Three Real World Versions of "The Colour Out of Space": Part 3 - The Shadow Under Gypsumville

Exhibit MET003: The Lake St. Martin's

Before we examine our last meteorite, let's note that Tentaclii has put together several scientific articles and news items from the time period Lovecraft wrote "The Colour Out of Space," as examples of the intellectual context for the tale. Go check it out.

Previously, we have examined two recent claims of meteorite strikes, and their unusual properties. The Red Rain of Kerala of 2001 may derive from an airburst meteor (though other research suggests it is just algae), with a handful of scientists suggesting it seeded the earth with extraterrestrial life forms. Three years ago, a meteor struck southern Peru, damaging nearby buildings and livestock, and resulting in villagers claiming illness after exposure to the fallen rock.

Our third case is of a much older meteorite, far older than humanity. And like the Colour that fell under what would become the Quabbin Reservoir outside of Arkham, Massachusetts, the Lake St. Martin Bolide has actually poisoned the groundwater of the rural residents of the small Canadian town of Gypsumville.

Roughly 230 million years ago, a large meteorite struck the earth, leaving a 24 km wide crater. This land is now in Manitoba, Canada, And that land is befouled. The place looks pretty blasted, though not exactly a heath (check out a visit by a geologist studying landing sites for Martian probes). Water there has unusually high concentrations of fluoride. The substance conjures up either visions of healthy teeth, or paranoid ravings of conspiracy theorists worried about the essence of their bodily fluids. But high intake of fluoride can actually cause "damage to teeth, softening of bones, calcified tendons and ligaments and neurological damage." It's not exactly the horror that befell the Gardner farm in "The Colour Out of Space," but there are some points of comparison.

The area is not heavily populated (check out impact and geological maps here)(and here). One resident of the region describes it as "barren stretches of boreal forest, inhabited only for resource exploitation or sheer force of habit." The people of two First Nations towns and the town of Gypsumville, would be ill-advised to drink the local groundwater, as it contains levels of fluoride above safety limits. A 2008 paper in the journal Geology demonstrates that the meteor strike broke up the local sediments through melting and shock, making them more susceptible to leaching, producing the toxic levels of fluoride. Simply put, a hidden deadly horror from outer space is reaching out from the vast depths of time to poison these backwoods communities.

In conclusion, visitors from outer space can (in addition to falling on your or exploding) poison you, possibly make you sick, and maybe propagate alien life on your planet.

Three Real World Versions of "The Colour Out of Space": Part 2 - The Horror at Carancas

Exhibit Met002: Fragment of the Carancas Meteorite.
Image by Meteor Recon (Wikicommons).

On special loan in Miskatonic Museum's Nahum Gardner Memorial Meteorite Gallery.
Yesterday, we viewed sample from the Red Rain of Kerala. Samples of the water show apparently biological elements that are considered by many researchers to be perhaps a local algae. But a handful of scientists argue that the water contains unearthly cells that reproduce at high temperatures and may have a chemical signature tying them to a planetary nebula. These researchers suggest the rain may contain material from an exploded meteorite.

Today we look at the second of our three real world cases that bring to mind H. P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space." Considered one of Lovecraft's finest works, this short story describes how rural residents and farmers outside of Arkham, Massachusetts became sick after a bizarre meteorite struck on their land, with tragic consequences.

In 2007, a scenario very much like "The Colour Out of Space" played out in Peru and on the global media stage. On September 15 of that year, a meteor impacted in southern Peru, near the Bolivian border. A large crater, some reports describe it as 30 meters wide, was soon filled with boiling water, with some video and testimony suggesting additional impact damage to buildings and livestock. After the impact, fumes (including sulfur) were reported from the area of the impact, and soon several hundred people complained of headaches and vomiting, including several police officers sent to take samples of the meteorite.


In addition to the meteor explanation, initial skeptical reports wondered if the phenomenon were geological, while conspiracy theories suggested it might be an American spy satellite. Neither turned out to be correct as further study pointed not just to a meteor, but a chondritic rocky meteor (as opposed to a more typical iron meteor, information here). Geologists, including several from Brown University (the model for Miskatonic University, and located in Lovecraft's home of Providence), confirmed that a meteor struck, and that it did indeed create shockwaves and damage nearby structures with flying debris. They also found that the meteors (it had broken up during atmospheric entry) struck the earth at extremely high speed. Papers by those researchers, as well as more photos of the fragments and the site can be found here.

They did not, however, find anything to point to the meteor or any physical cause for the reports of illness after the strike. They instead suggested psychosomatic illness resulting from panic after the impact. A great deal of dust and soot would have been kicked up and inhaled by people and animals, but initial suggestions that arsenic in the soil had sickened villagers have not been supported by evidence for sufficient doses of the metalloid.

This time, unlike "The Colour Out of Space," the scientists did repeated and thorough investigation, rather than dismissing the stories of rural farmers out of hand. But the possibly extraterrestrial source of the subsequent illness remains without a definitive answer in both cases.

Tomorrow, we explore The Shadow Under Gypsumville!

Three Real World Versions of "The Colour Out of Space": Part 1 - The Red Rains of Kerala

Exhibit MET001: Microscopic view of Kerala Red Rain sample
Image by V. Sasi Kumar (Wikicommons)

On special loan in Miskatonic Museum's Nahum Gardner Memorial Meteorite Gallery

Part 1 of 3

Of all his stories, H. P. Lovecraft considered "The Colour Out of Space" to be his best. Many critics agree that this tale, one of the subtler and more science fictional but still moody and atmospheric, is amongst his best. The story tells of a bizarre meteorite impact outside of Arkham, Massachusetts, and the subsequent ill effects on local residents exposed to the unknown substance or life form carried to earth from outer space.

The Miskatonic Museum specializes in pointing out parallels in real world scientific and historical occurrences between Lovecraft, his tales, and the Cthulhu Mythos he spawned. And "The Colour Out of Space" is one of the most fertile in this regard. Three examples come to mind.

The first does not directly involve the sighting or recovery of a meteorite. Nor does it involve any ill-effects to humans or livestock. But if a handful of researchers are correct, it is quite literally The Colour Out of Space. And it happens to be red. For two months in 2001, red rains fell over the state of Kerala in Southern India. This phenomenon has become known as the Red Rain of Kerala, and has become a sticking point in discussions of the hypothesis of panspermia. This concept holds that microscopic lifeforms could travel from world to world, being ejected from one planet, surviving vacuum in dormancy, and then possibly contaminating and prospering on a new planet. This would be similar to the claims, found elsewhere in the museum, of Martian fossils in a meteorite discovered in Antarctica. In the case of the Kerala red rains, a meteor would have exploded in the upper atmosphere, seeding the clouds with microbes from outer space. In addition to objections that debris from a meteorite would probably not continue to rain down for two months, rains of unusual color are not that uncommon, and can be produced by sandstorms, volcanic eruptions and other known natural phenomena.

Kerala Red Rain samples. Image by V. Sasi Kumar (Wikicommons)

In the case of the Kerala rains, samples of water were taken and subjected to various forms of analysis. Some of the reports describe red-colored biological cells, in some reports without the DNA that would be found in earthly bacteria (though the accuracy of this point has been disputed). In a recent paper, these cells are reported to reproduce at high temperatures (131 degrees Centigrade and possibly up to 300 degrees Centigrade), but not at room temperature.

The paper concludes that the cells fluoresce in a spectrum similar to hydrocarbons detected in the Red Rectangle Nebula. Obviously such amazing claims have engendered substantial skepticism. The Wikipedia entry on the Red Rains details many of the criticisms, including the likelihood that prior heavy rains in the region caused excessive growth of the orange-colored lichen Trentepohlia, and that or perhaps a rust fungus was responsible (a local algal source has been suggested, though not determined, by one of the primary proponents of the general hypothesis of panspermia). (EDIT: You can read or listen more about this explanation in a recent post/podcast at Skeptoid) Institutional full disclosure would have us note that in the case of the Quabbin Reservoir impact, as noted in "The Colour Out of Space," Miskatonic professors were equally skeptical of the Gardner meteorite, with tragic results.

Tomorrow, part 2: The Horror at Carancas