Virus stored in an Atlantis science laboratory which attacks the body in the form of nanites. Its container was broken when a hurricane flooded that particular pier of the city.

The incubation period for the virus is precisely six hours. Any individual who has contracted it experiences identical visions of ghostly, horrific creatures advancing toward the person. Precisely six hours after the initial infection the person is killed by a ruptured saccular brain aneurysm above the visual cortex.

The Wraith did not create this technology, and for now it is not known who did. Fortunately, the nanites are unable to multiply, and individuals with the Ancient gene (or Ancient gene therapy) are unharmed. It is specifically designed to torture, and then kill, the ordinary human.

Like other nanites, the microscopic machines which control this technology are susceptible to deactivation by a large electromagnetic pulse, such as one caused by the detonation of an overloaded naquadah reactor.

KEY EPISODE

Hot Zone - While investigating a flooded pier of Atlantis Johnson and Wagner are infected by a hallucinatory virus that soon spreads to the rest of the survey team.