Posted on 11/24/2011 11:33:01 AM PST by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
GOTHENBURG, Sweden — An unidentified man burst into flames while waiting outside a train station in Sweden, leaving police flummoxed, the Göteborgs-Posten reported.
Witnesses said the man was standing outside a music shop at the Gothenberg central train station around 10:30 p.m. Sunday, when he suddenly caught on fire.
"He just stood there burning outside the shop," a witness told the paper. "After a while he started screaming. There were a few people about but they just watched him. I ran up to him, tore my coat off and managed to put the fire out together with another guy."
The man, who sustained serious injuries, was taken to Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska hospital, where he was sedated.
Police have been at the hospital since the incident trying to piece together what happened.
"All we know is that it's a man. We have no knowledge of his identity, nor of his age or any motive or even the circumstances of the incident," Asa Anderson, a police officer, told the newspaper.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
St Elmo’s Fire is a greenish, static electricity discharge that most often appears on ships and aircraft. I’ve witnessed it in flight on one of the old SAC Looking Glass planes. It is not fire nor flames.
A rough translation would be “Live Water” or “Life Water” or “Water of Life.” Go figure!
SO wrong, my friend. St. Elmo's Fire is a static electricity phenomenon. I've experienced it more than once as a pilot. It's a beautiful thing to behold. A metal aircraft flying through highly charged air (think near a thunderstorm, for example) at high speed and high altitiude.....major static buildup on the skin of the aircraft....next thing you know, you see 'fingers' of 'lightning' dancing all about your windscreen, wing leading edges, etc. Very impressive, but NOT what you're talking about.
You see it also on prop driven aircraft.
Usually 8,000 or above.
Thunder or cold dry snow storms.
Props make rings and of course the little greenish blue dancing across the windshield.
Flame on, Johnny!
It’s Danish vodka, flavored with anise or some other additive that gives it a licorice tinge. I used to love drinking the stuff straight, ice cold with a beer chaser. When I was still a drinking man.
There’s a few here on this continent that I could handle spontaneously combusting...
Sorry to hear about the wagon (he says while sipping grappa.)
lol
I thought spontaneous combustability stopped happening once the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS ceased publishing?!
Ahhh, grappa...
Happy Thanksgiving!
I always find it embarrassing when I catch fire, and don't even notice it until a couple of minutes later.
Happy Thanksgiving!
(In Europe you can get grappa in your cappuccino!)
Well, I was obviously misinformed. It’s called spontaneous human combustion (SHC) but not St. Elmo’s Fire. Thanks for correcting the error.
I had a Reader’s Digest book called Mysteries of the Unexplained. The story of Mary Reeser scared me as a kid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Reeser
Spontaneous human combustion — or maybe this guy just didn’t hear that South Vietnam has fallen.
Thanks DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis.
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