by Tim Trachet
In January 2026, the Italian Senate hosted a conference on a highly unusual topic: a miraculous machine capable of destroying matter and converting it into pure energy, producing infinite energy, transforming one element into another and rejuvenating organic matter.
The device was allegedly developed by the exceptional Italian physicist Ettore Majorana, who did pioneering work in the theory of elementary particles but disappeared without a trace in 1938, at the age of 31. It is not known whether he died then or, as has been suggested on several occasions, started a new life elsewhere. The Italian entrepreneur Rolando Pelizza claimed to have met Majorana in 1958 and that the famous physicist was living in hiding in an unknown monastery. Pelizza also claimed to have become his pupil. It is said that Majorana built the revolutionary machine and used it to rejuvenate himself (he is supposedly still alive). However, all copies of the device have since been destroyed by ‘dark forces’.
Born in the year Majorana disappeared, Pelizza died of Covid in 2022. However, a group of his supporters led by his nephew, Alfredo Ravelli, continues to defend his claims. Ravelli, who is now promoting Pelizza’s biography, which is particularly expensive, everywhere, managed to convince Senator and former Minister Gian Marco Centinaio (of the far-right Lega party) to organise the conference.
More scientifically oriented Italians consider it a disgrace that this nonsense is receiving the attention of the Senate of the Republic. Several of them, including the president of the Italian sceptical association CICAP, demonstrated at the conference that it is pure pseudoscience. Experts also dismissed Pelizza’s ‘evidence’, consisting only of suspicious photos and letters supposedly from Majorana, which may have been forged.