The Countess's Bedroom
Italian Countess Cornelia Bundy became the heroine of one of the first documented cases of sudden spontaneous combustion. One April night in 1731, at her home in the vicinity of Verona, she fell asleep after talking with her maid for several hours. The next morning the maid knocked in vain on the Countess's bedroom door, and when she went inside, she saw a painting that made her hair stand on end, and the bedroom was black with soot. A yellowish liquid that had a terrible smell dripped from the edge of the window, and on the floor there were pools of sticky liquid of the same color. However, the Countess's bed was not damaged. The sheets were thrown away, therefore, at some point in the night the Countess got up. One and a half meters from the bed, on the floor, on a heap of whitish ash, were two legs with stockings on them. There was also a skull,jaw and three burned fingers of Countess Bundy. Witnesses who touched the ash said it stuck to their fingers.
Like any other night
US resident Jack Angel was one of the few people who survived the sudden spontaneous combustion. As on any other night, he went to bed.
He woke up four days later with terrible burns on his body. His right arm was badly burned and the doctors had to amputate it. However, neither the pajamas nor the sheets were affected by the fire. Angel did not feel any pain upon regaining consciousness, and only felt it a few hours later. He could not remember how it all started, even under the influence of hypnosis.