Mysterious continues to swirl around a hole found in the outside of the International Space Station.

Last week, Nasa and the Russian space agency scrambled to fix a leak in the floating laboratory that was causing air to slowly rush out of the space station. The crew on board eventually plugged up the gap with epoxy, fixing the problem at least temporarily.

Initially, astronauts and other experts had suggested that the hole had been caused a by tiny rock that would have hit the space station and ripped a hole in it. “This leak seems to have resulted from a micrometeoroid impact,” tweeted ISS veteran Scott Kelly in one representative tweet.

But strange reports are now emerging that suggest the leak could actually have been caused by a human. Russian reports citing anonymous sources suggest that the problem could have existed from the time the Soyuz capsule headed up to the International Space Station, and might have been treated with a temporary fix that has recently come undone.

Nasa has only said that the Russian space agency has “has convened a commission to conduct further analysis of the possible cause of the leak”.

Russian news agency TASS reported that the boss of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said the theory that the hole was caused by an impact had been discounted.

“We are considering all the theories,” Dmitry Rogozin, according to TASS. “The one about a meteorite impact has been rejected because the spaceship’s hull was evidently impacted from inside. However it is too early to say definitely what happened.

“But, it seems to be done by a faltering hand… it is a technological error by a specialist. It was done by a human hand – there are traces of a drill sliding along the surface. We don’t reject any theories.”