Mystery over water in ancient coffin
(The Advertiser 1998, August 3)

PERPIGNAN, France–
A 1500-year-old coffin in a church near here, once the resting place of two saints, is baffling scientists by continually filling with crystal-clear water of exceptional purity.

Boffins have jacked it up on bricks to prevent condensation from the ground, covered it to keep out the rain, mounted a round-the-clock guard to make sure no-one was sneaking in with a jug, but still the water keeps on coming, apparently from nowhere.

Every year some 500 to 600 litres of water are drained from the "holy tomb", and on July 30 each year there is a religious ceremony culminating in a distribution of the water, which is drawn off from a copper siphon wedged between the sarcophagus and its heavy, pyramid-shaped lid.

Records in the sixth century church in the south-western French village of Aries-sur-Tech, show that in 1529 visiting Spanish soldiers drew off 1000 litres from the 1.93 metre long white marble coffin in a few days.

Locals call it a miracle, and prize the water for its reportedly curative properties. The coffin was reputedly made for the body of a fourth or fifth century monk, but folklore has it that the phenomenon dates back to 960. – AFP


Swedish lake mystery
(The Times 1968, April 5)

MALUNG. SWEDEN, April 4. –
Something "incredibly powerful" has smashed a huge hole through the ice covering a lake in central Sweden, but scientists and military experts are uncertain about what it was.

The hole, discovered yesterday near Malung by two villagers, is 700 square yards in extent and was made through ice almost 3ft thick.

The Defence Ministry was notified of the discovery by the police and sent experts to examine the hole. Colonel Curt Hermansson, who is leading the investigation, said today that an aircraft crash was out of the question.

"There are no traces round the hole, only big blocks of ice which have been thrown up, indicating that whatever went into the lake was incredibly powerful," he said.

Some experts think the hole is too big to have been made by a meteorite. All the information so far gathered is being studied and the possibility of sending down divers is being considered. Reuter


Witchcraft deaths
(The Advertiser 1990, May 12)

JOHANNESBURG: Five people were beaten, hacked and set alight after villagers accused them of casting a spell on a young girl who drowned while fetching water from a well. Police said one woman and four men were dragged from their homes in northern Transvaal after a local medicine man accused them of witchcraft.


After the fall, salvation
(The Advertiser 1989, June 17)

GREENVILLE, South Carolina: A jury awarded $US300,000 ($407,010) to a woman who swooned and fell at a faith-healing ceremony and fractured her back. Evelyn Kuykendall, 67, of Marshville, North Carolina, spent two months in a hospital after no one broke her fall during a "laying on of hands" in 1988. The faith healers, Charles and Frances Hunter of the City of Light Ministries, told the court Kuykendall had fallen in a "peculiar way" and their "catchers" were not able to reach her. Kuykendall said she still had faith. – Associated Press 


Boy's hot pants trauma
(The Advertiser 1990, May 2)

BEIJING: Chinese doctors are alarmed at a new medical mystery – a young boy whose body can spontaneously ignite in the most sensitive places, burning through clothing, an official youth newspaper reported.

The trauma of four-year-old Tong Tangjiang is said to have begun a fortnight ago when his grandmother saw smoke pouring from his trousers.

A hole 3cm square was burnt through two layers of clothing. Just 50 minutes after he was rushed to a hospital in the southern province of Hunan, Tong started smoking again.

In the two hours from 8am to 10am Tong spontaneously ignited four times. His right hand, armpits and private parts were burnt, the newspaper said, quoting doctors as saying the boy's body had a strong electric current running through it. –Reuter