Spontaneous spontaneous combustion of a person. Belarus

Fire in Minsk, apparently, faced with the rare phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion...

The death of any living being is perceived as a phenomenon that perfectly fits into the framework of the known laws of nature. But what happened five years ago in the house on Logoysky trakt, 21, korp. 1, in Minsk, is striking in its strangeness...

Still this fact remains mysterious. 6 December 1993, residents of one of the apartments noticed that the walls and floor became hot. Deciding that the floor below in flames, they called on 01. Firefighters arrived and, even without going inside, I realized that it's not quite normal: no smoke, no fire, no sounds behind the door. The lock broke, went into the kitchen and saw on the floor the remains of a 70-year-old mistress – a heap of ashes, and two legs, completely whole...

Senior inspector for special assignments of the Minsk city fire Department Oleg Golubev, leaves the scene, with such faced for the first time. He was struck by the fact that a woman's body, E. Sidorkevich, not counting the legs, was burned to the ground, and everything around, including flammable, remained completely untouched by the flames. Gas stove is off, nowhere to be seen ashtrays with cigarette butts, damaged wiring... the cause of the fire, if it can be set, clearly belonged to the category of obvious. And Golubev, feeling the uniqueness of the case, made the photograph which we publish.

The phenomenon has attracted the attention of many specialists. According to the senior investigator of the investigative unit of the police Department of the Minsk city Executive Committee Alexander Golenkov, it also struck a narrow action of fire. As a rule, in the room where you find the charred corpse, the walls and ceiling black, and the furniture fragments remain of the same color. In this case, it turned out that the flame was raging just one square meter, was extremely clear boundaries of the action of fire. Why burned down, and the seat of the chair, and the rest around – no? Why was unharmed ordinary paper calendar hanging on the wall above the head of the mistress, and her feet are not charred – it's as if they cut off? When breaking out of conventional household objects, the combustion temperature reaches one thousand degrees. But the human body is not furniture, and fire – a tough nut to crack; in a thousand degree burning to the ground it is incapable. In the crematoria, where the temperature reaches two thousand degrees, from the burnt corpse are the bones, which then have to split. And that bone, including the skull, the most slow-burning of the skeleton has turned into ashes, need about five thousand degrees, experts say.

Firefighters have built different versions about this incident, but none of them hold water. Golenkov, for example, to unambiguously identify the cause of the fire was difficult and was forced to take the case to the category of "strange and unexplained". The medical examiner Dmitry Medvedev also failed to clarify the incident, noting the "unusual location of the remains of leg and foot human" and that the death of an elderly woman really came from destruction by fire, the cause of which remained unclear.

Guided by simple logic, we can conclude: once there was a fire in which killed a man, and the source of the fire was not found, then the cause and the source of the fire the man himself. I did some digging in the literature, in the Chronicles of the abnormal events and understand that this conclusion is not so paradoxical and fantastic. In the history of the world have long known these facts unexplained fires, when the man suddenly burns down to the bone or to the ground for no apparent reason. This phenomenon is called "spontaneous combustion". The phenomenon is very rare, but is repeated regularly.

***

So arranged the world that the death of a person is predetermined by the fact of his birth, it is the inexorable law of nature. But the tragic accident, which will be discussed in this material, although happened almost fifteen years ago, still remains one of the most mysterious and unexplained, and gives food for idle speculation and rumors. Though over his answer puzzled a lot of specialists — firemen, criminologists, physicists, chemists, biologists. For this incident absolutely does not fit into the known laws of nature. Alexander Motuz then worked in the research Department, and examination of fires of the Republican scientific-practical center for fire safety (now the research Institute of fire safety and emergencies). His responsibilities included photos and video of the incidents, investigate the causes of fires. He is now retired. We found Alexander Nikolayevich, to the mouth of the witness details.

In the afternoon of 6 December 1993 on the control of fire protection received a call. Residents of apartment 21 at the capital of the Logoysky tract reported that from the apartment on the floor below, where lived an old woman, heard a strange odor similar to smell of burning. Everything pointed to the probability of the normal, "ordinary" fire. At that moment Alexander and could not imagine what kind of spectacle will open the eyes arrived on the scene firefighters.

"For 20 years I have seen many fires, a lot of people dead, including the worst — burnt children, but more terrible pictures do not ever see! Will not forget her until the end of his days..."

And after a long time he remembers it with a shudder. Seen so impressed Motousa that the smallest details of the incident remained in his memory like it was yesterday.

Arrived to the house on the logoysky trakt firefighters immediately rushed into the eyes of a strange circumstance. Calling in "pozharku" neighbors reported that they began hot walls and floor. At the same time, in the Windows of the apartment of the old woman could not see the slightest signs of fire and smoke. However, some firefighters began to climb the stairs to the balcony of the third floor, and the other tried to enter the apartment through the door. Since 70-year-old landlady calls and a knock didn't answer (she lived alone), had to knock the door.

The kitchen views the shocked people opened a horrifying picture. Anything like none of them neither before nor after this case have not seen.

"On the floor of a small (7 sq m) premises feet to the side of the window lay human remains. However, more appropriate would be some other definition. For, in addition to legs in stockings while wearing top socks (one was like a cropped above the knee, the other below), there was nothing, or rather nothing but a pile of ashes on the body contour. It was obvious one: fire in the usual sense in this room never happened. Gas stove, the wiring was fine, butts are seen. At the same time, the human body is almost completely burnt down".

Forensic experts also arrived at the scene, was struck by the narrow, if I may say so, the action of fire. The apartment is almost not affected, that does not happen in "regular" fires. The kitchen burned down, only the chair on which sat the woman, and burned the linoleum in the contour of the body (not more than 15-20 cm from it). The boundaries of fire was extremely clear; in fact, the flames were raging in an area of just over a square meter. Slightly grimy sink, a little yellowed Wallpaper that is partially damaged towel. It seems incredible, but the wall calendar that hung no more than two feet from the body, did not suffer. Everyone was amazed that zakopchennoy premises were minor, whereas, according to Alexander Matoza, the combustion of the human body such a mass, what was the victim (she was full), with significant body fat, generates a lot of soot. In this case, on the walls, the ceiling was observed only strange grayish plaque.

"It is curious that in this day a woman was going to put the signature under the deed of gift for an apartment for my son. They were supposed to meet at noon. He came, rang the doorbell, but mother is not opened... of Course, the investigator any questions. It has been suggested that could be used phosphorus — temperature combustion about 3 thousand degrees. But the criminal version of what happened had to be dropped: assumptions did not match with the facts. The signature on the document was not delivered. During the arrival of the fire apartment entrance door and Windows were locked from the inside, door keys lay on the table. And who had so subtly to kill a harmless old woman to use such a terrible instrument of death, as the phosphorus? There is no doubt that there was no crime...".

The average temperature of the fire is in the range of 900 — 1000 degrees. The human body is never fully consumed.

"It's charred, burns beyond recognition, but remain the fragments of the body, it cannot just "disappear"! — said Alexander. — I had to find the remains in the burned out buildings, but to the extent people burned without obvious external temperature source!..".

Cremation temperature reaches almost 2000 degrees. And still the bones of the pelvis, the skull is not entirely destroyed, for this, experts say, needs a much higher temperature. Here, what particularly struck present, along with firefighters at the scene of the forensic scientist with nearly 40 years of experience at the slightest touch, the bones were turned to dust, crumbled... Any known physical, chemical "measurements", the laws do not fit. Recognizing that the woman's death was caused by destruction of fire, firefighters and forensics to establish the cause and source of an unusual flame and could not have brought this case to the category of the weird and unexplained.

Meanwhile, the cases when a person suddenly covers the flame and it turns into a pile of ashes, although quite rare, has long been documented in written and literary sources, such as Lucretius. This phenomenon has received the name SC — "spontaneous human combustion". Perhaps the most simple and understandable to the layman explanation is due to the effects of alcohol. Popular in the nineteenth century, the theory was that CSC exposed to drunks, perenositsya your body flammable vapors of alcohol. For example, in "Dead souls" by Gogol we find this dialogue of Chichikov and Boxes:

"Last week I burned a blacksmith, for such a skilled blacksmith... — have you had a fire, mother? — God has saved from such a calamity, a fire would be even worse; he was burned, my father. Inside he once lit up, too drunk, only the blue light went away from him, all have decayed, have decayed and turned black as coal...".

(PE the Logoisk tract has forced experts to think about this theory, since the kitchen table was an open bottle of vodka; however, theory is inconclusive, the drunk lady was not.)

In the annals of anomalous phenomena managed to find a case very similar to the described. In 1951 in the state of Florida killed a chubby 67-year-old woman Marie Ryser. Her landlady came to her with a telegram, knocked on the door and receiving no answer, he tried to enter. But the door handle was so hot that it was impossible to touch... a Woman called to the aid of two workers worked nearby. Cracking the door, they found the room to place chairs and Mrs. Reeser blackened circle several turns of spring wire, skull, cowering to the size of a fist and on the edge of the scorched area of floor — a slipper with a portion of the left foot. Traces of fire in the building was only burnt around the chair, although from the intense heat cracked the mirror on the wall...

Cases SSC described, in particular, in the novels of Dickens (bleak house), Zola ("Doctor Pascal"), Balzac ("Cousin of Pons"), Mark TWAIN ("Life on the Mississippi"). It is believed that thus in the world burned a few hundred people. What happened on the logoysky trakt? What is this flame that is so inexplicable and unnatural destroys the human body, at the same time leaving untouched the clothes things?

I asked Alexander Matoza, can there be a "natural" accumulation of phosphorus in the bones of the old lady?

"Such an assumption was put forward. The more that the survivors of the limb suggests that the flames (if it is a flame), "went" inside the bones and does not spread on the surface of the body, as usually happens. On a "slice" of the feet skin is only slightly charred, and the stream of fire seemed to go inside. When in contact with flame man first damaged skin, then muscle tissue, etc., depending on temperature. But always the effect on the outside. And here the flame seemed to spread to the bones... So there was a version that the victim was unusually high content of phosphorus in the bone. And it was spontaneous combustion. We scientists from the Academy of Sciences discussed this. He agreed that, in principle, the accumulation of phosphorus is possible, but it would be phosphorus compounds, but not pure phosphorus. And the connections that combustion could not give".

Versions of the phenomenon SSC set. Some researchers of the paranormal believe that the human body cells are made of complex oxidation processes, a thermonuclear synthesis at the molecular level. In other words, the cage — something like a nuclear power plant, in violation of the activities of which energy is released that is kernel starts a chain reaction...

Others believe SSC the result of the interaction of the biofield of a person with not yet known to science energy radiation in the space surrounding us.

Still others blame the spontaneous combustion... free radicals, causing under certain conditions, the cold-plasma burning in the molecules of human flesh, in which the external body temperature is 36 degrees, and internal — a few thousand... Fourth as a cause SC is the change of time in the human body, in which the allocated heat will not have time to go into the surrounding space, and it burns... no shortage of assumptions there.

Anyway, today's incident on the logoysky trakt in Minsk as a phenomenon SSC in General, remains one of the most mysterious in the series of the so-called anomalous phenomena.

The author thanks the head of the Institute of fire safety and problems of emergency situations Ministry of emergency situations of the Republic of Belarus A. N. Kudryashov, employees of the Department of research and examination of fires for assistance in the preparation of the material; the photo archive of the Institute Pbecs.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»