Art Bell

All Episodes

Previous Next

March 10, 1996 - Art Bell

01:17:03

Dreamland with Art Bell - Spontaneous Human Combustion - Larry Arnold and Linda Moulton Howe

Participants

Main voices

26:30

linda moulton howe

10:28

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Night on Dreamland.
		An encore presentation for March 10th of 1996.
		An oldie birthday.
		It's Art Bell, which is a weekly update with Linda Moulton Howe, followed by Larry Arnold on Super Compression.
		Look for a new edition of Dreamland next week.
		And now, enjoy this encore presentation of Dreamland with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Welcome to Dreamland, a program dedicated to an examination of areas in the human experience not easily nor neatly put in a box.
		Things seen at the edge of vision, awakening a part of the mind as yet not matched.
		And yet things every bit as real as the air we breathe but don't see.
		This is Dreamland.
		It certainly is another Sunday evening drink in a way.
unidentified		Ah, life sometimes is funny.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As you know, we have this technology called Vidian that allows the people with the software out there to come up and see me in the studio doing my program.
		We're demonstrating that software now.
		I know I can tell you how to get it.
		But there was just somebody online just before I came on the air.
unidentified		And as you know, I'm smoking again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		She saw me sitting here smoking.
		She said, stop that.
		I held the cigarette up to the camera.
		She said, no.
		I took a deep drag and blew some smoke at the camera.
		I was watching the picture, and you could see the smoke cascading towards the camera.
		It was funny.
		And this big line of nose comes across the screen.
		Well, anyway, good evening, everybody.
		It's good to be here.
		Our guest tonight is going to be fascinating.
		And it's a program that I've been wanting to do for years.
		And I've never had the right person.
		Well, I sure do tonight.
		His name is Larry Arnold.
		And he has written an excellent book called The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
		Actually, it's called Ablaze, The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
		And it is fascinating.
		And I've got some photographs, and I want to add those who call tonight on video, and I will try and hold up a very critical photograph that we're not going to be allowed to put on the bulletin board, but we are going to publish in the newsletter.
		It will be one of the cases Larry is going to talk about.
		So all of that, Linda Howe, of course, Emmy Award winning Linda Howe coming up here in just a few moments to begin the program as usual.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Thank you.
		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The documentary, Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist, looking into crop circles, animal mutilations, and stuff going on in Puerto Rico.
		It's Linda Howe from Philadelphia.
		Hi, Linda.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		I'm here.
		Good.
		Okay.
		Well, thanks.
		And tonight, I have an update on the Puerto Rico chupacabris mystery and a very similar phenomena occurring also in the nation of Mexico that we have not heard much about.
		Earlier today, I talked with reporters at El Visero newspaper in San Juan about a recent police report in the town of Aguas Buenas.
		That's one of the places in which the chupacabras attacks have been reported the past few months.
		This new police report is dated March 4, 1996, which was last Monday, and states that 30 fighting cockroosters, each valued at several hundred dollars, were found in their individual cages dead with clean puncture holes in their back along the spine or on the legs.
		The police used the term, quote, vampire bite, because there were two holes about an inch apart, and on some of the roosters, there were two pairs of bites, or four holes.
		According to the police, there was no blood around the punctures, and despite the neatness of the wounds, violence had been done to the cages.
		The police report said that doors had been pulled off or bent off the cages.
		Other strange bird deaths have been reported, and recently I talked to Dr. Carlos Soto, who received his doctorate of veterinary medicine from Kansas State University in 1988.
		He then went back to Puerto Rico to treat both large and small animals.
		He has been very puzzled by some of the knee crossings that he has done on animals allegedly attacked by this chupacabras, including various kinds of birds.
unidentified		This is Dr. Carlos Soto.
unidentified		Turkeys and some guinea hens, in which they had all a puncture wound half a centimeter in diameter at the base of the skull.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		So it punctured right through the feathers into the tissue.
unidentified		Exactly.
		And the one that I'm going to explain you, it had two puncture wounds, one in the right and left thorax.
		So let's imagine, again, we have a right and left puncture wound.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And the bird is on its back.
unidentified		On its back.
unidentified		And no more external puncture wounds.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		That's it.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Okay, two.
unidentified		Two.
unidentified		Right and left side.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		When I just opened the bird, on its pectoral muscle, it had four, on the right side, four additional wounds in which they didn't appear on the outside of the skin.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and there was no bruising on the outside.
unidentified		There was no bruising on the outside or anything.
unidentified		Some parts of the liver were missing on that hand.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		So in that animal and in others, Dr. Soto has found tissue actually extracted from inside the Bodies of birds or of a goat without any excisions on the outside, as well as these puzzling four holes on the inside without four puncture holes on the outside.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And I saw a photograph of exactly that phenomena at the University of Puerto Rico Medical Center.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How would a pathologist try to explain that, the four inside holes without four outside holes?
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Well, he's very puzzled, and right now there isn't a logical explanation.
		We're all working on this, and researcher Alfonso Salazar Mendoza sent me newspaper articles from the state of Mexico down in the nation of Mexico.
		The newspaper is La Prenza, and they are calling their phenomena there the vampire of Haltepec.
		Haltepec is a town southeast of Veracruz, and nearly 100 domestic animals there have been found since 1994 with four puncture holes in their necks.
		These stories have not been filtering up to the United States.
		I've just been getting them and finding that while we have been looking at Puerto Rico, very similar sorts of events have been happening across the water in Mexico.
		And one of the farmers told La Prenza, this is a quote, we can't explain why the attacker just kills the animals and doesn't eat them and how it attacks the animals and we don't know it.
		The yearling calves, the horse, and the chickens that have died don't make a sound that wakes us up at night.
		And what's more, the dogs don't bark.
		Well, I've heard almost the identical sentences said to me in interviews in Puerto Rico, how does this happen in some of these cases without anybody hearing anything?
		In other cases, they hear birds fluttering and they hear sounds.
		So again, we have those inconsistencies.
		But Dr. Soto told me that he has looked at some of the puncture tissue under a microscope, and he sees what he thinks is evidence of heating or burn, which is very similar to what Dr. Alchuler and I and others have found in the animal mutilations that we've studied here in this country.
		But when Dr. Soto sent the tissue onto the Dorado lab in Puerto Rico, and that was supposed to have been sent to a lab in the United States, the findings came back to him eventually as normal with no signs of bird.
		He's puzzled by that also because he said, I'm looking at the tissue fresh under the microscope in my veterinarian office, and he said, it looks to me like it has suffered heat or it could be chemical, but the reports have come back normal, and he doesn't understand that either.
		So we're all trying to continue to find out more.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Linda, what kind of cages are these?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And what kind of force would be required to either bend them or you said melt?
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Bend or they were bent off or literally pulled off according to this police report.
		And I interviewed two or three weeks ago, not for Dreamland, because his Spanish English was not good enough for us to understand here.
		But we were working through a translator on the phone.
		And what I understood was that in a town that would be south of Dorado on the north end of Puerto Rico, and this goes back to August, there were, I believe it was 14 or 17 chickens that had been inside of a metal framed cage.
		It had cyclone kinds of fence wire in it had cage.
		And they found the cage torn apart, and all of those chickens were dead with the same strange puncture holes.
		And they said that the violence that had been done to the cage was puzzling.
		And there have been other cases where they have said that everything from chicken wires to medications have been torn apart, suggesting strength.
unidentified		And yet the animals themselves are not torn apart.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		They simply have these puncture holes, which makes this truly a mystery.
unidentified		What is the actual cause of death?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are they able to determine them?
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		In one case that Dr. Soto investigated of a doberman tensor female dog, the cause of death was strangulation.
unidentified		And the entire neck showed trauma.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		He also found congested blood that would occur in the case of strangulation.
		And yet the eyewitness, the owner of the dog, said that the creature that he saw with his own eyes attack his dog looked like, and this was the exact quote of the veterinarian, a large bat.
		So now we're back to the description of something that flew from a tree down onto the dog and the owner watched it and couldn't believe his eyes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		When they say large, how large?
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		He said approximately three feet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a big bat.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		And yes, and these descriptions of whatever these flying things are is not typical with anything that is known to inhabit Puerto Rico.
		And it also is not the same description of the alleged cupocabris, which is supposed to be sort of humanoid-like.
		It's a very, very continuing, puzzling story, and it continues to occur.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is driving me nuts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I'm sure it's driving you nuts too.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Well, and also to realize that the same kinds of puncture holes have been occurring over in the nation of Mexico, across the water from Puerto Rico and south of us, shows that a lot of places may be having the similar phenomena, but it's simply not reaching us in the media.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, something else to bear in mind.
		Now, I had not heard about Mexico, but if it's in Mexico, when it's in Puerto Rico, you might imagine this is something that crawled up out of the swamp there, some new breed, or you might imagine a lot of things.
		But if it's in Mexico, then it could be here.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Right?
		Well, there certainly have, every once in a while, there have been these stories of strange, what we have called in the United States, biopsy punch holes.
		There's a case I'm working on right now.
		We don't have all the lab tests back yet.
		I will eventually report on it, but I can tell you this.
		There is a horse in South Dakota that was found February 14th, a 67-year-old female, and she had a 1 half-inch by 2-inch hole right below the ear and back of the jaw.
		The horse is alive to date, and that hole was in the process of healing.
		And I learned that in Mexico, in one of these reports there in Halte Path, a yearling calf was found alive with four holes in its neck, and the calf continued to live.
		And that is even more puzzling.
		What is it?
		What is the reason for these puncture holes, by whatever it is that does the attacking, that is leaving basically the entire animal untouched after the puncture hold?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, whatever it is, I hope it doesn't come here.
		Thank you very much.
		Linda, a wonderful report as usual, puzzling as usual, but wonderful.
		And give everybody a way to contact you, get your materials, whatever you would like to do.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, thanks.
		From everything from whether it's unusual animal deaths or marks that could be in the crop circle area to the human abduction syndrome to all of the unusual phenomena in this planet, I'd love hearing your reports and your comments and your questions.
		My new mailing address is Post Office Box 300 Jameson, J-A-M-I-S-O-N, Pennsylvania, zip code 1-8929-0300.
		My toll-free 800 number for information about my books and my documentaries and to leave a brief message is 1-800-707-9993.
		Again, that's 800-707-9993.
		And for anyone who might want to fact, it's AREA card 215-491-9842.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wonderful.
		We shall be looking forward to your report next week.
		And I want to know what that thing is.
unidentified		All right.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		I keep trying.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Linda, thank you.
linda moulton howe ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Eric.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right, big bat, three-foot bat.
		We have little bats out here, and they fly around sometimes at sunset, and I go out and have fun throwing rocks at them, which never hit them because they always sense it and dart away.
		But they're fun to throw rocks at.
		Maybe I should reconsider if one of their larger family members makes it up this far.
		One night, someone sitting in front of the television is in an easy chair.
		The next morning, he or she, nothing but a pile of ash and a sweet smell.
		A shrunken head, perhaps an intact leg with a foot still in the shoe.
		I've got that photograph here.
		The chair has a burnt hole in it.
		Maybe the phone on a nearby table, slightly melted, but no evidence of an ordinary fire.
		It takes an incredible amount of heat to shrink a skull thousands of degrees, literally.
		Yet the living room around it remains untouched.
		The above description reads kind of like a plot for the Twilight Zone, but in fact, it is true.
		It is happening to unsuspecting people all over the world in ablaze with the mysterious fires of spontaneous human combustion.
		Larry Arnold, America's foremost expert, that's right, on spontaneous human combustion, or SHC, investigates hundreds of cases, both famous and obscure.
		20 years of research has gone into this book.
		Interviews with survivors, yes some, firemen, coroners, morticians, as well as chemists, physicists, and biologists.
		Arnold explores the effects on the fragile human body of television radiation, alcohol and smoking, inactivity and anger, all of which can, under the right circumstances, cause people to burn to ashes in 30 minutes or less.
		That is what's coming up.
		Coming next, Larry Arnold, author of Ablaze, The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
		I know I think I've been close.
		All right, we will break here and be back with Larry.
		Stay right where you are.
		is Dreamland.
unidentified		Tonight on Dreamland, an encore presentation from March 10th of 1996.
		It's Art Bell with his guest, Larry Arnold, on human combustion.
		Look for a new edition of Dreamland next week.
		And now, enjoy this encore presentation, a premiering with Art Bell.
		Bell again, here's Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Here I am.
		And what we're going to do is front load our commercial continuity.
		So we've got a good straight shot.
		And then Larry Arnold.
		The End Larry Arnold is America's foremost expert on spontaneous human combustion.
		The book he's written reflects 20 years of research, contains 300 actual cases of SHC, spontaneous human combustion, ranging from the 14th century to present.
		Arnold founded Parascience International in 1976 to investigate paranormal topics.
		He's also a founding member of Life Spectrums, a nonprofit educational corporation devoted to spirituality and human potential, has appeared on numerous national radio and TV shows, including NBC TV's The Other Side, Fox TV's Sightings, American Journal, CBS TV's The Fifth Estate, and five times on ABC TV's That's Incredible.
		Born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, after a college, graduate in mechanical engineering after graduating, worked as an engineer for five years.
		Since 1976, he's been documenting and investigating paranormal activities exactly like the one we're about to talk about.
		And here he is from, I guess, somewhere in Pennsylvania, Larry Arnold.
		Larry, where are you?
		Hi, Art.
unidentified		We're calling and speaking with you and your millions of listeners from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Harrisburg.
		Very good.
		Well, we're sure glad to have you on the program.
unidentified		We're delighted to be with you all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I have been for years, Larry, looking for somebody who knew something about this, and it is not exactly a widely investigated topic, is it?
unidentified		No, it's not.
		And what kind of reason has it been so easily dismissed as something that needs to be studied?
		Not many people have chosen to look seriously at this alleged phenomenon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ooh!
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Alleged?
unidentified		Well, the debunkers would have us say that just to be cautious and intellectually honest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would you say that?
unidentified		No, we would not.
		Spontaneous human combustion, just to set up the premise and to define it for those who may not be able to think just what this entails, is the process and ability whereby the human body will begin to smoke or burst into flame without coming in contact with an external, identifiable source of ignition.
		And mainstream science, not surprisingly, as we've already alluded to, says that this is something that is simply impossible and doesn't even deserve to be thought about.
		On the other hand, if that's the case, then we've got a very, very short program to deal with the next several minutes.
		You might have better call up Linda Howell and get her to talk about something.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, one almost might dismiss it that way, except for one little thing, all the evidence.
unidentified		Hey, there you go.
		You've got the bottom line.
		I like the way you think.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I have eyes, and I have this photograph in front of me, and it is only one of many.
		You included the black and white photograph of a doctor who apparently burned up.
		It's in a bathroom, and it's pretty gory.
		But all that's left is a leg and a shoe and the very small area in the bathroom where the fire occurred.
		Seems impossible.
unidentified		It does seem impossible.
		And what you've described is what we would call a classic scene of spontaneous human combustion.
		It is horrible.
		It is eerie, but it's also downright fascinating.
		And for something that sounds like the Twilight Zone, it is definitely that.
		But it's also X-Files and Gothic Horror and Stephen King all wrapped up into one real-life flaming phenomenon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I got a piece of email from somebody prior to the show.
		We have a large email network.
		And this person says, I've heard two possible explanations for spontaneous human combustion.
		One is that the normal chemical processes in the body are assisted by a catalyst that somehow goes wild, I guess.
		The other is that the body, the clothes rather on the body, acts kind of like a candle.
		This one has been shown to be possible in a lab setting using a cadaver.
		And people go on and on here.
		I've got a lot of comments on it.
		Your best guess, what is it that causes this?
unidentified		Boy, you're leaping right to the bottom line.
unidentified		What could cause spontaneous human combustion?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I guess I am.
unidentified		It is clearly an aberrant electrical discharge within the body or induced in the body from an external source that is not readily apparent.
		And beyond that, we can get into more specifics later.
		As far as your email that says, A, that this is possibly a chemical process that goes haywire, yes, we would support that.
		And in our book of Layers, we offer a number of theories that become more specific as how the biochemical and bioelectrical processes in the human cauldron, that is, our bodies, could engender tremendous domogenesis very quickly.
		To the other premise that this is explained away as the human candle wake, no, we're going to debunk that.
		At least we think that we can quite vigorously.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think they've also said, haven't they, Larry, that it's smokers, you know, laying in bed or the wrong place.
		But gee, I'm a smoker.
		And I'll tell you, Larry, much as I hate the fact, I've dropped a few cherries in my lap, a couple times even asleep.
		And both times it got my immediate screeching attention.
unidentified		And you're obviously still here to talk about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I didn't catch on fire.
		I got burned, and I got very angry.
		And so I refuse to believe that it's smokers.
unidentified		And those burns probably hurt too, didn't they?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's what I say.
		It got my screeching attention.
		I was jumping up and down.
unidentified		People do die in smoking accidents.
		Sometimes they're not always totally awake.
		They may have had a heart attack or a stroke or for some other reason.
		They're insensitive to immediate predicament, and they will burn up.
		But they do not burn up in the conditions that define the classic xenospontaneous human commotion.
		They do not burn up and leave behind a scene that you've just described in opening this segment, that which happened to Dr. Bentley here in Pennsylvania back in 1966.
		In those cases of smoking accidents, the body is still left sufficiently intact that it can be picked up, transported to a morgue, and autopsied.
		And then there's a cadaver left to be buried.
		In classic, spontaneous human combustion, that is not the case.
		The body will be reduced almost completely to a pile of dehydrated dust, leaving behind a few extremities, perhaps the lower leg of the other forearms, for example, to prove to the observers at the scene that this pile of ash had once belonged to a human being.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can you kind of give us the chronology Or, what happened to this doctor whose photograph I've got?
unidentified		We'd love to do that, and that sets up a really complete understanding of this amazing phenomenon that we're going to be discussing for a bit with you folks.
		In 1966, Dr. John Irving Bentley was a 92-year-old retired physician living in Cartersport here in north central Pennsylvania.
		Now, Dr. Bentley was beloved by the entire community.
		He apparently had no enemies in the world.
		The evening of December 4, about 9 o'clock, he was left by some friends in his home alone for the rest of the evening, apparently in good spirits and in good health.
		The following morning, about 9 a.m., a local meter reader named Dav Gosnell entered Dr. Bentley's home to go down to the basement to read the gas meter, as was normal practice.
		When Mr. Gosnell was down in the basement after he read the gas meter, he noticed in one corner of the earthen floor was a small pile of ash about five inches in height and 14 inches in diameter.
		But Mr. Gosnell, besides being a meter reader, was also a volunteer fireman.
		So that pile of ash obviously got his curiosity up, and he walked over and kicked it with his boot.
		There was no embers in that pile of ash.
		It was clearly cold.
		He noticed overhead, directly above this pile of ash, was a two by three foot hole in the basement ceiling.
		Or he thought to himself, he told us later, that there must have been a small fire in Dr. Bentley's home that night, but it had to be small because there was no fire alarm called in.
		And secondly, the fire had to be sufficiently small that itself extinguished.
		Or his curiosity was still intact, and he went back upstairs.
		This time he noticed that there was a wispy smoke in the corridor of the home, and there was a sweetie smell pervading the atmosphere.
		Mr. Gosnell knocked on Dr. Bentley's door and did not get an answer, stuck his head inside the apartment door, peered into the living room and saw nothing amiss, walked into Dr. Bentley's one-room apartment, which had an adjoining bathroom, and when Mr. Gosnell peered into Dr. Bentley's bathroom, there he saw the other side of the hole that he'd just left in the basement.
		Lying next to that hole, as you've already described to your listeners, was one half of a human leg lying next to the hole intact, wearing its leather slipper.
		Atop the hole was Dr. Bentley's aluminum walker.
		And at this point, Mr. Gosnell told us that he realized what he had just kicked with his boot in the floor below.
		That was the remains of Dr. Bentley's self-cremated body.
		Gosnell ran from the house, white as a ghost, he told us, and yelled the understatement of the ear to some of his coworkers, Dr. Bentley's burned up.
		And indeed the good doctor had, but in a ways that were completely unexplained and indeed unrecognized and unappreciated by the locals back in 1966 in northern Pennsylvania.
		Dr. Bentley, in essence, had managed to do the impossible.
		He had incinerated himself more completely than a crematorium can normally do under normal operating parameters in a room that was almost completely devoid of other fire damage save for the hole in the floor through which his body had actually burned.
		Next to that hole besides his left leg was a bathtub that had been painted with enamel paint.
		We were at that apartment.
		We were in the bathroom.
		We checked the paint on the bathtub.
		It had not even been blistered by this incredible inferno that had incinerated Dr. Bentley himself.
		Possible.
		That is quintessential spontaneous human combustion in our view, and it certainly cannot be explained so far as we've been able to ascertain in our 20 years of research by the so-called human candlewick or drop cigarette theory.
		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Look, the human body, and I can't pull the figure, but we're more liquid, blood, whatever, water than we are anything else, aren't we?
unidentified		That's true.
unidentified		The human body is about 70 to 80% water, depending on specific composition or weight of any individual.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know my wife periodically claims greater content.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But no matter whether it's 70 or 80%, it seems to me that couldn't burn.
unidentified		Well, that's one of the amazing paradoxes and quandaries of this phenomenon.
		And that's what common sense would tell you and would tell firemen initially.
		The human body is mostly water.
		And the reason that fire professionals like water so much is because it quells temperature, it lowers temperature, it puts out fire.
		So when you have a substance that is composed of mostly water, then how in the world could it burn?
		With that amount of water present, surely that water would preclude ignition and combustion rather than engender it.
		However, in a blaze, we do explore some biochemical and bioelectrical means, and indeed look at the quantum physics of water and processes in the body that could explain how, even with that amount of water present, that the human body could still self-combust and burn itself from within.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I know that, Larry, when some people get older and they lose a mate or they lose their reason or will to live, they die.
		Now, what about the psychosomatic aspects of this?
		In other words, could it be that the individuals are either tired of living, simply want to die, and, you know, the brain is an amazing thing.
		We use about 10% of it.
		So as I say in a promo, I don't know what makes us think we know it all.
		Could there be something in the brain that actually triggers a chemical process because somebody wants to go?
unidentified		That is a very precocious question.
		And we think that there is indeed a connection.
		We have found in the few cases where we've been able to quantify some psychological profile information about these victims that indeed in many cases, though not all cases, the individual is morose, is very depressed, and is having suicidal tendencies.
		Quite often it's a widow or widower, which are tying with the point that you just raised.
		And we think that all those conditions come together in a state of consciousness that interacts with the biological and biophysical processes of that individual to set up inflammatory conditions.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In what percentage of the cases, I guess, you know, it must take a lot of careful investigation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, you hear of something like this, then you've got to begin looking not just at the scene, but at that person's life and recent influences, and you've literally got to go in almost as a forensic detective.
unidentified		Yes, we do.
		The kinds of information that we've been looking for in an attempt to resolve the mysteries of spontaneous human combustion requires a degree of investigation and an approach to investigation that goes far beyond what normal fire science is accustomed to doing.
		Firemen, when they rump up a fire scene, will be looking for mostly evidence of an accelerant.
		And if they don't find an accelerant, something that would fuel the flames, they write it off as basically electrical fire or careless mishap.
		If they find evidence of an accelerant, then the next question that comes up to is either it's foul play or it was intentionally willed suicide by dousing the victim with gasoline or kerosene or some other flame-inducing material.
		We have to go even far beyond that because first spontaneous human combustion, in its classic sense, burns the body more completely than can be done even if accelerants are used.
		And in these cases, when research is done by the fire officials initially, they do not find an accelerant to begin with.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's what I was going to ask.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, in the case, for example, of the doctor in this photograph, there's part of the leg left.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		One presumes they would look very carefully at that for evidence and the surrounding floor and so forth of any accelerant.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And they would look for any evidence of with what's left of the leg, gross as it may sound, some biological reason for what occurred.
unidentified		Precisely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Anything found?
unidentified		Nothing was found in the case of Dr. Benley and in many other cases that are very much like his in the nature of the fire damage and the surrounding lack of fire damage to the immediate environment.
		Again, no accelerants are found.
		And in fact, in some cases where autopsies have been conducted on the few remnants left of these victims, there's no liquid moisture content found in the limbs at all, not even any blood samples.
		It's like the water content of the body has been completely dehydrated.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now that is interesting.
unidentified		That is interesting, and it provides some interesting clues as to the process and mechanism which may be unfolding in these people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I've heard of dehydration, but that's ridiculous.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But again, no blood?
unidentified		No blood.
unidentified		What?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No moisture in the tissue.
unidentified		That's what we were told by the forensic people who have conducted those investigations.
unidentified		You sound speechless.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I am a little bit.
		I just, you know, I can see in this photograph, gross as it is, that there is enough of the leg left that there should have been, in other words, it looks like what's left of a human being, clearly.
		And though it didn't burn, and though it may have been warmed by the fire itself, there certainly should have been traces of bodily fluids left in the leg.
		So what could do that?
		What in the world could do that?
		Well, let me try this.
		How many cases that you believe to be spontaneous human combustion do you believe have occurred that have been documented by yourself or others?
unidentified		In a Blaze, we list more than 300 cases that fit the definition of spontaneous human combustion.
		Now, some of those may have normal conventional explanations.
		In many cases, these are old events from, you know, 150, 200, 300 years ago.
		So at that time, you know, insufficient evaluation and documentation of the fire scene was done.
		However, in the cases from the latter part of this century where in some instances very detailed, thorough investigation was done at the fire scene, we come up with amazing evidence that simply falls outside the parameters and understanding of mainstream fire science and science in general.
		And that's where we get into the mysteries of spontaneous human combustion.
		This is a long-hidden medical malady that we believe has confronted mankind for several thousands of years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, how does science, how do medical doctors and coroners and people like that treat it in some of the more obvious cases of real spontaneous human combustion?
		What do they generally list the cause of?
		Do they ever list the cause of death that way?
unidentified		In general, they treat it with disbelief.
		Officially, they will write these deaths off.
		As in the case of Dr. Bentley, his death, keep in mind the fire scene that we just described to you and your listeners and the photograph that you're showing on your new technology.
		His death was described as that of asphyxiation.
		Officially, that is how Dr. Bentley died.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I suppose so, as he burned up.
unidentified		As he burned up.
		At some point, yes, he suffocated.
		But when you read in a coroner's report on an autopsy document, asphyxiation, you don't imagine or visualize a scene like we've described happened to Dr. Bentley anything found there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course not.
unidentified		So the big difference is only to attribute conflict left to the case like that.
		As we talked to the Deputy Coroner in that case, he told us that if he were truly rewriting the autopsy report, he would say that there was 99% destruction of the human body.
		Now, that goes far beyond asphyxiation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It sure does.
unidentified		In other instances, these accounts are written off as smoking mishap, or as we talked about earlier, you know, a carelessly dropped cigarette.
		Although, once again, that's not only disingenuous, it's actually dishonest to claim that.
		We've talked to medical examiners who have considered spontaneous human combustion because what they encountered first defied everything that they've been trained medically to experience at a fire scene.
		And yet they've told us that to invoke spontaneous human combustion is so bizarre and strains credulity to such an extent that they're terrified to put that down officially as cause of death.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Larry, hold it right there.
		We'll be right back to you.
		This is Dreamland.
unidentified		Dreamland.
unidentified		Now, enjoy this encore presentation of Dreamland with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I received this from Jamie.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is just one of good zillions that I have, but this is a practical application for it, so I thought that I would read it to you.
unidentified		You know, Art, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And all I can say is I'm glad I was prepared.
		The only thing I asked for as a birthday present this year was the Pajin AM-FM shortwave radio with a light.
		Thankfully, my lovely wife knew how serious I was about wanting this appliance.
		He called it an appliance.
		Until last week, it was just an interesting conversation piece.
		It is that, by the way.
		I mean, you wind it, the radio goes for 30 minutes.
		He says, interesting Conversation piece, that is, until the lights went out.
		We were hit hard here in the northwest by the Pineapple Express, and subsequently, the power at our house was knocked out for more than 24 hours.
		Of course, one of the first things we did was set up the beige in with a light.
		The radio kept us entertained, informed throughout the course of the storm.
		As a matter of fact, performed flawlessly.
		Without a doubt, it's one of the smartest purchases I've ever in Capitals made.
		Jamie Walker, Senior Systems Analyst.
		Thank you, Jamie.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, getting faxes already for Larry with questions, and we'll get to those in a second.
		If you want to send a fax, it is area code 702-727-8499.
		702-727-8499.
		Item two, we are now on the internet.
		Two locations.
		So to get to them, WOAI being the latest in San Antonio, carrying real audio and carrying this program.
		So go to my webpage at Art Bell.
		Actually, it's www.artbell.com.
		And you can actually hear the program running live.
		www.artbell.com.
		And if you don't have the software for it, they will be able to download it to you at that location.
		Now, back to Larry Arnold.
		Larry, are you there?
unidentified		Yes, we are.
unidentified		Oh, excellent.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A couple of questions by Fax.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Art, could you ask Larry if he's heard or read of the story of the label who died in Riverside, California last year, whose body and blood fumes made the hospital staff sick, and if he did, is there any relationship with SHC?
unidentified		Yes, we do know about the Hernandez case.
		Initially, we do not think it's a case of classic spontaneous human combustion.
		It is very abnormal, and to our knowledge, there are still medical problems being suffered by one of the operating room physicians.
		And to our knowledge, no one has yet come up with an adequate explanation.
		There's some interesting speculations that have been bandered about in Floridian Times, for example.
		It doesn't fit the classic scene of spontaneous human combustion that much, we can say with reasonable confidence, but it's quite anomalous what did happen there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, here's a really interesting one from Hawaii.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Besides spontaneous self-immolation, is there any evidence to support that an individual or group through psychokinesis could actually inflict this on another?
unidentified		Delicate question.
		We discussed that possibility in a blaze.
		We think the answer is yes.
		Oh?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no.
		I say that from a talk show person's point of view.
		If somebody, I'm sure at different times during my show, if they could have caused me to go a blaze, they would have.
		So you think the answer is yes?
		Based on what?
unidentified		Based on intuition, at first, based on a few historical cases that suggest that was a possible situation.
		And based simply on the fact that the human consciousness is so diverse, so powerful, so untapped, and so ununderstood, and by most people uncontrolled, that at this point we're not willing to put much of any limitation to what the human consciousness is capable of generating in itself, around itself, or in another.
		Be that other, a human being, or an inanimate object.
		We deal with a number of what we call pyropoltericized fires and a blaze, which is not classically spontaneous human combustion in that the human body, in most cases, itself is not combusting at these fire scenes.
		But other objects surrounding usually a pubescent teenager will self-ignite under conditions that are just as bizarre and unusual as if the human body itself had burst into flame.
		Cases where calendars on walls, books on tabletops, bedding, mattresses, and so on will spontaneously burst into open flame, oftentimes in the presence of fire officials who are completely bumfuddled by what they're encountering.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Kind of like the movie Carrie.
unidentified		Very much like Carrie, yes, indeed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about, I'll touch on it, the religious angle of this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about those who would say it's an act of God?
unidentified		Well, actually, that has been said, indeed said by the medical community.
		Back in the 1700s, when this was a hotly debated subject, pardon the expression, amid the medical community, there were physicians and scientists in general who said, no, the human body can't combust.
		They had counterparts who said, yes, it does because, well, here's the evidence.
		You know, how else do we explain it?
		In those days, it was said by those who believed that spontaneous human combustion was a reality that in most cases, these victims met the wrath of God.
		They were visited by God's divine wrath because they were living an immoral and intemperate life, and this was God's divine retribution for their miserable lives.
		Now, it's an interesting scenario.
		We certainly can't support that scientifically today, but once again, we're dealing with biological proceeds, heavily intoxicated individuals, people who are obese, people who probably were depressed.
		And all those factors, as we suggested earlier, can set up a state of consciousness, which we believe can interact with the body's physiobiological processes to engender these very bizarre thermogenetic rises in their bodies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about the good doctor?
		He was just an older fellow.
		You said he was how old?
unidentified		92.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		92.
		Had his walker here?
		I suppose you might conclude that he was tired of living, but even that's a supposition.
		Was he a drinker, a heavy drinker?
		Do you know anything about the doctor that would have...
unidentified		We were told that about 15 years before his death, he had completely given up that habit.
		He did smoke a pipe, and initially the people at the scene said, well, he must have dropped his pipe on his lap.
		This is the explanation that is tendered to get away from our conclusion that Dr. Bentley died of spontaneous human combustion.
		The disbelievers, the skeptics, the debunkers of SHC say, well, Dr. Bentley haphazardly dropped a pipe on his lap.
		However, as we pointed out earlier, dropping a cigarette, or in this case a pipe, in one's garments is not going to engender a temperature of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 hours, which is what is necessary to ash and bone inside a crematorium.
		And crematorium conditions were clearly not present in Dr. Bentley's bathroom.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the whole house, you know, a temperature is that hot, the whole house should have burned down.
unidentified		Absolutely right.
		We're so glad you made that point.
		When a whole house fire burns the structure to the ground, temperatures rarely go above 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.
		That's about as hot as a structure fire gets.
		In a structure fire, if someone is entrapped in that blaze, the body, as we said earlier, can still be picked up, taken out to a Morgan autopsy.
		Just this past week here in Harrisburg, we had a crime scene.
		It turned out to be a crime scene.
		Two people died in a house fire.
		There was sufficient evidence left in their bodies of those two victims that allowed the police to determine that these people had not died accidentally in a house fire, but they had been murdered.
		And the crime scene was torched to cover up the evidence of the murder.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		Now, in Dr. Bentley's case, the burning was far, far beyond that.
unidentified		We could have never expected any forensics people to find evidence of murder in Dr. Bentley's case.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm looking at the photograph.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He's just like going.
unidentified		Flat going.
		Disappeared.
		Pile of ash.
		Secondly, in Dr. Bentley's case, while we said he was a pipe smoker, his pipe was found in its holder on a stand next to the chair where Dr. Bentley spent most of his days and nights.
		Now, if Dr. Bentley had indeed dropped a pipe into his lap and awoken himself to find his garments ablaze, as you described, happened to yourself, the last thing we think that Dr. Bentley would have done, being a knowledgeable physician, would have been to reach into his burning lamp, pick up the pipe, put it over on a stand, then try to get up out of the chair, and with the aid of his aluminum walker, hobble the five minutes that it would have taken to get him into the bathroom to find a pitcher of water to douse the flame.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, to correct you a little bit, Arnold, I've never been ablaze.
		I have, as most smokers will attest, occasionally dropped a cherry in my lap.
		You know what I mean?
		The end of the cigarette dropped in my lap or on my pants.
		I've ruined more than one good pair of pants that way.
		But I guarantee you, the very second the cherry makes its way through its pants leg, and that happens up and down.
		Moreover, I would expect that if I was completely dead to the world, had a heart attack, that cherry would burn down through my leg, through my outer flesh, perhaps, and then part with the moist tissue.
unidentified		Meaning it's going to go out.
		We wholly agree with that.
		That would be our conclusion to my step or whatever we would expect to have it.
		So then, how do we come up with a case of our market family in 1966?
		This is Patrick Gooney back in 1970, Illinois.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What can you tell us about that one?
unidentified		Oh, I'll tell you a lot about Mrs. Booney.
		My prisoner's even her husband and her farmhouse outside of Panica, which is a town about 55 miles southwest of Chicago, Illinois.
		Everyone was expecting to see the Gooney's the following morning, Christmas Day.
		Unfortunately, they left to the world a legacy, so to speak, that sounded more like a Halloween horror dead than the good time jollies of Christmas morning.
		Both Mr. and Mrs. Rooney died in a blaze in their farmhouse during Christmas Eve night, early Christmas morning.
		Mr. Rooney, we believe, according to the original newspaper document that we've been able to acquire, died by asphyxiation.
		What Mrs. Rooney died of is something quite beyond asphyxiation and a fire.
		If we may quote from you, or to you and your listeners, the actual words by a Dr. Floyd Clendennon, a physician, I think they'll be instructive because just prior to the last break, you asked us how the medical community responds to these fire scenes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		And we stated that either they dismiss SHC outright or they mislabel it.
		But there is a third response to SHC historically, and that's what Dr. Floyd Clendennon provides.
		He said, upon removing their bodies, we found the skull, the cervical, and half the dorsal vertebrae reduced very nearly to a cinder.
		Now he's talking about Mrs. Patrick Mooney here, along with about six inches of a right penis on the corner.
		The wrist was reduced to a complete cinder.
		The other parts on the inside were reduced to a very light cinder, having no shape of former body.
		Now, here's what I marveled by this, because much like Dr. Fanley did almost 100 years later, Mrs. Mooney burned through her kitchen floor into the cross gates beneath.
		And yet the table went in, you know, directly above the hole to which her body fire auger itself was not burned.
		Now, the doctor said this, the skull and the hip bone of Mrs. Mooney were really the only evidence by which it could be put that a human's body had been cremated there.
		Now, Dr. Clendin used the word cremated.
		Now, that's really profoundly interesting historically and in terms of Edison because the crematorium itself had only been embedded nine years earlier.
		And certainly a crematorium was not present in Seneca, Illinois, let alone in the farmhouse of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Rooney.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Evidence of an accelerant?
unidentified		No evidence of an accelerant whatsoever.
		That indeed was looked for, and none was found.
		Dr. Clendennet, now this is a professional medical physician back in 1985, pronounced cause of death at people's spontaneous combustion.
		He is not the only physician trained medically to say that people can, on rare occasions, die by this very aberrant, infrequent, and quite mystifying process called spontaneous combustion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, a lot of this is by necessity going to be a little gross, but I've got to ask about this.
		I know a number of very obese people.
		Thankfully, I'm not one of them.
		But, you know, anybody who's ever seen a fat fire on the stove knows that fat can burn like crazy and almost unstoppable.
		You can't throw water on it, you've got to smother it.
		And so there have been a lot of people over the years when this subject has come up who have said, well, it's human fat.
		How much evidence is there that it might be that?
unidentified		Well, the evidence that that has been said is copious.
		Sure.
		The evidence that what has been said can indeed explain these cases, we think requires or is dearth of support.
		Now, we're always open to learning things that we don't know about, so maybe one of your listeners can set us straight here.
		But in 20 years of talking to forensics experts, Firemen, medical professionals, and laboratory technicians, we have yet to find anyone who can give us one working example of the so-called human candlewick theory actually proving true.
		Experiments have been conducted, we've done them ourselves, trying to take a piece of well-marbled fatty tissue, whether it's dry or whether it's been soaked for months in alcohol, putting a match to it, and coming back a few minutes later or a few hours later and finding that well-marbled fatty tissue reduced to a pile of dehydrated dust.
		We have not been able to do that.
		People who grill meats on barbecue grills have never told us of walking away from the grill and coming back to find their T-bone steak, T-bone and all, reduced to a pile of dry dust on the grill.
		In fact, crematorium operators have told us that the most difficult thing ever to cremate and retort is an overweight daddy body, which defies the opponents who argue that the overweight daddy particular individual is going to myths.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there any evidence to indicate whether there's a commonality of where the fire on the human body starts?
		It would seem particularly difficult, even if somehow the human body got ablaze, in essence, burn down.
		It would start at some top part of the body and then burn down.
unidentified		You know, you would make a great fire investigator.
		You're asking the kind of questions that unfortunately some well-paid fire professionals in this country and overseas have refused to ask themselves.
		In many of the classic cases of spontaneous cubic combustion, the point of origin of the energy discharge appears to be in the solar plexus area, that is in the lower abdominal region.
		And what we suspect happens, and indeed in some cases confirmed by eyewitnesses, the energy that begins at that point in the body radiates outward like a human fireball.
		Whatever is beyond the radius of that fireball escapes significant damage.
		So the radius of that fireball beginning in the lower abdomen is perhaps one and a half feet.
		So what is beyond that radius, say the lower legs or the forearms, which are outstretched from the center of the body, would escape damage.
		And that is indeed what we find in many of these cases.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, then.
		My brain says to me, what about what this person has digested?
		In other words, everybody remembers from high school with the chemistry sets that occasionally when you would put the wrong things together, your little test tube would begin to smoke and get hot as a firecracker.
		Now, is it possible that it's a combination of things ingested by a person?
unidentified		Diet might indeed play a factor.
		This is, again, something that fire professionals are not trained to gather evidence about at a fire scene.
		We've attempted to obtain that information.
		As you might imagine, it's very difficult to come by.
		We have to, you know, speak to the next of kin and talk to them in this kind of a situation.
		It's always a very delicate topic at best.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
unidentified		In Dr. Bentley's case, we were able to get some information on his diet, and friends of his told us that he'd spent the last two years of his life subsisting solely on a diet of shredded wheat and coffee.
		Now, if we were Dr. Bentley's body, we think just out of spite, we'd lash back fiery rage at him for subjecting us to such a horrible diet.
		But proceedings aside, there may be some organic process that went on in Dr. Bentley's body with that accumulation of caffeine and fiber and some other factors that could have helped biochemically to cause his body to suddenly burst into a fiercely raging inferno that lasts probably for only seconds.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think there could have been some sort of that's a long diet of two things, and I wonder if that could have created some sort of permanent chemical change in the doctor's body?
unidentified		It may well have been, but we'd have to work with some organic chemist who would know more about, you know, the actual mechanisms that such a diet would engender in the body.
unidentified		That's why we're not willing to rule out much of anything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there any way, this is probably a silly question because you don't know what causes it, so how are you going to know what prevents it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I've got to ask, is there a way to prevent going up in flames?
unidentified		Well, when we hear people talking about having explosive tempers, I'm sorry, explosive tempers, thank you, having red-hot anger and having fiery red rages lashing out at themselves or at others.
		We've alluded to earlier, people seem to be depressed or morose in many of these classic cases.
		We think all those factors, again, set up a state of consciousness whereby the body becomes more inflammably prone.
		So to avoid those conditions, we would suggest that one has a well-balanced, cool temper, good emotional outlook on life, maintain a good, healthy diet.
		And beyond that, at this point in our research, we really can't offer any real securities.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, all right.
		That to me means there's lots of people ready to go up if it has something to do with temper.
		Larry, hold on.
		We'll be right back to you, and we'll begin to take telephone calls.
unidentified		Spontaneous human combustion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right here.
		Larry Arnold is my guest.
		His book, about 500 pages long, will tell you how to get it.
		Stay right there.
unidentified		Stay tuned for more with Art Bell and his guest, Larry Arnold on human combustion on this encore presentation of Dreamland with Art Bell.
		The End
		Welcome to an onboard presentation of Dreamland with ourselves and for ourselves in the United States for this year.
		It's Monday night to April.
		Back to the best of the best.
		I'm not listening to our homes.
		Rockville Mountain Now again, the resort.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		My guest is Larry Arnold.
		We're talking about spontaneous human combustion.
		And I guarantee, if you have seen the photographs that I've seen and the rest in his book, it would give you great pause.
		Believe me, great pause.
		And Larry has given us permission not to put on the bowling board because this is a copyrighted picture and apparently it's been ripped off in the past.
		So we're not going to put it on the electronic media other than I'm showing it to some people on video.
		And for example, I just showed this to somebody who said, gross, yuck, nasty, what a way to go.
		Oh, my.
		That was his response to seeing the photograph.
		So we're going to put it in the newsletter.
		He has given permission for that to get our newsletter, which continues to have these kinds of documentary evidence in it.
		To get our newsletter, you may call 1-800-917-4278.
		We'll get this in the next newsletter.
		Again, our newsletter number is 1-800-917-4278.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I'll tell you what I'm going to do.
		I'm going to read facts I've got that I think Mr. Arnold will find interesting, get to a couple of other facts questions, and then I'm going to open the phone lines.
		East of the Rockies, the only number not given, it is 1-800-825-5033.
		That's 1-800-825-5033.
		Mr. Bell, Larry.
		In the spring of 1964, I was living north of Denver, Colorado in an apartment.
		I was single.
		On a Saturday night, I'd been out drinking, dancing.
		Got home around 2 in the morning.
		It was cold, so when I got in, I sat down on the couch about six to eight feet from a gas wall heater.
		I went to sleep sitting on the couch.
		I woke up at about 4 a.m.
		My right knee was hurting.
		I just went in and went to bed.
		I woke up Sunday at about 10 in the morning.
		My knee was still hurting.
		As I looked at my knee, I had two large blisters just below the kneecap on each side of my leg bone.
		I figured I'd burnt myself some way, so I went out and got the pants that I'd had on at the time.
		No sign of any hole burned in the pants or any sign of anything.
		By Monday, these two burns were bad enough that I had to go to the doctor.
		He couldn't give me a clue as to what caused them, but the burn holes went to the bone.
		It took quite a long time to get them to heal.
		The two scars are approximately the size of a dime and about an eighth inch deep.
		I've never figured it out, but I've always wondered.
		If you have the time, what does your guest think?
		That's from Stanley up in Boston, Washington.
		So, Larry, what do you think?
unidentified		Well, we'd be conservative and initially say that we might want to consider attributing those knee burns to radiant heat from the gas heater that was about six to eight feet away.
		Now, we'd also want to say that we'd like very much to know more from Stanley about the details of that case if photographs were taken of the burns, because there are aspects of what he's described in that facts to you that sound like it could be spontaneous human combustion, which he survived.
		This would not be the first time when individuals have suffered partial self-immolation and have lived to not only ponder the question, but to be completely baffled by what happened to them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can you give an example of that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Somebody who's begun spontaneous combustion and not combusted totally?
unidentified		You bet.
		Let's pick this one.
		This is one that we happen to like a lot.
		The date is October 1980.
		The victim in question is Peter Jones.
		He was living in Central California at the time.
		Here's the scene.
		He's sitting on the edge of his bed one morning getting dressed.
		His wife Barbara is standing beside him.
		Barbara told us that she looked down and suddenly realized that smoke was billowing from the arms of her husband as though something was on fire.
		She began to pound him around the back, and her husband assisted in trying to frantically put out this source of combustion, whatever it was, and suddenly the smoke dissipated and was gone.
		There was no odor.
		There was no heat.
		There was no tissue damage to Peter, just gushing smoke.
		Mrs. Jones implored, what was that?
		And after she gained a modicum of composure, to which her husband retorted, beats the hell out of me.
		For circumstances that neither of them understood at that time, his body began to gush smoke in copious quantity.
		Now let's move forward a couple hours into the afternoon of that same day.
		Peter was out by himself this time, sitting in his automobile with his hands firmly gripping the steering wheel, waiting for a passing train to go by at the grade crossing.
		When suddenly, for the second time that day, the interior of his car, this time, began to fill up with dense bluish-gray smoke, gushing from both of his arms.
		Now, Peter told us that his shirt sleeves were rolled up, and yet the smoke was billowing from the flesh of his arms themselves.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Holy.
unidentified		And the car's interior quickly filled up with his palate haze.
		And this time he told us the smoke had a distinctive metallic taste.
		Metallic.
		And he told us next that as abruptly as the second episode began, his smoking ceased.
		He rolled down the windows of his car and the smoke naturally ventilated out.
		He proceeded to cross the railroad crossing and never told his wife about that second incident for several months.
		Now, if the Guinness Book of World Records has a category remaining common or fire, we would like to nominate Peter Jones.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Phew.
		Here's another thing.
		Many times at the scene of what appears to be spontaneous human combustion, it's said there is a sweet smell.
unidentified		Correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was in Vietnam, Larry, and I can tell you there's nothing sweet about the smell of burning human flesh.
unidentified		And so why would there be very different things?
		You have confirmed to us what the virus can be about the virus.
		They ubiquitously tell us that whenever.
		Never forget the exact Never forget it.
		It's only been smoked once at a fire scene.
		Sometimes even we've been told for years at a fatal fire scene.
		However, spontaneous human combustion is not typical.
		And one of the hallmarks of classic SHC is that there is a dearth, a complete absence of that normally characteristic noxious smell.
		If there's an odor present at all, it's been described to us repeatedly as being perfume-like, redolent, sweet-smelling.
		In one case from Illinois that we document for the first time publicly in our Book of Plays, the son of the victim told us that when he walked into the home of his mother, the whole house smelled as if it was pervaded with hickory incense.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hickory incense.
unidentified		That was how he described it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So that would give credence to the theory that there is a chemical change in the human body before it combusts.
unidentified		Most likely, yes, indeed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Our engineer up at the network sent me a fax here and wants to know, could it be a focused microwave frequency beam?
		In other words, indeed, you can be cooked alive by microwave, or that that specific very narrow beam happens to be passing through the area where the person is sitting or whatever.
unidentified		We completely concur with your technician's theory.
		We have in our book cases where radar technicians have been burned by their radar equipment.
		The Cape Tall radar units on Cape Cotton, Massachusetts have been known to catch hang gliders aflame when they've flown in front of those very strong microwave transmissions.
		So that's a little esoteric theory, but it has historical precedent and we certainly could not dismiss it.
		We also speculate that the planet itself, under certain conditions at certain places, might produce naturally microwave-type radiation.
		So that if a person is standing at the right place, but at the wrong time, their bodies could begin to burn from the inside out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Larry, when I was younger, I was a microwave engineer.
		I did that for a lot of years.
		And I used to work on towers, and I did some really stupid things in my time.
		And I can recall being almost at 300-foot level on a tower on top of a mountain.
		And I was standing there working on a VHF antenna mounting, and I was strapped in.
		And all of a sudden, I noticed my leg was getting hot.
		And getting hot and hotter and hotter.
		And I looked down, and I was standing right in front of a microwave dish.
		So microwave definitely cooks the human body.
		There's no question about it.
		But in terms of causing it to go ablaze, and then once again, we get back to this problem of the amount of water present in the human body.
		I can understand that I could begin to microwave my leg.
		And if I stood there long enough, literally cook it.
		But ablaze and to consume the rest of my body, it doesn't track.
unidentified		Well, something has to generate enough heat energy in the body that is the equivalent of 34 million calories.
		That's how much heat would be necessary to cremate a normal human being, say, weighing 160, 170 pounds.
		34 million million calories of heat energy is produced in a case of plastic case.
		Now, how can that be generated?
		Where could the source of that energy come from?
		Dr. Kennedy is looking at the physics energy, the quantum physics of spontaneous human combustion.
		Now, when you come up mathematically with a source of that kind of energy that could trigger 34 million calories heat release almost instantaneously in the body, getting down into the subatomic physics of the human body now, but the mathematics say that this can happen.
		There is also a new science called new chemistry that is finding ways by which organically temperatures of 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit can be generated instantaneously at the nano level of the human body.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Art, please ask Mr. Arnold.
		This is, look, folks, this is a little gross, so if you want to tune out, tune out.
		But these are legitimate questions.
		Please ask Mr. Arnold if you can provide information about a related destructive phenomenon of spontaneously exploding heads.
unidentified		I believe there was a case reported about a half year ago of a chess player whose head actually did explode while in deep concentration during a game.
unidentified		I covered all over the spectators.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What am I?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Bill in Mineral, Washington.
unidentified		Well, we've heard, I believe, of what Bill's referring to.
		That was a report that was carried by the tabooed Weekly World News.
		And as such, we give that report very little credence.
		The Weekly World News is one of the reasons that most people think spontaneous combustion is nothing more than a taboo disc.
		And that paper in particular repeatedly runs stories about this phenomenon.
		We've tried to track them down, never knowing where one might find a credible leave.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
unidentified		And with only one exception, have we ever found there to be validity to their stories?
		The rest of them have no support so far as we've been able to ascertain.
		And the reason that we need a lot of people and credibility was because we had already investigated the kids.
		Ironically, what they were with regard to Will we devote an entire chapter in a place to his amazing internal incineration?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Let's get your book.
		Your book is very impressive.
		Larry, it's almost 500 pages long.
		It's well documented.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's got a lot of photographs on it.
unidentified		Depending on what you're saying, get your book.
		I wish I were lucky for answering that question.
		I'm sure.
		There are two ways.
		They can go to the local bookstore and either purchase it off the shelf or the sender view order the end business and be one of the hottest books of 1996.
		Or, As a favor to your millions of listeners, we'll be glad to send the book out directly to them from our offices here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, really?
unidentified		The price of the book at either location is $24.95.
		It is art cover, landline, art, photographs, as you said.
		It's in excess of 500 pages, actually, when you count the front matter.
		All right.
		If the listener is in Pennsylvania going to have to add $1.50 sales tax for you, United States listeners, we will pick up the shipping.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to ask you a question.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I'm an author, too, as well as an author.
		I wrote a book.
		And I know that autographs are really, really valuable commodities.
		Would you be willing to autograph copies for people?
		Just sign your name?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		You would?
		Absolutely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If they order from you directly?
unidentified		If they order from us directly and they make that request that it be personally inscribed to whatever name they want in the front of the book, we would do that.
unidentified		No charge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, really?
		All right, then look out because here it comes.
		All right.
		How do they order?
		What's the number?
unidentified		The address to order by mail is 1025 Miller Lane, Harrisburg, PA, 17110-2899.
		Make your check or money order payable to PSI.
		And the amount, again, is $24.95.
		If you're ordering from Pennsylvania, add another $1.50 for the sales tax here in PA.
		For overseas or out-of-the-united states orders, write to that address.
		We'll send you a mailing form with all the necessary details.
		And we'll post it out to you immediately after getting the payment return mail.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, is there a 800 number?
unidentified		Unfortunately, at this point, no, there's not an 800 number.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, then give the address again, if you would, please.
unidentified		1025 Miller Lane.
		Harrisburg, PA, 17110-2899.
		And the phone number for people who would like to call us either to request ordering information or to talk to us about cases that might prove to be valuable leads to our research.
		That number is 717-236-0080.
		That is an Eastern time number, and we'd appreciate calls during no more business hours.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		717-236-0080.
unidentified		Correct.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've got an awful lot of taxes here.
		About 15 years ago, my husband was preparing a salad in the kitchen when his back spontaneously caught on fire.
		Everybody panicked, but it went out by itself as quickly as it began.
unidentified		His shirt was not burned or scorched in any way, nor was his skin.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There was no fire nearby.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Don't know if this qualifies as spontaneous human combustion, but it sure was strange.
unidentified		Well, our first response is, it certainly does sound strange, and it certainly does sound like many of the cases of spontaneous human combustion that we have already documented historically in our book of Blaze.
		We would very, very much like to hear from this woman.
		Specifically in 1905, over in England in Lincolnshire area, there was a servant girl who was sweeping out the broom.
		I'm swooping out the broom, using a broom to sweep out the barn.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There we go.
unidentified		The homesteader walked in and discovered that his maidservant had her back aflame.
		Until that point, she was oblivious to her predicament.
		Only when he started yelling at her that she was a fire did she realize that indeed her back, as this lady wrote in to you, her back was aflame.
		So in many of these cases, this is a painless phenomenon.
		To the person who responded earlier, who said that this is pretty gruesome stuff and what a way to go.
		Well, yes, it is indeed what a way to go.
		It can be instantaneous or nearly instantaneous, unlike most forms of death.
		And unlike many forms of death, it also appears in most cases to be painless.
		And besides all those things, it gets you in history books.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, that leads us into this then from Brian in Iowa.
		Please ask Larry Arnold if any of the instances of spontaneous human combustion have been witnessed.
unidentified		Yes, Brian, they have.
		The case that we gave you a little bit ago about Peter Jones and his wife, clearly that was doubly witnessed once and singly witnessed a second time.
		We devote another chapter in our book specifically to the eyewitnessed cases.
		So once again, those who claim that spontaneous human combustion does not occur are going to have to deal with the eyewitness testimony.
		People who have seen it happen in others, people who have survived it and reported seeing it happen in their own bodies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In what percentage of the cases, Larry, has it been documented that the people had really foul, fiery tempers?
unidentified		The percentage is quite small because, as we said earlier, getting that kind of information from the very get-go is extremely difficult to obtain.
		But we have enough cases, enough individuals for whom we've been able to get psychological profile background that suggests that that can be a viable component to the onset of these amazing fires.
		I'd say the total count is about in the range of eight to ten cases where we've got individuals who have told us or relatives have told us next of kin have said that these people were very angry, very depressed, hyperactive, you know, really classic type A personalities.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about an actual, actually we're going to have to break off because we're at the top of the air, but I'm going to ask you, and then we're diving in the phones here because every line is lit and we've got to get going on that.
		But I would think in some cases, people would feel their body temperature rising and would have actually documented putting a thermometer in their mouth because they felt oddly and noted a rise in temperature before the awful event.
		We'll ask about that when we come back.
		Larry Arnold is my guest.

▲