A Story of a Rock that Glows & Screams

There is a rock sitting in the direct center of Antarctica. Eventually a scientist will spot it, because it is glowing green and is constantly screaming. The scientists will spend years and billions of taxpayer's dollars trying to figure out why this rock is screaming, but there simply will be no logical explanation. The rock defies all known physics. If you touch it, you will get a brand new undiscovered disease, but the rock will lower the volume of it's screaming and glow less intently.

People start to talk. What is this rock? Why is it screaming? How does it keep getting these diseases mankind has never heard of before?
Should we keep making people touch it?

It's crazy, of course, but we have to know. The government knows having someone touch it is a bad move, as they're already having to deal with 5 ebola-level outbreaks... But they have to know.
Chaos.

1 in 5000 people decide that they must touch the rock. They have to know. The rock gets put under heavy armed guard. War breaks out over who gets control of the rock. Eventually, people make it through. They touch the rock. And eventually, it stops screaming. The wars end. Everything stops. The rock has stopped screaming. It is completely normal rock-colour.

Someone's got a camera. The world watches as the rock sits there. Waiting.
The rock grows arms and legs, performs the "Ragtime Gal" song that frog sings, and promptly explodes with 20 Megatons of power.