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``In a letter to the British medical journal The Lancet, Chandra Wickramasinghe, from Cardiff University in Wales, and other scientists, propose that SARS may have originated in outer space then fallen down to Earth and landed in China, where the outbreak began ...
The idea may not be as outlandish as it first appears. One hundred tons (90 metric tons) of space debris fall on Earth every day; some scientists believe as much as one ton (0.9 metric ton) of bacteria [or micro-organisms in general] from space is part of that daily deposit.
Particles carrying the SARS virus could have come from a comet, the researchers say, and released into the debris trail of the comet's tail. The Earth's passage through the stream would have led to the entry of the culprit particles ...''
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``LONDON -- A virus similar to the deadly Ebola virus might have caused the "Black Death" that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1670, UK-based researchers say.
Their findings, which challenge the established theory that a bacterium caused the plague, suggest that a similar outbreak could happen again, with devastating consequences ...
After examining reports of symptoms, symptom timing, and autopsy evidence that victims' internal organs had disintegrated, Dr. Scott and Dr. Duncan suggest that hemorrhagic plague may have been caused by a virus that is distantly related to Ebola ...''
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``REVIEW of an ARTICLE BY RICHARD STOTHERS from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Research, 3-30-00 ...
As early as the 16th century, the poet Thomas Nashe in the midst of a British plague lamented, "From winter, plague and pestilence, good Lord, deliver us!"
In fact, it is now recognized that wet, chilly weather stimulates the reproduction of the deadly bacterium that causes bubonic and pneumonic plague ...
Not all plague pandemics, however, can be traced to large volcanic eruptions. This is not surprising, since prolonged wet, chilly weather can arise from other natural causes. Although the Black Death of 1348 in Europe is a case in point, this major exception is practically unique ...''
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``At least five times during the last 6,000 years, major environmental calamities undermined civilizations around the world. Some researchers say these disasters appear to be linked to collisions with comets or fragments of comets such as the one that broke apart and smashed spectacularly into Jupiter ...''
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New Light on the Black Death
``Over the years doubts have been expressed about the accepted view that the Black Death was caused by bubonic plague. By looking at the evidence of tree-rings and ice cores, Mike Baillie, Professor of Dendrochronology at Queen's University, Belfast, has identified a series of natural catastrophes at the beginning of the fourteenth century, caused by meteor strikes.
On the basis of the current scientific evidence and of contemporary accounts of the nature and spread of the disease, he is convinced that the disease was air-borne, not carried by rats. This fascinating book reveals the detective work that led to this revolutionary conclusion ...''
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``The End of Clovis ...
ScienceDaily (July 3, 2008) -- Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North America -- when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase of extinction for animals and humans -- to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid explosion over top of Canada ...''
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`` David Keys, Catastrophe, PBS documentary 1999
Professor Hammer's team is testing a new Greenland core from the 530's AD that has just arrived at their laboratory. If pieces of a comet or asteroid had exploded in the atmosphere the team would expect to find traces of rare chemical elements like iridium.
If there had been a massive volcanic eruption, however, they would expect an excess of sulphuric acid - the telltale signature of a volcano. What will the ice reveal - cometary debris or volcanic sulphates [or both, for example ammonium ions from a comet]?
"What is important, I'll show you here it's the sulphuric acid and actually these huge amounts of sulphate here and lasting several years and clearly higher than anything else in this part of the record corresponds exactly to this around 535. So there's no doubt there is a major eruption."
--Catastrophe, PBS 2000 ...''
[Could it be a volcano and a comet at the same time?]
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