They Clean Missed This Security Leak, Ladies...

...And I found it in the goofiest place.  No wonder nobody up on dry land has given it the attention it deserves.  I consider it SO SAFE that I feel free to POST IT ON THE INTERNET.

I was reading a crazy book called Fire From Heaven by Michael Harrison, which is about your favorite subject and mine, SPONTANEOUS HUMAN COMBUSTION. (Skoob Books, London, 1976, revised and updated 1990; ISBN 1-871438-65-9.)  And check out the groovy cover art:

...So anyway, it says about halfway through the book, on page 179, that a bunch of incarcerated Shaved Monkeys in Dannemorra Prison came down with botulism after eating some canned Salmon.  After incorrectly stating that the Salmon was undercooked -- the toxin grows in badly-processed canned goods -- the prison doc noticed that the affected prisoners developed some bizarre talents, if you call being unable to throw a ball of paper a "talent."  The prisoners appeared to have become magnetically charged in such a way as to be able to move metal without touching it, screw up compass readings, and so on.  HOW IT AFFECTED PAPER WAS NOT AT ALL CLEAR but after one of the affected men held a piece of paper, it, too, could be used to screw up a compass reading.  This is also apparently why the paper stuck to their hands when they tried to throw it.  As they recovered from their Salmon dinners, they gradually lost the ability.

Item:  The author attributes this effect entirely to the botulism, not the operatives consumed by the prisoners.

Item:  Some of the prisoners retained the ability after the others "recovered."  Why?  The DNA transfer took and they were WELL ON THEIR WAY to becoming Salmon themselves.  They did need to learn to hide their new abilities.  IT CAN BE DONE WITH PRACTICE.

Item:  Every single one of the new operatives successfully escaped down the drains when the time came.  NOBODY SUSPECTED A THING as their landscum bodies were left behind on their bunks.

Item:  None of this has ANYTHING TO DO with spontaneous human combustion.  I cannot figure why he included it in the book, but at another point in the text he accuses the melted dashboard saints in a car in nearby Pontiac, MI of having something to do with the fiery death of GM employee Billy Peterson.

Item:  This kind of lateral thinking and wild conclusion-jumping may have a little something to do with why nobody takes this author very seriously.

Item:  If spontaneous human combustion were a lot more common, you and I could stop working so hard at turning all the landscum into fish.  Yeah, I know; woulda, coulda, shoulda.

If you need a laugh, you might want to read this one.