Chelyabinsk - site for blue snow and three suns

RT makes light.

For some more background on Chelyabinsk, unmentioned by RT, part from being the site of a meteorite, Chelyabinsk was the site of a major, 1957 Apart from being the site of a meteorite, Chelyabinsk was the site of a major, 1957 nuclear acccident.

The installation, Chelyabins-40 has been named as the most contamined place on the planet (prior to Chernobyl and Fukushima, I presume.

Chelyabinsk mystery zone: Blue snow, three Suns, meteorite explosion (VIDEOS)

From a giant meteorite unexpectedly falling from the sky to a three Suns optical illusion - the Russian city of Chelyabinsk has become the world’s premier place for truly out of the blue OMG! moments. RT gives some insight into the recent madness.

Screenshot from RT video

RT

22 February, 2015

For centuries, Russia’s Chelyabinsk Region, located on the border between Europe and Asia, has been a defense powerhouse, arming the Tsars’ forces and establishing the Soviet Union's formidable nuclear arsenal. But the region’s rep for military muscle is not what’s been turning heads as of late.

No, when it comes to packing in as many ‘oh my God! Did you see that?’ moments into one place, Chelyabinsk is the undisputed champ.

The Meteorite…

In 2013 a meteorite swan dived over the city. And not just any meteor. No, it was the largest piece of flaming space rock to hit the earth in more than a hundred years.

On February 15 the skies were illuminated by a flying object that exploded a few times, just enough to make the city’s gritty residents turn their heads.

“At first I saw a huge bright fire up in the skies, and then came a loud explosion that not only shattered the windows, but blew out the window frames,” resident Taisiya Alabuzhina told RT.

Luckily the explosion occurred about 30 to 40km over Chelyabinsk and the space body itself didn’t make an unwelcome crash landing smack dab in the middle of the city. There were no casualties, but about 1,600 people received minor injuries, mostly from fragments of shattered glass.

Although the meteor was relatively small, some believed its blast was comparable to the power of a nuclear bomb. NASA said the shockwave force was equal to a 500-kiloton explosion – 30 times the Hiroshima blast. The shockwave was so powerful that it traveled some 85,000km, circling the globe twice over the course of three days Superman-style.

…and Church of The Meteorite

The biggest fragment of the meteorite weighed in at around 570 kilograms and was found in Lake Chebarkul, 90 km from Chelyabinsk. The chunk of the cosmic body even got its own fan club, with some going as far as to worship it and establish the so-called ‘Church of the Meteorite’.

Paranormalist Andrey Breyvichko, the founder of the circle believes that it contains “a set of moral and legal norms that will help people live at a new stage of spiritual knowledge development.” Moreover, he claims that the meteorite is so powerful it could actually trigger the Apocalypse.

While his woo-woo take on the meteorite is…special, it would probably be fair to say that ‘holy’ was the first word to come out of a lot of people’s mouths when they first saw that thing hurdling overhead.

Three Suns?

And if a giant meteorite ushering in the apocalypse wasn’t enough for the residents of Chelyabinsk, in February they got something even more mind-bending than a double rainbow - a triple sun (that’s one more than the planet Tatooine!)

So did Chelyabinsk somehow leave earth and become part of a ternary solar system? Not exactly. Rather, the triple suntriple sun was actually an optical illusion which is sometimes called a winter rainbow; produced by ice crystals in the winter air. The symmetrical patches of light, tinged with red on the inside, are called mock suns, parhelia or sundogs. So seriously, forget about double rainbows, the winter rainbow is where it’s at!

Blue snow!

You’re parents always warned you not to eat the yellow snow, but what about the blue snow? That’s right, if a triple sun wasn’t enough for the month of February, strange, Smurf-colored snowflakes fell down on the city’s streets, just in case the residents weren’t already freaked out enough.

Photo by Dmitry KudryonokPhoto by Dmitry Kudryonok

But before anyone could start a cult and herald the blue snow as yet another sign of the end times, officials figured out that it was actually caused by a spill at a factory making dye for Easter eggs.

So what else has been going on in the city as of late? According to the web, an alarm clock cuts off a girl’s head, a Chupacabra was seen roaming the streets, a man attacked a bear, and Mickey Mouse, SpongeBob, and Luntik put a beat down on a driver???

Seriously, go home Chelyabinsk, you’re drunk!

READ MORE: Rock star: Chelyabinsk awards DiCaprio an Oscar of its own

Here is another report - 

Mayak reprocessing plant, Techa river, Chelyabinsk region

Mayak is Russia's only operational spent nuclear fuel processing plant, taking spent fuel from Russian VVER-440 reactors, nuclear submarines as well as fuel imported from Soviet built reactors abroad. Mayak was the most radioactively contaminated place on earth -- earning Mayak a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. This video was filmed by Bellona team visiting the area in 1992.

Russia: Saved by a UFO?

So did a UFO shoot down the famous Chelyabinsk meteorite last month?

The Siberian Times,

28 February, 2013

The meteorite that crashed to Earth in the Urals was attacked by a UFO causing it to explode and shatter, it was claimed on Thursday.

Early speculation suggested the incoming object had been shot at by a Russian missile, but no such claim has been made by the authorities. Picture: The Siberian Times 

The theory comes from Russian watchers of unidentified flying objects and echoes a version that first appeared on the day the space rock fell on Chelyabinsk region. Early speculation suggested the meteorite had been shot at by a Russian missile, but no such claim has been made by the authorities. 

Indeed, the Russian government is seeking to lead world efforts to secure the technology to blast such objects before they cause damage on the ground.

Now attention has switched to whether - as a raging online debate suggests - 'we were saved by a UFO' exploding the menacing meteorite seconds before it struck the ground.

'At first, we also believed that the Chelyabinsk meteorite was just an ordinary meteorite, a cosmic body', said Alexander Komanev, coordinator for the Russian UFO community in Yekaterinburg. 'But facts began to emerge. In the internet began to appear videos, at least three of which were similar, on which you can see how an object catches the meteorite.'

This tiny object then 'flies through it - and the meteorite explodes and falls. 

The meteorite that crashed to Earth in the Urals was attacked by a UFO causing it to explode and shatter, it was claimed on Thursday. Pictures: The Siberian Times 

'Such a number of videos, made from different angles makes us believe that something blew up the meteorite...' - Komanev stressed. 

To the untrained eye, it is hard to tell what was happening here, but Komanev suggests that prior to the the meteorite's fall there was an upsurge in UFO sightings.

His 'second supporting argument' is that 'since 2012 we have registered an increase of UFO activity. We began to receive more testimonies of eyewitnesses.'

He explained: 'Usually we get two messages about UFO per month. Since the beginning of February we received four messages.'

He claimed that 'we have two videos on which we can clearly see a UFO' shortly before the meteorite.

Komanev showed  two videos at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. One of videos was made in Chabry village, Sverdlovsk region. The claim is it shows two 'glowing bowls'  seen flying in the sky at night. They are visible, disappear and appear again, it is claimed.

On the second from Chelyabinsk, filmed at 10 am, 'glowing bowls' are shown slowly moving in the sky, they appear and then are lost again.

After the meteorite fall, he claimed he and his colleagues did not receive any messages about cases of UFO in the region.

'
No activity at all,' he said. 

Meanwhile, divers in Lake Chebarkul have found craters in the three-metre thick silt where several pieces of the meteorite are believed to have sunk.

Lubov Rudometova, press secretary of Chebarkul administration, said: 'We have a special team of people who are searching for the meteorite's fragments.'

A magnetic examination of the lake's floor is also being conducted. 

Watch the video topping the UFO charts:


See also the Daily Mail article HERE

The Chelyabinsk meteorite

Divers find Russian meteorite craters in Chebarkul Lake

Divers searching Chebarkul Lake in Russia’s Urals region have found several craters that may be the impact zones of fragments of the now-famous meteorite that exploded over the area on February 15

RT,

27 January, 2013

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The underwater hunt for the rare stones was hampered by cold weather and light-obstructing mud stirred up from the bottom. The divers used powerful lights and probes to uncover several potential sites where meteorite fragments may have landed.

On Thursday, a team from Ekaterinburg will join in the search by conducting a magnetic survey of the prospect locations; the initial results could be ready as early as that evening.

Some fragments of the meteorite were retrieved in the Chelyabinsk region, which endured the bulk of the spectacular cosmic event. The biggest meteorite chunk discovered was about 1 kilogram. It is hoped that the fragments inside the lake could be much bigger, weighing dozens of kilograms.

Grigory Yakovlev, engineer at the Research and Educational Center of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnologies of Ural Federal University, with fragment of the meteorite found during the expedition in the Chelyabinsk region. (RIA Novosti / Pavel Lysizin)

Videos of the meteorite streaking across Russia’s sky proved to be not only awe-inspiring for YouTube, but also served a scientific purpose: Two groups of researchers used the clips to calculate the meteorite’s trajectory.Colombian astronomers from the University of Antioquia in Medellin are believed to be the first to report their preliminary results last week at the scientific publishing website arxiv.org. A similar work by researchers at the Astronomical Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences came days later on Monday.

Both teams used the proven method of analyzing video footage of the meteorite’s descent through a little bit of trigonometry. This time, however, the footage was taken by CCTV, car cameras and smartphones, rather than precisely calibrated observatory recorders.

The Russian meteorite was determined to be an Apollo-class asteroid, one of an estimated 5,000 near-Earth bodies orbiting the Sun and occasionally crossing the Earth’s orbit. Most of these objects are spread out between the orbits of Venus and Jupiter.

Russian astronomers will report their findings later in March, but have already confirmed that the results published by the Columbian and Czech researchers correspond with their findings.

The trace of a flying object in the sky over Chelyabinsk. (RIA Novosti / Photo courtesy of Nakanune.RU)

Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant after the meteorite fall. (RIA Novosti / Photo courtesy of Nakanune.RU)

Nuclear catastrophe

Chelyabinsk was where the meteor fell in Russia recently. However, Chelyabinsk is known for something else. Perhaps this 1996 film is worthy of attention as we watch what happens at Stamford, Wa.

Chelyabinsk: The Most Contaminated Spot on the Planet (1996)