A bit worrying...

A "meteor" strike, a pit and a noxious gas felling animals and people - just wait until that "meteor" unscrews and the tripod death machines and heat ray come into action...

Only a .001% chance

Now we know what happened to that nuclear powered refrigerator they chucked out of the space station a couple months ago.

Phone Quatermass

And look sharp about it.

Dee Dee, you have ruined my experiment

"just wait until that "meteor" unscrews and the tripod death machines and heat ray come into action..."

Or perhaps the Peruvian authorities will find that this meteorite is filled with dessicated Martian insects, at which point the people of Peru will break into two factions - one psychic, the other not - and there will be a catastrophe that can only be solved with a big crane.

@Jon

Please don't let them say the fireball was green...

A Prelude To Invasion?

"...intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us."

Be Warned....

'The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one he said'

He was wrong obviously

Seriously though, this is quite concerning, if this thing has created a large crater, one has to wonder whether anything is in its slipstream...

Title

..."Yuri, how many times do I have to tell you goddamit....DON'T flush the Space Station toilet unless you can see the sea beneath us!" .....remember the memory aid?....No See Sea, no Pee Pee...

Sounds less like a meteorite...

...and more like a de-orbited satellite, to me.

When will this war end?

Those wascally terrorists, they are evening using meteorites now! When did they get a space capability? How is GWB going to protect us from this? Does this mean we won't be able to take Moonrocks onto planes anymore? Arrgh, I hate those terrorists!

800 miles south of Lima?

"According to the BBC, the impact occurred on Saturday night near Carancas in the Puno region, around 800 miles (1,300km) south of Lima."

In which case they are missing the bigger story, as Carancas, which used to be in the Andes, near the border with Bolivia, now appears to be in the Pacific Ocean.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl&q=peru

The chances of anyone coming from Mars are a million to one, he said...

“No-one would have believed, in the first years of the twenty first century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No-one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes; and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us.”

@Jon

If you're right, then we have nothing to worry about..

If they planned to land in Horsell Common and instead ended up in Peru, then I'll take a wild stab and say they don't belong to the higher intelligence sort of E.T...

Don't you just love the smell of Kryptonite in the morning?

I hope for sure they have an armed guard on it. What a loss to boffins and boffinry it would be.

Close encounters

In "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", the government closed off the area around the landing site by claiming leak of poisonous gasses -- and showed off dead cows to "prove" it. This sounds remarkably similar.

So, obviously, we have an impending landing in Peru. It is probably the return of the Inca gods (who, we all know, were aliens from space). :-)

Wait for the claims

If it had fallen in the UK I am sure that someone would have already appointed a lawyer to act for them as a result of the pain, agony and torture of being made, supposedly, ill from having the meteor land near them.... Problem is, who do you serve the writ upon??

WMD

Bush,

we've found them, invade, kill 'em, kill, Kill, KILL, KILL.....civilian casualties, f**k 'em, they have oil. Wahoooo..

Where is amanfrommars when you need him?

Aside from the title, the "Noxious Fumes" would be fuming nitric acid IF it were space junk (an oxidizer often used in satellite thruster jets). If not and it is a meteorite, the fumes could very well be ammonia, a chemical thought to be found in ice form in comets and asteroids. Ammonia is also considered to be one of the precursor chemicals for the building blocks of life.

Alien: Take me to your leader!

Peruvian: Better take a bath first...you smell like pee!

Alien: Do you think you smell any better? Ammonia is what I breathe.

Peruvian: Here's an Altoid then. I'll get me hat and coat!

Virus

The killer virus is here, it's just a matter of time now, 9 years should be enough to propagate it to the rest of the world. At least the house prices will drop.

Hey guys its a piece of a comet...

Throw in a chunk of water ice mixed with ammonia and other noxious stuff...

there's your answer. I wouldn't be surprised if bigger things don't come along...

Hurling rocks at us?

Surely "Starship Troopers" coming true?

I, for one, will welcome our alien arachnid overlords...

Meteorite?

The heinz corporation has alot to answer for

The Colour Out Of Space

by HP Lovecraft. Brrr.

Fridge or Satellite?

Could be the Chinese weather satellite what was blown up recently. Yet another toxic Chinese import!

But I thought those items were actively tracked on radar?

Perhaps it is the return of the Mayan (Martian?) overlords; according to the Coptic calendar it's only just now the year 2000...

@Surely "Starship Troopers" coming true?

Then they are poor shots as they missed Buenos Aires. But then thats a good thing as half of my in-laws are there.

It was a whale...

It was a large whale that was just starting to contemplate its own existence when it hit the ground. Pulverized whale would make anyone sick.

Re: It was a whale

Erm... has anyone thought of checking for a suspicious-looking bowl of petunias? We might be on to something big here.

K

Re: It was a whale

"Erm... has anyone thought of checking for a suspicious-looking bowl of petunias? We might be on to something big here."

Oh No. Not Again!

Another virus

Could be a new virus from earth that's been hidden away in the Andes for millions of years and has all of a sudden been stirred up by the impact. I wonder where these virii come from, whether they were always there and have gradually been discovered as man explores more of earth (cuts down more trees), or whether they are extra-terrestrial or even whether they originated from the laboratories of our pharmaceutical companies....to get all serious ;p. Any biochemist/tinfoil hat-wearing types like to enlighten me?

DVB - Deadly Virus Beacon?

Could this be what those Freeview boxes were summoning a couple of years back?

@ Vladimir, pctrechxp, Chris et al.

One thing we can be sure of - this invasion is gonna have a f**king kick-arse soundtrack!

Cue Justin Haywood...

Let's stay up all night reading these books again...

'The Andromeda Strain'. Perfectly applicable.

'Level 7' by Mordecai Roshwald. Concerned with nuclear war, not intergalactic hazardous waste - but interesting just the same.

Re: Hurling rocks at us?

Somehow, there were two things coming to my mind after reading this article. Well, three.

1 - War of the Worlds (the novel, and the 2006 movie which is closer to the novel): I'd watch out if the meteor's unscrewing. Could the gas be the "Black Smoke" ???

2 - I wonder if it came from Klendathu. (Starship Troopers)

3 - Close encounters of the 3rd kind: Because of those toxic fumes ...

@ Daniel

"Could the gas be the "Black Smoke" ???"

Precisely what I was inferring at the beginning :-) (Happy Birthday, smiley)

@A bit worrying...

Well, I wouldn't worry too much. They'll probably succumb to the flu (or SARS, or JE, or Mad Cow) after 2 months or so.

@Jon Tocker

Ulla! Ulla!

Breaking out my War Of The World album.......

Ahhhhhh Richard Burton does a fine job narrating.....

another book

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress comes to mind as well.

@Andy Gibson

The bugs wiped out Buenos Aires in "Starship Troopers". It was the Loonies in "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" who threw rocks at Earth.

Both of those

were Damn fine books. The Starship troopers movie was a different movie with the same name... I just hope a GOOD director does Heinlein justice when converting his books.