Mysterious Iron mass discovered buried in Italy

My idea is that this was some strage facility for some liquid, as it was burried the liquid ate away at the container, creating an electrical charge, a bad battery... mabye?

Originally posted by Cibai
A Sicilian ancient Sceptic tank?

Could certainly turn out to be very much so

Just for clarity, did they say there was a measured electric charge on the object, or that it is a good conductor of electricity? Lets get clear on this...

My preliminary googling says they've discovered ships in that general vicinity in the sediment of dry river beds.

The width of past finds was 4.3 meters. I don't see a mention of the length.

Some of the ballast stones were volcanic. Basaltic magma consists largely of iron and can be weakly magnetized in alignment with the Earth's magnetic field when it cools.

Depending on the exact geography of the area where this find was made, there's a reasonable chance that if they dig down they're going to find a medium sized cargo ship, about 1500 years old, give or take.

That's not a sure thing though, and if it was the case, it might still be of interest to archaeologists because previous finds of ships and their ballast was largely rhyolite, which is silica rich and iron poor, and that material was obviously traceable to local igneous rock.

A different kind of magma would suggest a differnt source of ballast stones, and thus at least a slightly different origin for the ship perhaps, although to know exactly what you'd have to dig up whatevers down there, confirm that it is infact a ship, analyze the composition of the ballast or whatever is causing this anomaly, and match it to a source.

Originally posted by damajikninja
Just for clarity, did they say there was a measured electric charge on the object, or that it is a good conductor of electricity? Lets get clear on this...

It would almost certainly be both. When you stick a metal object in the ground touching two even slightly different soils, it will pick up some charge. Telegraph wires didn't have power generators fueling them- the telegraph poles allowed a charge from the Earth to be passed along the wire and that provided a carrier wave without the use of a generator.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
It would almost certainly be both.

Well that clears things up.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Telegraph wires didn't have power generators fueling them- the telegraph poles allowed a charge from the Earth to be passed along the wire and that provided a carrier wave without the use of a generator.

Maybe not exactly, they didn't have a carrier wave at all, and they typically used batteries to power the loop, although in the late 1800's they used small dynamos at some stations.

Well it's certainly an interesting story to say the least, regardless of what was lost in translation. It jogged my memory of a recent post on MUFON that was a bit out of the ordinary as well. This post is lifted directly from their website, posted there on 8/6/2007, reported date of discovery is listed as 01/2006, it says:

"I have a item that is the ground. it is a cicle object and more than 1000 feet arcoss. it is dome and has been here a long time. i can make out outlineit and looks to be metal.and has void area in it that i donot understand. it looks to be more than one level. have check in the center and it is there. also it is not the only one."

Just thought there might be a strange correlation between the two. Regardless, great post OP

Looks like I've moved from lurker to poster status here on ATS. Glad to join the conversations.

whycan'tisee,
Please provide a link to that hoa...errr, story.

I'd love to read the whole article.

Regards,
Lex

Good catches Tom- I figured I'd get burnt on the word carrier wave as I'm not exactly a communications buff and had a fair chance of misusing terms, however I do distinctly recall reading of a telegraph system (from a bit of brief looking, obviously not a dominant one) whereby the problem of resistance was intended to be solved by keeping the wire charged in the previously described manner.

But oh well, in these particular areas I make no bones of the fact that I know a little about a lot, and a lot about little, so I am not surprised to have been in good portion wrong.

At any rate, the phenomenon in question with this object that has been discovered is to be expected, despite the fact that I have gotten a little egg on my face in the course of trying to illustrate the point.

Why doesn't the bloke who owns the land get a bulldozer there to dig it up? Four metres below is hardly a match for a bulldozer working for a couple of hours.

It would cost me around $1000 AUD to hire a Bobcat for a few hours to do the job, how much would it cost over in Italy? Why bother poking around with scientific instruments when a brute force solution will work?

Originally posted by tezzajw
Why doesn't the bloke who owns the land get a bulldozer there to dig it up?

Two reasons, IMO

1) If it is a historically valuable artifact, such as a 2000 year old Roman artifact, the archaeological dig might require skill. I'm sure that there are laws against bulldozing out what might be an important find.

2) If it is an alien spacecraft, you might knock off the antennae or even crush the hull with your D-9 Caterpillar

fixed quote

[edit on 10/8/07 by masqua]

Nevertheless - if it is what it is speculated to be - or even if it is not, it is worth digging up. With a proper archaeological team on site, and a few careful days (or even weeks) with picks and shovels, some answers would be forthcoming.

The point is valid: why must we sit around poking the EMF and other inconclusive techniques that only give more questions.

It's behind door number 3. So open it!

Originally posted by masqua
1) If it is a historically valuable artifact, such as a 2000 year old Roman artifact, the archaeological dig might require skill. I'm sure that there are laws against bulldozing out what might be an important find.

Ok, it's under four metres of dirt. Fair enough. So, use the bulldozer to scoop out the first three metres of dirt, then shovel the rest. Even I can dig out a metre of dirt with a shovel - I've done it before!

That's where I consider the law to be intrusive. If it is private land, then the owner should be able to dig up whatever he finds there, using whatever means he likes.

This story will linger around for as long as it takes, unless someone gets some caterpillar tracks up there and pushes a digger bucket in.

Your Italian farmer would be in good company as a tombarolo, but he'd better fire up that D-9 at night while watching out for the Carabinieri.

It's not just a job, it's an adventure: In the southern Italian region of Puglia, police say there are more than 50 people whose primary income comes from selling artifacts looted from the ancient grave sites that dot the surrounding countryside. In recent years, outcry from the international architectural community has caused Italian law enforcement agencies to up their efforts to capture and detain gangs of tomb robbers, or tombarolo, though for years their actions went largely unpunished.
Archaeology contributing editor Giovanni Lattanzi interviewed a tombarolo who lives near the Etruscan ruins of Cerveteri, west of Rome.

www.utne.com...

And look at the rich pickin's, too!

Mmmmm... so tempting, eh?

According to Interpol, art and antiquities crime is the third largest money making racket in the world, following drugs and arms trade. Italy possesses a large portion of the world's artistic treasures and has thirty-nine properties listed on the UNESCO cultural heritage list. It is easy to comprehend that artistically rich Italy, with its abundance of artistic treasures, is the largest victim of these crimes. There are over 20,000 pieces, with an estimated value of between $96 million and $144 million U.S. dollars, registered missing with the Italian Carabinieri.
www.yourbrushwiththelaw.com...

Also of interest;

www.cbc.ca...

Originally posted by masqua
Your Italian farmer would be in good company as a tombarolo, but he'd better fire up that D-9 at night while watching out for the Carabinieri.

Yeah, no worries. It seems to me like we've got a script for the fifth movie: Indiana Jones and the Buried UFO. At least we know that Indy wouldn't rest until it was out of the ground!

They are some interesting figures, Masqua. Well done for finding them.

Originally posted by tezzajw


Yeah, no worries. It seems to me like we've got a script for the fifth movie: Indiana Jones and the Buried UFO. At least we know that Indy wouldn't rest until it was out of the ground!

Haha yeah, and instead of Giant balls and arabs chasing him, there will be aliens and spaces adventures.
Actually isnt It being filmed outside Area 51?

The only problem is that Indiana Jones movies are supposed to end in excitement and mystery.

So when Indy gets to 4 meters down and finds that the dirt starts turning black and gritty and there's no UFO, then he'll have to say "I'll be - it's nothing more than a big deposit of black sand that foxed the metal detectors" or maybe "Magnetite - I HATE magnetite!" and the credits roll.

A fairly disappointing movie, I'm afraid.

Of course, it could be "Wow - a big nickel-iron meteorite! It's as big as Ahnighito!" and the closing credits show the landowner rolling around in a pile of lira like Scrooge McDuck.

Does anyone on here speak italian? I tried googling it and couldn't find anything

Originally posted by malakiem
Does anyone on here speak italian? I tried googling it and couldn't find anything

It's me.