So did a UFO shoot down the famous Chelyabinsk meteorite last month?

The theory comes from Russian watchers of unidentified flying objects and echoes a version that first appeared on the day the space rock fell on Chelyabinsk region. Early speculation suggested the meteorite had been shot at by a Russian missile, but no such claim has been made by the authorities. 

Indeed, the Russian government is seeking to lead world efforts to secure the technology to blast such objects before they cause damage on the ground.

Now attention has switched to whether - as a raging online debate suggests - 'we were saved by a UFO' exploding the menacing meteorite seconds before it struck the ground.

'At first, we also believed that the Chelyabinsk meteorite was just an ordinary meteorite, a cosmic body', said Alexander Komanev, coordinator for the Russian UFO community in Yekaterinburg. 'But facts began to emerge. In the internet began to appear videos, at least three of which were similar, on which you can see how an object catches the meteorite.'

This tiny object then 'flies through it - and the meteorite explodes and falls. 

'Such a number of videos, made from different angles makes us believe that something blew up the meteorite...' - Komanev stressed. 

To the untrained eye, it is hard to tell what was happening here, but Komanev suggests that prior to the the meteorite's fall there was an upsurge in UFO sightings.

His 'second supporting argument' is that 'since 2012 we have registered an increase of UFO activity. We began to receive more testimonies of eyewitnesses.'

He explained: 'Usually we get two messages about UFO per month. Since the beginning of February we received four messages.'

He claimed that 'we have two videos on which we can clearly see a UFO' shortly before the meteorite.

Komanev showed  two videos at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. One of videos was made in Chabry village, Sverdlovsk region. The claim is it shows

 two 'glowing bowls'  seen flying in the sky at night. They are visible, disappear and appear again, it is claimed.

On the second from Chelyabinsk, filmed at 10 am, 'glowing bowls' are shown slowly moving in the sky, they appear and then are lost again.

After the meteorite fall, he claimed he and his colleagues did not receive any messages about cases of UFO in the region.

'No activity at all,' he said. 

Meanwhile, divers in Lake Chebarkul have found craters in the three-metre thick silt where several pieces of the meteorite are believed to have sunk.

Lubov Rudometova, press secretary of Chebarkul administration, said: 'We have a special team of people who are searching for the meteorite's fragments.'

A magnetic examination of the lake's floor is also being conducted. 

Watch the video topping the UFO charts: