On what
started as a normal Saturday night one week ago, residents of a small, remote
Peruvian town saw a bright light streak across the sky, heard a resounding bang
and suddenly found themselves at the center of a media frenzy.
Initial suspicions
of an airplane crash quickly spiraled into widespread
reports that a meteorite had plummeted to Earth and left a smoking, boiling
crater whose supposedly noxious fumes were reported to have sickened curious
locals who went to peer at the hole.
Despite
doubts expressed by geologists that the crater was actually caused by a
meteorite and firm explanations that a meteorite would not even emit fumes and
that the "sickness" was likely a case of mass hysteria, numerous
onlookers far and wide were fascinated by the idea that this event could be
some real-life "Andromeda Strain" (the 1969 novel by Michael
Crichton), where a mysterious rock falling to Earth from outerspace made anyone
who went near it ill.
So what is
it about things falling from the sky that fills us with such fear that we can
make ourselves sick with panic?
Mass
hysteria
Media
reports of the number of locals afflicted by a "mysterious disease"—with
symptoms such as nausea, headaches and sore throats—after visiting the crater figured
in every news article about the Sept. 15 event, with some reporting that as many
as 600 people had fallen ill.
But doctors
who visited the site told the Associated Press they found no evidence that the
crater had actually sickened such a large number of people.
If noxious
fumes did emanate from the crater, they were most likely the result of a
hydrothermal explosion that could have actually formed the crater, or were
released from the ground when the meteorite struck, if in
fact one did, according to many geologists.
Arsenic is
found in the subsoil in that area of Peru and often contaminates the drinking
water there, according to Peruvian geologists quoted on Sept. 21 by National
Geographic News. Arsenic fumes released from the crater could have sickened
locals who went to look, said one geologist who examined the site.
Some health
officials suggest that the symptoms described by the locals, the large number
of people reporting symptoms, and the apparently rapid spread have all the
hallmarks of a case of mass hysteria.
"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.
This
psychosis could have begun as a result of fear of the meteorite and the
mysterious "disease" on the part of the residents and spread as
official and media reports seemed to confirm it and give it credence.
"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. "The major[ity] of
the affected Peruvian town hinted that some of the mass anxiety is due to fear
of imminent impacts and psychological stress which is not surprising given the
premature speculation and media hype."
Fear of
outer space
Fear of a
meteorite impact is nothing new—humans have long looked to the heavens with a
wary eye.
"The
fear of cosmic disaster, in particular cometary impacts, has existed in all
cultures for millennia," Peiser told SPACE.com
But the
space age revealed just how
many dangers, including comets, meteors, asteroids, and cosmic rays, await
us in the final frontier.
"Only
since the late 20th century, humankind has become aware of the risk posed by
asteroids and comets," Peiser said. "Unfortunately, this risk has
been wildly exaggerated by popular culture."
Our
curiosity and fear of impact events has increased their coverage by the world
media, Peiser says, which in turn has increased the number of meteorite impact
reports, even when the evidence doesn't point that way.
"In
recent years, there have been numerous cases where alleged meteorite falls were
linked to mysterious explosions on the ground—only to be proven wrong,"
Peiser said. "One of the main reasons for the significant increase of such
claims is almost certainly due to the growing media interest in the cosmic
impact risk. It is part of human nature— and extremely tempting for the news
media—to hype any event that initially looks mysterious."
While this
fear is normal and understandable, it's been blown out of proportion so that
the public thinks that impact risks are higher than they are, Peiser argues.
"Most
people are simply not aware that we are making enormous progress in finding and
identifying the population of Near Earth Objects and that the impact risk is
thus diminishing year by year," Peiser said.
And when meteorites
have struck, they have never carried any hint of some mysterious space
disease.
"I
don't know of any known record of a meteorite landing that emitted odors so
noxious that people got sick from it," said geologist Larry Grossman of
the University of Chicago.
So much for
the Andromeda Strain.
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