A enormous glowing ball of light spotted in the sky over northern Siberia had residents wondering if an alien invasion was about to unfold, but the real reason for the sight may be even more worrisome.
The strange event occurred last night and was seen by several individuals in the town of Salekhard, including a few photographers looking to snap some shots of the Northern Lights.
However, the shutterbugs wound up scratching their heads when they an altogether different phenomenon.
One photographer described seeing the giant glowing ball of light emerge from a nearby forest, ascend into the sky and then slowly dissipate after it had amazed anyone lucky enough to see it.
A number of other individuals also managed to take some breathtaking pictures of the scene as the luminous wonder briefly hovered in the night sky.
Numerous witnesses both on the ground and on Russian social media attributed the ball of light to some kind of alien event, a sign that the world was about to end, or a portal into another dimension.
Fortunately, these apocalyptic concerns appear to be overblown, but the real reason for the 'UFO' might be a bit more unnerving than the prospect of ETs coming to take over the Earth.
According to the Russian government, the glowing ball of light was actually a rocket trace coming from a test launch of an ICBM by the country's military.
So while the citizens of Siberia can rest easy knowing that they will not have to face off against their aspiring alien overlords anytime soon, there's always the still-present prospect of a nightmarish nuclear war to keep them up at night.
Source: Siberian Times