People in cities and towns near Siberia's Lake Baikal have reported seeing a mysterious bright object flying slowly through the sky, and posted videos and photos online to corroborate their accounts, Russian news reports said Wednesday.

The Moscow Times 2-18-16

The reports of “UFO” sightings poured in from scores of people in the Irkutsk region, near Lake Baikal, the local branch of the state-run Rossia-1 television network reported.

The object resembled a meteorite, but seemed much brighter and was moving too slowly, witnesses were quoted as saying.

Sergei Yazev, a senior research scientist from the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics who watched the videos, said the “slow velocity is extremely uncharacteristic for a comet or a bolide.” [...]
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     Since ancient times, the vast Lake Baikal has been known as deeply mysterious, but in the closing years of the Soviet era, and since, it has been the location of a number of alleged sightings of aliens and UFOs.

Initially these were covered-up by the authorities of the USSR, but later they were revealed by the Russian media.

In recent days there have been unconfirmed reports in Russia that American director Steven Spielberg is planning a documentary based on these weird and unexplained accounts. At the time of writing, this appeared to be a hoax, though it was unclear who planted stories in the Russian media.

True or not about Spielberg's interest, the lake is perhaps the biggest focus of UFOs in Russia.

The versions of extra-terrestrial activity at Baikal - edged by mountains and containing one-fifth of the world's unfrozen freshwater - relate to supposed aliens seen by military divers in its depth, and large 'spaceships' hovering over its grey, moody expanses. . . .
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