In 1951 Mary Reese sat down in a chair feeling a deep sleep weighing heavy on her eyes from the sleeping tablets that she had taken.

She had begun to nod off, cozy and warm.

She was found the next morning her body a pile of ashes, her

left foot all that remained. She had been consumed by fire though the room she was in showed

little sign of fire damage.

A stack of newspapers remained untouched by flame just feet away from the ashes on the ground.

This is dark histories where the facts are worse than fiction.

During the reign of the monarch, Queen Bonus Sforza in the 15th century a Polish

night was enjoying an evening of frivolity. He poured himself a glass of fine

brandy, promptly drained his glass and took a seat pouring himself a second.

The Brandy was strong, it burned as the alcohol slipped down his throat.

Gosh did it burn. As smoothly as it had gone down he felt the burn in his throat

spread back up. A burst of fire erupted from his mouth and his body burst into flames.

The tale of the Polish night is often re-told and often misinterpreted. Despite his inaccuracies, however, it stands as one of the earliest known

documents that speaks of the phenomena known as spontaneous human combustion.

The original Latin text written by Thomas Bartolin and published in 1654 is poorly written and is undoubtedly

the source of the problems. The Knight, often said to have been Italian, was in fact Polish

and was unnamed in the original text. The often cited name of

Adolfus Faustius refers to the man who told Bartolan of the events and was a well-known

botanist and scholar of the time. He himself heard the story from his father,

alias Everadas Vorsestius. So this third-hand account poorly written and poorly translated has throughout the years stood as the shaky foundation of a phenomena that has held much controversy for over 400 years and claimed the lives of over 200 people.

Spontaneous human combustion is still a murky and somewhat controversial subject,

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