Aliens, Meteorites, Volcanoes? Scientists Can’t Explain The World’s Strangest Crater That’s Still A Mystery Today

Scientists have proposed many theories about the formation of the Patomskiy Crater, but have found no evidence to support any of them.

The reason is that Patomskiy, located north of Irkutsk in the wilds of Siberia, is no ordinary crater. It’s big for one thing: over 160 meters wide, 40 meters high, and weighing about one million tons. It’s also weird, occasionally changing shape, and causing trees closest to it to grow faster. It has unusual radiation and magnetism levels, and the local Yakut believe it is dangerous to approach.

It was once theorized to be a meteor impact crater like the one recently discovered in Australia. In subsequent years, it has been attributed to volcanic activity, a natural gas explosion, nuclear testing, and even aliens. Despite several studies, no plausible explanation for its existence has been provided. It’s still a mystery.

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The Curious Facts About Patomskiy Crater

No hypothesis seems to explain its many anomalies

The meteorite hypothesis, proposed after Russian geologist Vadim Kolpakov first discovered the Patomskiy Crater in 1949, was undoubtedly inspired by the Tunguska Event. This comet impact in 1908 hit Siberia with a force 1000 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and leveled 500,000 acres of forest. The problem was that no evidence of a meteor or a comet was ever found.

Thus, the theory arose that perhaps the place where this meteorite impact occurred was at Patomskiy Crater. However, the dates were wrong. Subsequent analysis has proven that the crater appeared 300 or so years ago and thus was already formed long before the Tunguska Event. It could have been another meteorite, of course, but scientists, although proposing a meteorite as the source of the crater in studies as late as 2007, have now moved on from this idea.

Trees grow faster near the crater, which seemingly strengthens the case for nuclear testing or a secret Stalin-era uranium mine, both of which have been proposed. So did fear of the place by the Indigenous Yakut, who claimed that wild animals avoided it, too. However, the radiation levels aren’t high enough to support this theory, and the crater’s cone is predominantly formed by shattered limestone rock.

The anomalies that seem to disprove every theory led to the idea that aliens were responsible, but how would anyone prove this?

About The Patomskiy Crater

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The Likeliest Explanations For Patomskiy Crater

Volcanic explosions or natural gas are the current favorite hypotheses

Russia is enormous: of all the largest countries by landmass in Europe, it’s the biggest, spanning that continent and Asia, too. Due to its remoteness and sparse population, the vast expanse of Siberia has proven particularly fruitful for mysterious findings. Ancient specimens have been discovered recently, like a frozen, well-preserved saber-toothed kitten and a 50,000-year-old baby mammoth.

By those standards, the 300-year-old Patomskiy Crater is practically brand new. Perhaps scientists will eventually discover its secrets and resolve its many anomalies. For now, most researchers are focused on explanations like volcanic or underground gas explosions that pushed the limestone formation to the surface.

For example, a 2007 study by V.S. Antipin and A.M. Federov proposed that the crater was formed by “a mantle-associated source of fluid or gas, which could rise up from the bottom of a hypogene magma chamber.” However, this theory isn’t ironclad either, with the authors noting that they still could not verify the composition of the earth beneath the crater.

In 2015, attendees at a special conference on the origin of Patomskiy Crater came to a similar conclusion as Antipin and Federov when they attributed the creation of the formation to steam pressure from magma that exploded the crater into being.

But until proof is found to support this supposition, it remains exactly that.

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Can You Visit Patomskiy Crater?

While it’s not forbidden to visit, getting there is problematic

Given that Russia is the country closest to the U.S. that doesn’t share a border with it, only 55 miles away at its nearest point, one might suppose that visiting Patomskiy Crater is relatively easy. It isn’t.

For starters, it’s hard to be approved for a visa. These aren’t issued on arrival and must be applied for well in advance. However, even if you are cleared to visit Russia, you’d have to fly into a remote airport at Irkutsk and arrange transportation to a heavily forested area. No roads go there, and no one gives tours there, either.

So it’s not a mystery you’ll want to pursue and attempt to solve yourself. Not that your odds of doing so are good anyway. None of the world’s top scientists have been able to solve it, and they’ve been trying for over 75 years.

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