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Underground > Laboratory >

Sicilian Town Bursts Into Flames

04:49 / 06.04.04

Can anyone come up with a good theory for this?

From Reuters:

A series of spontaneous fires started in mid-January in the town of Canneto di Caronia in about 20 houses. After a brief respite last month, the almost daily fires have flared up again -- even though electricity to the village was cut off.

An endless flow of scientists, engineers, police and even a few self-styled "ghostbusters" have descended on the town searching for clues to the recent spontaneous combustion of everything from fuse boxes to microwave ovens to a car.

"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 halfway between Palermo and Messina 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.
"I've seen an air conditioner burst into flames and burn down in 30 seconds." said Antonio Pezzino, whose house was first hit.

Two fire trucks and a police jeep sit at the entrance of Canneto on alert for the next blaze while a van with a large, rotating antennae on top measures the radio waves.
A host of three-legged instruments to monitor geomagnetic, meteorological, electromagnetic and electrostatic indicators sit in apartments and next to lemon trees in the gardens. Colored markings on the street indicate the presence of volcano experts. Police ruled out a possible prankster or pyromaniac after they saw wires burst into flames.

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. The fires have even consumed unplugged lamps and an entire apartment. Black scorch marks still scar the apartment walls.

Italy's big utility, Enel, cut off electricity to the town and hooked it up to a generator -- but that caught fire as well. More recently cellular phones and cars have also been acting up, with lock and alarm systems being set off without any apparent reason."

05:17 / 06.04.04

I read about this one when it began a while back. I'm inclined to go with:

a) whatever else is causing the bizarre world-wide string of record-breaking brown-outs.

or

b) some especially powerful poltergeist locus just hit puberty.

I'm rather fond of a Charles Fort quote that comes to mind here:

"A regiment bursts into flames, and the soldiers are torches. Horses snort smoke from the combustion of their entrails. Reinforcements are smashed under cliffs that are teleported from the Rocky Mountains. The snatch of Niagara Falls - it pours upon the battlefield. The little poltergeist girls reach for their wads of chewing gum."

08:03 / 06.04.04

Maybe Don Rubinelli wants a new estate.... and he could get planning permission too if it wasn't for those pesky locals.

15:49 / 06.04.04

re: the especially large poltergeist kicking off

just down the road from crowley's abbey at cefalu, according to the ft. that could do it.

why now? 100 year anniversary of baldie's greatest hit maybe?

01:58 / 28.04.04

Massimo Polidoro, founder of the Italian skeptic group CICAP, went to investigate recently:

"I recently had a chance to visit Caronia thanks to the editor of "Focus," a popular Italian science magazine, who asked me to investigate the case. While I was present, there was nothing exceptional happening in the small town. Actually, it's not a town at all, it's about 6 or 7 houses, where the 39 inhabitants are all related to one other.

"Various "naturalistic" hypotheses have been put forward to explain the phenomena happening: electromagnetic fields, ball lightning, geothermic reactions.... Some even tried the old "poltergeists" or "demonic possession" explanations, but nobody has given credit to them. Canneto di Caronia was promptly evacuated by the civil authorities, and since then, nothing has happened. Only when there's been someone around, did things start to burn, a fact which certainly looks odd, if this was a natural phenomenon. Furthermore, we have talked with a Telecom technician who was called right after the first damage occurred. His opinion was that burns on various electrical cables were generated from an outside source, maybe a small cigarette lighter. He even gave us samples of the cables he got there, and these are now being evaluated by experts. The case, then, is still open."

Specifically, the Telecom tech (Sergio Conte) noticed that the copper inside the burnt cables was undamaged (which is never the case in an electrical fire); that no cables more than three meters up were burnt; and that the heat source was immediately below the cable in each case.

Poltergeists with cigarette lighters, looks like...

Incidentally, all the fires were apparently started by such burning cables; no electrical appliances did anything weird by themselves. The locals are quite annoyed with the media circus and asked the exorcist to please stay home...

12:34 / 29.04.04

You think a poltergeist can't use a lighter? Oh, they can use a lighter all right. Yessir. Make a two foot flame shoot right outta that Bic. Matches too. They love to burn wires you know, like mice or mynoks, chewin' on the power cables. Dangerous. Yessir. Scientifically proven.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:24 / 29.04.04

Aluminium wiring, dudes. Unsafe at any speed.

17:52 / 08.05.04

After all this time (and I've read the thread, so I know better), I still see "Silicon Town Bursts Into Flames" ...

Any news on this? Or did the masterful debunking throw a wet blanket on the whole thing? [rimshot!]