Don't Touch That!

Yesterday's electronic NY Times had this linked on it's front page:

On Saturday night [in Carangas, Peru], a fiery object fell from the sky. Stunned residents said they tracked it to a fresh hole in the earth that was more than 60 feet wide, 15 feet deep, filled with boiling water and steaming with noxious fumes, according to a statement from the Health Ministry.

And then people started getting sick: more than 150 reported symptoms like dizziness, vomiting and skin lesions, according to a government statement quoted by Bloomberg News.

Say WHAT?!

If you're thinking that this sounds just like The X-Files, you are not alone. That was my first thought, and Mike Nizza says the same thing in the first paragraph of his piece, an entry in his column, "The Lede."

And being the geek that I am, I can actually tell you the *exact* episode this relates to.

The X-Files, Season 4, Episode 11: "El Mundo Gira" (trans: "The World Turns"). Something explodes in the sky over a shantytown in southern California, followed by a microburst of hot, yellow rain. The rain ends up being an organic enzyme that catalyzes fungal growth; two brothers end up as carriers, mutated by the enzyme, who can cause mold growth on anything around them. They have become the chupacabra, or "goat-sucker," a mythical Latin American monster.

I'm not saying the chupacabra is about to start rampaging through Peru, but the events of this week are startlingly similar to this episode of my favorite 90's show. It's weird sometimes the life imitates art.

Am I seeing the parallel because the show itself pulled its ideas from strange headlines, and history often repeats itself? Or because it lucked upon prescience 10 years ago? Or because I tend to see everything in a way that relates to pop culture, specifically TV/Film?

Who knows.

But it's an interesting story regardless.

The original entry I read is here; and a follow-up by the AP is here.