Earth is having a block party. Didn't you get an invitation? Asteroids often whizz by us, usually one at a time and usually with a day or more to space them out. (Oo, a pun!) Most of them are pretty small and far enough away that there's no real threat of impact. These visitors are called NEOs (Near Earth Objects) and NASA's JPL tracks them.

Reckon I know a little more about what Xan and Ghost and I may be working at now, since I checked out the NEO Close Approach list. It showed 17 asteroids traveling in our immediate neighborhood from Oct 2 - Oct 11. Very high traffic. The biggest will come closest on the 9th, the next three in size will be closest on the 10th. Actually, to me it looks a lot like what I'd call a mongolian clusterf__k.

[For comparison: Highest number of close approach NEOs in a single month from 1981 through 2004 - 14 in November 2004. Yes, 14 for the whole month vs 17 within 10 days. (search criteria: H<=20, Nominal Distance <=0.2AU)]

Now none of the 17 are as big as Toutatis, nor will they pass as close. Individually, they wouldn't cause much disturbance at all, but like this, well... They're bound to have an effect on the Earth's EMF, crust, and possibly even ocean/air currents. Lots of extra pushing and pulling going on, erractically at that. Lots of little electromagnets playing around this big one where we live.

Gonna have to try to equalize the pools and spikes of energy, maybe open some gates and lay down pathways, ie make channels for it to overflow into so it doesn't build up in the already active dangerous places (Cascades, Pacific Northwest), or flow to other currently inactive, but potentially dangerous places (Yellowstone).

Yeah, I'd say it could get really interesting in the near future. Hard to guesstimate exactly what effects we'll get, and where, and when. We had a big hurricane season last year. Toutatis came closest on September 29 2004. The monster Indonesian quake happened on December 26 2004, and another on March 28 2005. So, the ripples could take a while. Remember, it's a rather big bowl of jello.