Non-UFO: Odds and Ends

Our colleague Angel Rodriguez, director of Spain's GEIFO research group, has sent us the tidbit of information that appears below.

As a result of a drought that devastated the department of Las Castañas in Mexico in 1833, the town's mayor issued the following decree that appeared in the "El Libertador" newspaper:

"Art.1 If it does not rain abundantly within eight days, no one shall go to mass or pray.
Art.2 If the drought persists for another eight days, churches, convents and chapels shall be set on fire.
Art.3 If it has still not rained in another eight days, clergymen, friars, nuns and the overly pious shall be beheaded.

The decree also added: "This document hereby grants the authority to commit sins of all kinds, in order to show The Almighty who he is meddling with."

Fortunately, it rained.