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The mysterious fires of Canneto di Caronia - Magical Realist - Sep 16, 2015
Italian Village Plagued by Mysterious Fires Has Been Puzzling Scientists for Years
By Sumitra on October 17th, 2014 Category: WTF
"For 10 years, the residents of the Sicilian village of Canneto di Caronia have been utterly spooked by hundreds of mysterious, unexplained fires that seem to erupt out of nowhere. The bizarre phenomenon, which has seen a sudden surge this year, includes spontaneous combustion of mattresses, beds, cars, and devices like fridges and mobile phones, even when switched off.
The episodes have attracted the attention of geologists, physicists and volcanologists for several years, but no one has been able to provide an accurate scientific explanation so far. Naturally, the villagers are blaming supernatural entities like UFOs, poltergeists, or other demonic forces. And with no other logical reason in sight, one tends to wonder if they actually might be right.
It all began in January 2004, when, without any apparent cause, appliances (including a cooker and a vacuum cleaner) in several houses began to catch fire. Wedding presents, random pieces of furniture, and even a water pipe erupted into flames. In response, the local electric company tried cutting off the power supply to Canneto, but that made no difference. The village was evacuated and a through investigation was conducted, but the experts and authorities simply failed to locate the problem.
Even with the arrival of volcanologists from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, and a team of experts from the Italian Navy, no viable solution was found. Understandably, the villagers were terrified, and a few of them even suggested calling in a priest to conduct an exorcism. Months went by, and a period of calm followed, when most of the villagers returned to their homes.
Unexplained fires still occur from time to time, and the villagers have pretty much learned to live with them. Other bizarre events have taken place as well – there were unexplained leaks from water pipes of three different houses, a vanity mirror in a bathroom caught fire three times in 35 hours, and an entire plantation of eggplants developed rainbow-like colors, making them unfit to be sold.
Air conditioners have spontaneously melted, car glasses have imploded, hard drives have been erased, automatic gates started opening and closing randomly, and animals have died mysteriously. Without any science to explain these events, it’s easy to see why the whole affair appears sinister. I’d be pretty terrified too if I were living in Canneto.
In April 2005, the Italian government created a special Task Force (of high-ranking army officers, engineers, architects, geologists and physicists) to investigate the situation in the sleepy little village. The group conducted an extensively thorough analysis – aerial photo-remote sensing, assessment of geophysical and geochemical data, detection of magnetometric and electromagnetic fields, radio-electric spectrum monitoring, and more. The results, however, were inconclusive.
In 2007, an Italian newspaper published a leaked interim report from the Civil Protection Department, concluding that the only plausible explanation was ‘aliens’, because the fires were ‘caused by high power electromagnetic emissions which were not man-made and reached a power of between 12 and 15 gigawatts’. A year later, the case was dismissed following further investigation – they just attributed it to an ‘unknown electromagnetic radiation’.
But in the absence of tangible evidence, people have returned to supernatural theories. Sicily’s council member for health and safety, Vittorio Alfieri, said in an interview that the fires were caused by ‘an entity’ that ‘transfers from one house to another’. “A house on the ground floor caught fire then it was the turn of objects on the first floor,” he said. “Consequently, the fire moved to a nearby house. It was like moving.”
Now, after a period of respite, the inexplicable fires have returned to plague the citizens of Canneto. On September 30th, a series of fires were reported throughout the otherwise peaceful settlement. First, a chair covered in cellophane caught fire for no apparent reason. Hours later, someone else called the fire department to report a stack of folded clothes had burst into flames, and then an entrepreneur who was getting ready to drive away in his car but returned to get something he had forgotten from the house, found his vehicle burning. A book and a sofa were also found scorched for no apparent reason in different areas of the town.
According to media reports, the locals have once again been evacuated, while a small team of fire fighters have been assigned to control the small fires.
Several fantastical theories exist – some have even gone as far as claiming that this could all be the work of a single individual who suffered strong emotional distress at a young age (a lot like Stephen King’s Carrie), and is now attracting the curiosity of UFOs. Well, there’s no limit to human imagination, and unless a real scientific explanation emerges, each theory is just going to be wilder than the next."===http://www.odditycentral.com/wtf/italian-village-plagued-by-mysterious-fires-has-been-puzzling-scientists-for-years.html
RE: The mysterious fires of Canneto di Caronia - C C - Sep 16, 2015
Good one. As evidenced by skeptic site activity not found easily online concerning the original events. The only instance I came across was this, which is just a hodgepodge of mixed conceptions about what transpired: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161438
Skeptical Inquirer's Massimo Polidoro commented it about this way in 2004:
Quote:We were then allowed by the firemen to enter the evacuated area and look around under their surveillance. We immediately noticed that, in contrast to what the newspapers said, this was not a "town" that had caught fire, but a few houses on a private road (an area of 350 meters), where the inhabitants are all related to each other. Damage ranged from blackened electrical cables to burned pieces of furniture. All the fires started from cables burning, and there had never been electrical appliances behaving strangely by themselves.
There was not much else to see there. We were told that the phenomena had stopped when the area was evacuated, and the only single episode after that was a very suspicious blackening of a young man's shoe sole, right after entering his own house alone to recover something.
"At the moment, there is nothing relevant to report," says Giuseppe Maschio, professor of chemistry and head of the various experts gathered here. "The Ministry of Telecommunications measured electromagnetic fields; Enel, Telecom, and Railways technicians tried to find possible electrical leakages. Nothing out of the normal was found."
So what could cause these phenomena? "The hypothesis on which we are working now is that of a technical accident, but we still don't know the cause," says Maschio.
Others are less cautious. "I sent a few vulcanologists," says Enzo Boschi, President of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, "to make technical measurements on possible magmatic movements down deep in the earth, but we found no indication of possible volcanic or seismic activity. If this was really a natural phenomenon, it wouldn't be restricted to such a small area. I personally find all this very odd and do not exclude the possibility of fraud. If you think about it, nothing extraordinary has happened since the area has been evacuated."
Of course, later some of the amused authorities, experts, and scientists of 2004 did take it more seriously. The return of the occurrences in 2014, if ever addressed by the skeptic community, would likely revolve around speculation that a clique of local inhabitants deliberately wanted to revive attention given to their town with minor acts of arson and further exaggerated, confused new reports. And for the less indolent, more hypotheses ventured in the vulcanologist vein:
Quote:[...] Until recently I have been thinking that some of this magma may have been moving beneath the village of Canneto di Caronia. The approaching magma may have been producing methane which is then being forced up through the ground, probably in several places. (This may not be noticed in unpopulated areas.) Carbon disulfide has also been proposed. (The molten magma may also be producing electron clouds by thermionic emission. These should move easily through the ground.) Some of the methane (colorless - odorless), or other flammable gas, which reaches the surface in the Canneto area could have become trapped inside homes. [...]
It may be that a Mt. Etna magma path was not the direct culprit, as described above, but the fact that Etna was plugged up may have indirectly affected Canneto via a larger network of volcanic interconnections, perhaps from as far away as Mt. Stromboli. [...] Electrical arcs associated with normal use of household appliances, or static electricity discharges which occur under conditions of low humidity, which may be enhanced by the magma electron cloud, if it exists, ignites the methane.
[...] Volcanic ash, which is flammable, was last deposited on Canneto by Mt. Etna in about February 2003. Remnants of that ash have most likely collected in hard-to-get-to places (inside appliances and pieces of furniture which have openings to the air. Air conditioner condensers come to mind.) Volcanic ash itself (when ground underfoot) may be a source of electrical sparks by the process of triboluminescence. Sparks generated in this manner, by tracked-in ash, could also ignite the methane. If there is, from time to time, a large static electrical charge buildup inside the village homes, some of the volcanic ash could become electrically suspended in the air and provide the initial flash, instead of methane. One report has it that the fires tend to take place when trains are approaching the village. Could the distributed weight of a train compress the ground and thus force an extra dose of methane (or electrons) to the surface?
The idea is that electrical discharges (usually associated with human presence) ignites the methane which then triggers other combustibles, including volcanic ash, into fiery displays. If it turns out that no flammable gas, such as methane, is found in the Canneto homes, then this current version will have to be modified.... http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/canneto.htm
RE: The mysterious fires of Canneto di Caronia - Magical Realist - Sep 17, 2015
Quote:Of course, later some of the amused authorities, experts, and scientists of 2004 did take it more seriously. The return of the occurrences in 2014, if ever addressed by the skeptic community, would likely revolve around speculation that a clique of local inhabitants deliberately wanted to revive attention given to their town with minor acts of arson and further exaggerated, confused new reports. And for the less indolent, more hypotheses ventured in the vulcanologist vein:
After measurements detected EMF pulses in the area in the Gw range, the Italian govt pulled the plug on the investigation. Speculation then arose that it may be the affect of an American naval operation going on offshore involving top secret EM weaponry of some sort. Then a researcher found a 1930 newspaper article talking about high EMF in that region. Very strange. It may be a case of natural telluric energy generated by the underlying pressures of the earth's crust. One wonders about the long term affect of exposure to that sort of field by the human body.
RE: The mysterious fires of Canneto di Caronia - tomarse - Jun 18, 2020
Hi All
I am new to the forum this is my first post and this thread is old but I think there is something that has been missed. I worked years ago on a High Frequency ERW pipe making machine. ERW stands for Electrical Resistance Welding. The basic principle is a rapidly oscillating magnetic field induces a 'skin effect' current that flows around the outside of a conductor and shorts itself out at a precisely tuned point to create the heat for welding.
Could natural High Frequency oscillations of the local magnetic field induce a skin effect current on correctly orientated conductors? All documented examples of the Canneto phenomena could be explained by this hypothesis.
The strange thing about HF skin effect is it does not interact with current flowing through a conductor it stays on the outside it is like water inside a pipe and a spider walking along the outside. It heats things up like crazy check out the garage HF induction heaters for heating old rusty nuts and bolts. I also noted an absence of fried TV's and computers and communications equiptment in the reports. I can imagine the confusion with fuses and circuit protection intact and functioning but things still setting on fire. Clothes, shoes, furniture all contain metal like rivets, eyelets, zips, toecaps, steel safety soles and springs. Was the book that burned near any metal or have a metal bookmark? Cables setting fire on the ground must have been awesome to see.
The report of red hot pipes with holes is possibly proof of skin effect resistance damage and could be examined forensically.
Thermal imaging may be the most useful way of observing it as it must have been happening at small scales in the area and possibly all over Sicily and any potentially dangerous thermal imbalance in a conductor caused by a skin effect short you should be able to detect.
A cheap test would be to place lengths of copper pipe every where and monitor them with thermal imaging.
This is a most likely a natural phenomenon linked with volcanic activity. Movements in the magma create intense electrical happenings deep in the earth that would be awesome to see if we had swimming goggles and flippers that did not melt in magma. Is it unreasonable to propose that these intense happenings could manifest above the surface as strong, rapidly fluctuating fields that affect conductors in this bizarre way?
This sounds like a good first command for Ensign Crusher.
RE: The mysterious fires of Canneto di Caronia - C C - Jun 18, 2020
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Welcome to the forum, Tomarse. Some interesting work experience and insights there which could add refinements to arguably the most popular explanation of electrical or magnetic causes.
With respect to official closure of the mystery by authorities... As it turned out, earlier in that year (2015) a man named Giuseppe Pezzino had already been arrested for arson, with his father involved in a few of the events. He was caught by video cameras on at least 40 occasions, and had been directly or indirectly associated with fires in previous outbreaks of the "phenomenon" over the years. Police also apparently phone-tapped some of the conversations between the two men wherein they planned pyromaniacal acts to stage as bewildering.
https://magazine.atavist.com/when-the-devil-enters
RE: The mysterious fires of Canneto di Caronia - Zinjanthropos - Jun 18, 2020
(Jun 18, 2020 07:33 AM)C C Wrote: ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Welcome to the forum, Tomarse. Some interesting work experience and insights there which could add refinements to arguably the most popular explanation of electrical or magnetic causes.
With respect to official closure of the mystery by authorities... As it turned out, earlier in that year (2015) a man named Giuseppe Pezzino had already been arrested for arson, with his father involved in a few of the events. He was caught by video cameras on at least 40 occasions, and had been directly or indirectly associated with fires in previous outbreaks of the "phenomenon" over the years. Police also apparently phone-tapped some of the conversations between the two men wherein they planned pyromaniacal acts to stage as bewildering.
https://magazine.atavist.com/when-the-devil-enters
As usual, the most logical/obvious reasons are often overlooked/ignored.
Although I think it would be a great moniker for the fire starter entity..... La Pezzino. It kind of sounds like the Piezo Ignitor of BBQ Fame.