Meteorite strike causes illness

[LadyShea]

Story here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070918/sc_afp/peruhealthoffbeat)

What are the possible causes of this?

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

[wei yau]

First strike from alien invaders?

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Teh bl0b! Oh noez!!11!

[The Lone Ranger]

My first suspicion is that there is no real illness, and that, instead, what we're dealing with is a case of mass hysteria. That sort of thing is actually quite common. One person feels ill, attributes it to the coincidal strike of the meteor, tells some friends "That meteor made me sick," and before you know it, lots of people are convinced the meteor made them sick somehow.


It certainly doesn't seem likely that the meteor itself could have caused illness. However, there's this little nugget of information in the article:

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

A meteor impact would blast out a crater, but it's highly unlikely that it would have heated the nearby water table to boiling. Sounds like something else is going on.

Maybe the meteor opened up a geothermal spring. If it released some high-sulfur-content water that had been just beneath the surface, that might explain things. Some unusually sensitive people might have gotten sick from breathing the fumes (especially if they went to the impact site, where the gases were venting into the atmosphere and so were most concentrated), and that could easily have been enough to convince lots of people that the meteor strike had released toxic gases -- and hence triggered an outbreak of mass hysteria.

Cheers,

Michael

[wei yau]

I am saddened to discover that Michael is apparently part of the lead elements of the alien invasion. It is clear now that he is an advance scout sent to obscure the true nature of this so-called "meteorite".

Klaatu Barada Nikto, Silver...away!

[Uthgar the Brazen]

TLR is wrong.

It's teh bl0bz. :eek:

[Pinecone]

After reading this thread I don't fell very good....:sick:

[JoeP]

There's no mention of a globule of a strange unearthly colour in the centre of the meteorite. I suspect a cover-up. Don't drink the water.

[Dingfod]

It was a streetlight.

[Dragar]

You can all laugh and joke, but when the cylinder opens and they heat ray starts up, we'll see who's laughing then.

:alien:

(We really need some WotW-esque tripod smilies, liv.)

[Kyuss Apollo]

Why is everything turning grey and brittle?

:grey:

[Deadlokd]

I am saddened to discover that Michael is apparently part of the lead elements of the alien invasion. It is clear now that he is an advance scout sent to obscure the true nature of this so-called "meteorite".

Klaatu Barada Nikto, Silver...away!

Why are you practising necromancy on teh bl0bz? :chin:

Wei Yau is one of them too! Oh noes, teh humanitiez!:thescream

[viscousmemories]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44124000/jpg/_44124589_crater_afp203in.jpg

An engineer from the Peruvian Nuclear Energy Institute told the AFP news agency no radiation had been detected from the crater and ruled out the fallen object being a satellite.

Renan Ramirez said: "It is a conventional meteorite that, when it struck, produced gases by fusing with elements of the terrain."

The gases are believed to have affected the health of about 600 people who visited the site.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Scores ill in Peru 'meteor crash' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7001897.stm)

[ChuckF]

Pfft, aliens. Whatever, whackos. This is how the zombie invasion begins. The space dust. I've seen it a thousand times before. They need to seal off the village and cancel flights out of Peru until the zombie team goes and mops up.

brains plz
:zombie:

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Pfft, aliens. Whatever, whackos. This is how the zombie invasion begins. The space dust. I've seen it a thousand times before. They need to seal off the village and cancel flights out of Peru until the zombie team goes and mops up.

brains plz
:zombie:

But not so completely that they don't require the service of at least two more sets of teams, all led by Milla Jovovich.

[viscousmemories]

The Associated Press reports that a local official confirmed through tests that a “rocky meteorite” created the crater. But a meteorite expert at the Natural History Museum in London, who was interviewed by BBC News, said that “increasingly we think that people witnessed a fireball,” which she said would not be uncommon, and that the hole in the ground was unrelated.

After seeing the fire in the sky, the local people “went off to investigate, and found a lake of sedimentary deposit, which may be full of smelly, methane-rich organic matter,” Dr. Caroline Smith suggested. “This has been mistaken for a crater.”

A NASA scientist interviewed by Space.com agreed, saying of the steaming pond that “statistically, it’s far more likely to have come from below than from above.” Adding to the confusion, the scientist concedes that the meteorite explanation was not impossible, but he would expect it to be a metal one, not the rocky one identified by tests at the scene.

In Peru, a Crater and Questions - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/in-peru-a-crater-and-questions/)

[California Tanker]

The Truth has been revealed.

American spy satellite downed in Peru as US nuclear attack on Iran thwarted - Pravda.Ru (http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/feedback/20-09-2007/97410-american_spy_satellite-0)

Russian Military Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that one of the United States most secretive spy satellites, the KH-13, targeting Iran was 'destroyed in its orbit' with its main power generator powered by the radioactive isotope Pu-238 surviving re-entry and crashing in a remote region of the South American Nation of Peru, and where hundreds are reported to be ill from radiation poisoning.

NTM

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Good ol' Pravda (http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/)!