Patronizing The Locals

Peruvian health officials don't understand why local-yokels reported noxious, sickening gas at the site of a meteorite impact recently. Some people blame 'mass hysteria':

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.

Pictures of the site showed water had accumulated in the crater, suggesting the site may have been a high-plateau wetland, or at least had a high-water table. Such locales often have soils with lots of sulfurous gas production - swamp gas - which could have been released upon a meteor's impact. It might have even been present in unhealthy or nauseating amounts.

Time to take the patronizing down a notch, or two, and look at the site in more detail and actually talk to the local-yokel 'mass hysterics'....