We Live In A Science Fiction Movie

[phee]

I am waiting for the green plants to eat Steven King next: Meteor Sickness

[ttogreh]

Boiling water? It sounds like the meteor may have landed in a place that had some vulcanism, or triggered a minor volcanic event. A fould odor could be sulphur...

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

could be... or it could have a high sulfer content along with all that iron (but sulfer gas kills you or at least burns your lungs.. making you cough alot)... or it could be radioactive gas released by the extremely high temp it got to during descent (head aches and nausea are two signs of radiation sickness)... or maybe it was just hysteria... or, it's a micro-organism with a collective consciousness that is about to take over the world with mindless zombies.

[ttogreh]

Meteor Zombies sounds like a really shitty '80s garage band...

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Tribe of Radioactive Mindless Meteor Zombies

[know_buddy_kares]

I like your idea that it may be radiation from the friction of entering our atmosphere... the boiling water is rather odd... however that makes it less likely that it could be something living from outterspace. Temperatures that extreme to cause water to boil naturally like that should kill off any micro organizms that are in that area whether unearthed by the crater or came on the meteor (if the decent through our atmosphere didn't burn them off then we're fucked) I'm sure it's possibly some chemical reaction, possibly radiation...