Mysterious Substance and 'Devilry' Blamed for 3-Hour 'Solar Eclipse' in Russia

According to the regional news site Yakutia 24, the Eveno-Bytantaysky and Zhigansky districts of Yakutia inexplicably plunged into 3 hours of mysterious darkness between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time on Friday. Photos provided by bewildered locals show little more than the black shadows of trees and buildings cast against a reddish haze of sky. Adding to the ominous atmosphere, the air seemed to be thick with a grimy haze of black dust.

"It was impossible to be in the street," witnesses of the bizarre event told the news site Sakha Daily. Other locals reported that it was suddenly pitch-black in their homes, that the mysterious smog turned barrels of water into barrels of mud and that nearby lakes emerged from the eclipse covered in a filthy, black layer of pollution.

Siberia has its share of strange occurrences, from a bag full of severed hands that turned up in the snow in March to showers of gold bullion that rained from the sky. And industrial Siberia has some long-standing pollution issues (see the "blood rain" of industrial rust that fell on a factory parking lot just a few weeks ago), so this pollution blackout could easily be due to a combination of factors. Hopefully, devilry is not one of them.

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Thought this was a uniquely strange news event to share here on GLP.

While it's assumed the cause was by wildfires in that local area, no firm conclusions (by NASA) about the crud eclipse in Yakutia have been reached.

Also, the upcoming Lunar Eclipse on the 27th will be the longest event in the 21st century.

News story:
[link to www.space.com (secure)]

Lunar Eclipse that will soon to come:
[link to www.livescience.com (secure)]