Residents in a Peruvian village have been left mystified after three strange, flaming spheres tumbled from the sky.
These huge objects fell to Earth on January 27, in the Andean region of Puno in southeastern Peru.
Villagers from the Larancahuani community were reportedly extremely frightened by this incident, dreading the thought of a potential meteorite impact.
Before the objects landed, social media had exploded with people sharing eerie footage of an enormous fireball cutting across the skies above Tingo Maria and Pucallpa – cities which are 115 miles apart.
The mysterious spheres are reportedly around two metres in diameter, weighing in at around 40 kilos.
Residents reported a scent of electrical welding at the site of impact and alerted the Peruvian Air Force (FAP) to the incident.
The unusual appearance of these objects has sparked rumours of a UFO sighting and since, the FAP have shared pictures of the debris in a bid to quell rumours of anything otherworldly.
The Peruvian Air Force have suggested the fiery incident could have been the re-entry of the SL-23 rocket – with the three spheres having been fuel tanks from a satellite.
Commander Pedro Palza from the Center for Aerospace Interests of the FAP told La Nacion:
According to the first analysis, it would be a fuel tank of a disused satellite,
We are talking about the part of a satellite that stopped operating. Commonly it is known as space junk.
Commander Palza stated a team is currently investigating the origin of the objects – which are made out of an extremely heat resistant metal – believing they could be Chinese, Russian or American.
Police officers have advised locals not to approach the spheres, warning they could be radioactive.
According to the Daily Express, Meteorologist Alejandro Fonesca, from the Universidade Federal do Acre stated there’d been no predictions of meteorites within the area in question.
Fonesca claims these strange spheres are either an old satellite or some other type of man made space litter – for example, satellites – stating:
When the debris enters the atmosphere it comes under intense friction and this causes it to set on fire. That is what could have happened?
Check out the weird incident for yourself in the following footage:
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Fonesca’s conclusions dispute the claims of Romulo Barros; fire service chief in the Brazilian municipality of Cruzeiro do Sul.
Barros asserts the local Navigation Centre had described the object as being ‘probably a meteorite.’
Furthermore, Barros says he believes the object had hit ground within the border region in-between the Brazilian state of Acre and Peru and how there’d been no international flights up in airspace around the time the incident took place.
Teams on both sides of the border are trying to figure out where precisely the object landed.
However, this may take some time because of the thick jungle within the area.
There’ve also been no reports of any crater sites.
Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.