Case file · Cosmic event
Vitim bolide
A large fireball exploded over the remote Bodaybo district of Siberia, flattening and burning trees and drawing comparisons with Tunguska.
2002 CE · 58.20, 113.40 · status: official
The account
On the night of 24–25 September 2002 US satellites and local witnesses recorded a bright bolide over the Vitim river region in Irkutsk Oblast. Expeditions found damaged forest but no large fragments, and Russian tabloids floated UFO theories.
The sceptical view
Satellite sensors recorded an ordinary meteor air burst of a few hundred tonnes of TNT.