual burning deaths to SHC rather like one might blame freak auto accidents on the Highway Gremlin. (For a discussion, see Nickell and Fischer 1987 and Nickell 1996.)

The case of Jeannie Saffin, included in Heymer (1996,179-88) and Arnold (1995,208-9), is quite instructive. Because the source of the body’s ignition is not obvious in Saffin’s death, paranormalists are especially quick to propose SHC. In doing so, of course, they engage in a logical fallacy called
argumentum ad ignorantiam
(literally, “arguing from ignorance”), since one cannot prove a cause from a lack of facts. The case also illustrates how crucial details may be omitted and how accounts become exaggerated over time; therefore, it demonstrates the consequent need to return to original sources.

Jean Lucille “Jeannie” Saffin was a sixty-one-year-old English woman with the mental age of a child, due to brain damage from a forceps delivery at birth. Her mother having died the previous year, she lived with her
eighty-two-year-old father and a brother at the family home in Edmonton, north London. On Wednesday, September 15, 1982, a hot, humid day, Jeannie was sitting with her father in the kitchen. The windows were open. Suddenly, at about 4:15 p.m., Jack Saffin’s attention was directed to his daughter—who was ablaze. He shouted to his son-in-law, Don Carroll, who had been doing some work in the house and was just returning from upstairs, and the two men put out the fire with water. Carroll phoned for an ambulance, which arrived quickly, and Jeannie was transported to North Middlesex Hospital. She was later transferred to the burn unit at Mount Vernon Hospital, where she died nearly eight days later at 8:10 a.m. on September 23. The cause of death was listed as “broncho-pneumonia due to burns.”

To proponents of SHC, however, the case is a spine-tingling mystery. In a chapter devoted to Jeannie Saffin’s death, Heymer expresses “puzzlement about the source of her burns” (1996,186), and he includes a statement by Don Carroll, who says “there was nothing alight in the kitchen except the pilot light on the grill.” Even so, Carroll insists that he saw “flames coming out of her mouth and her midriff.” Indeed, he says, “the flames were coming from her mouth like a dragon and they were making a roaring noise.” Yet, he insists, “Her clothes did not burn much at all” (Carroll 1994). Heymer emphasizes the latter point, insisting it is “a mystery how she came to be burned
inside unburned clothes
” (original emphasis; Heymer 1996,187).

Arnold essentially repeats the claims, obtaining his information largely from Heymer and apparently doing little actual investigation of his own. He writes: “As the men battled to save Lucille [
sic
], the son-in- law swore that ’she had flames roaring from her mouth like a dragon.’” He adds: “Ambulance men … noticed there was
no
smoke damage in the kitchen; that her clothing was
not
burned. Only a portion of her red nylon cardigan only [
sic
] had melted” (Arnold 1995, 208-09).

Certainly the case sounds impressive—at least until we go back to original sources, whereupon we obtain quite a different picture. First, regarding the allegedly unburned clothing, there is the signed statement Don Carroll gave to authorities soon after his sister-in-law’s death. In that account from twelve years earlier, he noted that “Her clothes were in ribbons and were charred black. She was black as well. She started to try to pick her clothes off herself but I told her to stop” (Carroll 1982). In addition, a typed account by Constable Leigh Marsden stated: “The clothes
were still burning when I got there. I pulled off the rest of her clothes. She and her clothes were burning. I put it out with a towel” (Marsden 1982). The ambulance attendants supposedly reported that Jeannie Saffin’s clothing had not burned, but what they actually wrote was that she was “wearing nylon clothes, not on fire” (Heymer 1996,186)—obviously meaning “no longer on fire,”
not
“unburned.” It is disingenuous to state, as Heymer does, that the nylon cardigan was “melted not burned” (Heymer 1996,186). In addition to the cardigan, her clothing consisted of a cotton apron and dress (Marsden 1982; Heymer 1996,196).

As to Mr. Carroll’s statements about the fire, the flames probably did appear to come from Ms. Saffin’s midriff. That may have been where the nylon cardigan began burning. Also, flaming blobs of melting nylon may have caused the burns on the victim’s “front of left thigh” and, after she stood up, on her “left buttock” and “patches on the right knee”—as related in the autopsy report. Since damage is greatest above a flame rather than below it, it is not surprising that there were also “Full to partial thickness burns on the face, neck, both shoulders, front of upper chest” and “patchily distributed on the abdomen” as well as “affecting both hands” (see “Post-Mortem” 1982). ( “Full thickness burns” mean the skin is destroyed down to the underlying fat.)

As to the flames issuing from her mouth “like a dragon,” that claim is not supported by the medical evidence. A report from Mount Vernon Hospital to the coroner’s office stated that when the victim arrived at the burn unit “There was soot in her nose, but the back of the mouth appeared undamaged” (Whitlock 1982). This was confirmed by the autopsy. Except for the bronchopneumonia (with the inflammation of the trachea and bronchi) there was “no evidence of natural disease”; neither, it may be added, was there any indication of
internal
combustion. To the contrary, the autopsy report confirmed “Total body
surface
burns being about 30-40% ” (emphasis added; Post-Mortem 1982).

But what of Don Carroll’s description of the flames being expelled from Ms. Saffin’s mouth and “making a roaring noise? ” (Carroll 1994) That may have been the effect on Carroll—especially after twelve years’ reflection. Those details are absent from his original statement to the police. However, Carroll does say in his later statement that, at the hospital, despite her head being swathed in bandages, “I could see into Jeannie’s mouth and the inside of her mouth was burnt” (Carroll 1994). It is possible that Ms. Saffin was breathing excitedly so that the flames attacking
her face were partially drawn into, then expelled from her mouth. Heymer (1996, 195) agrees with this possibility. As to the alleged “roaring,” although a doctor reportedly told Carroll he must be mistaken (Arnold 1995,208), and even though he is admittedly technically deaf, “Even so, I heard the sound of the flames coming from Jeannie,” he says (Carroll 1994). Possibly due to expectation and the interrelationship of the senses, he simply thought the flames roared.

The medical evidence makes clear that the fire was not internal but, instead, that Jeannie Saffin suffered external burning as a result of her clothing catching fire. As usual, SHC proponents are unable to imagine how that could have occurred. But a clue comes from Carroll’s original report in which he states, “I made a point of checking on the gas cooker and saw that it was not on and saw that my father-in-law had his pipe in his hand and I checked it and saw that it was fresh tobacco which had not been lit” (Carroll 1982). At first sight this seems to rule out the pipe, and indeed there is no further mention of it—by Carroll (1994), Heymer (1996), or Arnold (1995). Yet Her Majesty’s coroner for Greater London (Western District), John Burton, told Arnold, “we usually find some smoking material, particularly in the immobile or elderly victim” (Burton 1996). The pipe represents just the type of smoking material one looks for, and Carroll’s insistence that it was freshly filled and unlit nevertheless begs the question, did the elderly Mr. Saffin previously knock the hot ashes from his pipe, and in the process, did an ember land in Jeannie Saffin’s lap? To this very plausible scenario we must add the fact that the kitchen window and door were open, as was the back door, so that there was the potential for a draft. This could easily have caused the smoldering clothing to flare up.

Only minor mysteries remain in the Saffin case, and we may clear them up as well. Jeannie Saffin was sitting on some newspapers in a wooden Windsor chair and SHC proponents wonder why the paper suffered no fire damage (Heymer 1996,185). The simple answer is that Ms. Saffin’s body actually protected the papers; obviously the flames did not extend to her buttock until she stood up and moved away from the chair. Proponents also wonder why there was no smoke damage to the room (Heymer 1996,186-87). The obvious answer would be that smoke was minimized because the fire was confined to the victim, and the open windows and draft effectively helped dispel what smoke there was. Finally, paranormalists wonder whether it was “normal” that the victim
was not in pain—either at the time of the accident or subsequently (Heymer 1996,187,194). In fact, at the time of the fire, while she failed to cry out, she had “whimpered,” according to her father (Saffin 1982). Her mental condition, her body’s production of endorphins (pain-reducing chemicals), the subsequent shock, and her eventual semiconscious state may all have played a part in minimizing Jeannie Saffin’s response to pain.

A & E’s
The Unexplained
series included the Saffin case in its hour- long discussion of SHC (airing September 18,1997). My brief comments on the cases were included, and overall, the presentation might have been considered balanced. Unfortunately, at the closing of the program, the narrator spoke of “an acupuncturist with remarkable talents. Through meditation and practice, he had learned to harness the electrical currents in his body.” Suiting action to words, the supposed marvel crumpled a newspaper that—with a wave of his hand (and a bit of editing to cover the delay)—burst into flames. Alas, it appears the producers were snookered by a well-known magic trick billed variously as the “Yogi’s Gaze” (Miller 1978) and “Fire by mental power” (Premanand 1994). Ironically, the feat depends on the secret combining of two chemicals that do, actually, spontaneously combust.

References

Arnold, Larry E. 1995.
Ablaze! The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
New York: M. Evans & Co.

Benecke, Mark. 1998. Spontaneous human combustion: Thoughts of a forensic biologist.
Skeptical Inquirer
22.2 (March/April 1998): 47-51.

Burton, John. 1996. Letter from Coroner’s Court to Larry Arnold, June 27.

Carroll, Don. 1982. Signed witness statement made to Constable Lee Marsden, Oct. 2.

———. 1994. Statement of Nov. 20, published in Heymer 1996, 180-82.

Heymer, John E. 1996.
The Entrancing Flame: The Facts of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
London: Little, Brown.

Marsden, Lee. 1982. Constable’s typed notes, Saffin case, n.d.

Miller, Hugh. 1978.
The Art of Eddie Joseph.
England: Supreme Magic Co.

Nickell, Joe. 1996. Investigative Files column, Not-so-spontaneous human com-bustion.
Skeptical Inquirer
, 20.6 (Nov./Dec.): 17-20.

Nickell, Joe, and John F. Fisher. 1987. Incredible cremations: Investigating spontaneous combustion deaths.
Skeptical Inquirer
, 11.4 (summer): 352-57.

“Post-Mortem Examination.” 1982. Department of Forensic Medicine, Charing Cross Hospital, Sept. 28.

Premanand, B. 1994.
Science versus Miracles
. India: Indian CSICOP.

Randles, Jenny, and Peter Hough. 1992.
Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Lon-don: Robert Hale.