Caronia fires – induction currents, UFOs, or poltergeist?

[Lusikka]

In year 2004 in a village, Canneto di Caronia, Sicily, there were spontaneous fires that have practically remained unexplained. The occurrences were vastly publicized in the world press. 39 families were evacuated from their homes from February to August 2004.

In an outdated link (2/11/2004) (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13937589_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-SCORCHIO-name_page.html) there were the following news:

It was just little things at first...a TV would smoulder, a mobile phone would catch fire.

But then it got worse - a whole lot worse.

Over three weeks fridges, washing machines, cookers and furniture all began bursting into flames for no reason. Twelve houses were badly damaged by blazes in the quiet village.

Now, with panic-stricken locals blaming evil spirits and calling for an exorcism, the mayor has ordered a full-scale evacuation.

There are also still working links:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1145394,00.html

The mayor of Caronia, Pedro Spinnato, said yesterday: "I have no idea what is going on."

He believed that arson had been ruled out.

Tullio Martella, the regional civil defence chief, said the fires and blasts seemed to derive "from a dispersion of electrical energy, but the origin of the presumed dispersion has yet to be determined".

The houses in which the fires have broken out are all in an area 350 metres (about 380 yards) by 70 metres between the shoreline and a railway.

At first suspicion centred on the railway line, but that has now been discounted.

Yesterday technicians were busy measuring emissions from local mobile telephone facilities.

By using Google (canneto fires) it is still possible to find a great quantity of information.

The Italian skeptic Massimo Polidoro also visited the village. As usually, he was not very interested, because he already "knew" it had to be only hoax and tricks. He cherry-picked a few details that confirmed his a priori opinion and published his results in The Skeptical Inquirer, May-June 2004.

The case was also discussed by physicists in the Physics Forums in two long threads:
Town Battles 'Demonic' Mystery Blazes
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-14304.html
Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back Into The Fridge
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-16494.html

The physicists got a good laugh in the beginning but started to take the business more seriously in the long run.

In 10/26/2007 news there was an explanation:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1567428/Aliens-caused-Sicily-fires-say-officials.html

According to the report the fires were "caused by a high power electro magnetic emissions which were not man made and reached a power of between 12 and 15 gigawatts."

I have the following question: is there enough expertise here to tell what kind of magnetic field strength and frequency would be needed to get the effects observed in Canneto? Any other explanations than tricks?

 

[Akhenaten]

Blimps

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Power surges in the electrical grid?

 

[Olowkow]

References seem to be drying up. It really sounds more and more like a hoax. Lots more to read at this site:

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-16494.html
Hi Lester,
Thanks for today's update on the fearful residents of Canneto di Caronia. I wonder if anyone has alerted you to the article in the current issue of "Skeptical Inquirer" on this subject. (Skeptical Inquirer, "The Magazine of Science and Reason," vol 28 no 3, May/June 2004, "Satan in a Sicilian Fridge," p. 26; www.csicop.org). The Canneto di Caronia story was investigated by Massimo Polidoro (www.massimopolidoro.com), a debunker of paranormal claims. He reported the following among his findings:
The area of activity was not an entire town, but a few houses on a private road whose inhabitants are all related.
The only observable result of the incident was some small fires that appeared to have their source in some charred electrical wires. (No appliance misbehaviors were found.) All the wires were easily reachable; none were inside walls or beyond arm's length. The wires had been charred from the outside, not from overheating of the copper within. A telephone repairman noticed that he could provide exact duplicates by heating wires with a cigarette lighter.
When the electric utility cut off power, reports of fires continued; when the inhabitants were evacuated, the fires stopped.
An exorcist who volunteered to visit the town "was openly invited to stay home" by townspeople "fed up" with media mania.
Could it be that the story was exaggerated? Well, Polidoro did observe one reporter who insisted that his interviewee "scream and curse on camera in order to make her interview 'more effective.'" Possibly the Danish crew who were there "to film the devil" didn't help.
As your report stated, bodies as diverse as the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology failed to offer a plausible reason for the fires. Indeed, the volcano people did not find a single volcano; however, the president of the organization was quoted as saying, "If you think about it, nothing extraordinary has happened since the area has been evacuated."
Hope you find this interesting. All the best,
Ross Carter

Well, this is the same thread from Physics Forums that was cited in the OP. I came by it through Google, and thought it was different. Anyone know how to access the Skeptical Inquirer article?

 

[Olowkow]

This seems to be the article in question:

http://www.nonapritequelportale.com/node/284

 

[Kestrel]

About 20 years ago, the power company made a mistake repairing a downed power line near here. When the power came back on, every house in that neighborhood had twice the normal line voltage applied to it's electrical appliances. Several small fires resulted, but fortunately they were caught before spreading far.

 

[blutoski]

I have the following question: is there enough expertise here to tell what kind of magnetic field strength and frequency would be needed to get the effects observed in Canneto? Any other explanations than tricks?

I think the problem is that there is mixed information about what is 'observed'.

If I wanted to see what 'started a fire' in an electrical appliance, I would need to examine said appliance to even begin to speculate. It would be best to defer to those who went onsite.

I scanned through the threads in your link, and it looks like the government reports cited in those threads did say that there is no anomalous emf from onsite testing, which is consistent with Polidoro's account.

I'm not sure there's any reason to be looking at an electricity phenomenon, so much as arson/vandalism and ordinary memory confounding under stress.

 

[Fnord]

Elvis Presley's two-headed Bigfoot baby.

 

[Akhenaten]

Power surges in the electrical grid?

About 20 years ago, the power company made a mistake repairing a downed power line near here. When the power came back on, every house in that neighborhood had twice the normal line voltage applied to it's electrical appliances. Several small fires resulted, but fortunately they were caught before spreading far.

These sound like plausible explanations for what, if anything, has been going on.

The last report (which is rubbish) in the OP mentions 12 - 15 Gigawatts. That's lighting-bolt-strength zappies, and I'd think it would be pretty easy to analyse, considering that you'd be able to see it for miles.

 

[jhunter1163]

Anyone have any idea how many thousands (or millions) of gauss a magnetic field would have to be to cause the observed effects?

 

[Akhenaten]

It's a bit tricky because electrical output is a function of field strangth and the velocity at which a conductor moves through it.

Nonetheless, I'd suggest that the source of a field strong enough to generate 15 gigawatts would have sucked all the iron out of the village and destroyed it long before any fires broke out.

 

[Hamradioguy]

Not even a Nuclear Electro Magnetic Pulse (NEMP) would cause the claimed effects...although I wonder how long before someone claims this as a cause.

Perhaps Judy Wood can weigh in with evidence that it was a "Star Wars Beam Weapon" from a secret government satellite.

 

[Akhenaten]

So far I still think the blimp theory is as good as any. I wonder if there were any Gay Rodeos in the area during 2007.

 

[dropzone]

I'm leaning to the TMP (Too Much Power) or MSU (Making **** Up) hypotheses.

 

[Kestrel]

Not even a Nuclear Electro Magnetic Pulse (NEMP) would cause the claimed effects...although I wonder how long before someone claims this as a cause.

Perhaps Judy Wood can weigh in with evidence that it was a "Star Wars Beam Weapon" from a secret government satellite.

Heard any really loud hams with IW9 callsigns?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Thanks Lusikka, this looks fun. I found these two links, not sure why someone has yet to post them as they come up near the top of a Google search:

http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/cann-tt.htm

http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/canneto4.htm

And Wiki notes this link from the same source:

http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/cann-for.htm


I'll see what I can find out about datasync.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Makes no sense in context of the above links but here is the datasync.com web page:

http://www.datasync.com/about/

 

[Spektator]

These sound like plausible explanations for what, if anything, has been going on.

The last report (which is rubbish) in the OP mentions 12 - 15 Gigawatts. That's lighting-bolt-strength zappies, and I'd think it would be pretty easy to analyse, considering that you'd be able to see it for miles.

Clearly impossible. That would have thrown the whole village back to 1955.

 

[Olowkow]

http://everything2.com/title/The+mysterious+fires+of+Canneto+Di+Caronia

Many hypotheses are flying around for this phenomena. Pranksters, bad wiring, ghosts, demons and the Devil have been blamed for these strange flame-ups. Pranksters have been eliminated as the cause, as visiting scientists have witnessed the fires starting with nobody around but themselves. Bad wiring has been eliminated because unplugged appliances such as lamps have burst into flames. One such lamped destroyed itself and then the apartment it was in.

There is no devil, there are no ghosts, or demons, so we are left with "pranksters". Well, visiting scientists have eliminated them too!! So scientists have to be believed, even though they didn't bother to figure out why or how a fire started with "nobody around but themselves". Well, just look at the wiring of the lamp! Polidoro, I think it was, says the experts say it looked like someone had burned the wiring with a cigarette lighter. The insulation was burned from the outside! No pictures, of course, no documentation. No names of "experts". This is all a notch below nonsense. People who just don't understand electricity or physics. Badly wired lamps cause fires all the time, but not when they are not plugged in. It is very obvious by just looking at the burned wires that they burned because of a short circuit, if that is what happened. Power to the whole town is turned off, and still electrical fires are occurring.
EMP, RF, etc. would if sufficiently powerful, ignite all kinds of things including people, not just cell phones and unplugged lamps. The Polidoro account makes perfect sense to me. There are just way too many conflicting stories here. Hoax, con, or some budding chemistry genius of a kid having some fun at the expense of his fellow citizens.
Oh, by the way, the problems all stopped when the town was evacuated, apparently.

 

[Olowkow]

Heard any really loud hams with IW9 callsigns?

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