The ever-watchful eyes of netizens turned to Daldykan, a river outside of Russia's Arctic city of Norilsk, after it turned blood red. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources started to receive reports about the issue on September 6, 2016.

Russian authorities prompted to investigate the strange phenomenon because the possible cause is alarming-a pipeline break in one of the city's nickel-producing factories.  There has been no declaration of a state of emergency, however, as the river is not a source of the city's water supply.

Denis Koshevoi, a Ph.D. candidate at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, explains that Norilsk Nickel Plant, one of the world's largest producer of palladium and nickel, supplies chemicals from Nadezhda to tailings dam through pipes, and it also does the same for metal concentrates coming from ore mills back to Nadezhda.

"Periodically there are accidents when these pipes break and the solutions spill and get into the Daldykan - that's why it changes colour," Koshevoi told the Guardian.

Norilsk Nickel, however, denied the allegations in a press release, "As of today, the polar division of the [Norilsk Nickel] company cannot confirm any leakage or accidental discharge of industrial waste into the Daldykan River, which could have affected the river's state."

Others suggest that industrial waste may not be the culprit. It is probably the iron oxide or rust in the ground that turned the water bright red. Locals joked that there might be a filming of a new The Crimson Rivers episode. Others said that the mining plant Nadezhda is just having the time of the month.  

NASA's satellite have shown that the change in color is not a new phenomenon. The water's redness was detected by satellites in September 1997, July 1998, August 2013, July 2014, and July 2015.