You would think I’d get tired of this story, but I don’t. [Earlier round-up]
This AP follows up a bit more on the whole thing, this time revisting a researcher who earlier believed the whole thing was a geological phenomena.
Other details don’t add up, they said — such as witness accounts of water in the muddy crater boiling for 10 minutes from the heat. Meteorites are actually cold when they hit Earth, astronomists say, since their outer layers burn up and fall away before impact.
Experts also puzzled over claims that 200 local residents were sickened by fumes from the crater. Doctors who examined them found no evidence of illness related to the meteorite, and one suggested a psychosomatic reaction to the sight and sound of the plunging meteor.
You would also think I’m tired of gloating, but I’m not. I called it. Allow my petty victory.
Doctors told an Associated Press Television News cameraman at the site that they had found no sign of radioactive contamination among families living nearby. But they said they had taken samples of blood, urine and hair to analyze.Peasants living near the crater said they had smelled a sulfurous odor for at least an hour after the meteorite struck and that it had provoked upset stomachs and headaches. But Ishitsuka said he doubts reports of a sulfurous smell.
Meteor expert Ursula Marvin said that if people were sickened, “it wouldn’t be the meteorite itself, but the dust it raises.”
A meteorite “wouldn’t get much gas out of the earth,” said Marvin, who has studied the objects since 1961 at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts. “It’s a very superficial thing.”
I’m going to risk wrapping this one up — case closed, game over. But mark my words, from years hence people will continue to refer to this as the meteorite that sickened 600 Peruvians.