Mindbending white and green balls of light spotted over Siberia leaving locals terrified…. so what on Earth ARE they?

RUSSIA has been hit by a wave of reports of a giant UFO in the sky last night — with spectacular pictures of a giant glowing ball illuminating northern Siberia.

Social media erupted with claims of “aliens arriving” and locals in far flung parts of Vladimir Putin’s empire told of “shivers down their spines”.

Vasily Zubkov posted: “I went out to smoke a cigarette and thought it was the end of the world.”

Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry has disclosed there was indeed an unusual object flying at high speed over northern Siberia.

The extraordinary scenes were captured by leading Siberian photographer Sergey Anisimov in the town of Salekhard, which straddles the Arctic Circle.

“I was taken aback for a few minutes, not understanding what was happening,” he said.

“The glowing ball rose from behind the trees and moved in my direction.

“My first thought was about the most powerful searchlight, but the speed of changing everything around changed the idea of what was happening.

“The ball began to turn into an arc and gradually dissipated.”

After the multi-coloured light show was over he went home to find local children as young as five in the yard babbling about “aliens” and “the portal to another dimension”, he said.

Some 520 miles further east, another photographer Alexey Yakovlev admitted to feeling scared as he witnessed the UFO spectacle at Strezhevoi, in the north of Tomsk region, reported The Siberian Times.

“At first I thought – it is such a radiance of such an unusual form, round in shape.

“But gradually the ball began to expand, it became clear that this is not some radiance …. and it became scary …

“It’s good that I was not alone….a group of people cannot hallucinate.”

On social media, Anastasia Boldyreva posted simply: “Aliens arrived.”