$ perl -le "binmode STDOUT; print chr($_) for 0 .. 43" > notperl.pl

$ perl notperl.pl
Unrecognized character \x01; marked by <-- HERE after <-- HERE near co
+lumn 1 at notperl.pl line 2.

$ perl -Mdiagnostics notperl.pl
Unrecognized character \x01; marked by <-- HERE after <-- HERE near co
+lumn 1 at
        notperl.pl line 2 (#1)
    (F) The Perl parser has no idea what to do with the specified char
+acter
    in your Perl script (or eval) near the specified column.  Perhaps 
+you tried
    to run a compressed script, a binary program, or a directory as a 
+Perl program.

Uncaught exception from user code:
        Unrecognized character \x01; marked by <-- HERE after <-- HERE
+ near column 1 at notperl.pl line 2.
 at notperl.pl line 2
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If the source isn't mangled, then maybe a use utf8; is missing, or a

export LANG=...
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is misplaced ( something to do with locales... )