The Andromeda Strain! Oh Noes! D:

[Alondro]

Ack!  Diseases from space have come!  We're all doomed! D:

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

I wonder.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

heh. I doubt it, somehow.

Possibly something like a noxious gas given off by the boiling crater. That certainly seems more likely to me.

[Jim Halisstrad]

Between this and the radiation leak in Japan there better be some giant monsters soon or I'ma going to be very disappointed.

[Alondro]

Yeah, I think the reports of boiling water coming out of the crater are a clue.  It might have hit a toxic waste dump or something.   

But no!  I DEMAND space diseases!  Must have chaos and doom for humanity! 

[Turnsky]

"and slowly, but surely, they drew their plans against us" 

[Alondro]

Nice "War of the Worlds" quote there.

I have the book!   

[Turnsky]

Nice "War of the Worlds" quote there.

I have the book!   

i have the Jeff Wayne musical version on CD.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I have neither, have never heard the version they played on the radio, haven't read the book in probably 17 years, and still managed to recognise the quote.

I must be a geek. ;-]

[Alondro]

*nods*  Yes, you are.  But then, I still recognize it after a decade, so I'm not far behind!

Anyway, another possibility is that this meteorite punched into an underground lake filled with high concentrations of sulfuric acid and hydrogen sulfide.  That would explain an odd smell that made people ill, not to mention whatever other compounds could be formed from that mix from the heat of the impact.

[Fuyudenki]

Yeah, I think the reports of boiling water coming out of the crater are a clue.  It might have hit a toxic waste dump or something.   

But no!  I DEMAND space diseases!  Must have chaos and doom for humanity! 

You work in a biology lab.  Of COURSE you'd want that, they'll be running to you to fix the problem!

hey, look, free funding.

[TheGreyRonin]

Between this and the radiation leak in Japan there better be some giant monsters soon or I'ma going to be very disappointed.

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, Jim Halisstrad FTW.

(Gamera! Yay!)

[xHaZxMaTx]

I was going to say this reminded me of that one book by Michael Crichton, but I couldn't remember the name of it, so I looked it up on Wikipedia - The Andromeda Strain.

[Zedd]

I wonder if we would horidly mutate

[Alondro]

Some people think now that the crater was geological in origin, a guyser.  However, while there is certainly a big puddle in the crater, it is not boiling now, and that hypothesis doesn't take into account numerous eyewitnesses who saw meteor fall.  The odds of a bollide (exploding meteor) coinciding with a totally random geothermal explosion is almost impossibly small.

Not to mention, the crater picture that I've seen doesn't look at all like a water/mud eruption from below.  No, I stick my hypothesis that the meteor punched into water underground that's either contaminated with pollutants that were vaporized into noxious gasses or the water itself had high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide and sulfuric acid, both of which can cause serious illness if inhaled.  A hot metal meteor under the water would naturally cause the boiling that was seen, and also explain why it is no longer boiling, as it has cooled.

If that is the case, it will be known once the crater is excavated, because the meteor will still be there.

UPDATE:  Seems to be a meteor, but there's still debate as evidence points to a stony type, which shouldn't have made it down intact. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070919_ap_meteorite_peru.html