Social media alive with comments over the funnel-like formation in the skies over the village of Gonda in Buryatia.
Emergency services received calls from worried residents concerned that doomsday had arrived.
Vapour trail casts ghostly spectre above Altai just minutes after rocket carrying satellite blasts off into space.
Scientist Vladimir Surdin believes 'silver clouds' were the cause of the multi-coloured night sky witnessed by thousands of people.
Dramatic dark cloud swathes the city of Omsk as a bright sunny day turns night-like.
Novosibirsk treated to the majesty of a rare meteorological occurrence.
No official explanations for darkness over swathes of Yakutia amid conspiracy theories of a UFO, new weapons tests, a meteorite, or pollution from wildfires.
Worrying videos and pictures show how the pristine polar region of northern Yakutia is ablaze.
Photographs show red lights hovering about the ground and then moving vast distances in less than one minute.
Filmed here over the city of Omsk, the meteor - or was it a rocket or test firing of a ballistic missile? - startled people over a swathe of territory.