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Ear to the Ground

Space Object Implicated in Widespread Illness

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Posted on Sep 18, 2007
crater
news.bbc.co.uk

Roughly 600 Peruvian townspeople are suffering a variety of ailments, from headaches to vomiting, after visiting the crash site of a mysterious fireball that fell from the heavens. Scientists are en route to analyze the object, which they believe is simply a meteorite.

BBC:

Some 600 people in Peru have required treatment after an object from space—said to be a meteorite—plummeted to Earth in a remote area, officials say.

They say the object left a deep crater after crashing down over the weekend near the town of Carancas in the Andes.

People who have visited scene have been complaining of headaches, vomiting and nausea after inhaling gases.

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By QuyTran, September 19, 2007 at 5:26 pm #

This space object hits a wrong place.

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By David B. Benson, September 19, 2007 at 2:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The meteorite, if it proves to be in that hole, is almost surely a metal meteorite, nickle-iron. A stony meteorite is unlikely to survive the descent intact unless very much larger than the one producing that hole. (Which might have been produced by some other method, such as somebody digging it.)

The nauseous gases are from something already in the ground.

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By PatrickHenry, September 19, 2007 at 10:47 am #

Why couldn’t it hit the White House.  You would hear of many feeling better.

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By Stephen Smoliar, September 19, 2007 at 8:15 am #

On my own blog I wrote about how this is a really great example of how the media provide confusion rather than clarification:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/09/confuse d-about-crater.html

That includes the BBC, since the radio story this morning began with a clip from the Orson Welles WAR OF THE WORLDS BROADCAST!  At least the radio version tapped into our preference for the outlandishly catastrophic over the more mundane scientific!

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By Cirquelar, September 19, 2007 at 6:52 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Most likely, the meteorite has released some toxin in the ground or groundwater. Meteorites are not likely to carry any toxins that I know of in any quantities, though they may carry some amino-acids or other simple organic compounds. From the video of the site and what might be meteor samples, it was a stony meteorite, not a comet fragment.

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By rowdy, September 18, 2007 at 8:53 pm #

if this has any truth in it, i will be amused right up to the point i too become infected. this is what the planet needs, a thorough cleansing of the entire human race. long live the space aliens.

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By vet240, September 18, 2007 at 8:26 pm #

I wonder how many more, perhaps hundreds of generations it will take until we are smart enough to not go rushing to disaster sites.

Perhaps some meteorite will bring in a virus that will destroy us as a species.

Will Rogers once said, “Show me a person who says civilization is advancing, and I’ll show you an egotist!”

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