Meteorite Causes Illness in Peruvian Village - Andromeda Strain?

Receiving oxygen, in the form of oxygen-enriched air, is a common occurrence at the sorts of altitudes that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puno is located at (been there, done that, got the T-shirt), and is always referred to in travel documents for those not normally accustomed to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude_sickness. If the body is stressed, or even in partial panic (as a result of a smelly meteorite landing violently nearby, perhaps?), then it needs more of the oxygen that is at a really low partial pressure here. Oxygen-enriched air bottles are widely available at the better hotels in this district.

It's all happening in Peru at the moment, then?

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/11876/Earthquakes-and-Strange-Lights

It's Nazca's Revenge.

yes but these are the local people that are more than acclimated having been born and raised in those oxygen poor areas.

Bottles of oxygen at the hotels are for the tourists from lower lieing parts of the world.

So an earthquake, a meteor and the Mayan calender and the 2012 solar flares. Hmmmmm. Could be the beginnings of the apocolypse

Or...... Remember those flashes of light we discussed in a previous thread. They were seen at,around and during the Earthquake.

One astute responder made mention of outgassing.

It wasn't that long ago that an entire African village succumbed to the outgassing of a fissure through a lake bed killing hundreds in their sleep.

So could it be.....outgassing?

cr3

I do like the point made regarding altitude sickness as well.

Cor - what a whiff! Worse than Laindon Link on a Sunday morning!!

Sounds like it might have crashed into a local meth lab. Or maybe it was radioactive? Who knows, maybe it was a ball of frozen poo ejected from an alien space craft half a million years ago from somewhere in the Milky Way and it just happened to hit in France. Hmm, what are the odds?

I've just heard on the radio that there are now 600 people sick in the local area. I was going to make a predictable remark about Moulder and Skully are on the way, but when I thought about it, the meteor related story lines are so varied, Triffids, X files, body snatchers etc, I decided that the truth was probably going to be more....unpredictable?

(Of more interest to my warped mind is that the CR4 speell chekc recognises the word Triffid! Hmmmm, interesting!)

BBC Radio 4's reporter in Lima this morning (who has an Irish accent!) suggests that the smell is largely as a result of a chemical reaction between the meteorite and the local soils. Apparently one animal has died immediately following the incident and several dozen people are sick.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7001897.stm

I'm not sure that a meteorite would chemically react with much but the heat from the impact might well have thrown a lot of nasty dust into the air and any resulting fire would atomize tree saps and all sorts of stuff. Guess it's a bad month to be a Peruvian.

Just seen the news and it looks like the locals are all gathered around the impact site (which is a muddy hole) picking little lumps of white of what looks like white chalk!

as for Paddington Bear doing a Marmite add, Don't think the Grubers will be too pleased with him! Good advert though!

An animal died as the result of a meteorite strike!!!!!! Well you would also die if you were struck by a meteorite? Spencer.

The report doesn't state that the meteorite struck the animal.

I remember a news item I saw on the TV a couple of years ago about a lady being struck by a meteor. Well, she survived. It was reported in the story that she was the only direct hit on a human. Guess... Yes , she was an American.. Only in the US of A.

I'm wondering if the object may have been a piece of man-made space junk- perhaps a piece of a satellite fuel cell or something like that.

Bill Morrow

Not likely - that's a huge crater:

Ahh. Yessss. That's a bigun.

This is not a remake. This is the real thing!!!!

That's down right scary looking. What is it?

??????

You don't recognise thunderbird 2!!!???

Does anybody really know what is under the water?

No, not really....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_and_the_Pit

I read in the Daily Jester, that the victims had flourescent discharge from the nasal cavity just prior to collapse!

cr3

Did the discharge seem to be seeking another host?

This is serious stuff. I don't know how you all can joke about this. Don't you watch television?

I agree it is very serioius in it's far reaching possibilities. However, until the evidence is in they are just possibilities. Not probabilities but rather possibilities. It could be anything at this point.

I suspect that there is a chemical reaction that is taking place either within the meteorite (vporized metals is an attractive propositon), the sorrounding atmosphere (gaseous reaction, supplantation) or the soils - as has been stated - as opposed to viral strain X3275Y12j26.

But it certainly could be something organic, which would be something indeed! Of course if it is I fear we (the common folk) will be way low in the 'need to know' hierarchy.

cr3

In recent years I have seen several scientific publications describing the presence of organic molecules in interstellar space (these are detected spectroscopically -- by the light they absorb from stars behind them). Some scientists are even openly proposing that life on Earth was seeded by organic materials brought here by meteorites and comets. Even more interesting, some even speculate that simple life (on par with bacteria and viruses) may even exist in space. Anyway, it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that the Peruvian meteor might have brought either biological or pre-biological toxic organic materials that made the villagers sick. If so, let's hope that those materials are just non-living poisons, and not living pathogens.

There is no seismograph data at all. A meteor that size should have rocked the ground seriously. The crater does not appear to have ejected material around it like a meteor crater.

I think something else is going on here. The crater is full of what appears to be water. A real meteor crater would be too hot for a while to allow water to fill it in.

I am guessing that someone was dumping some chemical(s) into a hole in the ground and created an explosion. That would explain all the other symptoms.

Ah-h-h-h-h. Excellent theory, my dear Watson.

I am sure we are all pretty much pulling from the same resources.

But, I found this link...here....(related stories at end of page are good too)....that confirms the meteorite be ....chondrite....(the entire Wiki entry is very cool)...chondrites....(photos).

Peru is now setting up extra tents, as some 600 are claiming illness. This could be real interesting investigation ya'll.

As I link through all the hyperlinks in Wiki I see there is a very large amount of really good stuff. I am particularly fond of the Murchison link.

CR3

Don Yeomans, head of the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California is skeptical that a meteorite is the cause of the illness. Additionally, geophysicist Larry Grossman of the University of Chicago states that there are no previous records of noxious fumes from meteor craters...

Stay tuned! This is getting interesing.

I'm with you Chris.

Until we get more data I keep falling back to an article I read many years ago that discusses fatal gas releases from underground. With the recent seismic activity this is a very attractive proposition to me at this time. The story can be referenced through a reliable source ...here.

To all,

The more I think about it, it seems we may very well be on the cusps of a significant tectonic event.

Here are some of my more fequented personal links so that you guys can throw in....

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/qed/

http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/

http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/

http://gpc.edu/~pgore/geology/geo101/volcano.htm

http://volcanic-eruptions-search-swicki.eurekster.com/Recent+Eruptions/

cr3

It is impossible for it to be the Andromeda strain because there is no hicky deputy asking an Einstein looking scientist if the "Coffee is green" and the scientist responding that, "I have no idea because my watch stopped at quarter past three"

I am leaning toward the man made 'black box' falling out of the sky and we-have-to-tell-them-something-until-we-can-come-up-with-a-better-lie theory....

Any meteorite is exposed to extremely high temperatures due to the friction with the atmosphere,exposure to oxygen, and its speed. These temperatures will melt almost anything, including rock and metals thus creating noxious fumes. The exact chemical make-up depends on the contents of the meteorite.

Even a small amount of sulfur in the meteorite can create a deadly gas.

These extreme temperatures also ensure that nothing living, bacterias or viruses, can survive unless it is buried in the middle of a very large meteorite.