10 Outrageous Movie Plots That Actually Happened

6. The Andromeda Strain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMbSpnlOOtE Classic 1970s sci-fi movie The Andromeda Strain revolves around a satellite that crashes to Earth, bringing with it some interstellar germs which start killing people in a small American town. In 2007, life imitated art when a meteor crashed in Peru, and soon enough anyone who visited the scene started to become ill, complaining of headaches and often vomiting, having inhaled some form of noxious substance. Was this illness caused by a space-poison? Not quite; it's believed that the meteor's reaction with the ground caused toxins like sulphur to disperse into the air from their usually dormant state in the ground. While that explanation seems reasonable, given the comparison to the aforementioned paranoia-fused sci-fi film, it's not hard to imagine that perhaps the government were just saying this to keep us calm. Granted, nobody died from the illness - at least as far as we know - but it's still pretty discomforting.