Siberia's Giant Hole Just Became a Lot Less Mysterious [VIDEO]

The first series of photos and video from an ongoing investigation of a massive hole in Siberia have been released, all but confirming a very boring explanation for a very exciting phenomenon.

The gigantic crater and hole was first spotted by helicopter pilots earlier this week as they flew over the Yamal peninsula - a region appropriately called the "end of the world."

Experts and conspiracy theorists alike immediately started speculating as to what caused this mysterious geological formation to occur, claiming meteorites, to sub-surface explosions, to mole men. Perhaps it was even once the home of a sarlacc, the massive semi-sentient plant set to devour Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

"We can definitely say that it is not a meteorite. No details yet," a spokesman from Yamal's branch of the Emergencies Ministry told The Siberian Times, when it broke the story on Tuesday.

The ministry did confirm that a team of geological experts had been set to investigate, but in the meantime experts half a globe away were already near-certain that the mysterious hole was actually the result of an unusually large pingo.

"For now we can say for sure that under the influence of internal processes there was an ejection in the permafrost," Plekhanov added. "I want to stress that it was not an explosion, but an ejection, so there was no heat released as it happened."

The chance that the hole had been caused by a sub-surface explosion had been a big concern for experts who knew the hole to be close to natural gas lines, but the Emergency Ministry is confident it would have been notified had gas workers been alert to an explosion only 18 miles away.

The investigators theorize that this unusually large phenomenon may be similar to what formed the Yamal lakes.

"Such kind of processes were taking place about 8,000 years ago. Perhaps they are repeating nowadays. If this theory is confirmed, we can say that we have witnessed a unique natural process that formed the unusual landscape of Yamal peninsula," they said.

Plekhanov concluded an interview with the Times reassuring people that the cause of this hole was most certainly not supernatural.

"There is nothing mysterious about it. There is no weird or unexplained feelings there, we came back safe and sound."

[Credit: Andrey Naumenko, OGTRK "Yamal-Region"]

You can view all the photos from the initial investigation here.