Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.7.0.10 $; site convex Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!convex!ayers From: ayers@convex.UUCP Newsgroups: net.med Subject: Re: Spontaneous Combustion and people! Message-ID: <38100005@convex> Date: Tue, 28-Jan-86 11:16:00 EST Article-I.D.: convex.38100005 Posted: Tue Jan 28 11:16:00 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 30-Jan-86 05:39:33 EST References: <434@well.UUCP> Lines: 35 Nf-ID: #R:well.UUCP:434:convex:38100005:000:1547 Nf-From: convex.UUCP!ayers Jan 28 10:16:00 1986 >...The cases I am referring to are real, were investigated by law >enforcement agencies and were reported in the "real" press - NOT half-baked >phony stories such as would appear in the "National Enquirer". >...No one has offered any plausible >explanation for the incidents which have occurred. Several years ago there was a "surviver" of such an incident. It happened in his RV while sitting in a parking lot. He was taking a nap (on a bed in the rear of the RV) with his hand laying by an open window. He woke up when his hand/arm became uncomfortably warm. Opening his eyes, he saw something that looked like a ball of St. Elmo's fire dancing on his metal watchband. When it grew and enveloped his hand and started up his arm, he suddenly experienced intense pain, jumped up, ran to the sink and poured cool water over his arm. He wound up in the hospital, and lost the hand and part of the arm due to severe burns. The hospital discounted his story, even though a local physicist interviewed the man and said his description sounded a lot like a new thing they were working on at the time. Something called "ball lightening" -- an item that is still contested today, but generally accepted. (BTW, his bed clothes were unharmed, except for the stench of burning flesh, and his watch quit working and started attracting metal, but otherwise looked okay...) So what's the story prove? Nothing. But it is an interesting speculation... blues, II