Peter A. Hough

The book falls into the pseudoscholarly class, of which Immanuel Velikovsky's works are the most famous example. There are extensive footnotes, transcripts of interviews, etc., but the whole thing is an exercise in rhetoric rather than actual research.


The "urban legend" of spontaneous human combustion touted by this book is (I'm going to debug all the bullets, so bear with me):


*Humans sometimes catch fire under mysterious conditions.


*There is no external ignition source: the fire comes from show more "within".


*The heat generated is so intense that the body is reduced to ash - "calcined" is a popular description - but often extremities (head, arms, legs) are left untouched.


*The fire is confined to the body; other flammable material in the room is unaffected.


The phenomenon is firmly entrenched in popular mythology; Dickens disposed of a villain in Bleak House with it, and more recently it appeared in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, an author who is scientifically savvy enough to know better.


The authors cite numerous cases of SHC, some going back to the 17th century, and illustrate a few with some grisly photographs. However, even cursory examination shows that all these cases either there isn't enough data to support a conclusion of SHC or the conditions for "authentic" SHC aren't met.


Almost all the most dramatic cases have some sort of ignition source; there's a fireplace or an electric heater or an open flame or something. The authors usually dismiss these by saying the ashes in the fireplace were cold, or the electric heater was turned off, or similar statements. However, these are rhetorical arguments with tenuous backing; the assertions that the possible ignition source wasn't involved are usually based on casual comments by someone responding to the fire, without any backup.


The claim that SHC causes completely destruction of the bones isn't backed up either. The authors delight in counterattacking a BBC program investigating SHC by observing that the "wick effect" demonstrated by the BBC only badly damaged the test bone; it was still mostly intact (although it could be broken up by prodding it with a tool). However, the claim SHC bones are completly destroyed is never confirmed by anything but visual examination by the responders in the cases cited - nobody reports poking around in the ghastly remnants to see if there were any semi-intact bones left. (To be fair, if I were confronted with something like that, I wouldn't be doing a lot of science experiments either.


The claim that other flammable materials don't catch fire is refutable too; almost all the case reports describe melted plastics, damaged flooring, and so on. (In at least one case the remains of an SHC victim burnt through the floor of a hotel room and fell into the occupied room below, which has to be one of the most unpleasant ways I can imagine to get a wake-up call).


The book trots out the usual suspects to explain the phenomena: ball llghtning, UFOs, ley lines, the Philadelphia Experiment, etc. The authors don't pick one but use the shotgun approach, often with the leading rhetorical question (i.e. "Could a secret government experiment gone wrong have caused the horrific death of Mr. John Doe?").


Worth it for a dollar, but not much more (unless you collect this sort of stuff). The pictures will be great for frightening the bejabbers out of your kids; just tell them SHC occurs most often in people who don't keep their rooms clean and orderly. show less

A study of the various cases of people found on fire without explanation and the remains of people who burnt to death, often at such a high heat that they were reduced to ashes, without any heat source nearby that could have produced such intense results.
There are many photos of the scenes that have been published and they have much in common. The victims are usually elderly and living alone, often overweight or alcoholic, and the victim is often a pile of ash until the ankles, with the feet show more and shoes remaining and looking normal, if being attached to nothing but ashes can be called normal. It's called "the wick effect" burning from the head down like a candle. They are grisly photos.
The authors are determined to find whether or not these and many others, are because of SHC and they track down fire chiefs and hidden files of information. I have to assume that this is author Randles as she's listed as the main author and has a handful of books about UFOs and aliens to her credit too, so I think the overall belligerent tone of the book was hers. Reading things like, "Apparently we had upset someone on the production team (of an upcoming television show) by the decision, which we had carefully and fairly tried to explain. When one of us later arranged with the Radio Times to write a feature to tie in with the programme, the offer was mysteriously rescinded. We were told that someone from the series had advised the Radio Times against including our work and they felt they had to agree as the magazine relied upon Q.E.D.'s cooperation." Well, it was on. The book turned into a series of complaints about officials and librarians who tried to thwart her research, there was a whole chapter devoted to how wrong the mentioned tv show was, and this tone of "me against the world" went on and was something I looked forward to a lot. As far as concrete information, well, I'd say there's as much here as you'd find, as they did interview many first responders who had no explanation for what they saw. show less

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
Stench of Evil by Peter Hough
Warning this book is not for the faint of heart or the sensitive souls out there. That being said I am one of those souls and I could not finish the book. The extent and nature of the human sacrifice of babies to Satan forced me to stop reading. I love the psyhic stuff in the book and the other worldly element. The writing is great but I'm just not a fan of horror and there was too much of that for me in the show more chapters about Matty. So based on what I did read is what I'm basing my review on I will give it a 3 star. I despise not finishing a book, but in this instance I will have to. show less

An interesting guide to various visitable haunted sites in Great Britain. I read it before I'd visited, and I don't remember how many we ended up visiting, but it's an interesting read.