Mystery illness strikes after meteorite

Dargos · Post by **Dargos** » 2007-09-18 06:32am

LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

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.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

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

Scoff if you must, but when brain eating zombies or super powered mutants result from this, don't say you weren't warned.

TithonusSyndrome · Post by **TithonusSyndrome** » 2007-09-18 08:04am

Zombies and mutants may be the least of our worries, but I doubt it was packing anything more sophisticated than a noxious gas that can be found here on terra firma.

Post by **Dalton** » 2007-09-18 08:21am

Lavos?

Gaidin · Post by **Gaidin** » 2007-09-18 08:24am

Dalton wrote:Lavos?

Not our problem then. The earth has approximately 65,000,000 years to get ready for him.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2007-09-18 09:06am

Sounds like excessively high radiation.

Post by **Coyote** » 2007-09-18 10:17am

Probably the impact of the meteor kicked up a bunch of fungus & stuff in the topsoil and clouded the area with little spores that interfered with respiration. My guess.

Or we all get used to a steady diet of braaaaiiinnnsssss.....

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2007-09-18 11:53am

I would guess that the meteor was sulfur or mercury-rich, and created noxious vapors upon vaporization.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-09-18 12:24pm

So it won't be space vampires (Life Force) or the the Andromeda virus (The Andromeda Strain)? That's too bad. At least we got BSE from space. That's mildly icky and sci-fi-ish.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-09-18 12:26pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:So it won't be space vampires (Life Force) or the the Andromeda virus (The Andromeda Strain)? That's too bad. At least we got BSE from space. That's mildly icky and sci-fi-ish.

Someone should check the meteors for Kryptonite.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2007-09-18 12:27pm

Gaidin wrote:
Dalton wrote:Lavos?
Not our problem then. The earth has approximately 65,000,000 years to get ready for him.

Does that mean that we'll see a spiky-haired dinosaur with a katana sometime soon?

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2007-09-18 12:42pm

I'm betting on the Colour out of Space, myself.

Geodd · Post by **Geodd** » 2007-09-18 01:18pm

Or it could simply be psychological. Wouldn't be the first time a spectacular event set off some funky herd behaviour.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2007-09-18 02:17pm

We should nuke the area just to be safe.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2007-09-18 02:26pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:I would guess that the meteor was sulfur or mercury-rich, and created noxious vapors upon vaporization.

This kind of thing is exactly why we need pocket spectrometers! I don't suppose anyone bothered to get an air sample?

nickolay1 · Post by **nickolay1** » 2007-09-18 03:03pm

Nickel is also toxic. There's a chance, if the meteorite was of iron-nickel composition, that a significant amount was vaporized.

Spin Echo · Post by **Spin Echo** » 2007-09-18 03:19pm

Geodd wrote:Or it could simply be psychological. Wouldn't be the first time a spectacular event set off some funky herd behaviour.

Mass hysteria had been my first thought as well.

RazorOutlaw · Post by **RazorOutlaw** » 2007-09-18 06:29pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:We should nuke the area just to be safe.

Nobody ever takes this comment seriously. Who wants to be eating brains for the rest of their lives?!

On a more serious note, I thought of the heat from the impact putting plant particles into the air too. Kind of like how burning poison ivy isn't much better for you than rubbing it on your skin.

ThatGuyFromThatPlace · Post by **ThatGuyFromThatPlace** » 2007-09-18 07:40pm

BBC reports that a bull is dead and other livestock sick, which seems to rule out simple hysteria, and a Peruvian geologist says it's not radiation (though I'm not sure how he's qualified to make that call).

I for one welcome our new Old One overlords.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2007-09-18 07:44pm

Wold Newton family soon to emerge?

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2007-09-18 09:44pm

More then likely it's something that was thrown up into the atmosphere.

The bull's atopsy should clarify things.

And if it's alien organisms, get samples, and nuke the area.

I'm serious on the nuking part.

Drewcifer · Post by **Drewcifer** » 2007-09-19 12:30am

Carbonaceous meteorites often contain all kinds of organic materials, like sugars, carboxylic acid, and various amino acids. My biology is terribly rusty (and was never that shiny to begin with), but I suppose it wouldn't be too far a jump for a meteorite to harbour some type of compound that would make people sick.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2007-09-19 12:49am

Solauren wrote:I'm serious on the nuking part.

And more than once.

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2007-09-19 03:20pm

Kane lives!

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-09-20 12:56pm

False alarm. Wasn't an alien meteorite, it was just a US spy sat aiding our nuclear war plans on Iran.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2007-09-20 01:10pm

Is that...Satire?