The Luminous Woman of Piran

The luminous woman of Piran wasn’t a folk tale. It wasn’t some story told after a few drinks by colleagues in a bar, over heard by strangers and grown into a urban legend.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Luminous Woman of Paran isn't just a folk tale.
It's not some story told after a few drinks by
colleagues in a bar, overheard by strangers, and subsequently spread
into an urban legend. It was a real and credible
account by nuns, doctors, nurses, and other witnesses. It was,
in many ways one of the weirdest events in medical history.

(00:21):
Between the dates of the Night of March and the
nineteenth of March nineteen thirty four, Ana Manaro was in hospital.
She was one of many on a shared ward, waited
on by beleaguered and tired physicians and nuns. But one night,
something spectacular happened which was to take everyone by surprise
and remains a mystery. A faint blue glow was omitting

(00:41):
from Anamanaro's chest, a warm illumination which seemed to radiate
from the body of the sleeping patient. This repeated night
after night and slowly attracted more and more witnesses, doctors, nurses, nuns. Eventually,
specialists and religious practitioners alike stood in wonder in the
room as it was illumined by this mysterious glow. Specialists

(01:04):
were contacted, says Bastagoni and Sambo showed remarkable interest in
the event. They'd never heard anything like it and produced hypotheses,
but none of which could find an explanation for this
strange luminescence. The inventor Marconi became involved when his National
Research Council heard what was happening. He wasted no time
in having her transferred from Piran to Rome for examination

(01:26):
and further tests. And so between the dates of April
the twentieth and June the second, nineteen thirty four, experts,
including radiologists, surgeons, neurologists, and all manner of other scientific
people carried out extensive examinations with no firm results. Even
the famed en Noorico Fermi, famous his equasion, took a

(01:46):
turn trying to work out what was going on, and
it was during one night in this period that Anna's
chest once again became illuminated. A blue shadowless irradiation happened again,
but no one managed to capture it on a camera.
But however, a film camera set up to record all
night captured fifty four frames, of which the only evidence

(02:07):
of this phenomena was collected. It was the last time
that it happened Anno recovered from a malady and went
back to a normal life. But the mystery remains, and
for as long as they thought it feasible, the experts
trying to find explanations without success. Numerous hypotheses were advanced.
Some spoke of biophotons light emissions linked to cellular metabolism.

(02:28):
Others hypothesized chemical reactions in the skin with phosphoric or
sulfur compounds. Even the possibility of microelectrostatic discharges was evoked,
but no theory could explain everything and the diffuse nature
of the light. The most skeptical interpretation spoke of collective suggestion,
but film cameras they only record what's in front of them,

(02:49):
so the film contradicted that hypothesis, and so the puzzle
has never been sold and is not recorded as ever repeated.
It remains one of the most perplexing and fast sinating
corners of science, where the cold, hard truth of medicine
met with the opaque, murky world of the unknown.