(forgive me if you read my identical post on rec.auto-makers.dodge)

My '98 Caravan, which up til now has been extremely reliable, now is
dead, and displaying very odd symptoms.  My wife had driven it about 45
minutes to a friends house, no problems.  3 hours after she got there,
she went to start the van, and it wouldn't do anything.  What was wierd
was when she took the key out of the ignition, there was a clicking
noise under the dash, to the left of the steering wheel.  This noise
just continued and wouldn't stop.  WIth key in iginition, nothing
worked - no panel, no lights, nothing.  The friends husband messed with
it a bit, said at one point the dome light came on, but was going on
and off, and the panel lit up and acted erratically, but each time he
turned the ignition on, everything went deal.

Does this sound like something as simple as a weak battery, or does it
sound more like some bizarre electrical problem, or a failed computer
module of some sort?  The battery is just over four years old, and was
a fairly premium model when I bought it.  Haven't had any trouble
starting it lately.