People in cities and towns near Siberia's Lake Baikal have reported seeing a mysterious bright object flying slowly through the sky, and posted videos and photos online to corroborate their accounts, Russian news reports said Wednesday.
The reports of ?€?UFO?€? sightings poured in from scores of people in the Irkutsk region, near Lake Baikal, the local branch of the state-run Rossia-1 television network reported.
The object resembled a meteorite, but seemed much brighter and was moving too slowly, witnesses were quoted as saying.
Sergei Yazev, a senior research scientist from the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics who watched the videos, said the ?€?slow velocity is extremely uncharacteristic for a comet or a bolide,?€? the Dni.ru news portal reported.
?€?Even if we concede that it could have been a spent rocket stage, then the speed with which it falls would still be many times greater,?€? Yazev was quoted as saying.