proof.
And the corollary: Just because scientists don't know what caused something
doesn't mean that science wasn't the cause.
That being said there's a large, active skeptical community in Italy so I
would expect to see some reporting on it sooner than later. The biggest is
probably http://www.cicap.org/ if anybody wants to spend some time on
bablefish there's an article here covering this case:
http://www.cicap.org/rubriche/osservat/osservat.php?040211.html
The article translates very poorly, but it seems to indicate that as more
people came to look at this there were fewer and fewer occurrences. They
seem to (but it's unclear) also bring up the possibility of mass hysteria
and false reports adding fuel to the fire (so to speak).
Massimo Polidoro (CICAP's editor) is a regular contributor to the Skeptical
Inquirer so we may see a decent article on this if he investigates.
Nothing more that a guess, but my bet is on pranksters. The town is so
small and the phenomena so localized that I would guess that it's locals.
There's even been cases like this where locals organized to gain publicity
(although I doubt that's the case here since there's been some substantial
property damage). There are dozens of ways to set off delayed fires,
controlled or uncontrolled.
It reminds me of the crop circle brouhaha in the beginning: people came
crawling out of the woodwork to hold up the circles as proof of something
(either supernatural or extra-terrestrial) and in the end (to almost no
media fanfare) it turned out to be two guys who had a few to many one night.
Now it's a bonafide underground art form.
Aside from the relatively small loss of crops crops circles are pretty
harmless - I would hate to see pyromania-masqueraded-as-supernatural-scourge
turn into a popular underground art form however. sooner or later somebody's
bound to be hurt.
Personally I think too much is being made of the fact that "electricity's
been cut off" to the town. There are transformers and capacitors in
hundreds of electrical appliances that can hold a charge large enough to
start fires for months. Sicily is also actively volcanic which could easily
have something to do with it. This month's Sci-am actually has a great
article on "quiet earthquakes" - massive movements of earth that for various
reasons are nearly impossible to recognize as "quakes". The article focuses
on Hawaii, but the same thing could be happening in any active volcanic
region.
Still it'll be very interesting to watch how this plays out. of course it
may be hard to find any reports of the resolution (unless it's proven to be
supernatural of course) as unexplained things tend to get lots of press.
The eventual explanations rarely get much coverage.
Jim Davis
_____
From: brobborb [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 11:08 PM
To: CF-Community
Subject: Re: anyone here from Italy?
I'm sure there's a logical explanation! Although i wouldn't dismiss any
supernatural causes :-D
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Dinowitz
To: CF-Community
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 9:28 PM
Subject: anyone here from Italy?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4669114/
Now I do believe in magick (comes from being an orthodox Jew as well as
personal
experience) but I'd love to hear if there's a technical reason for this.
I've
got a similar event happening over here every day. No fires, but....
If anyone here is from Italy and can keep an eye on this story or even
visit the
town, I'd really appreciate it.
--
Michael Dinowitz
Finding technical solutions to the problems you didn't know you had yet
_____
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