IN THE BALTIC REPUBLIC OF LATVIA, THEY CALL THE STATE FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE. Calls started pouring in shortly after 5:30 pm reporting a “ball of fire” plunging to earth near the town of Mazsalaca and setting a field on fire. Firefighters found a crater in the ground measuring 30 to 50 feet across and 5 feet deep, along with some remnants of a fire that had been burning at the site.
AFP
Fire authorities and geologists are skeptical of the report, however, and are saying that there is a strong possibility that the entire episode is a hoax. One geologist says that it appears that the crater is manmade and that molten metal was poured into the center to start the fire. In addition, the land’s owner was selling admission tickets to the hundreds of sightseers who flocked to the site as soon as the word spread around town.
Russia Today TV has a good report on the controversy:
The Associated Press is reporting:
“This is not a real crater. It is artificial,” Uldis Nulle, a scientist at the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center, said after inspecting the site on Monday. Earlier Uldis had said his first impression late Sunday was that the 27-foot (nine-meter) wide and nine foot (three-meter) deep crater had been caused by a meteorite. He said there was smoke coming out of the hole when he arrived.
Uldis and other experts who examined the hole in daylight on Monday said it was too tidy to have been caused by a meteorite. “It’s artificial, dug by shovel,” said Girts Stinkulis, a geologist at the University of Latvia.
Dainis Ozols, a nature conservationist, said he believes someone dug the hole and tried to make it look like a meteorite crater by burning some pyrotechnic compound at the bottom. He added he would analyze some samples taken from the site.
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