Meteor Sickness

Mass hysteria or a real illness? Maybe its not the meteor itself, but Earth mold or something else it threw up in the air when it hit. ??

Meteorite Crash Causes 'Mystery Illness' in Peru

LIMA, Peru — A village in southern Peru has been struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite crashed to the earth around midday Saturday, an official with the local health department said.

Villagers heard an explosion and saw a fireball that many thought 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, according to a report from AFP.

Residents later complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," according to health department official Jorge Lopez.

Click here to read the AFP story

Police responding to the scene also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

 

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probably some sort of metal poisoining from the meteor...mercury maybe...
location: 16°34'12"S 69°2'59"W

 

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"Boiling water started coming out of the crater"
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7008556054

I wonder if the impact has caused the release of some kind of built up volcanic gas...

 

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actually I noticed there is a huge lake there nearby...that meteor could have caused a coollapse of ground into the lake thus allowing the lake to release Co2 reserves along with sulfites...the sulfur is what is causing the smell...smell of eggs...

 

Yeah that's what I think has happened as well...release of sulfur.

 

PLOT

ANDROMEDA STRAIN begins with a brief scrolling prologue, informing us that what we are about to see is a "true story," of a recent event in U.S. history, one which was never made public. The narrative unfolds over four days, "documenting" the course of a viral threat apparently from outer space. The story is divided into three neat acts: arrival, research, and race for the cure. Date and time are periodically flashed on-screen, adding to the film's documentary feel





Act I
A U.S. space satellite crashes in a desert town, and the officials sent to retrieve it discover that the town's inhabitants have been killed, simultaneously with the satellite's fall. These unfortunate officials die as they radio this alarming find, and the U.S. military personnel involved soon issue a red alert. The satellite was part of Wildfire, a classified government space-exploration project. Four scientists, previously assembled to analyze the satellite's data, are immediately summoned to Wildfire's top-secret desert headquarters.


Act II
Upon the arrival of Drs. Jeremy Stone, Charles Dutton, Mark Hall, and Ruth Leavitt, ANDROMEDA STRAIN embarks on the film's lengthy middle section. It is part exposition, part showcase for the set by Boris Leven and William H. Tuntke, as the team of four are introduced to the Wildfire facilities: five ring-shaped levels that descend into the ground. As one progresses further down, security measures tighten.


We follow the scientists through their isolated debriefings and skin/clothing cleanings, in the course of which their characters are (somewhat) developed, as individuals and as a group. There is Dr. Stone (Arthur Hill), the family man; Dr. Dutton (David Wayne), a venerable, if conservative, veteran; Dr. Leavitt (Kate Reid) is sharp as a tack with a pack a day cigarette habit; and Dr. Hall (James Olson), a good looking young guy and something of a live wire.


The intimate physical examinations to which all four are subjected include repeated MRI-like body scans; automatic showers and powderings; question and answer sessions with a frustratingly cool computer-generated female voice over the PA system. The disembodied presence of a higher power, the Wizard of Oz, is more than slightly menacing, especially as Leavitt and Hall test the limits of their controlled environment. As they soon find out, you cannot "sneak" a cigarette past level one, nor can you avoid answering any prying questions.


The film (and Michael Crichton, in his later works) goes on to explore this theme more fully: science's claim to objectivity, belied by its actual manipulations, often with grave, or fatal, human consequences.


At last (the descent into purity lasts approximately 45 minutes), Wise steers the film back to the task at hand: to isolate and identify whatever viruses the satellite brought back. There were two survivors at the crash down site: an old alcoholic man, whose preferred drink is Sterno, and a months-old baby, crying his eyes out. So the doctors have two living subjects, as well as the satellite fragments to study.


Because no one knows how the virus is transmitted, much less an antidote, Wildfire is not only quarantined, but equipped with a nuclear bomb to detonate on premises and thus destroy the virus, if something should go horribly wrong. At each level of the lab, are locking devices to initiate the self-destruction. Only one person may have the key to abort the explosion, and Dr. Hall is chosen; in part, Dr. Dutton explains, because he is a single man. The microscopic research that ensues is another good opportunity for gizmo display (courtesy of Special Effects team, James Shourt and Douglas Trumbull, and set decorator Ruby R. Levitt). The total coverage, telescoping white lab suits and bubble head gear (by Costume Designer Helen Colvig), perhaps inspired by actual scientific garb, was no doubt an inspiration for the laboratory scenes in OUTBREAK and E.T.


For ANDROMEDA STRAIN, an unusually subtle suspense/disaster film, costuming like this is crucial to the story-telling, emphasizing the constant and imminent danger the Wildfire team is in. Petri dish samples are divided and magnified up to 100,000 times, until a microorganism is finally found. Looking like bread mold, clinging to a crevice of the satellite, is the virus: pulsing like a heartbeat and self-reproducing. Wildfire names it: The Andromeda Strain.


Act III
The Andromeda Strain kills its animal victims (humans and lab testees alike) by turning their blood to powder within seconds of contact. Farfetched, perhaps, but sufficiently horrifying that if Wildfire cannot produce a fail-safe cure or quarantine -- for an air-borne virus, not likely -- those nuclear bombs may detonate.


The film now focuses on the alcoholic and the baby; what shared conditions have rendered them both immune to the Strain? The scientists' eventual discovery plays out like a Holmes mystery, the conclusion is so simple it was not even considered. I won't reveal it here. And after Drs. Stone, Dutton, Hall, and Leavitt solve their mystery, they have an even more serious obstacle to overcome.


Although Wildfire is presented as rivaling NASA's space program in size and cost and pains-taking care, it (like all real-life government operations) is not totally fool-proof. The nuclear detonator is automatically activated, due to a false contamination signal, and will go off in five minutes.


These five minutes, filmed in real time (taking an actual five minutes to watch), bring THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN to a pulsing conclusion. Dr. Hall's race to override the detonation system is a truly suspenseful, nightmarish sequence. Chemical gases are emitted into the Wildfire atmosphere, to tranquilize the unfortunate prisoners, each level is sequentially sealed off, as crucial seconds tick away. The chaos and emotion mount exponentially, in the face of so much preceding order and methodical behavior.

 

Cosmictraveler...

I am sure this isnt an Andromeda strain, k. Someone had to report this incident and survived to report it for a long time.

 

Maybe a drunk Inca?? :shrug:

 

Could be completely unrelated, you know how these superstitious people are.

 

Saw a meteor strike...

got all fearfull and ate lots of beans with pesticides

gave the beans to policemen...those got sick and villagers got sick

 

True... Reminds me of the Tunguska explosion. I heard of reports of a 'plague' there, which our best guesses now say was smallpox.

 

Here's a pic: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=296907

 

LOL it crashed into mud. *SWOMP*
It was a fairly large one by the looks of it.

 

It looks rather tiny and also looks more like a bomb crater from the way the debris field is scattered all around it. Usually meteorites hit at various angles which aren't straight in like this is. The debris are usually thrown in one direction also.

 

Hmm I admit that crossed my mind too, a bomb.. :scratchin:
Tiny ? It's 30 meters across.

 

Yeah, there's always that.

Some people say it could be some toxic and radioactive old soviet or chinese satellite.

 

its an old american U.S toxic, radioactive satellite

 

When they showed The Andromeda Strain on TV in '71 or '72, it scared the crap out of me. I have to admit I thought of it when reading these reports. But I'm sure whatever is happening is being caused by something much more mundane that a virus from wherever that meteorite is from.

 

An alien virus has landed in Bolivia...Earth as we know of it faces a major Apocalypse!

 

Scores ill in Peru 'meteor crash'
Hundreds of people in Peru have needed 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.

A team of scientists is on its way to the site to collect samples and verify whether it was indeed a meteorite.

'Afraid'

"It [the object] is buried in the earth," local resident Heber Mamani told the BBC.

"That is why we are asking for an analysis because we are worried for our people. They are afraid. A bull is dead and some other animals are already sick," he said.

The incident began on Saturday night, when people near Carancas in the Puno region, some 1,300km (800 miles) south of Lima, reported seeing a fireball in the sky coming towards them.

The object then hit the ground, leaving a 30m (98ft) wide and 6m (20ft) deep crater.

The crater spewed what officials described as fetid, noxious gases.

An engineer from the Peruvian Nuclear Energy Institute told the AFP news agency no radiation had been detected from the crater and ruled out the fallen object being a satellite.

Renan Ramirez said: "It is a conventional meteorite that, when it struck, produced gases by fusing with elements of the terrain."

The gases are believed to have affected the health of hundreds of people who visited the site.

Most of the victims have been complaining of headaches, vomiting and nausea.

Honorio Campoblanco, one of Peru's leading geologists, called on the authorities to stop people going near the crash site.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7001897.stm

Published: 2007/09/19 05:39:36 GMT

© BBC MMVII