Death Fog Mystery

In August 1986 in Cameroon nearly 2000 people dropped dead (plus cattle too) dropped dead by Lake Nyos without any signs of struggle or injury. It was a mystery to say the least.

To make a long story short it was CO₂ that was the culprit. CO₂ normally gets released from lakes in small amounts, but in this case huge amounts of CO₂ were released from the bottom of the lake all at once. A person can take small amounts of CO₂ but not huge amounts--you suffocate.

Most scientists thought a volcano caused the deaths. Because survivors smelled volcanic gases and the non-survivors were burnt. But the evidence did not add up to that conclusion.

One scientist named Haraldur Sigurdsson came to the conclusion that CO₂ was the cause of the deaths from previous experience with similar deaths in 1984 in Cameroon with another lake. Eventually his theory was the correct one. The burns were caused from the freezing CO₂ aka dry ice. As for the smell of volcanic gases it was just an olfactory hallucination.

What's interesting about this incident is the psychology. The Cameroon gov't did not initially believe Sigurdsson because of the consensus of the other scientists who thought a volcano eruption caused the deaths. But good scientific investigation won out. As it should. Does this scenario sound familiar to you? (Hint: notice the italics)

As a side note, the EPA has plans to capture and store CO₂ deep underground. Er, okay.