THE sudden appearance of the footprint reportedly of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in the sleepy village of Dharabi near Chakwal has sent a wave of religious excitement across Pakistan.

At a two-hour drive from Islamabad, Dharabi is now attracting tens of thousands of visitors from Swat to Karachi. They seek blessings, spiritual enlightenment, miracle cures and relief from life's stresses. A road that is sparsely travelled in normal times is now clogged with traffic, vendors of food and drink are having a field day, new businesses selling pictures and holy paraphernalia have sprouted, and a permanent shrine is under construction. The village could not have hoped for better.

My encounter in mid-March with this phenomenon was accidental and preceded the heavy rush that came in subsequent weeks. While on the way to Chakwal, I became curious about the heavy police presence. Upon inquiring, I was told of a momentous event — a giant footprint was said to have suddenly appeared. The local ulema declared it belonged to the Prophet. But this ignited a fierce war of words between various religious factions in the Chakwal area. Some believers insist that the Prophet had left the earthly world forever, while others believe that he revisits it periodically to remind followers of his presence. The police had been called to prevent physical violence.

Conversations over tea with Dharabi's inhabitants gave me some facts. However, the story soon receded to the back of my mind, only to be revived several weeks later when it hit the national press and television. To augment my understanding I made phone calls to several villagers I had met, only to discover that new embellishments were being added by the day to the original account. On the other hand, sceptics in the village speak only on condition that their identities not be revealed.

The story begins on 12 Rabi-ul-Awwal, the Prophet's birthday, when celebrations were held as per village custom. This involves cooking sooji ka halwa in large flat iron dishes called karahis. Since there are no stoves large enough for the purpose, shallow holes are dug and then filled with twigs, charcoal, or other flammable material. After the cooking is done and the fires are dimmed, the holes are filled with loose earth. On that particular evening, I learned that there was a heavy rain shower.

The story goes like this that evening a woman looked out into her backyard and saw a glow that appeared to move. In her excitement, she summoned her mother-in-law who says she also saw the glow. It appeared very briefly and was not seen subsequently (although a six-week later version is that it lasted for three days and was so bright that the house did not need lighting!). The women also claimed that the glow was accompanied by a sweet smell. In the morning, the cooking area was discovered to have a mysterious ground impression. The rest is history.

What scientific explanation exists for this phenomenon? As a starter, readers of this article are invited to Google the 'Dharabi miracle' where they will see countless uploads of photographs and hastily made celebratory videos. By straining one's imagination, some may be able to see a footprint. But its enormous size — three to four feet long — negates this impression. The shape can be more plausibly explained as that of loose earth, brought together by rainwater, from two adjacent irregularly rounded cooking holes. It could also be the water-distorted image of two heavy round karhais of different sizes placed on the soft earth. Or, of course, it could be plain fraud.

Assuming that the women had not been overpowered by the devotional intensity of the celebrations, the softly glowing ephemeral light could have multiple explanations. First, it is possible that a swarm of phosphorescent insects was somehow attracted to the cooking area. Bioluminescence in insects is a well-known phenomenon. As in the common firefly known as jugnoo, 'cold light' is produced via chemiluminescence.

It could also be that the organic matter buried in the holes, assisted by the heat of imperfectly quenched coals or twigs, could have converted into methane and phosphine gases. The latter is known to oxidise spontaneously upon coming into contact with air and can burn at a low temperature causing a glowing light. Appearances of apparitions in western folklore, such as jack-o'-lantern or will-o'-the-wisp, have been traced by scientists to various flammable gases and insects.

A detailed investigation would involve looking at the soil composition, local entomology, and recorded statements of different witnesses. It seems, however, that the Dharabi event will be ignored by Pakistan's scientific institutions, of which there are a dozen or more. With exorbitant budgets but zero or little scientific output, some are housed in shiny new buildings on Islamabad's Constitution Avenue. These include the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, Committee on Science and Technology in the Islamic World (Comstech), Comsats, Pakistan Science Foundation, Pakistan Council on Science and Technology, etc.

Unfortunately none of the above — or any other Pakistani scientific institute — has ever debunked the unreasonable and anti-scientific attitudes that one sees all around. For example, after the October 2005 earthquake that killed nearly 100,000, none challenged the commonly espoused view in the public media that this was a consequence of our bad deeds such as watching television or allowing unveiled women to go out of the house.

To be sure, superstitious beliefs exist in other countries as well. One recalls the hysteria in 1995 following the discovery that Ganesh, the elephant god, would 'drink' milk if a spoonful was held up to his trunk. Even minor temples in India overflowed with superstitious devotees. So great was the rush that a traffic gridlock resulted in New Delhi and milk sales jumped up by 30 per cent.

Fortunately for India, an independent body, the Indian Rationalists Association, was quick to show that Ganesh's milk drinking had a simple physical explanation it was simple capillary action, the same that we learn about in our school science books. The surface tension of the milk was pulling the liquid up and out of the spoon, before gravity caused it to run down the front of the statue.

To its credit, India's science ministry confirmed the explanation and the country's religious craziness slowly abated. With such precedents, surely it is time for Pakistan's science and technology ministry to investigate the so-called Chakwal miracle, as well as the many similar superstitions that keep our people in a state of stupor and backwardness.

The writer is professor of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.