The Claim
Any explosion not caused by humans, equal to several thousand tons of TNT flattened millions of trees in central Russia.
The Tunguska event, named after the Stony Tunguska river it happened close to, was a giant explosion that happened on the morning of June 30th 1908. The explosion caused some 80 million trees to be flattened over a 770 square mile area in the sparsely populated eastern Siberian Taiga region.
The explosion wasn’t caused by any kind of regular bomb, and also wasn’t a nuclear test, but rather result of a giant air burst from a meteor or some kind of object from space entering the atmosphere. The asteroid or whatever it was apparently broke up around between 3 and 6 miles above the surface of the earth, causing a massive explosion that caused a giant super compressed air wave to blast against the ground, or that’s the official explanation anyway.
The reason that many people have a problem with this explanation is because there’s no trace of any kind of object, such as meteor fragments. There was also no crater mark of any kind, making it suspicious that so much power could have caused so much damage without the smallest of impact damage to the ground.
Since 1908 there have been over 1000 scholarly papers published on the event, with many offering a wide variety of explanation. Most of the papers claim the power of the blast would have to be equal to between 10 and 30 megatons of TNT to be able to flatten such a large area. The blast also created a shock wave that measured 5.0 on the Richter scale, which is more than enough to set off any further tremors.
(1908 photo of the damage from the Tunguska event)
Below are a few statements from witness’s who have been interview over the years:
Sibir newspaper, 2 July 1908
On the morning of 17th of June, around 9:00, we observed an unusual natural occurrence. In the north Karelinski village the peasants saw to the northwest, rather high above the horizon, some strangely bright (impossible to look at) bluish-white heavenly body, which for 10 minutes moved downwards. The body appeared as a “pipe”, i.e., a cylinder. The sky was cloudless, only a small dark cloud was observed in the general direction of the bright body. It was hot and dry. As the body neared the ground (forest), the bright body seemed to smudge, and then turned into a giant billow of black smoke, and a loud knocking (not thunder) was heard as if large stones were falling, or artillery was fired. All buildings shook. At the same time the cloud began emitting flames of uncertain shapes. All villagers were stricken with panic and took to the streets, women cried, thinking it was the end of the world.
Testimony of S. Semenov, as recorded by Leonid Kulik’s expedition in 1930:[21]
At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post, facing north. I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul’s Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn’t bear it as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few meters. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the Earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn, a part of the iron lock snapped.
There are various other claims from witnesses to the event but they all say the same kind of thing. Another odd thing about the blast is that it didn’t kill any people, and even though the area it happened in has a very small population, there hasn’t been a single official death from the incident.
Its also the biggest event of its kind by far, with a number of other air burst type explosions happening around the world, but nothing even close to the power or effect of the Tunguska event.
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