Could an alien infection cause a pandemic on earth? As spacecraft leave our atmosphere to investigate the possibility of life on Mars, some experts fear that one could bring back a harmful sample from Mars, which could endanger mankind.

One astronomer has gone a step further. He believes that pandemics in the past have been caused by comet dust falling into the earth’s atmosphere and that the Influenza of 1918, which killed between 50 and 100 million people, was one such outbreak. He claims that another ‘alien infection’ could decimate the world's population.

Throughout history, alien infections have cut a swath of fear and panic through society, on every continent and in every century. Time and again, mysterious microbes, transmitted from one continent to another, have decimated native populations. Columbus brought syphilis back to Italy and Cortez carried smallpox to the Indians of Mexico. For centuries, the medical community has battled these diseases, slowly gaining ground. Ironically, as mankind has become more equipped to fight these scourges with vaccines and antibiotics, advances in technology and increased travel have served to accelerate their spread.

The most fatal pandemic in history was the Influenza of 1918. It began in September of that year, when a mysterious virus struck simultaneously on distant continents. Cases were reported in Boston and Bombay on the same day. Within two weeks, the virus ravaged other American cities. Health authorities were unprepared to respond to its spread. Strangely, it was the young and the healthy who were the hardest hit. As corpses piled up in the streets, panic ensued. Those who survived referred to the epidemic as the Spanish Influenza but in reality, no one had any idea of its origin.

Mysteries have surrounded the Spanish Influenza ever since it disappeared in the spring of 1919. In the 1950s, a pathologist tried to grow cultures of the ‘flu from corpses buried in the frozen ground of Alaska. It was not until the 1990s that a molecular pathologist was able to sequence its genes and prove that it had transferred from birds to man. Scientists are now racing against time to develop a vaccine that will protect people against another virulent bird ‘flu.

One astronomer states that birds were not the initial source of the 1918 ‘flu, claiming that virus epidemics come from the dust of comets, as did the Spanish Influenza. He predicts the next global pandemic to be only a few years away.

As far-fetched as this may sound, the theory that comets contain microorganisms has been documented in recent years by the Stardust Mission. In fact, recent discoveries on Earth and on Mars have raised new questions about the ability of life to survive in harsh environments. Astrobiologists are now poised to bring Mars samples back to earth to examine them in a Bio 4 level safety laboratory. Just as Columbus once inadvertently carried disease back to his native land, NASA scientists are aware that anything brought back from Mars could be hazardous to the biosphere. Great care is being taken to insure that the earth is not contaminated and that mankind is not endangered.

In the hypothetical future disaster scenario, we track how comet dust would seed the earth with a virulent virus. Birds would be the first to ingest virus particles and spread the disease across the planet. We track the disaster as it could spread through the Washington DC area, causing the closure of schools, business and government. Quarantine measures would not work and panic would ensue. Bodies would pile up in morgues, mass graves would be dug and the new ‘flu would claim over a million American lives.