What does it mean if the hole in the ISS was drilled from the inside?

There isn’t much contest for the most bizarre space news story of the year. If anyone were to give away such an award it would definitely be handed to the bizarre saga of the leak that spontaneously appeared in the hull of a Soyuz spacecraft that was attached to the International Space Station several months ago. Now, with the ship itself safely back on Earth and the portion of the spacecraft that held the hole jettisoned during reentry, it’s up to Russia to determine how the hole was created, when, and by whom.

The country’s investigation into the strange incident has seemed messy to any outside observer, with statements from officials coming fast and furious in the days following the hole’s discovery and then tapering off rapidly with no resolution. This week, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev told reporters that the hunt for the truth was in the hands of the Russian space program, but he also stated definitively that the hole was created from the inside.