Strange Fires For Monday Mysteries...!

No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to solve some of natures greatest mysteries.

All of our technology, all our best minds and scientific knowledge are sometimes just not good enough. This is certainly one of those cases, I think.

The Caronia Fires

Photo via Wikimedia

Caronia is a small town on the northwest coast of Sicily, situated between a railroad and the sea. In the early months of 2004, the town’s Canneto area was the site of a string of inexplicable fires and bizarre electrical activity. There were reports of mattresses, chairs, televisions, kitchen appliances, unconnected electrical wires, and a variety of other objects suddenly bursting into flames for no apparent reason. Cars locked themselves and mobile phones rang without being called. The incidents briefly stopped when the town’s power supply was shut off, but they began again several weeks later and have struck periodically since then.

While the local population has attributed the source to everything from the devil to poltergeists to UFOs, government officials, scientists, and representatives from the railway and telephone companies have all been unable to provide a conclusive answer. Some experts have suggested electrical charges released by underground volcanic shifts are to blame, but the head of the Sicilian Civil Protection Agency felt no clear cause could be found: “The cause of the fires seems to have been static electric charges. What we don’t understand is why there were these static electric charges.”

See what I mean? No definite answers, no solid solutions, just lingering wonder. Thanks to the folks at Listverse for posting these little known mysteries rfor us to study!

Coffee in the kitchen this morning. More rain coming, so they say.