A Sicilian town's mystery fires baffle experts

[grinner]

A Sicilian town's mystery fires baffle experts

By Shasta Darlington
Canneto Di Caronia, Sicily
April 3, 2004


The gate at the entrance to this tiny Sicilian village has come off its hinges and swings in the wind as cats wander into homes abandoned after a series of mystery fires.

This is not your average ghost town.

Canneto di Caronia has been taken over by an endless flow of scientists, engineers, police and even a few self-styled "ghostbusters" searching for clues to the recent spontaneous combustion of everything from microwave ovens to a car.

The fires started in mid-January and have claimed home appliances and fuse boxes in about half of the 20 houses. The blazes, originally blamed on the devil, have not hurt anyone.

After a brief respite last month, the flames have flared again, even though electricity to the village was cut long ago.

"We're working in the dark. We don't have a single lead so far," said Pedro Spinnato, mayor of the trio of Caronia towns.

"Every time some new scientist comes to town they arrive thinking the whole thing has been invented or that they're going to solve the mystery in two minutes. They've all been wrong."

The 39 inhabitants of the town were evacuated after the regional Government declared a state of emergency in Canneto, which occupies a single street nestled between a railway line and the sea.

From the start, Gabriele Amorth, one of the Catholic Church's top exorcists, suspected the devil was at work. "I've seen things like this before," he said. "Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods," he said.

The local priest, Don Antonio Cipriani, decided, together with residents, to let scientists have a first go at the fires.

After a brief visit to Canneto di Caronia, the head of the Committee for the Control of Paranormal Claims has also ruled out demons or poltergeists.

"The fact that the phenomenon occurs only when there are people present makes it hard to believe that it is a natural, or even supernatural phenomenon," Massimo Polidoro said.

I've seen things like this before. Demons . . . appear in electrical goods.
GABRIELE AMORTH, exorcist

The hypotheses now range from a build-up of electrical energy caused by grounding wires running off the railway to a rare "natural phenomenon" in which surges of electricity rise from the Earth's core.

- Reuters link (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/02/1080544688812.html)

[who45]

http://www.click-smilies.de/my_smileys/smileys1/angst.gif

[scrape_medic]

now this place may make for an interesting barbeque site! :)

[Madre Farbot]

"The fact that the phenomenon occurs only when there are people present makes it hard to believe that it is a natural, or even supernatural phenomenon," Massimo Polidoro said.

I can't quite seem to focus on this part of the article. Still, having now refocused, it does seem interesting that there are some scientific mysteries yet to be uncovered here on Earth, and on land! :cool:

[Stormhorse]

:)
Oh, he's implying without saying that the people are starting these fires themselves, for sympathy and notoriety presumably. It's basic pseudo-skeptie blather.

But just for fun, let's give old Massimo's logic a shake and see what falls out:

1) The fact that people are present to observe the phenomenon, invalidates the phenomenon.

2)If that is the case, what could possibly validate the phenomenon? Never being reported or observed?

[Clarsax]

"The fact that the phenomenon occurs only when there are people present makes it hard to believe that it is a natural, or even supernatural phenomenon," Massimo Polidoro said.

How do they know, if there's no people around to watch when the fires don't happen? It's like a new take on tree falling in the woods.

But it is interesting that there are so many strange phenomena like this happening that we have yet to understand.

[AgentSun]

a while ago there was a story involving an italian town (not the same one i don't think) that was having a lot of problems with their electricity. things would turn on and off by themselves and work in strange ways. it's a strange thing...

[Nicola]

The fires started in mid-January and have claimed home appliances and fuse boxes in about half of the 20 houses.

So what was it about mid-January that was different from the many, many years before when there were no untoward fires?

After a brief respite last month, the flames have flared again, even though electricity to the village was cut long ago.

And again... what was different during the respite?

I did some research and the scientists are leaning towards:

According to the Kite-Acheson hypothesis, the January spikes of solar wind protons should have induced a large positive electrical charge on the surface of the Earth. That electrical charge should eventually have flowed through the Earth and tended to concentrate on mountain tops and cliff lines. (The description of Canneto di Caronia seems to match the latter physical setting. The author may have read too much into Reuters' phrase " . . . perched on the Mediterranean island's rocky coast." It was taken to mean atop a cliff line.) If there were to be a large concentration of electrical charge in an area, and at the same time there was extra low relative humidity, (Sicily is known to normally have low humidity.) one might then expect household dust* to become charged and to become airborne due to its electrostatic repulsion by the charged Earth. (The dust and Earth would both be charged positively in this case.) Airborne dust in the proper concentrations can be explosive. (Grain elevator fires come to mind.) [Highlighted sections modified on 14-15 Feb 2004.]

Volcanic ash is flammable. When was the last time Mt. Etna's plume deposited ash on Canneto di Caronia? [Added 14 Feb 2004. Re-worded on 15 Feb 2004.]

Appliances generally make electrical sparks when turning on or off. Furniture, constructed with iron or steel parts which have some freedom of movement (open bottomed box-spring beds, and sofas, for example) may produce sparks when the metal parts scrape or rub each other.

Sparks combined with explosive dust concentrations may be the primary sources of the fireworks. A household appliance, with its power cord unplugged, if it is resting on an electrically insulating surface, . . . can become electrically charged like a capacitor and then arc discharge through its power plug if it becomes close enough to an electrical ground. {Reworded on 15 Feb 2004.]


http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/canneto2.htm

No demons or devils involved.

[Stormhorse]

But then wouldn't there be a "kaboom" every time someone lit a cigarette? And wouldn't explosive concentrations of dust or ash in the air be immediately apparent, making it hazy and difficult to breathe, and more than a little bit smelly?

Hi AgentSun, the Berici Hills Mystery (http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/signs_fire_supplement.htm) was probably the one with appliances and cars starting by themselves and so forth. (It's about a third of the way down that page.)

[Nicola]

Originally posted by Stormhorse
But then wouldn't there be a "kaboom" every time someone lit a cigarette?

Not if the solar activity occured in January and the deposit of house dust and volcanic ash occured the previous fall.

Plus the concentrations of dust and volcanic ash required for explosive activity would usually be more than what would be suspended in the air.

Dust tends to collect in areas that is not regularily disturbed (like fuseboxes and under fridges, stoves, beds, couches etc).

And wouldn't explosive concentrations of dust or ash in the air be immediately apparent, making it hazy and difficult to breathe, and more than a little bit smelly?

Yep. Volcanic ash is notable for creating those conditions. But volcanic ash alone is not considered responsible for creating this phenomena.