Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village 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 and 20-foot-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.
Update: Cover-up in full swing. Swamp gas. Return to your homes.
So, when does the zombie plague begin?
Not for another week if we're lucky. That's assuming the Peruvian Popo won't hush up things like "By the way guys, the sick people started vomiting blood... and organs..."
Which movie would that be?
(Yes, I know, this would work better if someone had ever bothered to make The Color Out of Space into a movie...)
They sort've did, actually.
Die, Monster, Die is, if I recall correctly, supposed to be loosely based on Color Out of Space. And if I recall incorrectly, I know that there's some film similar to that where it's kind've sort've based on it (if you squint).
The, monster, The?
The, monsters, the.
Monster only takes the article die in the plural. de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Monster.
Why are we even having this discussion?
No one who speaks German can be an evil man!
There's a movie with Wil Wheaton called 'The Curse' that's another adaption. It's actually a lot closer to the story, although still rather different.
That's right! I've heard of it, but I can't recall if it's a thing folks said I should watch, or a thing folks said I should avoid at all costs.
I know there's one Lovecraft adaptation from the 1970s-60s that folks have said, "You'd be better off just imagining it".
Makes me think of "The Andromeda strain"... Though I only have vague memories of the movie sucking, the book was great
Yeah, The Curse was totally Colour Out Of Space, though I'd totally forgotten that Wil Wheaton was in it!
I see that Die Monster, Die! was too, and I think I've seen it, but I may be confusing it with The Haunted Palace, which was The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Wherein, if I recall correctly, the part of Yog Sothoth was played by one of those hippie oil projectors. Or maybe that was in The Dunwich Horror starring Dean Stockwell...
H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Oct 5-7, Portland.
Wrong movie, this one fits MUCH better.
Brilliant (grrrrrr.)
Ooh! Yay! Oilians!
I, for one, welcome our new alien-human hybrid overlords.
Superman?
Seems to me a methane bubble would be more likely that a meteor impact. Thats just me though.
Carbonaceous chondrite meteorites are made of organic matter and sometimes contain amino acids, e.g., the Murchison meteorite.
and, as I meant to say before hyperlinked the parent post, sometimes they contain mostly sulphides which liberate all kinds of noxious gases when heated.
Exactly what I was thinking.
I guess mystery illnesses are more news worthy than people breathing noxious gases though.
Wow. That's a landscape straight out of Elbonia.
It'll likely be greening-up real soon.
METEOR SHIT!
Has the top cover of the meteorite unscrewed itself yet?
Spaceweather says for a meteor to leave a crater that size it would have registered seismically...which this one apparently hasn't. I say geologic issues assuming people aren't just screwing around.
Wired says something similar. They say a meteorite should have been cold rather than hot enough to boil water.
No. Space is cold, but meteoroids are in the unfiltered sun all the time. And atmospheric entry is hot enough to vaporize several inches of rock.
Well, I'm not an expert on this at all. But from TFA:
I find the above convincing. But I say again: I am not an expert (I have taken approximately one thermodynamics class ever), so I could definitely be wrong.
Apropos: "Probably not so hot, but we don't really know."
other parts of the internet seem to agree with you:
this is one guy
and the barringer meteorite crater quiz says of a 50 ton (prior to reaching earth) meteoroid:
"Although the outer layers of a meteorite will be vaporized by the friction of its passage through the atmosphere, the part that reaches the Earth will retain the deep cold of outer space."
Sounds like a mass psychogenic illness to me.
Totally and completely OT, there's a gig coming up on Sept. 20 at the Boom Boom Room that you simply cannot miss. Really, it's close to indescribable, what he does, and it's 100% wonderful.
(When I was trying to think of people who live in SF who's life I would like to affect in a positive way, you were first on my list.)
CoOoOoOl!