Fires have broken out in part of a Sicilian village, and no one
can figure out what's causing them. It can't be electricity,
since the power has been cut off. Despite this, washing
machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, electricity meters and
cables have been spontaneously bursting into flames. A fire
even started in a water pipe. There's no evidence of arson.
In the Guardian, John Hooper quotes Gianfranco Allegra, of
the Italian Center for Electro-technical Experimentation, as
saying he watched as "an electrical wire lying on the floor
that was not plugged in to the mains inexplicably caught fire."
Civil defense chief Tullio Martella says the fires and blasts
seemed to come "from a dispersion of electrical energy, but
the origin of the presumed dispersion has yet to be
determined."
UPDATE: This isn't the first time fires have spontaneously
broken out in Italy. The Fortean Times reported that in
February of 1990, the same thing happened in the
village of San Gottardo, near Venice. It began when Aldo
Calgaretto saw the fuse box outside his house start to burn.
Within two days, fires started in other homes. TVs turned on
and off on their own, lights flashed on a locked car, and a
chair caught fire.
Mayor Lucio Donatello thought it was a case of mass
hysteria, but changed his mind. He said, "One day I
discovered my car engine running with all the doors locked.
Then the right front door burst into flames in front of my
eyes. Another time, I was given a jolt when the electric razor
I was using caught fire in my hands."
Donatello and Giancario Zuin stood talking and noticed the
parked car they had arrived in burst into flames. "We
watched the rear plastic light slowly melt in front of our
eyes," said Zuin. "There was more and more smoke and then
it burst into flames. I couldn't believe it."
Then Bertilla Moran's house filled with smoke because the
wheelchair used by his father had caught fire. People began
to complain of headaches, sickness, stomach pains, and skin
inflammations.
Now, fourteen years later, Jeremy Charles reports in The
Mirror about the same kind of spontaneous fires in the town
of Canneto di Caronia in Sicily. Mayor Pedro Spinnato
says, "This all began three weeks ago and we can discover
no explanation. We cannot risk a tragedy through these fires
so I have no other option to evacuate. We have had
engineers in to examine cables and wires but they can find
nothing wrong. Twelve houses have been severely damaged
after various domestic appliances burst into flames. But it is
not just electrical items. Furniture is also catching fire for no
reason. For the time being we have asked families to leave
and stay with friends and relatives so a through examination
can take place. People are blaming evil spirits and I am being
asked to get the priest to perform an exorcism."
Civil protection chief Tullio Martella says, "What is going on
here is like a scene from some paranormal film. The fires
continued even when we cut power to the village to see if
that was a possible cause. For the time being there is no
scientific explanation and I have never heard of anything like
this before."
To learn more,
click here,
here and
here.
When governments hound UFO researchers, it can also
produce a
firestorm.
