The Carancas Impact
A fireball crashed near a village high in the Andes, leaving a crater of bubbling water and a smell that made people feel ill.
What was reported
Around midday on 15 September 2007, people near the village of Carancas, close to Lake Titicaca and the Bolivian border, saw a fireball and heard a loud explosion. A crater about 13 metres across appeared in a field and filled with boiling, bubbling water.
Villagers who went to look complained of headaches and nausea, and rumours spread of a mysterious illness. Some experts at first doubted it was a meteorite at all, because a stony meteorite that size was expected to break up high in the atmosphere.
Explanations offered
Fragments confirmed it was a stony meteorite, an ordinary chondrite. It surprised scientists by reaching the ground in one piece at high speed. The illness was most likely caused by gases from arsenic-bearing groundwater heated by the impact, or simply by fear.
- When
- 15 September 2007
- Where
- Carancas, Puno, Peru
- Witnesses
- Villagers near Lake Titicaca
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.