The Tunguska Explosion of 1908



At 7:14 on the morning of June 30/17, 1908 a powerful explosion rocked central Siberia in the area of the Podkamennaya ("Stoney") Tunguska River, a tributary of the Yenisey River. The blast was so strong that seismic waves were felt as far away as London and the shock wave destroyed 2,200 square kilometers of swampy Russian taiga. It is speculated that the energy produced by the explosion equaled 10-15 megatons of TNT or 1000 times the power of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan. The Tunguska explosion has been called the greatest space catastrophe mankind has ever witnessed. The exact nature of the explosion is still unknown although many theories have been advanced to explain this mysterious event.

In the affected zone, an estimated 80 million trees were felled in a radial pattern pointing away from the center of the explosion. The trees nearest the epicenter did not fall; rather, they were stripped of their limbs yet remained standing, resembling a forest of charred telephone poles. For several days after the event people on the Eurasian continent observed an unusual glow in the night skies. Londoners claimed to be able to read the newspaper at midnight without artificial light.

Soviet minerologist Leonid Kulik led the first of his four expeditions to the Tunguska area in 1927 and observed the destruction, concluding that it was probably caused by a meteorite crashing to earth. However, Kulik never found any pieces of a meteorite. In fact, no pieces of a meteorite have ever been found.

Eyewitness Accounts

Semyon Semonov, a local trader and farmer, was sitting outside his house in the little town (trading post) of Vanavara, 40 miles away from the impact site, when a shock wave knocked him off his chair. He felt a scorching heat as if his shirt was on fire. In the sky he saw a bright blue object that he described as a "tube" that covered a large part of the sky. It appeared that the sky was split in two. Then he heard an explosion and was thrown off his porch and was unconscious for a short time. He awoke to a tremendous noise and the sound of his windows breaking and his barn being damaged. The ground shook and he felt a hot wind.

P.P. Kosolopov, who was also a trader, felt his ears burning. He ran into his house, only to have the structure begin to fall apart all around him. He also heard thundering sounds coming from a northerly direction.

Several miles north of Vanavara nomadic herdsmen were thrown into the air and thousands of reindeer were killed. It is reported that one elderly man died of fright. Fishermen repairing their rafts on the bank of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River were also thrown into the air. A farmer plowing a hillside south of the epicenter was thrown to the ground, along with his horse. He observed a flame shooting up into the northern sky.

The Trans-Siberian Express was 370 miles away yet the tracks rattled and appeared to ripple. The passengers on the train heard loud noises and thunderings. The frightened driver brought the train to an abrupt stop.

Theories

Since there was no crater formed and since no metorite or fragment of a meteorite has ever been found, many theories abound as to what happened that June morning in 1908. The speculations fall into three categories: UFOs and other science fiction scenarios; eruptions from under the earth; and objects from space, such as a meteorite.

Many bizarre ideas involving UFOs and "death rays" have been proposed. The UFO theories include: an accidental UFO crash landing; a deliberate UFO crash landing intended to get human attention and to encourage Earthlings to persue world peace; a battle between two UFOs, resulting in the escape of one but the destruction and crash of the other; laser beams directed at earth from a UFO or from another planet in response to a supposed communication from earth in the form of radio waves produced by the explosion of Krakatoa; a nuclear bomb dropped on the earth by an UFO, a UFO mishap resulting from the spaceship's attempt to suck up water from nearby Lake Baikal, and so forth.

The "death ray" idea involved a large experimental tower known as the Wardencliffe Tower which was constructed by Nikoli Tesla in Shoreham, Long Island, for the study of the wireless transmission of electricity. This theory proposes that Tesla was working on an "energy weapon" and intended to send a beam of electricity to Admiral Peary as he was attempting to reach the North Pole but accidently hit the Tunguska area instead. Tesla said he was glad no one was hurt, the story goes.

In 2007, scientists from Cornell University in the United States and the University of Florence in Italy theorized that the explosion was caused by an eruption of volcanic gas. Another "underground" theory suggests that leaking methane gas ignited and exploded. Neither theory explains the eyewitness accounts of a bluish object that was observed hurtling through the sky before the explosion.

Theories about objects from space colliding with the earth or exploding in the sky just above the earth seem the most believable. The most likely candidates are an asteroid, the small comet Enchek, or a meteorite. Mini black holes and anti-matter theories have had their enthusiasts as well.

Lake Cheko

A team of Italian scientists have speculated that Lake Cheko, which lies five miles north of the epicenter, was formed by the impact of a piece of a meteorite and have searched the lake with underwater cameras, acoustic imagery, sonar, and other advanced techniques. Is there any evidence that Cheko Lake did not exist before 1908? It does not exist on Tsarist military maps and there is conflicting testimony from the Evenki, the local indigenous people. Some said that Lake Cheko ("Dark Water," in their language) had always existed and was not formed in recent times by an explosion. Other Evenkis said the lake was formed by the blast. The Italian team believes that a fragment of the original meteorite broke away and "skid" across the landscape, gouging a trench that became the elongated, shallow, lima bean-shaped Lake Cheko. (It is believed that the parent meteorite exploded in a fireball six miles above the earth's surface.) This fragment, they believe, would have melted into the permafrost, released C02 and other gases which resulted in the unusual funnel shape of the lake bottom. They have found evidence of the presence of "dense, meter-size rocky object" which they plan to study further.

The Evenki People

The local people were members of the Evenki tribe, also known as the Tungus. They were animists and believed that the Tunguska explosion was the the result of the actions of their thunder god Agdy. They were afraid to go near the epicenter and the Soviet scientist Leonid Kulik had a hard time finding Evenki guides to lead him to the site of the explosion. The Evenki word agdy was used to describe many phenonena involving thunder, such as thunderbirds, which were believed to be large iron birds with fiery eyes that caused thunder and lightning. The god Agdy was seen as an old man who could control the thunder. Certain shamans were believed to have a special relationship with thunder and could call upon Agdy to cause harm to enemies.

With considerable reluctance, the Evenki eventually related to Soviet ethnographer Innokentiy Mikhaylovich Suslov a story about several clans warring against each other and a shaman from one clan calling upon Agdy to work some kind of harm upon the other clan and the spectacular Tunguska explosion was the result. The blue object seen in the sky was the flock of thunderbirds, preparing to deliver their destruction. It was believed that only the Agdy could live in the area of the catastrophe and this was why the Evenki avoided the area.

At that time, a shaman by the name of Magankan was reknown in the area for his supernatural abilities, including surviving direct hits with rifle fire and bloodless knife wounds. Some Evenki attributed the Tunguska explosion to him.

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