Bolide lights up sky over Russia January 2018
© The Siberian TimesA mysterious bright flash turned night into day over a huge area of Russia. This was the scene in the region of Tatarstan as the sky turned blue in the middle of the night.
According to The Siberian Times a very bright flash turned night into day over vast swathes of Russia on January 7, 2018 around 00:22 local time. The phenomenon, which was seen over thousands of kilometers, was accompanied by a ground-shaking explosion and occurred near the Ural Mountains and the three republics of Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, and Tatarstan.

Ilnaz Shaykhraziev said:
'I saw the flash, while in Menzelinsk. There was also the sound of an explosion and then a vibration, I felt it.'
Another witness, Denis Rozenfeld, said:
'A meteor burned out, not reaching the lower layers of the atmosphere. Before this it exploded and split into many small pieces. That is why there was such a sound, which came to us in a few seconds. It's a funny coincidence that such a rare phenomenon for our region has happened right on Christmas.'
An astronomer from Kazan Federal University agreed with this assessment. Dr Sergey Golovkin, of the university's Physics Institute said:
'This was a bolide that burnt in the dense layers of the atmosphere which is why it was seen over such a big territory. We didn't register the flash because there was strong blizzard on this night.'

Yuri Nefefyev, director of the Engelhardt Astronomical Observatory, offered another explanation, claiming the origin was atmospheric electricity, saying that this is still something not properly explained by science. He stated:
'There are a huge number of effects linked to atmospheric electricity, many of which are not properly studied because of how rarely they occur,'
The 'electrical' nature of meteors (also comets and asteroids) and much more are explained in the book Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

In the past week there have been reports of meteor fireballs from around the world, including: United States, Canada and the UK.

As well as visible celestial bodies, it is probable that space rock fragments are also exploding in the atmosphere. See also: BOOM! Mysterious blasts rattling the skies are on the increase around the world - UPDATE at least 64 documented events (VIDEO)

These are some related articles from the past month: Even NASA's own space data supports citizens' recent observations, namely the inconvenient fact that meteor fireballs are increasing dramatically.