A Russian scientist has claimed that an alien spaceship sacrificed itself to prevent a gigantic meteor from destroying earth a century ago.
According to The Sun, Dr Yuri Labvin, head of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, has found quartz slabs with strange markings that he thinks were part of a UFO control panel.
He made the discovery near the site of the so-called "Tunguska event" - a massive and so-far unexplained explosion that devastated more than 100 square miles of Siberian forest in June 1908.
Dr Labvin claims the slabs provide evidence that a spacecraft deliberately crashed into the meteor to prevent it slamming into Earth and wiping out life on the planet.
"We don't have any technologies that can print such kind of drawings on crystals," he explains. "We also found ferrum silicate that can not be produced anywhere, except in space."
However, Nick Pope, a British UFOlogist who has investigated sightings on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, remains unconvinced.
While previous explanations for the explosion include a comet strike or a piece of anti-matter, he told the paper, "This new theory is the strangest yet.
"We need an analysis of the quartz slabs to be able to prove this one way or another."