Motorists were stuck in traffic in the research town of Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk, Russia, when a strange light lit up the dark sky. The object, which was caught on several dash cam footages, appeared as a green fireball over the eastern European nation’s scientific city. It has led some to believe that Vladimir Putin is developing new space weapons. State run Russia Today claimed it was a meteor, but acknowledged that astronomers were “somewhat bewildered” by the sight of the green tail of fire.
This prompted speculation from some quarters of the internet that it was an “alien attack”.
Others suggested that the Russians were “extremely advanced weapons” or “UFOs ready to invade Ukraine”.
Ilya Orlov, deputy director the Big Novosibirsk Planetarium, described it as a “beautiful phenomenon”, but could not say with certainty what it was.
However he did say the most likely scenario was that it was a bolide – a bright meteor which explodes upon hitting the Earth’s atmosphere.
Mr Orlov said: “Most likely, this is a flash of bolide, that is, the fall of a bright meteor with a flash,’ he said, saying it would be unusual.
“It is all the more surprising because there are no active meteor showers now. It can be either the tail of a Leonid meteor shower or a lone meteor.
“We need to find out.”
The research town of Akademgorodok was established by the Kremlin in 1957.
It was originally used by the Soviet Union to allow their scientists to do secretive research in Siberia, far from the eyes of the West.
Now, it is used by the Russian State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology, called Vector, and is working on cures and antidotes for the likes of bubonic plague, anthrax, hepatitis B, HIV and cancer, according to Russia.