The Synapse Connections of a lifetime

Was surprised by a news in yahoo today:

Mon Sep 17, 11:23 PM ET

LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

Could this be an alien contact? 1000 different ideas coming past my mind! The thing that caught my attention the most is the last line in the article about boiling water and stuff, there's also a strange 'odor'.

So why do the people there fall sick? It can be a totally unrelated incident, but it can also be due to some toxic materials from the meteorite. More interesting though, can it be due to some bacteria that were sitting in the meteorite?

If it's the third possibility, then it'll hit the scientific community like mad. It'll mean that there's an alien lifeform in it, like science fiction.

What's happening there? I want to know!