Odd News

After the mysterious meteorite crashed near the Peruvian town of Carancas, a populated highland wilderness near Lake Titicaca on the border with Bolivia, almost 600 people have presented symptoms like nausea, headaches and sore throats. Soon mass hysteria was created around the meteorite after people reported that the meteorite emanated noxious gases. "Those who say they are affected are the product of a collective psychosis," Jorge Lopez Tejada, health department chief in Puno, the nearest city, told the Los Angeles Times. According to geologist there is no prove that the meteorite could cause the noxious fumes, and even the fact that it may not be a meteorite is still to discuss. According to witnesses, the ground was rapidly filled with ground water after impact and started to boil. Peter Schultz, a scientist from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. said that the crater looks like it was made in a water saturated soil. The meteor fragments that were found are described as being "fine grained, light grey, fragile rock material, with disseminated iron particles of one millimeter diameter." The exaggerate hysteria made amid the meteorite might seem to be a scenario from the famous novel in 1969 "Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton, where the main idea was that a mysterious rock falling to Earth from outerspace made anyone who went near it ill. "The Peruvian event seems to be a rare case where we may be witnessing collective anxiety that is approaching near hysteria," said Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at John Moores University in England.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070927/sc_space/meteoritecrashbreedsmasshysteria;_ylt=Ap9M3DIkAReQYt.mE4JjEm2s0NUE

by Delia Cruceru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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