This is going to make a great sci-fi movie!

There's a mystery illness making its way around an isolated Peruvian village and there seems to be a fair amount of evidence that it came from space!

Residents of the Carancas region of Peru near the Bolivian border have been flocking to the site of a meteorite that crashed through the atmosphere and landed on a plateau in the region. The subsequent crater measured some 20 metres wide and 7 metres deep and crashed to earth on the weekend,

Since then the locals have been developing a number of symptoms including, vomiting and headaches, irritated throats and itching noses.

Some 100 residents have complained of some of the symptoms so far, leaving officials to investigate further, so far they've been unable to see anything that might have caused the unusual health problems in the region.

But they're keeping an eye on the situation and like any good sci-fi thriller no doubt the townsfolk are keeping an eye on the crater as well, to see if anything should crawl out to make contact and maybe offer an aspirin.

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Update: The BBC website has upped the count of the sick to 600 and provided perhaps the quote of the day as far as travelling to meteorite infested holes "Honorio Campoblanco, one of Peru's leading geologists, called on the authorities to stop people going near the crash site.".

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Perhaps all things considered, a rather wise idea..