Known as the Carancas meteorite, the fall happened on September 15, 2007.  The Peruvian locals observed a fireball with a smoking tail crash into the ground to the border of Bolivia and near Lake Titicaca.  There was a strong explosion that that shattered windows over a half a mile away.

By January, 2008 the prestigious  Meteoritical Society, International  Society for Meteoritics and Planetary Science declared it officially; it was a meteorite.  This means that specimens can be bought and sold as a meteoritic with confidence.

However it was not your usual meteorite.  Usually fragile stony meteorite will break up on entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.  It is highly unusual that it would hold together long enough to impact as it did.

The impact drew curious onlookers and those who came close including investigative officials became unusually sick with systems that varied widely from nausea to dermal injuries and some experienced headaches, diarrhea and vomiting.  Puno’s health official, Jorge Lopez, reported that he had an irritated throat and itchy nose after visiting the site.  Locals reported that their animals lost their appetites and bled from their noses and one bull died. Children were restless and cried through the night.

This was unusual since meteorites do not contain substances that would cause such  illnesses. The meteorite made a crater roughly circular with a 44 ft diameter.  It filled with boiling water and spewed a fetid noxious gas which is unusual for a meteorite. The fast speed the meteorite was traveling is unusual since Peter Schultz, Professor at Brown University,  believes that the meteorite was travelling at about 15,000mph at the moment of impact a speed supported by the fact that minerals had changed to glass because of the high impact. Yet a slow speed of the meteorite was purposed by Dr. Thomas Kenkmann, from Humboldt University in Germany, who believes that the meteorite was probably travelling at low speed and a slanting angle.

When Gonzalo Tancredi, astronomer, traveled to the site and interview witnesses, he was told that a large mushroom cloud formed over the crater and that there was a compression waves that knocked villagers to the ground.  He also found ejected rock pieces over an area the size of three football fields and one piece that pierced the roof of a barn 100 meters away.

Michael Farmer, international meteorite dealer, observed a fine white dust covering the ground.

There also seems to be some aversion to digging up the meteorite which if it is truly is one would be very valuable.  

Therefore in the minds of many experts, what happened in Peru is not an open a shut case of a meteorite in spite of its official designation.

The incident can also be the result of ball lightning and a gamma ray burst.