Nexus - 0225 - New Times Magazine-pages

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ing, was dragged out into the street and had to be left there. It fin which had burst and a liquid was oozing from the body. burnt for three days, finally being reduced to ashes. Workers put sawdust in to stop the flow, but the next moming October 1836: An overweight woman, 74 years old, met her _ they found the body burning with a blue flame and giving off an death by fire in Auney, Avalon, France, according to the Medico- _ offensive smell. It was suggested that a workman had dropped in Chururgical Review of the same month. Townsfolk broke into the _a lighted taper after having a cigarette. house when they realised they had not seen her for some time. February 1888: Dr Booth of Aberdeen, Scotland, was called to They found her partially combusted remains near the chimney. A _ investigate the burnt remains of a 65-year-old man in a hayloft. blue flame was still buming on the grease remains and could not The body was destroyed, though none of the loose and bundled be put out. hay that lay around had ignited. Dr Booth said there was no death July 1847: At 11 pm, the Count of Gorlitz in Darmstadt, struggle, ruling out a crime, and when the body was moved it dis- Germany, returned home to find his wife's badly burnt body in her _ integrated into ash. room close to some burnt furniture. No evidence of a crime was May 1890: Dr B. H. Hartwell of Ayer, Massachusetts, while found and her physician concluded she had died of spontaneous out on a call, found in a wooded area a woman who had burst into ~ combustion. The manservant was later charged with murder but flame. Her clothing was almost consumed, and the body, lifting the charges were dropped when it was found how hard it is to away from the ground due to muscle rigidity, was burning with ignite a human body. Later still, he was supposed to have con- _ flames up to fifteen inches high. The fire was smothered with soil. fessed to the crime but the circumstances remain unclear. Leaves, a straw hat and a wooden spade handle next to her 1847: An article published in Scientific American reports from remained untouched. a Dr Nott how a 25-year-old man, an "habitual drinker", was seen January 1899; Two sisters in the Kirby family who lived in by the doctor at 9 pm, and two hours later was found incinerated the same town across the valley from each other at Sowerby from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. A blacksmith dis- Bridge, Halifax in Yorkshire, England, allegedly died in flames at covered him in his shop, standing up in the midst of a silver- the same moment. The coroner could find no cause for ignition of coloured flame. The premises did not catch fire, and according to __the fire in either case. He dismissed the simultaneous deaths as a Dr Nott there was no external cause for the fire. "shocking coincidence”. February 1851: A French house-painter in the midst of a December 1904: Mrs Clark, a pensioner of Hull, in Yorkshire, drinking session bet he could eat a lighted candle. He placed itin | England, was found terribly burned on her bed. She survived the his mouth and immediately a bluish flame burst from his lips. In fire, but had no explanation for the flames which did not even half an hour his head and the upper half of his chest were car- _ scorch her bedsheets. bonised. His entire body was eventually consumed, leaving only a 1907: Two police constables in Manner, Dinapore in India, pile of ashes. found the burned body of a village woman. There was no other December 1851; A 50-year-old French washerwoman named sign of fire around her. They carried the still-smouldering corpse Marie Jeanne Antoinette Bally had returned, drunk, to her lodg- _in unscorched clothes to the district magistrate's office. ings one evening. At 8 am next morning, her remains were found July 1938: Mrs Mary Carpenter was on holiday on a cabin along with her chair. The top part of her body from the shoulders cruiser at Norfolk Broads, England, when she burst into flames. up, including hair, was untouched. Her lower legs were also There was no apparent reason for the fire which engulfed her intact. The rest of her body was badly charred and there was no __ entire body and reduced her to a charred corpse. sign of fire in the grate. The only sign of a possible source was an Samples like these are taken from a list of over one hundred earthen pot, full of coals, as used by poorer folk to warm their feet. cases. A lack of any real cause for the fires is what they all seem 1866: The corpse of an Englishman buried thirteen months pre- to have in common. Often the fire seems to begin in the body— viously was found on fire in its vault. The day before, a foul smell _ usually in the chest, abdomen or deep muscles. Sometimes the had been noticed issuing from the floor. The source was the cof- _ flames are seen to be blue or other unusual colours. Extremities of 1 the body are often left intact, and quite commonly there is little evident effect on furniture or clothing in the room near to the body, except for the chair or bed on which the person sat or lay. Sometimes even the bed is left intact! The burnt parts of the body are often totally consumed, leaving just ash. Even the largest bones are turned to powder. The fire often proceeds with the vic- tim feeling no apparent pain or at least ™ making no sound. In 1905, a case in Binbrook, Lincolnshire, UK, was report- ed where a housemaid was observed to carry on sweeping the floor while flames engulfed her shoulders. She was saved by quick intervention (Randles and Hough, Fortean Times #63). Another frequently reported observation is an unpleasant greasy, fatty tar that coats the ; = : walls and other surfaces at the scene. John Heymer's reconstruction of the scene that greeted his eyes when he arrived at the house in Ebbw] This seems to be fat from the burnt Vale, taken from his own photograph. (Source:_Fortean Times #74, April/May 1994) body. 14 ¥ APRIL - MAY 1995 NEXUS ¢ 57