Darwin, AUSTRALIA (BNO NEWS) – The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre in Melbourne reported a mysterious earthquake on Saturday, moments after a strong earthquake struck near Russia’s Kuril Islands.

“The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre has detected an earthquake that has also been reported as being felt near Darwin in Northern Territory,” a statement from the agency said, referring to the earthquake near the Kuril Islands.

However, Darwin is at least more than 8,000 kilometers away from today’s earthquake epicenter. “I suppose it’s possible,” said a surprised spokesman for the United States Geological Survey. “Whoa, if someone felt that I’m really surprised because that’s very far away but, you can’t deny it if they felt it,” he added. “My intuition tells me no,” the spokesman said when asked if it is actually possible, “but weird things happen,” he concluded.

Later, in a call with BNO News, the Australian tsunami warning center which issued the bulletin said it was released in error. “I don’t think that’s right, that would be one hell of an earthquake,” a spokesman said. “I think what happened there is that they accidently left a statement from a previous message, quickly sent out their no threat bulletin and then realized their error and removed the message,” he said. The spokesman added to say there was recently an earthquake in the Banda Sea which had been felt in Darwin, prompting a no threat bulletin.