Residents of a small, remote Cambodian village were woken up to quite an unusual – and somewhat dangerous – surprise last week when pieces of metal were seen raining from the sky. At the time of publication, officials are still stumped as to what could be the cause, leading some to believe extraterrestrial forces could be behind the incident.

In a statement sent to IFLScience, residents of Preah Vihear Province said they heard a loud sound around 6am local time. They ran outside to find dozens of pieces of aluminum weighing more than 40 kilograms (88 pounds) striking homes and causing damage across a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius. Fortunately, nobody was injured.

''I heard a big noise in the morning. I was shocked and thought something bad had happened," said villager Sok Nol. “When I went to look there was one big piece in a field and other smaller pieces around. We thought an airplane had crashed but there was no big engine.”

Residents collected the wreckage and reported it to police, who were unable to identify where it came from. Yin Chamnan, police chief of Preah Vihear, confirmed that rubble had been recovered in the village, continuing that regional police have not been able to pinpoint where the pieces came from. The case will now be handed over to a team of specialists.

''We have found more than 17 fallen fragments of aluminum and rubber. But, we are continuing the search and are collecting further information from the people at the scene,” he said.

It has some thinking something out-of-this-world could be responsible.

''Now I think that it has come from space and landed in our village. It's confusing because nobody knows what it is,” said Nol.

Chamnan, however, has a different explanation: ''Maybe these fragments are parts of a drone that someone flew. The parts were not relatively big,” he said.