The Flying Pansini Brothers

Sometime in 1901, a mason and architect named Mauro Pansini brought his family to live in an old house near the Palazzo Municipale in Ruvo di Puglia, in southern Italy.  Then things got weird.

Very weird.  Even for this blog.

A few days after the family moved in strange and terrifying things began happening.  Mysterious and eerie noises were heard throughout the house.  Pictures fell from nails.  Plates, glasses, and bottles flew into the walls, shattering them.  Then the furniture took to moving itself around.  The Pansinis assumed their new home was possessed by demons, and called in a priest to perform an exorcism.  This had the usual depressing lack of results.

So far, what we have here is a pretty bog-standard poltergeist case.  But then the two Pansini boys, seven year old Alfredo and eight year old Paolo, got into the act in a big way.  One evening, Alfredo went into a trance, and began speaking to his family in a voice that was not his own.  This voice said that he had been sent by God to drive away the demons.  The boy started to fall into these trances often, where this strange voice would perform recitations in French, Latin and Greek.

For a while, it looked like the Pansinis were at least being pestered by a generous pack of spirits.  Before their eyes, food would suddenly appear in the pantry or on their dining table.  Various sweets and candies were brought to them by invisible hands.  One night, Alfredo announced that he was witnessing a battle between the good and bad ghosts.  His increasingly rattled parents took him to church, where he instantly fell unconscious.  He only revived when the bishop spoke his name.  Alfredo stayed with the bishop for a few days, but as this failed to bring him out of his uncanny state of mind, he was returned to his family.  The Pansinis sent him to a seminary school, hoping that the change of scene would bring him back to normal.  Unfortunately, all his new surroundings did was inspire him to add telepathy to his growing list of weird talents.

After Alfredo returned home two years later, the High Strangeness really got into gear.  One morning around 9 a.m., the two boys were in Ruvo di Puglia.  Just half-an-hour later, they appeared at the Capucine convent in Malfatti, thirty miles from where they had last been seen.  A few days after this, the Pansinis were sitting at their dining table.  Paolo was sent to fetch them wine.  He did not return.  Half an hour after this, Alfredo also disappeared.  The instant Alfredo vanished, both he and Paolo suddenly appeared in a fishing boat at sea off the port of Barlatta.  The fisherman--who was just as terrified as the boys--brought them to dry land, where they were lucky enough to find a coachman who knew them and was able to take them home. 

One day, as the mother was discussing her problematic sons with the bishop, the boys--who had been nearby, within view--both vanished.  A few minutes later, they got word that Alfredo and Paolo had been seen several miles away.  Their father, thinking they had merely run away, locked them in their room.  A short time later, the boys suddenly appeared at the home of an uncle, many miles away.  On another occasion, they disappeared from a moving carriage, only to be found at their intended destination.

In the same inexplicable, instantaneous fashion, the brothers continued their unwilling visits.  They would suddenly appear in a number of far-distant towns, with nobody--most particularly the boys themselves--able to say how in the world they got there.  Alfredo and Paolo were investigated by various scientists and doctors, only to leave these “experts” completely baffled.  They could only mutter that the boys were suffering from some sort of “ambulatory automatism”--in other words, a form of amnesia.  Of course, this failed to explain how the boys could travel such vast distances in such a short time.

The brothers could only conclude that they were transported “through the work and power of the Holy Spirit.”  In 1905, Alfredo told the editor of the “Corriere delle Puglie,” “I don’t know how to explain what happens to me.  What happens seems to be a succession of events without any reason, without cause.  The change of place seems to happen before my eyes, with no one making it.  And my own person, suddenly, is located in another place without knowing how and why.”  Intriguingly, he said that an older brother of theirs was also plagued by these involuntary transportations before he joined the military.

The Pansini brothers continued their unwanted disappearances and appearances until they reached puberty, when, luckily for them, the teleportations stopped.  Their adult lives, as far as anyone knows, were perfectly normal.

Imagine the stories Alfredo and Paolo had to tell their kids.