Hell-fire and brimstone? Elaborate hoax? Rudimentary fireworks display? What is the truth behind the Naga fireballs of northern Thailand? Are they projectiles from a serpent's mouth, as legend says? Blobs of methane gas escaping from decaying vegetation on the Mekong River bed, as scientists speculate? Or are they, as sceptics insist, man-made objects launched to seduce a gullible audience?
It is best not to dwell on the last hypothesis, as Thai television station iTV did a couple of years ago. After claiming that the fireballs - eerie pink globes that flash from beneath the surface of the Mekong (or thereabouts), then disappear a second later - were tracer rounds from AK47s fired by soldiers across the river in Laos, iTV came under siege. Funeral wreaths to curse the station were floated on the Mekong at Nong Khai, the capital of the province where the fireballs are seen every October at full moon, and demands were made that the provincial government sue iTV. The Lao ambassador to Thailand expressed his country's dismay at the claim its citizens had manufactured the fireballs. Bangkok newspapers were full of angry letters and news bulletins covered the furore with lip-smacking enthusiasm. ITV apologised and the five Laotian villagers who had helped the television team were jailed for 12 years for bringing foreigners into the country without permission.
Whatever the truth, the story of the fireballs is irresistible, so on the night of the full moon, I find myself sitting on a metal chair in the village of Phon Phisai, staring at the river with thousands of other spectators.
Fireballs are said to rise from the Mekong, its tributaries and even pools of standing water near the
river, but inconveniently not in Nong Khai city itself, so I had joined a tour bus to the grounds of a temple reputed to be the prime spot for viewing the phenomenon. The bus was plush, with a video system and a toilet, which was a bonus because I had been warned the trip to Phon Phisai, about 40km away, might take three hours because of traffic. In recent years, the fireballs have become a popular drawcard, bringing an estimated 200,000 visitors to Nong Khai district. Most are Thai, but an increasing number are curious foreigners.
Playing on the video was the beautifully filmed Thai movie 15 Kham Duan 11, which is about - surprise - the Naga. It proposes the fireballs are fakes and are the work of Laotian monks who place clay eggs on the riverbed. The eggs rise to the surface and light up, the moral being that a fictitious miracle is better than no miracle if it reinforces belief.
The film is only half finished by the time we reach Phon Phisai and squeeze down a narrow country lane into the temple grounds. A row of chairs on a concrete footpath has been cordoned off for us, while all around, a full-scale festival rages. Entrepreneurs have set up stalls to feed and amuse the masses: trolleys are piled high with barbecued prawns, skewers of chicken, fat little sausages and grilled bananas; pancake-flat pieces of dried squid are arranged like drying laundry on wooden trellises; and trestle tables groan with bottled drinks and toys. A balloon seller is offloading dozens of helium balloons to children, inflating them from a gas bottle that gives off a high-pitched squeal.
