Mysterious fireballs fall from South American skies leaving authorities baffled

Peruvian villagers were stunned after they witnessed three massive fireballs crash down from skies over South America.

Mystified locals near the city of Puno discovered three separate craters caused by the unidentified objects on January 27.

Pictures from the scene show how impact from the objects, which appear to be man-made, caused small craters to form in the neigbouring countryside.

Earlier, images posted to social media showed a massive fireball as it flashed in front of thousands of stunned onlookers across the Andes region, from Tinga Maria in Peru to the Brazilian state of Acre.

Peru's Air Force said on Tuesday that the objects could have been the result of a SL-23 rocket re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, and claimed that the three objects were in fact fuel tanks from a satellite.

However, the exact cause has stumped experts, with some offering differing explanations for the incident.

Romulo Barros, fire chief of Brazil's Cruzerio de Sul region, said he was told by the nation's Navigation Centre that the object was probably a meteorite as no aircraft had flown in the area that day.

However, Alejandro Fonesca, a meteorologist from the Universidade Federal do Acre, told AFP that no meteorites were predicted to fall that day. According to his analysis, the objects were most likely space debris, or unused human-made objects that float near the earths atmosphere in space.

He said:: "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."

Police have warned curious locals to stay away from the object as it may be radioactive, one report claimed.