Scientists doubt ‘meteor crash’ in Latvia

Scientists have launched an investigation into a meteorite-like object near a farm in northern Latvia.

Uldis Nulle, a scientist at the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center, said he saw smoke coming from the crater when he got to the scene of the crash Sunday evening.

When Nulle got back to the scene at daytime, he found that the hole was too tidy to have been impacted by a meteorite.

“This is not a real crater,” he said.  “It is artificial.”

Nulle’s denial was supported by Caroline Smith, meteorite curator at London’s Natural History Museum.  Smith said photographs and video footage of the site and material burning in the bottom of the hole point out that it was not an impact crater.

“Meteorites are not ‘on fire’ or even hot when they land on Earth,” she said.  “Additionally, there have been no witness reports of any large ‘fireball’ sightings in the region on Sunday afternoon, when the crater was allegedly formed.”

Latvian Geologist Dainis Ozols said he believed someone must have dug a hole and tried to make it appear the area was scorched by a meteorite by burning a pyrotechnic compound at the bottom.

[via bbc.co.uk; image: AFP]