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Almost a century ago a strange event occurred in a remote area of Siberia. This 1908 event still continues to spark controversy today. Presumably, the mystery surrounding this event could have been solved if investigators could have gotten to this remote site immediately. However, in 1908 there were no such marvels of transportation such as the helicopter. Also, the unstable political situation within Russia and a World War looming on the horizon focused the attention of leaders and scientists on more immediate problems. It would take 13 years for the first scientific expedition to reach the site. The expedition, led by Leonid Kulik, expected to find a meteorite crater and hoped to locate fragments to collect and study. What they found was anything but a meteorite.
The story was pieced together from eyewitness accounts. Its final form is what was released to the scientific community and then to the public:
“At 0730 hrs on the morning of June 30, a blazing white light was seen descending over the forests of Lake Baykal near the stony Tunguska River. It was so bright that it cast shadows on the earth beneath it. As it plummeted, it leveled trees and smashed houses, finally detonating with such explosive force that seismic shocks were registered around the world. An enormous pillar of fire was seen hundreds of miles away. As huge thunderclaps sounded through the air, a searing thermal current tore through the area igniting fires in forests and towns. At least 3 shock waves followed this thermal wave. The destruction was massive, extending 375 miles. Thick dark clouds rose above the detonation site, and a black rain composed of dirt and particles fell on central Russia. That night the sky remained eerily bright all through northern Europe.”
The first expedition found no evidence of a crater nor did they find any fragments to confirm that a meteorite had touched down. Instead what they did find was that the trees were damaged from above. Strangely, trees at the “impact site” were still standing although they were devoid of branches and bark. Trees farther away from the center were flattened and pointing away from the blast. However the expedition remained convinced that it was a meteor that was responsible for this event.
After the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II and the UFO craze of the 50’s and 60’s, there have been several hypotheses about extraterrestrial causes. The idea of an alien spacecraft crashing and exploding at this site fit very well into the popular interests of the day. There were even claims that unusually high levels of radiation were recorded at the site but later proved to be inconclusive.
In our modern world most of the scientific speculation focuses of asteroids, comets, and meteorites. However, it should be mentioned that an extraterrestrial body would have to be at least the size of 2 football fields to inflict that much damage. Also it would have had to explode in air and been pulverized into dust before reaching the ground.
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