What a marvelous thing internet is! Ever since it has been available we have seen ideas, money and news (even the most obscure kind) circulating like never before. Unfortunately not everybody knows how to use it properly. It is even more unfortunate that many abuse it to surf x-rated sites or, even worse, where minors are allowed to browse only to be exploited and sexually abused. It is also unfortunate that, in a hyperinformed universe, there are those who, on the prowl for scoops and highly scandalistic news, exploit their virtual pulpit (be it a magazine or a personal blog) to spread all sorts of hoaxes and nonsense.
Lately, one of the hoaxes that is widely being circulated concerns Rome and in particular an earthquake that is supposedly going to level it to the ground soon. The person who thought it up has planned everything. There is a slightly nutty "scientist" who opposed accademic conventions; there are both a place and a catastrophic event (an earthquake in Rome, precisely) and there is also a date: the 11th of May. The scientist in question is called Raffaele Bendandi, he died 32 years ago and, truth be told, has left us his legacy in the form of a theory on the possibility of foreseeing earthquakes (which has no scientific value) that is based on the gravitational pull exercised by the Moon on the Earth's crust.
Result? The whirlwind circulation by word of mouth produced by information and debate blogs, amplified by forums and the eagerness to share that overtakes those who belong to social networks when it comes to catastrophic events (like the earthquake that has just struck Japan) has caused the spread of one of his predictions - developed who knows where and when - on the possibility that a devastating earthquake may really happen in Rome on the 11th of May 2011. It is useless to point out that the news has no basis - scientific or otherwise - as has fortunately been confirmed by Paola Lagorio, president of the La Bendadandiana Association (which keeps all of the Scholar's papers).
"Bendandi had decided to burn all of his manuscripts, but then he had second thoughts - Lagorio told Voyager awhile back - And at first some of documents with his predictions concerning 2011 just were thrown in the fire and then salvaged. I don't know who did it, but the person repented and those documents have since been given to us. In Bendandi's paper concerning 2011 there were numbers and considerations, also in numeric form. On the contrary, in the documents concerning 2011, there are no precise references to dates and places, unlike those that have been published on the internet. The news of a possible seism forseen for the 11th of May in Rome is therefore devoid of any basis in fact."
Source: Ilmessaggero.it
(Translated by Dina Ester Saliola)
