Town Battles "Demonic" Blazes

[LV426]

Now please note that I am not claiming that the fires are demonic but I thought this was an interesting article in displaying how people can blame unusual events on the supernatural, and for some, demons is a natural cconclusion.


Town Battles 'Demonic' Mystery Blazes
Wed Feb 11, 9:57 AM ET Yahoo.com


ROME (Reuters) - A Sicilian town is struggling to work out why dozens of household items from fridge-freezers to furniture keep mysteriously bursting into flame, terrifying locals and sparking theories of demonic intervention.



Since mid-January dozens of electrical goods and pieces of furniture have spontaneously gone up in flames, causing huge damage in Canneto di Caronia, a small town perched on the Mediterranean island's rocky coast.


"I've seen unplugged electrical cables burst into flames with my own eyes, but I just can't explain it," a local policeman who did not want to be named said Wednesday. "I've never seen anything like it."


Some fires have spread to engulf homes and police temporarily evacuated some 40 residents.


"There has been a sense of panic and people have been evacuated from their homes," said Salvatore Mezzopane, who works at the town hall. "We're trying to find the cause of the fires but there are no answers yet."


Italian utility Enel tried cutting power to the town after the first reports but the fires continued. With experts no closer to explaining the phenomenon, theories ranged from arson to a freak power surge or even the supernatural.


"I've seen things like this before," Catholic exorcist Gabriele Amorth told Italian daily Il Messagero. "Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods...Let's not forget that Satan and his followers have immense powers."


Yes Satan and his minions always attack the microwaves and refridgerators first.

[J.L.R.]

I always thought Microsoft worked with the Devil! Who else would create such crappy machines that love to ruin your life? :D

Actaully, I think the problem the people are having is unstable electric currents. You know, appliances being shorted out and even catching fire, do to high voltage currents running through the lines.

Then again...

My Aunt Vickie was into witchcraft for a while, and I remember on one occasion that the glasses in her house would periodically explode for no reason at all.

Then again...

She also can't sing worth a darn, and I guess even thick glass jars can't take a sour note. :)

[Hellcat]

Obviously these electrical objects have been watching 'Maximum Overdrive'. Before long big articulated lorries will gather together and turn against man kind in a blood thirsty manner.

[LV426]

Sicilian fires recall nanny's 'witch' ordeal
SOURCE (http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=169722004)
TRACEY LAWSON


EVEN amid the folklore and superstition which is woven through the fabric of rural Italy, it is a phenomenon which Sicilians have never faced before: a series of unexplained fires, arising in household appliances, even when the electricity is switched off.

But as the village of Canneto di Caronia remained deserted yesterday amid claims that demonic spirits were to blame for the blazes, the hysteria had an all too familiar ring for one Scottish mother.

In the 1980s, Carole Compton went on trial in Italy, branded a witch and a sorceress who used supernatural powers to start fires in the homes where she was employed as a nanny.

Last night, she was attempting to block from her mind the happenings in Canneto di Caronia, which bring sinister echoes of the ordeal which led to her spending 16 months in an Italian jail.

"What happened to me is something that never goes away," she said, from the home she shares with her husband, Zaroof Fazal, and their three school-age children in Yorkshire.

"It was a dreadful ordeal, and all this doesn’t help. I don’t know what’s happening over there now, and I don’t want to. I have a happy life now. I try not to think about the past."

Italian officials remained at a loss yesterday to explain the cause of the recent events in Canneto di Caronia. Pedro Spinnato, the mayor of the village near Messina, ordered residents to evacuate their homes on Tuesday, to allow investigations to be carried out.

The move follows a series of fires in recent weeks, which have seen fridges, cookers, televisions, washing machines and mobile telephones burst into flames spontaneously in 12 different homes.

Enel, the Italian utility company, cut the power to the town after the first reports but the fires have continued.

Officials are now trying to discover if an electromagnetic disturbance, caused by a natural phenomenon, or a problem in the electrical supply network, is to blame.

However, yesterday, fears were escalating that supernatural powers are at play.

Father Gabriel Amorth, the Vatican’s chief expert on exorcisms, indicated that the Roman Catholic Church has not ruled out the possibility of demonic intervention.

According to the Italian daily newspaper, Il Messagero, he said: "I’ve seen things like this before. Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods. Let’s not forget that Satan and his followers have immense powers."

The Italian government was yesterday braced for the fact that one of Europe’s richest and most industrialised nations is once again hitting headlines around the world as a country where superstition and fear of the paranormal remain part of modern culture.

The authorities were deeply embarrassed in 1982 when Ms Compton was arrested amid claims that she was a witch with powers of pyrokinesis - the supernatural ability to start fires by thought alone.

The young Scotswoman’s ordeal began in 1982, when she went to Italy with an Italian man she had fallen in love with in her home town of Ayr.

She found a job caring for the children of the Ricci family in an exclusive area of Rome. But within weeks she was linked to objects and religious paintings flying or falling around her, and a number of fires which broke out in holiday homes used by the Riccis.

Another fire also broke out in the bedroom of the Riccis’ two-year-old son, Emanuele.

When told she was no longer needed, the nanny moved to another family, but again, objects were said to have inexplicably fallen off walls in her presence.

When the cot of her three-year-old charge, Agnese, caught fire, she was arrested.

The grandmother of one of the children accused her of being a sorceress, and although she was not charged with witchcraft, this formed the basis of the accusations against her. Italian officials were hugely embarrassed at the panic surrounding her trial, where Italians used crucifixes and amulets to ward off evil.

She was found guilty of arson and attempted arson, although a charge of attempted murder was dismissed.

She was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but having spent 16 months in jail on remand, she was freed immediately.

After her release she published Superstition: The True Story of The Nanny They Called A Witch, a book which included evidence from experts who suggested she was the unwitting victim of a poltergeist.

Today, she has created a new life with her husband and children in West Yorkshire. However, it seems the superstition which led to her imprisonment is still rampant in the land she once called home.

[LV426]

Mystery fires force village's evacuation
Thursday, April 1, 2004


Someone wrote to us saying the solution was to sacrifice a black goat and collect its blood. At some point, that's going to start looking like a good idea.-- Mayor Pedro Spinnato



CANNETO DI CARONIA, Italy (Reuters) -- The gate at the entrance to this tiny Sicilian village has come off its hinges and swings in the wind as cats wander into homes abandoned after a series of mystery fires.

This is not your average ghost town.

Canneto di Caronia has been taken over by an endless flow of scientists, engineers, police and even a few self-styled "ghostbusters" searching for clues to the recent spontaneous combustion of everything from microwave ovens to a car.

The fires started in mid-January and have claimed home appliances and fuse boxes in about half of the 20 odd houses. The blazes originally blamed on the devil himself have not hurt anyone.

After a brief respite last month, the flames have flared up again almost daily even though electricity to the village was cut off long ago.

"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."

Electricians, exorcists
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.

But after weeks of sleeping in a nearby hotel and houses rented for them by the government, they're getting desperate.

"I've seen an air conditioner burst into flames and burn down in 30 seconds. These are not normal events, but I think we're going to have to start looking for a different kind of help," said Antonio Pezzino, whose house was first hit.

From the start, Gabriele Amorth, one of the Catholic Church's top exorcists suspected the devil was at work.

"I've seen things like this before," he told Il Messaggero daily. "Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods," he said urging the parish priest to take action.

The local priest, Don Antonio Cipriani, decided together with residents to let scientists have a first go at the fires.

After a brief visit to Canneto di Caronia, the head of the Committee for the Control of Paranormal Claims has also ruled out demons or poltergeists -- at least for the time being.

"The fact that the phenomenon occurs only when there are people present makes it hard to believe that it is a natural, or even supernatural phenomenon," said Massimo Polidoro.

"But we don't exclude further investigation if things aren't eventually explained," he added.

Unsolved mystery
Nobody can say the experts aren't trying. Canneto looks increasingly like a set for the TV hit "The X-Files."

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. Coloured 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.

The evacuated families of Canneto di Caronia who gather almost every night in the three-star hotel perched above their abandoned village are giving up hope.

"I just want to go home," said Rosi Cioffo, a shopkeeper and mother of two. "I don't know what's causing it and I don't care anymore -- even if it's the devil."

Her nine-year-old daughter, who is frightened every time a TV or bathroom fan switches on, may not agree.

Spinnato, the mayor, sounds just as desperate.

"Someone wrote to us saying the solution was to sacrifice a black goat and collect its blood. At some point, that's going to start looking like a good idea."

[Ves]

"The fact that the phenomenon occurs only when there are people present makes it hard to believe that it is a natural, or even supernatural phenomenon," said Massimo Polidoro.
What a stupid thing to say, if it's not natural and it's not supernatural, then what the hell is it?

Interesting that mobile phones have been affected which kind of excludes the power surge theory.

Weirdness, nice one.

[Hellcat]

I had a similar electrical thing happen to me a few weeks ago. I'd come downstairs to make a coffee because being on the internet is thirsty work. As I reached the stairs i could hear a persistent buzzing noise which I traced into the living room. The noise seemed to materialise from the middle of the living room somewhere, but I couldn't locate the exact position. I thought it was coming from the light bulb so i switched the light off, the buzzing continued. I went outside to see if it was coming through the windows- nothing. I put my ear to the wall to see if it was coming from the empty house next door- nothing. The noise was getting on my nerves and driving my poor ferret to insanity. I checked the TV, Video and stereo, the telephone, my mobile phone and my boyfriends battery powered Discman. Nothing. Finally I decided to switch the electrics off cos that would solve my problem. The mains are in the pantry which is in the kicthen, but when I switched the electrics off I couldn't tell if the buzzing was still buzzing or just still ringing in my ears as I had my head in the pantry which muffled the noise. Since I couldn't get out of the pantry in the dark without falling over the clutter in the kitchen I had to switch the electrics back on and light a candle then switch the electrics off again. The buzzing was definately still buzzing. I eventually rang my boyfriend for some ideas on what it might be. We come up with nothing. By now I was getting maddened by the noise and planned to move the ferret and hide in my bedroom till whatever was causing it went away. Suddenly I noticed something on the sofa. My kids Vtech toy was laying upside down- guess where the buzzing was coming from. The battery on that thing wasn't working earlier on that's why the kids had dumped it ungraciously on the sofa before I put their pj's on and sent them to bed. After switching the goddam toy off I went back to my computer to find it ha crashed- not surprising since I'd switched the electrics off. Most annoyingly it had crashed in a really bad way and it cost me £30 to have it repaired- damned Vtech. maybe I should sue them for buggering up my system :D