One such case occurred in January 1835 when a University of Nashville professor named James Hamilton was conducting an experiment with atmospheric measurements.

He was checking the barometer, thermometer, and hygrometer in turn when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his left hip.

At first he tried to ignore it, but as the pain intensified, he finally looked down at his leg and saw that his calf was engulfed in flames that could be seen through the fabric of his pants. With good self-control, the professor decided that the fire must be blocked from access to oxygen and covered his thigh with his hands, after which the flame died out.

After that, the teacher took off his pants and examined the injured leg.He only discovered a coin-sized patch on the flesh of his left leg that appeared to be an abrasion rather than a burn. The teacher was astounded to see the same smooth round hole in the pants but no holes in the underwear.

Hamilton came to the conclusion that he was undergoing spontaneous combustion at that same moment and that a flame had developed inside of him before bursting to the surface via that hole. After a very long period, the little, spherical wound’s injured skin finally recovered. These cases have also occurred relatively recently. Door salesman Jack Angel awoke in agony in 1974 after spending the night in his mobile van in Savannah, Georgia.

He saw that his chest, arms, legs and back were covered in burns, and he couldn’t understand their source — he didn’t smoke, there was no source of fire in the van, and nothing else around him was damaged. Including, the clothes he was wearing were not damaged at all, which turned out to be the strangest thing.

When Angel went to the doctors, they said it looked like the source of the flame was inside the body, specifically somewhere in the left hand, from where it spread to other parts of the body.

Frank Baker, a veteran of the Vietnam War, also experienced a fire while on vacation in 1985. He was simply relaxing on the living room couch when he found himself unexpectedly enveloped in flames.

The flames were quickly doused with water from the river by his buddies, but the cause of the fire was never discovered. The experts who examined Baker’s body concluded that the fire was likely inside his stomach. According to Baker’s companions, he caught fire directly in front of their eyes. Baker may not have had burns, according to stories at the time.