A Three-Month-Old Baby Keeps Bursting Into Flames

en.wikipedia.orgA three-month-old baby in India is supposedly mysteriously and suddenly bursting into flames.

The infant's parents noticed something was wrong when the child has a flame emerging from its stomach, according to a post on the New York Times India-centric blog, India Ink.

The "attack" has occurred several times, and the baby's parents have taken him to several hospitals. They have also been kicked out of their village by neighbors nervous that the child will start a fire.

Doctors are puzzling over what may have caused the mysterious flame-ups, but the latest word is that they may have ruled out spontaneous combustion.

Spontaneous Human Combustion, or SHC, has a long history, and is sometimes considered a quaint pseudoscientific theory worthy of mockery. But it has experienced a surge of recent interest, especially after an Irish doctor determined that an elderly man had died from spontaneous combustion - leaving behind only a completely charred body.

Some scientists have argued that elevated levels of the inflammable liquid acetone in the blood - which the body normally expels - could ignite under the right conditions.

Some wonder whether the boys wounds are more likely a sign of child abuse, while Indian newspaper, The Hindu noted that the child's mother hails from a village that had experienced several mysterious fires in 2004.