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Confused muck, riddled with black holes of un-information.
Red flag in the very first sentence. A "rare kind of meteorite." Uh-huh.
The lead: "An object that struck the high plains of Peru on Saturday, causing a mysterious illness among local residents, was a rare kind of meteorite, scientists announced today."
The "team": "A team of Peruvian researchers" described as researchers for Peru's Mining, Metallurgy, and Geology Institute (INGEMMET). Bear in mind that Peru has one of the most corrupt governments in South America (currently kissing Bush's butt for "free trade" and "war on drugs" military aid). No more reason to trust their report than to trust Bush-dominated EPA or NASA.
The collaborator: "...a nuclear physicist **who collaborated with** the team" (my emphasis) avers that, "Numerous arsenic deposits have been found in the subsoils of southern Peru." The article writer continues (attribution fuzzy), "The naturally formed deposits contaminate local drinking water." This follows the article writer's statement that, "The meteorite created the gases when the object's hot surface met an underground water supply tainted with arsenic..." 1) Who is this "nuclear physicist" affiliated with? 2) Other articles have quoted local people as saying this is their drinking water supply--would they be drinking arsenic? why weren't they getting sick from the arsenic before? (--oh, cuz the meteorite fell on it, stirring shit up--that's their THEORY).
The number of sick people: This Peru "team" spokesman claims "30 people" were sick; all other articles have mentioned hundreds, as much as 600.
But were even these 30 really sick? The "mass hysteria" card: "The meteorite's impact sent debris flying up to 820 feet (250 meters) away, with some material landing on the roof of the nearest home 390 feet (120 meters) from the crater, Ishitsuka reported. // "Imagine the magnitude of the impact," (the "team" spokesman) said. "People were extremely scared. It was a psychological thing."
It was a "psychological thing."
Read on, if you want. The rest of it is similar (garbled, uninformative, quicksandy). I am not convinced. In fact, the "red flags" in this article make me even more suspicious. Could be a poorly written article. Could be a coverup of a pollution scandal, related to global corporate predator mining. Could be something even worse--coverup of U.S. bioweapons testing, or some other military scandal. (Big Bush doings in Peru re the phony U.S. "war on drugs," including Blackwater training camps, as in Colombia--the other Bush Cartel client state in South America.) Also, I have lots of reason to distrust National Geographic on U.S. Bush disinformation on South America. (They did a hit piece on Hugo Chavez.) All in all, the article arouses suspicion, rather than allays it.
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