Strange illness from meteor in Peru - what could it be?

Question

Strange news story on Yahoo News:

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070918/sc_afp/peruhealthoffbeat

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.

===========================

This sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. Any theories on what it might be?

I wonder if anyone has bothered to point a Geiger counter at it yet?

Answer 1

Well, without any actual scientific data we can only guess.
It might be that when the meteor impacted it broke out a pocket of hydrogen sulfide gas which would explain the odor and illness. There are lots of toxic substances on the planet that we are not usually aware of until its too late.

Answer 2

I agree if there is an illness it is probably a heavy gas. It can also be a couple of other culprit chemicals. Although in this case the sensationalized reports sound like the same affect a foggy lake in Mexico had about fifty years ago right before a volcano erupted. Chances are this was not a vent though, unless there were reports of other strange events near the same place recently. It could just be a hot spring that is harmful to humans not useful.

The only other conclusion I can consider plausible, all space disease ideas aside, is that this is a comet center, not a meteor. In which case the radiation may be more appropriate. And if this was a comet center it matches the two or three other comet masses that have fallen in the past few months, possibly fragments of the same comet after it broke apart and traveling at different speeds.

Now if this is a mutant Zombie disease I have my machete ready.

Answer 3

Due to the high temperatures caused by the explosion of the meteors impact, I'd estimate The chance of this being any "ET" type of biological agent is almost nil. First, we have never found any Extra Terrestrial "life", and at best, only basic organic compounds have been detected in meteor fragments. So put to rest any speculation that it's some kind of outer-space germ. It's chemical gasses from the vapor created at the point of impact.

Meteorites are composed of rock or nickel-iron ores. Though not a physics or math guy, a 30x6m crater would be created by a surprisingly small object, but the heat at the point of impact would be trememdous. Vaporized soil and vegetation would create a lot of chemical gasses, some of which could be quite toxic and nauseating -- Sulpher Dioxoide, Carbon Monoxide and CO2 could all be abundant in the vapor cloud, basic byproducts of combustion, and in concentration are poisonous. I'll let someone with more specific scientific info weigh in on what types of compounds could be present.

Answer 4

Actually there is some evidence that Meteors can cause "illness"
In ancient times comets and meteors were thought to be harbingers of doom and people thought that they would bring death and destruction. The planet moving through the tail of a comet has been reported to bring illness, poisoning of crops and foul water. Only recently science found out that the ancients were not superstitious. They just described the terrible experiences the encounters with such harbingers of doom were.

Meteors are like a bomb dropped on one place. Comets bring death and destruction over very wide areas. If the core of the comet impacting the Earth is a rock then the effect is like a bomb in the center of the hit but devastation can spread over the entire globe. Chunks of rocks from the comet's halo, pieces of ice broken from the comet's core upon entry into the atmosphere and poisonous fumes affect large areas to a varying degree depending on the distribution of the cosmic missiles.

In recent years science accepted the fact that there was a connection between the demise of entire civilizations like the Sumerian and impacts by meteors or comets. Science now assumes hits on the planet in intervals, which get increasingly larger with the size of the impacting cosmic body. A number of times the planet was hit so hard that up to 90% of all species died out. But there are threats out there so huge that all life on Earth would cease if they collided with this planet. - One Amor type meteor named Ganymed is 39 km in diameter. A hit would be a global catastrophe and yet there could worse.
More localized events end civilizations like the hit, which ended the Sumerian epoch in Mesopotamia around 2100 BC. At the same time the era of the Old Kingdom ended in Egypt, Crete was destroyed and there are craters elsewhere dating back to this time like one big crater in Argentina. The Australian aborigines tell of a time when fireballs fell from the sky and the air was unbearably hot. If there is indeed a timely connection between these events then it is likely that the culprit was not a meteor but a comet.

Comets and Meteors spend a very long time exposed to radiation in space. One theory has it that this causes changes in the atomic structure of the water and transforms it into "heavy" water. This essentially would make the comet a huge mass of fusion fuel. Entering the Earth atmosphere could ignite nuclear processes and an atomic bomb of unimaginable proportions would explode. This event, for sure, could destroy all life on this planet.

Answer 5

This might be a prime example of group hysteria.

People strongly influence each other's behaviour. In a stressful situation this can have a cascade effect.

I recall an incident which ocurred in a hospital emergency room. A diabetic had collapsed and during the recussitiation procedure, one of the nurses smelled a strange odor and became dizzy. This then spread to the rest of the staff which paniced and left the room. They all felt weak and nausiated and left the building.

It might be that this behaviour is an instinct we inherited from our ancestors. These creatures were scavengers and if hungry enough, would attempt to eat anything. Individuals have differing reactions to toxic substances and if one member of the group became violently sick, this would cause the rest of the group to vomit as well. Such an adaptation would work to protect the group from being poisoned. rats avoid poison by eating very small portions of unfamaliar foods and waiting to see if there are any unpleasant effects. Humans don't ordinarily do this, but group living has enabled them to deal with toxic substances in other ways.

Answer 6

This is strangely coincidental to Stephen King's Dream catchers.

An unidentified object (they're telling us it's a meteorite) strikes earth, and whoever is within a certain distance inhales tiny particles. Then they start smelling like ether, vomiting, and burping.



Then an alien creature comes out and kills us all!


I'm sure that the U.S Government is out there helping the Peruvians.

Answer 7

I found a conflicting link to the story that Yahoo posted.
http://forgetomori.com/2007/science/meteorite-makes-30-meter-crater-in-peru/

It just goes to show that there is always going to be media sensationalized reports. I'm not saying that the Yahoo story is wrong, just that I really don't know which story is correct. So as long as no-one gets hit by one of these things it's probably just another space rock.

Answer 8

The meteor section is real, the "ailment" section is ambiguous. there is not any data of any form of pathogen- if something, the ailments have been in all threat brought about by burning mercury, or sulfur released whilst the meteor struck the floor close to the lake, collapsing floor into the lake, that may launch gases. think of roughly it this way- the element advance into burning at hundreds of levels whilst it advance into coming throughout the ambience. maximum micro organism and different pathogens die around a hundred thirty levels. no longer something to be worried approximately.

Answer 9

This reminds me of a story in 2001 where red rain fell after a meteorite struck in India. Scientists claimed it contained germs from space. To get more information see the source below.

Answer 10

If this is true, the heat generated by the meteroite's entry would have sterilized it had it contained any bacteria or viruses from some other world...highly unlikely in any event. If people near the site are getting ill, the meteorite probably unearthed sewage or other rotting organic matter generated here on earth.