Patomskiy Crater: Natural Wonder or Ancient UFO Ruins?

Deep in the forests of southeastern Siberia, the Patomisky Crater is a mysterious mound of broken limestone that juts out from the vegetation on the hillside. To this day, its origin remains unclear.

When a young geologist went on a geological mapping expedition north of the Irkutsk region in Siberia, he came across something so special and mysterious that, even more than six decades later, scientists are still puzzled by it - the Patomskiy Crater .

Patomskiy Crater.

It was August 1949. Geologist Vadim Kolpkov had just heard a story from a local about a strange place in the forest called the 'Fire Eagle's Nest .' Legends warned of illness, disappearances, and even death to those who ventured near it (in fact, in 2005, the head of the mission to the crater actually died suddenly nearby). Unfazed by the warnings, Kolpkov climbed the hill and was shocked by what he saw in the distance. He later noted:

"The first time I saw the crater, I thought I was going crazy from the heat. And indeed, a strangely shaped object the size of a 25-story building with its top chopped off in the middle of the forest was quite a surprise discovery."

"From a distance it looked like a pile of slag in a mine, only white. I even thought: There will be workers there, but in fact there is no labor camp in the area."

'My second thought was an archaeological artifact. But the local Evenks and Yakuts, with all due respect to them, could not have built pyramids out of stone either, as they did not have the necessary human resources or scientific knowledge.'

"I got closer and realized that the mysterious hill was not man-made. It looked like a perfectly round crater, 70 meters high. But volcanoes have not appeared on the border of the Yakutia and Irkutsk regions for several million years. And the crater is quite new. It is located on the slope of a hill covered with pine trees."

"Trees have not yet grown on the slopes, and the wind has not yet brought soil into the crater. And another mystery – a semicircular dome-shaped cavity with a diameter of 15 meters in the center of the crater. In volcanoes, even extinct, such domes cannot exist."

The origin of the peculiar rock formation that rises from the dense taiga (an ecological zone characterized by coniferous forests) on the slopes of the Patom Plateau remains unknown 70 years later, despite numerous expeditions and scientific studies. It has a base diameter of about 160 meters and a height of about 40 meters. In the center of the circular limestone massif is a smaller mound about 12 meters high.

There are many hypotheses about the birth of Patomskiy Crater. (Illustration photo).

Some have suggested that it was caused by a meteorite impact, a volcanic eruption, or even a UFO . However, none of these theories have been conclusively proven. The crater is estimated to be around 300 years old, based on the age of nearby trees.

Speaking of trees… Some of them are really big and grow unusually fast compared to the surrounding vegetation. In particular, scientists have discovered abnormalities in the annual ring formation of trees that are over 200 years old. Some of the trees fell or broke in 1841-1842, and at the same time showed that the annual rings were narrowing, leading to their demise.

The complexity deepens when analyzing tree rings near the crater . That same year, 1842, tree rings increased dramatically, remaining surprisingly high for about 40 years before shrinking dramatically.

"I know of only one similar case," said Viktor Voronin, professor of biological sciences and head of the laboratory at the Siberian Institute of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, who also visited the Patomskiy crater and made the above findings. "After the Chernobyl disaster due to radiation, plant growth increased significantly. Maybe we are dealing with something similar here? Yes, the background radiation in the crater is low now. But maybe there was a time when short-lived radioactive isotopes suddenly appeared here, they gathered, decayed, and then the radioactivity decreased to natural levels?"

Since the discovery of the tree's anomaly, Voronin and his colleagues have conducted numerous experiments and analyses in the crater, indicating that it is most likely a unique volcano, the only one of its kind on this territory.

'Of course, there are still many strange things about the crater. There is still no unified and definitive consensus on this issue. Together with geomorphologists, we have decided that this is the most likely version ,' he told the Siberian Times .

Voronin previously suggested that a UFO might have crashed there with its nuclear engine still running – a theory for which he was widely criticized.

 Patomskiy Crater is one of the most fascinating natural wonders in the world. (Illustration photo).

However, an analysis of the trees that Voronin sent to the Budker Institute for Nuclear Research in Novosibirsk showed a sudden increase in the levels of strontium and uranium in the growth rings . The levels were three to four times higher than normal and lasted about 20 years before returning to normal. If it was a 'gas volcano,' where did this radiation come from?

So what is the secret behind these giant trees? Are they the result of a natural phenomenon or something more mysterious? Could they have something to do with the origin of the crater? These are some of the questions that remain unanswered, and they make the Patomskiy Crater one of the most fascinating natural wonders in the world.