The corruption in law enforcement and government in Russia (is that a triple redundancy?) has driven Russian drivers to install dash cameras in their vehicles to record traffic violations, accidents and crimes. An added benefit is that these drivers are also recording anomalies like the mysterious flash of light which illuminated the city of Stavropol, baffling residents and officials who still have no confirmed explanation.

The soundless flash occurred just after midnight (12:39 am) on March 17 in this southern Russian city. Witnesses reported seeing streetlights go out and lights flickering in homes. One motorist who was driving in the direction of the flash uploaded his dash cam video to the Internet, resulting in other eyewitness accounts coming out, such as this one from an anonymous woman:

I was very frightened by what I saw, I was already in bed. It looked as if something very bright lit up my ceiling.

Because of the brevity of the flash and its occurrence at what appears to be ground level, the first possible explanation was an electrical system explosion. However, no sounds was reported and local power system authorities say there were no problems in the grid. The Russian defense ministry had been conducting military exercises in Stavropol during the previous week but it gave no comments on the flash and no others were reported.

The flash does not look like the Northern Lights which have been occurring frequently due to recent solar storms and no meteor activity was reported in the area. There was no unusual weather that night which prompted the local Hydrometeorological Center to say that the flash could not “be attributed to nature.”

So the light flash was unnatural but what was it? Speculations run the gamut from secret military launch to alien spacecraft to Tesla experiments. This is not surprising when unexplained flashes are becoming more common in Russia. Here’s another dash cam recording of a longer unexplained flash from November 2104.

Unexplained bright lights and loud booms continue around the world. Until someone explains them, keep those dash cameras in good working order.