In West Delhi's Bali Nagar, head pujari of the Sanatan Dharma temple, Harinath Shastri, was woken-up with a phone-call on Monday midnight. ``There has been a miracle. The Lord is appearing in the Shivling,'' said the excited caller, whose daughter, based in Agra, had witnessed something similar there. ``Have you checked the Shivling in your temple?'' he asked.

By then, another devotee came to the temple requesting Shastriji to open the temple. When the pujari opened the door, he claims he found a thin white line on the otherwise black Shivling. ``By this morning, it had become even more prominent after the bhajans and kirtans had been completed and we lifted the garlands from the Shivling,'' said Shastri.

In the nearby Durga Temple in Ramesh Nagar,a big red spot in the shape of an eye was seen on the Shivling. ``There was nothing before 12 p.m. in the afternoon. Suddenly, this spot was noticed,'' said Yograj Bagga, store-keeper of the temple.

Serpentine queues were seen inside the temple premises as hysterical devotees lined-up. ``Yeh sakshat prabhu prakat huen hain (This is the Lord himself who has appeared),''said a devotee.

In another temple in Ramesh Nagar, devotees organised bhajans and singing sessions to celebrate what they termed ``the arrival of the Lord''. A few children joined in by dancing to the cymbals, drums and singing.

There were those who were slightly sceptical, still undecided, about whether to accept the happenings as a miracle. ``Sometimes we feel like believing, it but we are not sure,'' said Kanti Bai, a resident of Rajouri Gardens, who had come with her daughter. ``If it is really a miracle, it should happen everywhere. The Shivling in my house is perfectly fine,'' she added.

Just then, another pujari fromthe same temple came and displayed his one-inch Shivling which had white spots on both the sides. ``Till today morning, it was jet black, now suddenly these spots have appeared,'' he said.

Interestingly, the three temples which claim to be host to this `paranormal phenomenon' are within a radius of two kilometres.

When The Indian Express contacted the scientific community at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), one of the professors from the Chemistry department said that he was not in a position to comment without making a thorough observation of the local conditions.

Offering probable explanations, however, he said that there is a possibility that the stones contain iron, which gets oxidised when it comes in contact with water and forms ferric oxide, leaving a red mark. The white colour could be due to the presence of marble, he said.