UFO saved earth from crashing meteor?

Skygazers claim a UFO saved their lives from an earth-bound meteor that streaked over the city of Chelyabinsk in central Russia two weeks ago.

The giant piece of space rock exploded a few dozen kilometres above Earth but the shockwave from the explosion injured almost 1,200 people and caused approximately $33 million worth of damage, local authorities have said.

The event was filmed by a number of spectators with many people identifying a UFO that they say hit into the meteorite, causing it to explode.

Referring to video footage of the event, Alexander Komanov, coordinator for the Russian UFO community in Yekaterinburg, told the Siberian Times, 'You can see how an (unidentified flying) object catches the meteorite... the (UFO) flies into it - and the meteorite explodes and falls.'

Mr Komanov also claims there was an upsurge of UFO sightings in the region weeks before the meteorite exploded in the earth's atmosphere.

The meteor is thought to have exploded above the Ural mountains, causing a 100,000 tonne rock to crash-land on earth and create a huge hole in Lake Chebarkul in the Chelyabink region.

Scientists have found more than 50 tiny fragments of the meteor and divers are attempting to recover several lumps of the meteorite from Lake Chebarkul for research purposes. SkyNews