The 20 metre meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, which smashed windows and caused injuries to more than 1,000 people in the area.

Experts had not anticipated the incident, leading to fears Earth could be surprised by a more devastating asteroid strike in the future.

But, conspiracy theorists are now claiming a more intelligent species than humankind had predicted the event, and duly intercepted it to save Russia.

UFO believers studied videos of the incident and state there is an object which can be seen crashing into the rock from outer space.

Alexander Komanev, coordinator for the Russian UFO community in Yekaterinburg, said: “At first, we also believed the Chelyabinsk meteorite was just an ordinary meteorite, a cosmic body.”

However, on closer inspection, Mr Komanev says “you can see how an object catches the meteorite”, adding a much smaller object "flies into it - and the meteorite explodes and falls”.

He adds: “Such a number of videos, made from different angles, leads us to believe that something has blown up the meteorite.”

In 1908, a similar incident took place when a small asteroid exploded over Siberia’s Tunguska which ruined woodlands across 800 miles.

Russian conspiracy theorists also believe aliens saved the world in that event too.

Yury Lavbin, who heads the Tunguska Space Phenomenon public organisation, said: "In both cases there were two objects, and a UFO knocked down the second object. 

“In the Tunguska case, the UFO was itself destroyed. We know this because we've been to Tunguska and recovered metallic fragments that are impossible to produce on Earth.

“If not for the intervention of the UFO in the Tunguska event, the Earth could have been plunged into a second stone age.”