It's a plane! No, it's an Ufo! No, it's a uurr ow just a meteorite!

Oookey. I think it's not unlikely that those people actually did become ill because of the meteorite. I mean, why not? *sarcasm* All you need is some sort of extremely high temperature resistant bacteria or virus that hitchhiked to earth... *sigh*

(..or it was some sort of reaction on impact off course, "strange odors".)

Cheers