In what might be called a blast from the UFO past, a UFO crashed in the Siberian town of Chita this week and the Russian government blamed it on a “gas balloon explosion.” Balloon? That is so 1947! And gas? Was there a swamp nearby?

The UFO crash occurred on April 9th, 2015, in Chita, a city in southeastern Siberia with a population of over 324,000. Eyewitnesses said it “fell from the sky.” Chita resident Vladimir Milovanov described what he experienced to a local TV reporter.

I heard an explosion and saw a huge pillar of black smoke around 11 or 12 a.m..

No one was injured but the UFO or the concussion from the explosion caused damage to a nearby building and the UFO made a crater in a field where the huge pillar of black smoke arose. The object left a crater where metal wreckage was found. Based on the crater and the damaged parts, the UFO was estimated to be one meter in diameter.

The debris was collected and sent somewhere for testing, possible to the local office of EMERCOM (Ministry of Emergency Situations). The Eastern Military District said there were no operations in the area at the time. It was a spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs who issued this statement:

The object could not be identified. It does not resemble anything. One of the theories [of what happened] – gas balloon explosion.

Sounds like the Ministry needs to update its list of UFO excuses. As you may remember, the 1947 Roswell UFO incident was initially blamed on a weather balloon. And the 1966 UFO sightings in Michigan made the phrase “swamp gas” famous.

This is not the first UFO seen in Chita – another was reported by multiple witnesses in 2009.

So what was the UFO that crashed in Chita? While the city is nowhere near those mysterious Siberian craters where a spaceship was reportedly seen inside one last week, it is near Lake Baikal, the site of numerous UFO and alien encounters where Steven Spielberg is reportedly planning to make a documentary.

Maybe Spielberg can swing by and check it out.