It is Canadian Thanksgiving day and USA Columbus day. Let us indulge then in one of the stranger blog postings of the past week on mining. The crux of the story is the find of many mummies in Chile–all dead from mercury poisoning.
Seems everyone in this ancient tribe was mummified. There are many more mummified babies than statistics would indicate reasonable, even in a primitive place. The reason:
The massive amounts of baby mummies were believed to be the result of mercury poisoning which is very high in Chile. Mercury poisoning the waterways is common in copper mining areas, especially long ago when no one understood the environmental ramifications.
Wikipedia tells us this about the mummies:
The Chinchorro mummies are mummified remains of individuals from the South American Chinchorro culture found in what is now northern Chile and southern Peru. They are the oldest examples of mummified human remains, dating to thousands of years before the Egyptian mummies. They are believed to have first appeared around 5000 B.C. and reaching a peak around 3000 B.C. Often Chinchorro mummies were elaborately prepared by removing the internal organs and replacing them with vegetable fibers or animal hair. In some cases an embalmer would remove the skin and flesh from the dead body and replace them with clay. Shell midden and bone chemistry suggest that 90% of their diet was seafood. Many ancient cultures of fisherfolk existed, tucked away in the arid river valleys of the Andes, but the Chinchorro made themselves unique by their dedicated preservation of the dead. The Chinchorro mummies are significant because during the periods of these mummies, everyone who died was mummified, including children, new-borns and fetuses.
This is well & good; informative, even feasible. The blog posting then goes of the rails when it asks a question related to an obeservation that there are, even now, many reported sightings of UFOs in the area:
Are the sightings of UFOs and alien-like creatures a sign of mercury poisoning and issues with the mental state of the locals, especially those who live close to the mines and drink water that’s been corrupted by mercury?
I have no belief in UFOs aliens etc., except in Hollywood movies including District 9. The theory that mining-related contamination is the cause of reported UFOs is unique. Considering all the mines around Johannesburg, it may explain why the aliens decided to land at District 9, or for that matter maybe the whole movie is a true story about the hallucinations of a whole populace affected by proximity to mines.
You have the whole holiday to contemplate this one. No prizes for the answer.
