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One August morning in 2019, a widow in her 70s drove in silence with her two adult children to a hospital in New

Brunswick, Canada. Although it was a beautiful summer morning, the mood in the car was somber.

The previous winter, the woman's husband and the father of her children had suddenly lost

his mind and died. It had been almost like he was in the grips of an extremely fast-moving

case of Alzheimer's.

His mind and body had declined so quickly, ravaged by this frightening and mysterious disease.

By the end of May that year, the woman's husband was dead, leaving her and her children both shattered and confused by what they had just witnessed.

But the worst part of it was they didn't even know what disease

had killed him. His doctor had a pretty good guess, but he wouldn't be sure until an autopsy was

performed. And so now, two months later, and after an autopsy was done, the family was going to

meet with that doctor about what he discovered. Once the woman and her children were settled in

the doctor's office, he got straight

to the point. Unfortunately, the autopsy had been inconclusive. Her husband had died from an

unknown illness. But before the widow could say a word, the doctor told her that wasn't all. In digging

through the hospital's records, the doctor had discovered 20 other patients in just the past few years who were diagnosed with symptoms that were very similar to her husbands.

So whatever this disease was, it was not isolated.

But the strange thing was, beyond their geographic proximity, there was nothing connecting these patients.

Not age, not lifestyle, nothing, which left the doctor

with a chilling but inescapable conclusion. Something where these people lived was responsible

for making them sick, but the doctor had no idea what it could be.

...