MOSCOW, March 6 (RIA Novosti) – An explosion of unclear origin illuminated the sky over eastern Siberia on Thursday morning, leaving frightened locals to speculate about an asteroid or malfunctioning rocketry, media reports said.
The blast, for which no official explanation has been offered, was witnessed by the population of the Kyrgydai village in Russia’s Yakutia region, the Vesti14.ru news website said.
Two extremely grainy videos from surveillance cameras documenting the alleged blast – or at least a bright flash in the sky – are available on YouTube.
Reports said some debris apparently plummeted into the taiga after the explosion, but nothing had been recovered by the time of this article’s publication.
Locals speculated that an asteroid, a landing module from the International Space Station, or even a stray ballistic missile were responsible for the blast.
No man-made rocketry was publicly scheduled to fly over Yakutia on the date of the explosion. But the area has been hit by debris from Russian carrier rockets at least four times in the past.
Russia is building a new spaceport in the far-eastern Amur Region, but it is not to become operational until 2015.
A blast in the sky was also reported on Tuesday in the western Siberian city of Nizhnevartovsk. Authorities offered no explanation, while locals joked about alien landings.
