Meteorite Illness May Be Collective Psychosis

The experts pretty well agree that there was no radiation from the meteorite that struck the little hamlet in Peru last week, leaving a big crater, an unpleasant smell and terrified villagers.  Many people reported feeling ill with headaches and nausea after going to see the site but the chief of the health department in Puno, the nearest city to the location, says the sickness is likely a kind of collective psychosis resulting from fear. 

Things are settling down a bit now and the villagers are back on their feet trying to figure out a way to benefit from the event.  At first, they were looking for pieces of the meteorite that they could sell.  Then they announced they were going to dig up the meteorite and put it on display but experts told them there may be no more of the rock left than the tiny piece already found at the site.  And now some are thinking big.  Perhaps the whole thing could become a tourist site with a small museum - a kind of side trip for visitors heading to Lake Titicaca and Bolivia.  It seems that what started out as a collective psychosis may become a collective profit opportunity. - Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21