Lithuanian authorities are wary of unidentified flying objects after a Russian-made drone coming from neighboring Belarus intruded and crashed in Vilnius County on 10 July.

When 25 small hot-air balloons flew across the border from Belarus on 4 October, the Vilnius Airport suspended flights as a safety precaution. The shutdown from 8:45 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. the following day disrupted 30 flights and affected some 6,000 travelers, ABC News reported, citing information from Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center.

The balloons, two of which flew above Vilnius Airport, were carrying cheap cigarettes manufactured in Belarus that an organized crime ring smuggles into Lithuania for distribution and sale to European Union countries, according to reports.

Lithuanian authorities have been intercepting cigarette-ferrying balloons to stop the smuggling and those that get through are picked up by paid locals who pass them on to the ring’s distributor and seller.

Meanwhile, a spherical spacecraft with an unusual payload parachuted in the steppes of the Orenburg region in Russia on 19 September.

A helicopter then landed near the craft called “Noah’s Ark” and three people took the living specimens inside for examination.

The on-site specialists checked the motor activity of the flies to detect any nervous system problems. They were studying the effects of weightlessness and cosmic radiation on the insects.

The Russian biological research satellite named Bion-M No. 2 was launched into polar orbit by a Soyuz-2.1b rocket in Baikonur cosmodrome on 20 August. Onboard were 1,500 flies, 75 mice, cell cultures, microorganisms, plant seeds, and other biological specimens, Space.com reports.

The Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences said the goal of the orbital experiment is to help create new technologies for ensuring human life support during flights under the combined effects of weightlessness and cosmic radiation, according to Space.com.